I'm totally the wrong person to offer you insight on this, but...
In general, my observation of the rhetoric of disability rights is that it really doesn't distinguish between the intrinsic properties of technologies and the idiosyncratic social facts that have led to their development and promotion, and of who is and isn't pushing them, and why. All of which is to say that on a different planet with a different social and political order and an inherently more complex baseline concept of ‘normal’ ability, it's not clear that the same technologies should be regarded as problematic as are regarded as problematic in our world. And, as you say this being very Asami-centric, and it being natural that Asami would have a certain idiosyncratic outlook, by all rights ought to buy you some leeway.
As best I understand it, which is not well, the objection to exoskeletons is that they come across as being more about the general populations preference for dealing with walking people, rather than any perceived need on the part of the main consumer base (which mostly just wants a set of construction norms that is more wheelchair-compatible). There's a sense, reinforced by exoskeleton-promotion rhetoric, that the point is that folks who can't walk (or can't walk well or for long durations) on their own are supposed to be so happy at the prospect of walking rather than using a wheelchair, because walking is just magically better, and a lot of the negative reaction seems to be a pushback against this.
My reaction is always some combination of ‘isn't this just like a wheelchair that's worse for hallways and better for uneven natural terrain? isn't having different technologies for different situations a good thing?’ and ‘but doesn't every technology become better when you make it wearable?’ like I said, I'm not the person to explain this. But maybe it's worth flagging as something you should google.
Unrelated: I wasn't clear on whether Zaheer was canonically coordinating with others in the spirit world pre-escape. Recall that P'li didn't give any sign of realizing Zaheer was coming until Zuko and Tonraq showed up, and with the others it seemed less like they were specifically prepared and more like they just were sharp enough to know what to do when somebody threw some bendables their way. Recall that Ming-Hua, on being broken out, expressed surprise that Zaheer hadn't sprung P'li first, which presumably wouldn't have surprised her if they'd been conspiring in the spirit world all along. Hell, do we even get any clear evidence that anybody with the Red Lotus except Zaheer and Aiwei is especially able to project themselves into the spirit world?
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Date: 2014-10-26 10:57 pm (UTC)In general, my observation of the rhetoric of disability rights is that it really doesn't distinguish between the intrinsic properties of technologies and the idiosyncratic social facts that have led to their development and promotion, and of who is and isn't pushing them, and why. All of which is to say that on a different planet with a different social and political order and an inherently more complex baseline concept of ‘normal’ ability, it's not clear that the same technologies should be regarded as problematic as are regarded as problematic in our world. And, as you say this being very Asami-centric, and it being natural that Asami would have a certain idiosyncratic outlook, by all rights ought to buy you some leeway.
As best I understand it, which is not well, the objection to exoskeletons is that they come across as being more about the general populations preference for dealing with walking people, rather than any perceived need on the part of the main consumer base (which mostly just wants a set of construction norms that is more wheelchair-compatible). There's a sense, reinforced by exoskeleton-promotion rhetoric, that the point is that folks who can't walk (or can't walk well or for long durations) on their own are supposed to be so happy at the prospect of walking rather than using a wheelchair, because walking is just magically better, and a lot of the negative reaction seems to be a pushback against this.
My reaction is always some combination of ‘isn't this just like a wheelchair that's worse for hallways and better for uneven natural terrain? isn't having different technologies for different situations a good thing?’ and ‘but doesn't every technology become better when you make it wearable?’ like I said, I'm not the person to explain this. But maybe it's worth flagging as something you should google.
Unrelated: I wasn't clear on whether Zaheer was canonically coordinating with others in the spirit world pre-escape. Recall that P'li didn't give any sign of realizing Zaheer was coming until Zuko and Tonraq showed up, and with the others it seemed less like they were specifically prepared and more like they just were sharp enough to know what to do when somebody threw some bendables their way. Recall that Ming-Hua, on being broken out, expressed surprise that Zaheer hadn't sprung P'li first, which presumably wouldn't have surprised her if they'd been conspiring in the spirit world all along. Hell, do we even get any clear evidence that anybody with the Red Lotus except Zaheer and Aiwei is especially able to project themselves into the spirit world?