> But again -- people who live in the deaf cultural world -- they do not feel that, and they don't feel disabled because, in their context, they aren't

I can respect resisting pressure to be part of the hearing world, but there are certainly ways in which deafness impacts one's safety and opportunities. Not being able to hear sirens, or oncoming trucks, or cars honking their horns, or cyclists saying "on your left", or fire alarms makes the world less safe for you (and for others who may have the expectation you can hear them)

I'm certainly not saying this to suggest people should be forced to join the world of the hearing if given the option, but I do think doing so would be the responsible option, if it's a readily available one.

Kind of like I don't expect people to learn other languages than their native tongue, even when it's a language spoken by the majority in their place of residence. But if you don't speak the language spoken by the majority, and are presented with the opportunity to instantly learn it (like "I know Kung Fu"-Matrix style), I certainly think it would be more responsible to do so.

> I can respect resisting pressure to be part of the hearing world, but there are certainly ways in which deafness impacts one's safety and opportunities.

I agree, but that's not a result of me being deaf, it's a result of the hearing world just blindly assuming everyone can hear these things. People screw up hearing sirens or "on your left" or whatever ALL the time, even if they are hearing (distracted, headphones, etc).

If we took away the assumption that everyone can hear everything all the time, it would help everyone, not just people who are deaf.

For instance, studies show that subtitles/captions being always on helps retention of the information you just watched[0]. Yet subtitles/captions not even being included is still the default for many types of media. When captions are included, often times they are wrong, either subtly or grossly. Even in education settings where one would think people want the information retained pretty much never ever bother to include or turn on captions. Despite decades of studies saying captions help a lot.

Go to your local home improvement store and try to buy a battery powered smoke/fire alarm that will work for deaf people. I'm betting despite lots of options the chances are basically 0 for finding one(yet they do exist in the world). Finding one that works with wired 110V is a little above zero. What if it was the other way around instead, and it was hard/impossible to find a fire/smoke alarm that didn't work for deaf/HoH people?

0: UW-Madison did a comprehensive overview[0] of over 100 empirical studies in 2015 showing that captions are useful for everyone, not just deaf/hard of hearing people. "The empirical evidence is clear: Captions, also known as same-language subtitles, benefit everyone who watches videos." They recommended just always showing captions.

source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5214590/

> Not being able to hear sirens, or oncoming trucks, or cars honking their horns, or cyclists saying "on your left".

For what it's worth, it's generally thought that deaf drivers are safer drivers. See https://www.handspeak.com/learn/280/.

> fire alarms

ADA requires fire alarms to include visual alarms (as in flashing strobes) for this reason.