David M. Perry: Here's a gift link to Harriet McBryde Johnson's "Unspeakable Conversations," a 2003 essay about talking to Peter Singer, a man who said the world would be better, would be happier, without disabled people like her. It's worth your time reading.

Here's a gift link to Harriet McBryde Johnson's "Unspeakable Conversations," a 2003 essay about talking to Peter Singer, a man who said the world would be better, would be happier, without disabled people like her. It's worth your time reading.

Unspeakable Conversations (Published 2003)www.nytimes.com Harriet McBryde Johnson article recalls her meetings with Princeton Prof Peter Singer, who argues for infanticide of extremely disabled babies; Johnson is lawyer who is severely disabled and is disabi...

The context is a smart liberal writer (SLW) discovering Singer's "effective altruism" (EA) and talking about how, despite the Silicon Valley adherents who the SLW dislikes, it's a good idea. But EA requires imagining a "better future" and that always leads SLWs into eugenics.

In 2017, Ari Ne'eman wrote this essay for @slooterman.bsky.social at NOS Magazine on the links between EA and eugenics. It's a very good place to start. nosmag.org/effective-al...

Effective Altruism and Disability Rights are Incompatiblenosmag.org Earlier this month, members of the University of Victoria Effective Altruism Club were surprised to find themselves a target of protest as they hosted a talk from celebrity philosophy professor Pet…

Ari writes: "By removing the attacks on disabled people, Singer’s ideas become milquetoast, almost mainstream liberal platitudes about being nice to animals and using data in decision-making." ... cont

"To put it another way, in so far as effective altruism is compatible with disability rights, it offers nothing new. And in so far as it is new, it is not compatible."

And we haven't yet mentioned effective altruism's baggage in the form of Noel Skum & Sam Bankman-Fried. It also has similar vibes to welfare chauvinism, which believes in safety nets but only for the "right kind of people".

again in this essay, which I choose neither to link to nor tag the author, but you can find, the author acknowledges but then dismisses those concerns.

And techies of all people should be focused on all that new tech can, could do for disabled people.

This is how I found out that Sarah blocked me. I really enjoy her work and obviously can still seek it out outside of here, but would you mind asking if this was deliberate or if she’s using mass blocking tools or something?

I'm sorry, but under no circumstances will I ask anyone why they have blocked anyone else. I apologize but can't.

I really like the fact that we're finally building social boundaries for the Internet.

Always hurts to find out I'm blocked by someone I either liked or didn't know, but them's the breaks.

I don’t care if it’s someone I didn’t know, but if we had interacted, it’s kind of like… what did I say? Oh well, you just have to move on 🤷🏻‍♀️

You can sleuth a little bit to find out who's blocking you directly and what lists you're on, but it is kind of cursed knowledge.

ClearSky Search Toolbsky.thieflord.dev

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Daily Princetonian did what looks to me like a much more complete review of his approach when he gave his last seminar. www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2023...

Students laud Peter Singer’s teaching at the end of career that has courted controversywww.dailyprincetonian.com Singer, according to one analysis, is Princeton’s seventh most prominent professor. On the eve of his retirement, Singer and a number of his students sat down with The Daily Princetonian to discuss ...

Reading this, I'm reminded again of Johnson's encounter. He's very nice to people in the room with him. He likes to be disagreed with. He responds mildly when challenged. And then he says, let's do mosquito nets which are cheap, rather than pay special ed teachers and home aides, which are expensive

(or rather, that's where EA leads, as construed in Singer's frame)

Effective Altruism (EA) reminds me of Enlightened Self-Interest (ESI.) Freud argued that acts of altruism were done in service of one's own ego: feel good by giving. EA and ESI are both soothing oneself by giving to others. Okay, use new terms. It's okay.

Enlightened Self-Interestwww.psychologytoday.com The ultimate self-interest lies in being good to others.

I'll abide by your decision not to mention the author, but it seems exceedingly unsporting to call them an SLW and make it sound like the author is one of the top-down centrist-liberals who get more wrong than right. They would probably respond with respect and thoughtfulness. Just seems unfair.

Thx for the link. When I was in high school (early-mid 80s), one of our science teachers remarked that a way to "cure" Type I diabetes was to kill everyone who had it, thus ending the genetic chain. In a class with a student - that we all knew was a diabetic. He didn't lose his job, but nearly so.

Which teacher was that?!

I'm blanking on his name! Not Corey, Fields, Atamynak (sp?), or Bandi... Medium height, solid build, dark hair, very serious.

The irony being that by any utilitarian measure she was worth ten of him.

I mean that's how I feel about my son too, but he is very expensive when you add up all the public resources spent on him.

I occasionally hear professional colleagues justify their therapy services by “Making a disabled person more independent saves money” and I shut that kind of talk down every time. I have clients who will never produce economic output greater than it costs to keep them alive. They deserve help too.

So were all the Lehman brothers or whatever. Ur kid planning to crash the economy?

Honestly, when you factor in things like Lehman brothers, industrial disasters, exec's like the ones who took bets on Tyson workers lives, and companies like walmart that depend on employees having like SNAP benefits your kid is cheap actually. A bargain!

my child has crashed zero economies and is singlehandedly subsidizing global blueberry and pretzel production.

So they're a job creator? Legend.

It's not as if that's what public resources are *for*, or anything.

This is very good but im still genuinely shocked that strangers *say* things to disabled people like about their existence unsolicited. It's like... why...

It is a thing people continue to do. People like to immediately ask me if we knew my son had Down syndrome when it was in utero (we did not). What they are really asking is: would you have terminated the pregnancy if you had known? Which is a big intrusive question you know!!

I've known a few people whose siblings have Down's and ive literally never thought to ask about the conditions of their birth. Idk it's none of my business.

That was an incredibly frustrating thing for me. When they kept pushing tests at me. It wouldn't have mattered, regardless. And people are so rude.

we don't know what we would have done! how could we? So much depends on how the information is presented.

True. I just know they presented the possibility of autism (which you can't even genetically test for, to my knowledge, though they said they could) and downs were the worst thing that could ever happen. It's was awful for a first time pregnant person.

It's very very common. I have CP and am very visibly disabled, and strangers in public frequently said to me in my teens and 20s - `you're so brave, if I was like you I'd kill myself.' That did NOT help my suicidal depression. I have a much better Don't Fuck With Me face at 50.

A definite perk to getting older!

@rayna same CP, 55, and this regularly happens to me. Moreover, my wife, who is non-disabled, gets sympathetic nods over my head from people and a neighbor recently asked her how she perseveres because they never could.

🤢

Tina Frimi has a great routine about it. "I see people. They see me. They don't know what's happening. They don't know what to say. That doesn't stop them."

“I’m Like the Bisexuality of Ability” - Tina Friml - Stand-Up Featuringwww.youtube.com Tina Friml discusses having cerebral palsy, reveals what she learned about guys on dating apps and explains why she enjoys going out to bars.Paramount+ is he...

Thanks! Just reread this for the first time in 20 years. I keep thinking about the lengths Princeton went to to protect Singer from theoretical violent protestors: moving him to one of the few buildings then locked, x-raying his mail, etc. They definitely thought HIS life was worth preserving.

This is not only very good writing about disability but also about confronting the Type of Ideas Festival Just Asking Questions Guy who is fucking everywhere and whose only "idea" is "what if other people aren't as real as me?" Thank you for sharing it with me.

This is very chilling. It seems that Singer's so-called logic is just setting himself or imagined others as the arbiters of people's worth and experiences, rather than themselves

Always has been! But in Chapter 2 of your intro philosophy textbook, which is the first and last place most people ever hear of him, it's incredibly seductive. Just add up the pros and cons and act accordingly, and if anyone has a problem with your brave, clear-headed truth-telling, that's on them!

Ms. McBryde's a treasure: I'm grateful for her work. I vaguely knew of Singer from enviro friends: never knew he is a Reich level monster. My colleagues here in Canada say pts w new quadriplegia are "offered" Medical Assistance in Dying. They (& I) are leaving. Omelas is here: "Fly, you fools. Fly!"

I live in a state with assisted suicide for the terminally ill, which I believe in, but I never expected MAID to go down the monstrous path it has. Reading the article here I wonder if there can be bright lines between "death with dignity" programs and facilitating eugenics as Canada is doing

Boy, whooda thunk a committed animal liberationist atheist whose grandparents died in the Holocaust would have such anti-humanist views? "Caring for the disabled," with "using language" and "using tools" are the three things that set humans apart from our animal kin.

saying this w/out malice or snark, just as statement of fact: animals ACTIVELY help care for people w/all sorts of disabilities & chronic illness, to say nothing of “simple” companionship/friendship; animals (notably chimps & crows) make & use tools; Cockatoos understand & use human language; etc…

You are correct. Language, altruism and tool use are not unique to humans, although they are exponentially greater in human contexts. Human language can convey abstract ideas, and our tools are far more complex than ape and bird tools. I am not arguing for human exceptionalism.

I am 5 paragraphs in. omg this essay goes so hard I love it already lol

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