on disability related issues

[thespian]

james_nicoll posted a poll, with the premise in an SF situation: "We currently will install e.g. wheelchair ramps for people in chairs and put brail on key pads for people are blind. In this setting, it's possible - although not free - to change the people so these adaptations to buildings, machines and such are not necessary."

This got me to thinking about the issue in a way that got too long for a comment, so here goes.

One of the things that's disturbed me for a while is that while it is ethically suspect to change people (in terms of eugenics), when we're able-bodied, people who are not (and yeah, I'm looking at you, deaf people) are advocating for the ability to screen in favour of the disability.

This is a sensitive subject for me. I am pretty intelligent. I am also brain damaged. A neurologist hypothesized that these are not unrelated; to wit, that my congenital damage resulted in uneven hemispheres, I had to make different and often stronger neural pathways (feste_sylvain once wondered something similar, though no one really knows at all).

But the damage is extensive enough that a different neuro thinks it was likely evident from the 4th month on.

Now, we know that the brain damage causes the epilepsy. We suspect that it causes the low level genius IQ (148). We suspect it caused the extreme proficiency with language (reading and understanding university level texts before I was 9), and we think it likely that it the uneven pathways and unbalanced connections are what make me pretty hopeless at the pure logic higher math needs. We know it causes the bipolar issues.

If it could be corrected, which if these would I give up? Trade in the epilepsy for a lower intelligence? Not be as sensitive to language so instead algebra wouldn't confuse me to death? Give up the highs of being bipolar to also lose the lows (and I assure you, the highs are *astonishing*).

I don't currently know, to be honest; if you could change me to make my life easier, would that genuinely be worth it, compared to the fact that some days after a seizure I can't actually climb stairs? About right now about 25% of the people answering James' poll are suggesting 'Upgrade the people so the buildings can remain as they are', but what if we, the people in question, with these disabilities, don't even know what we would do.

How can someone else possibly figure it out for us?