Said Achmiz's Shortform

Note for the record:

I can no longer reply to comments addressed to me (or referring to me, etc.) on the post “Basics of Rationalist Discourse” [LW · GW], because its author has banned me from commenting on any of his posts.

A comment I wrote in response to “Contra Contra the Social Model of Disability” [LW · GW] but couldn’t post because @DirectedEvolution seems to have banned me from commenting on his posts.

You say:

First, try reading [the below quotes] with the conventional definition of “disability” in mind, where “disability” is a synonym for “impairment” and primarily means “physical impediment, such as being paraplegic or blind.” Under this definition, which we’ve just seen is not the one they use, they sound ridiculous.[1] [LW(p) · GW(p)]

Then, see how the meaning changes using the definition of “disability” these articles actually use, where “disability” specifically means “the things society does to restrict or discriminate against impaired people, or its omissions in enabling impaired people to participate in society.” Under this definition, they sound like ways of helping us understand exactly what they mean when they use the term “disability” in this new, more specific way.

But the problem is that if we try to read the quotes that way, they become incoherent or tautological.

Take the first quote:

Individual limitations are not the cause of disability. Rather, it is society’s failure to provide appropriate services and adequately ensure that the needs of disabled people are taken into account in societal organization.

So, “society’s failure to provide appropriate services and adequately ensure that the needs of disabled people are taken into account in societal organization”… is the cause of… “the things society does to restrict or discriminate against impaired people, or its omissions in enabling impaired people to participate in society”? That’s neither a factual claim nor a definition; it’s a tautology.

Likewise:

The model says that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference.

People are what by barriers in society? “Disabled”? What does that mean, if “disability” already means “barriers in society”?

(And it’s interesting to note the phrase “impairment or difference”—well, are we talking about impairments or aren’t we? It does, actually, matter whether the “difference” is, in fact, in any way bad for the person in question! Indeed it’s the crux of the whole question!)

And again:

It is [the] environment that creates the handicaps and barriers, not the disability.

From this perspective, the way to address disability is to change the environment and society, rather than people with disabilities.

It’s the environment that creates the handicaps and barriers, not… “the things society does to restrict or discriminate against impaired people, or its omissions in enabling impaired people to participate in society”…?

The bottom line is: there just isn’t any way of getting around the fact that these are language games being played by people who are trying to push their agenda without having to convince people of their claims (which they know they can’t do, because their claims are manifest nonsense).

This is a test comment.

My solution for the stag hunt is to kill the hunter who leaps out and the rabbit, then cook & eat his flesh.

(Source; previously [LW · GW])

Test of the shortform feature.