Using the Programme Guide of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON III, which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the Program Guide. I will be using the events to drive me to distraction or revelation – as the case may be. The link is provided below where this appeared!
Assistive Technologies: The vast majority of the world’s population uses some kind of prosthetic or assistive device, from glasses, to mobility aids, to those jar-opening doohickies. How should they change our conceptions of disability and what using a prosthetic device really means? What bleeding-edge assistive technologies are out there right now that may seem like science fiction? Do engineers overthink it, and are some technologies impositions. And when is simpler, better?
“Hey, Siri?” “OK, Google”…those are the two this family uses. Assistive technologies help us do things we do more efficiently. They are a technological solution to a problem SOMEONE perceived and created an answer to.
Of course, the assistance can’t POSSIBLY come for free, can it? Do we invite these technologies into our lives while surrendering privacy – while surrender protection against an intimate invasion into our lives and unconsciously supply information about our lives? Lastly, who decided what technology we needed?
This session was specifically designed to talk about people who have life challenges (aka disabilities or a bit less insulting, are differently abled) and the technologies that have been invented to “help” them.
First of all, it seemed the most important thing to this panel was to: ASK PEPOLE WHAT THEY NEED!
The way the assistive technology world works today is that some brilliant geek invents something and then says, “OK, what problem is this going to solve?” Companies work the same way, coming up with this tech or that tech, then marketing it for a perceived need; rarely asking their target consumer, “Is this something you need?”
The example one of them gave was that someone had invented a wheelchair with treads: https://9b16f79ca967fd0708d1-2713572fef44aa49ec323e813b06d2d9.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/1140x_a10-7_cTC/20180123lf-Wheelchair03-1569211736.jpg That’s all fine and good, BUT…they have a tendency to tip (narrow wheelbase) and they suck the batteries dry in very short order. Nice try, but no one seemed to ask the operators what they wanted…
It's a case of what one the panelists called, “Cool Tech vs Needs of the Users”. One of them noted that the CYBERPUNK genre was about AUGMENTING people rather than “fixing” them. Compensating for a disability and not the ableist attitude that someone with a disability has to be “fixed” or that the condition is a problem that demands a solution.
Another example is deafness. There are individuals who wish to remain deaf: the deaf community has its own language, traditions, and leaders: just as ANY community on EARTH has its language, traditions, and leaders. I live in Minnesota about fifteen miles out of downtown Minneapolis and St Paul. To someone who lives in Los Angeles or New York or Tokyo, my life might seem stunted, bereft of REAL entertainment, convenience, and opportunity. Surely no where near as rich as if I lived in one of THOSE cities. It’s a matter of perspective.
One of the panelists asked the question, “If you want to jump like an Olympic high jumper and have your legs removed and replaced with biocybernetics legs, are you disabled? What kind of impact will augmentations have on the Olympics themselves? Is a world record still a world record if it’s achieved by someone who has, say, springs for legs?
Another problem the panel saw was the common practice of “magical healing” in fantasy fiction and in science fiction, the limbs are replaced and “make them better”. What’s wrong with how they ARE? One panelist noted that Dr. Xavier of the X-Men never walks again, using his wheelchair as an extension of himself rather than something made to “fix him”. This of course, highlights another issue for people with disabilities: for the most part, they are INVISIBLE, which people are happy to do. It’s easier to not think about someone with a disability rather than look forward to expanding their relationships.
Last of all, “Ableism colors what ‘solvers’ come up with.” The assumption by someone with legs or someone who can hear, is that someone who has no legs or who is deaf WANTS THOSE THINGS BACK. So the ableist solver blazes on ahead, and then presents a person with a disability with their AMAZING solution, then step back and wait for the accolades and praise. When it doesn’t come, they’re angry and figure the person they worked so hard to fix is an ungrateful slob…
Moving back to cyberpunk, brain chip implants, like the “memory chip” in Lois McMaster Bujold’s novel, MEMORY. “Miles Vorkosigan is appointed Imperial Auditor so he can penetrate Barrayar’s intelligence and security operations. The head of it is Miles’ former boss, and he is failing physically and mentally. Miles sets out to find out why -- and who, if anyone, is behind his rapid decline. The discovery that the man’s memory chip is degrading creates problems on galactic, local, planetary, political, and personal scale.”
That “chip” is something technology is exploring today. Bruce Bethke raised this question here: https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2021/12/todays-free-story-idea.html?fbclid=IwAR3Ijk87lQtPEU1ARhPD4pc3Q3u88jAmZsCOJuYSOHIO9pqCof-Tzp17sro at STUPEFYNG STORIES…
“By 2041 most good subjects citizens will have a tiny real-time streaming editor—let’s call it a ‘SED’ chip—implanted in their brain, probably in the arcuate fasciculus, between Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area. Thanks to this wonderful little invention our citizen of the future will be completely unable to either intentionally or inadvertently blurt out any career- or life-destroying BadThink, or even to understand any such words, if somehow heard.”
If you don’t have the chip, will you be considered disabled? What’s the solution for people who are unable to have the chip, or worse, just can get used to using it? One thing all the participants agreed on, is that while Star Wars and Star Trek have made the disabled vanish, WE as writers can include them in our stories; with the caveat: IF YOU NOT DISABLED, DO NOT WRITE A "DISABLED STORY". If I may interpolate "Don't tell a disabled story", maybe this would do: "You cannot imagine what it's like, so don't try to 'be disabled' in your work."
Consider your average senior citizen who is 80 years old or older. Born in 1942, their young lives saw the use of the first nuclear weapon. The end of a world war, the invention of…well, countless things. Here are 66: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g24668233/best-inventions/
So, what exactly constitutes a disability today. WHAT WILL CONSTITUTE A DISABILITY IN FORTY YEARS? Something to think about; something to inspire you…though possibly something to depress you!
Program Schedule: https://discon3.org/schedule/
Image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQY860vAI2izm2g2mUgxzT14fGVmoGh66B51g&usqp=CAU
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