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

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UltraSane a day 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.

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philipswood a day 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.

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UltraSane a day ago | parent [-]

A slingshot or bow and arrows would be amazingly effective if everyone else was blind.

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wizzwizz4 11 hours ago | parent [-]

And, again, is one person going to develop those? A person with access to elastic rope might invent the slingshot, but I wouldn't expect them to invent the far superior sling: it's not obvious that the sling is better, since the learning curve is steeper. And a slingshot is not a particularly effective weapon: it's an inefficient bow that can't fire arrows.

You're still thinking in terms of "sighted society versus blind society", which is not what we are discussing. (Unless you're thinking "sighted and superintelligent", in which case I'd say sight is probably redundant.)

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UltraSane 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Ok. Just evading blind people would be absurdly easy if you can see. You could accurately throw rocks and run away from them all day. And being attacked from a distance would be terrifying to blind people.

	▲	wizzwizz4 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Blind people are no less capable of throwing stones, and you only have the flight advantage if the ground is potentially-treacherous (e.g. unmanaged forest, scrubland) or you're that much faster. Any inhabited area will have been engineered to be safe for people to navigate – and it will not be lit well at night, where your reliance on vision will put you at a skill disadvantage. The main advantage in an urban combat environment, I think, would be the ability to detect quiet people at a distance. Not needing to see makes it easier to hide yourself from visual inspection, but why would anyone develop this skill if nobody can see? Then, if the only person to practice with is the enemy you're trying to hide from… Also, you'd be able to dodge projectiles by watching the person throwing them, who might not telegraph their throws audibly, but would probably do so visually. This would let you defeat a single ranged opponent, possibly two – though I doubt your ability to dodge the rocks from three people at once for long enough to take one down. But what do you gain from winning fights against small numbers of people? (I doubt very much you could win against a group of 30 or 40 opponents, with only sight as your advantage.) You would run out of food, shelter would be hard to come by, and every theft of resources would risk defeat: and one defeat against a society means it's over. Either you're killed, imprisoned, or they decide to do something else with you, presumably depending how much of a menace you've been. Your only options are to attempt a self-sufficient lifestyle (which you probably won't survive for long), to flee somewhere they haven't heard of your deeds, or to put yourself at the mercy of the justice system (and hope it isn't too retributive).