| ▲ | I used Lego to design a farm for people who are blind – like me(bbc.co.uk) |
| 126 points by ColinWright 4 days ago | 54 comments |
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| ▲ | retrac a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| Sensory disabilities like deafness and blindness are disabling because the world is not oriented to people with sensory disabilities. I am reminded that the Deaf have their own mythology. American Sign Language is distinct; it's not English. Accordingly it has its own culture, including its own myths. Many of them are fables and stories from the western tradition slightly adapted. But some are original. One common theme in American Deaf mythology (but I'd bet it's told elsewhere too) is stories about a world which is visually oriented. There's an ASL word for this world but English doesn't have one. Sometimes it's translated as Eyeth a.k.a. "Eye-Earth". It's more than just a world where everyone is deaf or where everyone communicates in ASL. It has something like spiritual meaning to some of those who tell stories about it; in that world the Deaf are not disabled, not in the social way that matters. |
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| ▲ | MBCook 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Reminds me of The Country of the Blind by HG Wells. It’s about a guy who finds his way into a valley in a mountain range where everyone has been blind for generations. At first he thinks that he’ll have “a superpower“ because he’s sighted. Instead the people of the valley view his sight as an illness. | | |
| ▲ | graemep an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | That think him mentally ill because they do not believe he can actually see and think him deluded. If he had kept quiet in the face of scepticism he would have had a huge advantage. I see it as a story about people's unwillingness to believe in something that is outside their own experience and that of their society. | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It WOULD have been a superpower if he hadn't told anyone he could see. |
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| ▲ | UltraSane 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, deafness and blindness are disabling because they provide critical long range data. Being able to see is essentially a superpower if you are blind. Same with hearing. | | |
| ▲ | mikepurvis 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Maybe, but that isn't really what the GP post is talking about. At the level of mythology, the eye-earth is place where people of that group belong without judgment or limitation. No different from Harry Potter or Narnia or any other fantasy place one might imagine going where they can be with their people. In any case, I'm not sure this even survives transposing to other senses that humans are weak in, such as smell (like prey animals) or magnetic direction (like migratory birds). A human who randomly had these would indeed be seen as superpowered, but that wouldn't become a statement that all regularly-abled humans are now disabled for missing the "critical" long range sense. | | |
| ▲ | kazinator 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | I wonder whether all the animals of Eyeth are also deaf, and how they are doing? Deaf predators must have a field day sneaking up on deaf prey. As life evolved on Earth, so did the senses that life forms possess, and that happened for a reason. If you hare missing some senses, there is a sense in which you are set back millions of years of evolution. It's not just about human society, but biology. Someone with no sensory disabilities, sent into the wilderness, has better chances of survival than someone with such disabilities, other factors being equal. That has nothing to do with society, which is absent from that scene. Civilization is the best place for people with disabilities, even if it is geared toward those without. For that matter, it's better for animals with disabilities. People help disabled pets lead quality lives; wild animals with disabilities don't live long. | | |
| ▲ | basilikum 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's all factually correct. Though both things can be true: Disabilities can be a disability in themselves and additionally the disabled can also be disabled by the society around them. Someone fully blind might not be able to distinguish some poisonous mushroom from an edible one with the same shape and smell but different color. That is a fundamental limitation of the inability to see. But blind people can for example still read. They are often just not provided by others with writings that are accessible to them, although that would be possible and is not a fundamental limitation of their condition. Also ableism and othering are very much a thing that disables peoples' ability to function in a society and come exclusively from the social environment rather than from the disabled themselves. | |
| ▲ | kayodelycaon 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I’d like to add a quick sidenote . I wouldn’t read too much into the logic of mythological worlds and realms. Their purpose is narrative, not scientific. They don’t even need to be internally consistent. No one expects Greek mythology to make scientific sense. Other mythologies should be seen from a similar perspective and understood that they are narrative, not logical. Applying a scientific viewpoint to such mythologies results in a new narrative. The scientific view is always wrong unless scientific correctness is part of that world’s narrative. I add this because a lot of people don’t know narrative purpose. To put it briefly: Other peoples worlds aren’t wrong when they don’t match “what makes sense in the real world”. | | | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Thank you for writing this so I didn't have to. |
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| ▲ | wizzwizz4 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Meh, my formidable powers of foresight aren't really a superpower. Few people listen until things have progressed far enough that they see the things, too, by which point there are rarely many interventions available. And every time we do intervene early, that's "you said this would happen and it didn't happen!", making it harder to convince people the next time. And when things do turn out more-or-less as predicted, I "made a lucky guess" because "there was no way you could have known that". In the land of the blind, why would anyone pay attention to this weirdo's ramblings about "rain-clouds"? Obviously they're just feeling changes to temperature, pressure, and humidity. Oh, and they know what shapes things are? Wow! So does everyone else who's touched the things. Sure, that "how many fingers am I holding up?" party trick is pretty neat (probably cold reading), but not something we should make policy decisions on the basis of. You underestimate the extent to which humans are social creatures. See also: H. G. Wells's story The Country of the Blind. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Country_of_the_Blind | | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | Vision is absolutely a superpower if everyone else is blind. Just think how far you can shoot something with a rifle and scope. Guns are useless to blind people. A person who can see has an enormous advantage over a blind person in a fight. Try to imagine a military where everyone is blind fighting against another where everyone can see. | | |
| ▲ | philipswood 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | In a blind culture there probably are no guns at all - so your hypothetical sighted-person-amongst-the-blind would need to be able to make his own. Then again, just throwing rocks might be pretty effective. | | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | A slingshot or bow and arrows would be amazingly effective if everyone else was blind. |
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| ▲ | throwway120385 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Only in that narrow viewpoint. Most people talk about disability in the context of a society because much of what we encounter in our day to day is created by other people. The sights, sounds, smells, and experiences in our world are frequently because of others. So in that context, if the dominant culture makes it a point to create experiences that require hearing or sight to consume, then yes it's a disability. But if we adapt some or all of what we do for people who don't have those senses, then we can make it less disabling. | | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Sight and hearing evolved to incredible acuity because they give enormous survival advantage. | |
| ▲ | suddenlybananas 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | While it's good for society to accommodate those with disabilities as much as possible, we shouldn't pretend it isn't detrimental to be unable to see or hear. You don't need to believe obvious falsehoods in order to accommodate people. | | |
| ▲ | lurk2 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I’ve always found this semantic argument somewhat silly as being blind or deaf is an obvious disadvantage in natural contexts, but one of the more compelling ideas here is that the fitness boundary isn’t fixed. It would probably be a fitness advantage if I could sense electromagnetic fields, but no one would describe me as disabled for not being able to sense these fields—unless, perhaps, everyone else could. So what we consider to be a disability does seem to be a function of what we consider to be normal. | | |
| ▲ | rdtsc 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > if I could sense electromagnetic fields, but no one would describe me as disabled for not being able to sense these fields—unless, perhaps, everyone else could. Light is EM fields. A possible scenario is a battle at night with others having night vision equipment and you don’t. You can absolutely be described as disabled or being at a significant disadvantage. Because, like you say, what we consider normal in that scenario is to have a proper night vision equipment. | |
| ▲ | kazinator 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If it were a fitness advantage if you could sense electromagnetic fields, then why have you evolved over billions of years to get where you are, without it? But wait, you do sense electromagnetic fields in the 380 to 750 nm wavelength range, and remarkably well, to great profit. The only fitness advantage that matters for evolution is whatever gets you to pass down your genes, versus someone else not passing down theirs. If sensing low-frequency electromagnetism, or static magnetic fields, were advantageous in the context of everything else that you are, for passing down your genes, you would have it by now. Migratory birds can sense the Earth's magnetic field for navigation; if you needed to migrate thousands of kilometers every year (due to lacking other advantages to make that unnecessary), you might evolve that. | | |
| ▲ | zmgsabst 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Evolution is highly path dependent and stochastic, so I’m not sure your logic follows. Eg, the laryngeal nerve in giraffes is ridiculous — but having gone down that path before their current form, there’s little way to fix it. They’re now stuck in a local optima of long necks (good) with poor wiring (bad). | | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Vision has evolved numerous times, with estimates suggesting eyes or light-sensitive spots have appeared independently at least 40 to 65 times, possibly even 100 times, across different animal lineages. Hearing has evolved numerous times independently, at least six times in major vertebrate groups (mammals, lizards, frogs, birds, crocodiles, turtles) for airborne sound and at least 19-20 times in insects Vision and hearing have evolved so many times because they give an absolutely huge survival advantage. | | |
| ▲ | avadodin 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you have sources for these claims? To my knowledge, photosensitivity has arisen a few times independently and eyes again a few times from shared photosensitive receptors in animalia but I'm fairly sure hearing in the groups you mention is a tetrapod synapomorphy. |
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| ▲ | suddenlybananas 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >So what we consider to be a disability does seem to be a function of what we consider to be normal. Obviously? How could it be based on anything else? People are just much more uncomfortable with making normative statements than they used to be. | | |
| ▲ | lurk2 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | > How could it be based on anything else? The point is that the capability is measurable but the capabilities we consider to be essential are based on normalcy and thus effectively arbitrary. Eugenicists make the argument that evolution demonstrates that the classification is not arbitrary because deafness and blindness confer measurable fitness disadvantages, but they don’t actually bridge the gap of deriving an ought from an is. > Obviously? If the answers to these problems are obvious to you, perhaps you’d consider writing a book instead of participating in a discussion forum. I would encourage you to review the site guidelines. |
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| ▲ | fwip 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You've set up a straw man here - nobody in this thread is claiming that it's not detrimental to be missing a sense. The point is that disability exists within the context of the world we live in, and the society we've built is one that largely assumes people have both sight and hearing. | | |
| ▲ | xigoi 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Sensory disabilities like deafness and blindness are disabling because the world is not oriented to people with sensory disabilities. Implying that they wouldn’t be detrimental if the world was “oriented” differently. |
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| ▲ | engineer_22 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's fascinating, is this explained in detail somewhere? How did you learn about this? | | |
| ▲ | retrac 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm learning ASL. That led me to learn about Deaf culture in North America. The stories that the Deaf have told each other, and have passed down. A world where everyone is deaf is one of the first stories you'll learn about; I'm not even sure when I first encountered it, but it was in that context. One common modern version of the fable is told with an astronaut who finds that they've landed on a parallel Earth where everyone is Deaf and sign language is the norm. The book A Study of American Deaf Folklore by Susan D Rutherford is a bit dated now but interesting in exploring the functions and roles of myths here. |
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| ▲ | vunderba a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is great, but boy I'm glad I took the time to actually read the article. I assumed it was about someone who took a huge number of standard rectangular LEGO bricks with the 6/8 raised studs, then laboriously shaved them off to create all the necessary braille patterns, and used them on large LEGO boards to quickly assemble messages/notifications for blind readers. Reality - it's about using lego to help "visualize" architecture. EDIT: Apparently this already exists! https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/play-with-braille-english... |
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| ▲ | tdeck a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Your description reminds me of a blind guy I know who is interested in architecture, and began to collect scale models of famous building so he could feel them and experience their architecture. Eventually he took an interest in buildings that were less famous or didn't have high quality models, and started commissioning an artist to model them in CAD and 3D print them. Now he has a business producing and selling these tactics models. https://evengrounds.com/about/ | | |
| ▲ | ctoth 21 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Oh no. I'm a blind guy. I have a distinct interest in starships -- I have every Eaglemoss model, and many many more. If I click this link I am totally going to get sucked into having people design and print me starships -- I need another project like I need another hole in my head. | | |
| ▲ | tdeck 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If you live in the US (and possibly other countries) and are blind, you can probably get See3D to model things and print them for you for free. http://see3d.org/ | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I have always wondered how blind people "visualize" (I can't think of a better term) large scale objects. | | |
| ▲ | bell-cot 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | I've no idea. But flipside, I know quite a few sighted people who can't walk around a rectangular block without losing track of which way north is. Or can't visualize that (say) their master bedroom closet backs up to their kitchen. Or other facepalm-worthy visualization failings. | | |
| ▲ | toast0 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > without losing track of which way north is. I blame my childhood. Everyone always said the Pacific Ocean is to the west. So naturally the direction I went to go to the beach on the pacific ocean should be West. Especially when the north/south freeway crosses the street I take to the beach at a pretty good angle (well it's more like 45 degrees). Turns out I actually go south to go to the beach, the freeway is roughly parallel to the coast and north/south freeways sometimes travel due east/west and I have a real hard time with cardinal directions, and even if I understand where the directions are when outside, when I enter a building, especially if I go up stairs or an elevator, my sense of where the cardinal directions from inside the building is likely to be way off. Thankfully, there's not a big impact from not knowing where room walls are relative to each other. :P | | |
| ▲ | coryrc 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Similarly, I live in Seattle with hills everywhere, but the main path I used to go uphill was Southbound. But on maps, up is always North. I haven't recovered since! | |
| ▲ | bell-cot 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Thankfully, there's not a big impact from not knowing where room walls are relative to... Let me tell you about the friend-of-friend, who was cutting holes in his dining room wall to install [whatever], oblivious to the bathroom on the other side, and the water pipes for that bathroom... | | |
| ▲ | toast0 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | Don't they make special anchors for mounting your TV on PVC sewer pipes? Should be fine. ;) |
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| ▲ | UltraSane 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I have never been able to use cardinal directions but I am very good at mental visualization and manipulation of 3d objects |
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| ▲ | vunderba 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is super cool. Apparently he also creates tactile topographical maps with various landmarks, terrain, etc. https://evengrounds.com/3d-tactile-maps I'm not at all confident in my ability to take an unknown object, run my hands over it, manipulate it, and even get close to being able to describing / recreating it though it does sound like this has the makings of a fun Cranium board mini-game. |
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| ▲ | abeyer 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The "lego for architecture" already exists too, though it was branded and then spun off as a separate company. https://brickipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Modulex |
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| ▲ | nephihaha 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I know the part of Scotland where he has set up shop. There used to be a lot of toy farmers and small holders popping up round there and failing within a few years. Most of them were from big cities and from England, and pretty clueless about farming. They would often try something exotic like quail (if they had little money) and alpacas (if they had more). Mr Duxbury seems to be going down a similar line, although he does have a farming family background. |
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| ▲ | a_paddy 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Lego created a specific series of bricks in the 1960's for this exact purpose, called Modulex. Originally designed for architects etc, it's still going.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=I_OUxVuoxjk |
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| ▲ | athampraveen 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| My son is very interested in this. I am building an application to create designs online. Mainly to keep him away from video reels :) https://app.brixox.com/ |
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| ▲ | aetherspawn 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I was thinking the other day that there should be wearable bangles for blind people with ultrasonic sensors or something that encode a 360 degree view of the world into vibrations. If each bangle had 40 or so pixels, you’d get 80 pixels with one on each arm. |
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| ▲ | layer8 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I wonder how the non-random color patterns in the pictured LEGO build came to be. Maybe he’s not 100% blind? |
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| ▲ | blauditore 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | As the other comment mentions, it might be due to brick size, but also note that many people considered blind still have some non-zero vision (just e.g. extremely blurry, or a tiny field of view etc.). Although this guy had a glaucoma at the age of six, so there would be extremely little left by now. | |
| ▲ | greenwallnorway 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | From what I can tell in the image: 2x6: white 2x4: blue 2x2: grey This makes interesting patterns, since you are more likely to use certain bricks in certain positions. | | |
| ▲ | FarmerPotato 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | Lego retail stores have the odd habit of stocking Pick-A-Brick this way. | | |
| ▲ | abeyer 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | Pick-A-Brick sounded like such a good idea on paper, until you realize that the economics of it end up being a handful of brick size/color combos and then bin after bin of minifig accessories. |
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| ▲ | 3tgsh 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Ggf |
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| ▲ | bitwize 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Was not disappoint when I saw the photos of the models he built. I had expected a hodgepodge of brick colors due to color not being a meaningful constraint on a blind person's Lego build. |
