The “Mary/apartment” example is all well and good in theory; but the phrase “sundown town” pretty much encapsulates how well it tends to turn out in practice…

Legally I can’t see any reason to compel Sony to make an accessible product, unless there is some sort of implied warranty that leads disabled customers to assume it will be accessible.

Morally, I can see a very good argument for requiring publishers make at least some concessions so that disabled players can fully experience their products within reasonable expectations.

But, like what the author has written… this is all words, and nothing more. What I say and what they say is probably not going to actually help anyone with a disability. Unfortunately the lawsuit may not either.

By making fewer apartments available to group X she’s somehow *reducing* rents? WTF? Macroeconomiwhatsit? That doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.

I’m sure with enough tuning you could create a pathological model where that might be the case, but that’s just going to be academic wankery – you’d never wind up with a situation like that in the real world.

This is simply put, someone using the ADA for his own convenience. Ramps for people to gain access to public transportation and buildings and live their lives? Absolutely yes. Some kid who wants a company to spend millions to satisfy the gaming needs of one person? Hell no.

The question is: how much coercion (back by the state’s capacity for violence), if any, is ethical?

I gotta say: it sucks that more things aren’t made more accessible to the disabled, but at the same time, making every product manufactured accessible to *everyone* would put a lot of places out of business because of the expense vs. consumption/demand of such modified products.

The question would be, then, what are reasonable concessions and who would bear the (considerable) expense of making various services/products/etc. accessible?

This does not logically follow. The argument presented is:

* Mary has no obligation to do A.
* Mary has no obligation to do B.
* Therefore, it cannot be the case that if she does do A, she has an obligation to do B.

Substitute in, for example, A = “drive a car” and B = “refrain from drinking heavily”, or A = “own a gun” and B = “learn how to use a gun safely”.

The root question here is this : Should every commercial product meet every need for every person with any type of disability? Achieving this on a practical level a great many commodities would be impossible, and have a chilling effect on the market.

After the basic human rights of work, shelter, education, and information have been met for people with additional needs, the rest must be left to the free market. As far as I am concerned, playing video games is not a basic human right.

Because, clearly, the effects of Affirmative Action and ADA on the able-bodied white man is more important then the persons these acts purported to help, amrite? (Of course, if any of those tragically inconvenienced able-bodied white men would bother to look up these regulations as to how they actually work and not how Rush Limbaugh thinks they work…but hey, far be it from me to kill anyone’s colorblind post-racism illusions.)

IN THIS CASE, accessibility is perhaps not something that can really be helped, for whatever reason. That hardly means you should throw out the entire endeavor because it sometimes inconveniences some people.

Are all commercial websites required to conform to the WCAG 2.0 Guidelines?

As private entities they could score points on the moral front by integrating things like enhanced audio and larger fonts for the visually impaired. But they’re going to figure out if the brownie points and a small additional market share is cost effective before they pour time and money into that area.

Still, the alternative interfaces that could come out of playing around with this would be fun to think about. A licensed Marvel Daredevil game with no visual feedback? I’d pay for the gimmick.

The Sony issue is about trying to force a company to create new goods that appeal to a specific audience — which would amount to The State or Citizenry forcing entities to act in a certain manner. The Apartment issue is about discriminating on the sale of existing goods — which is both ethically abhorrent as it also goes against the concept of economic free markets and equality.

I can’t understand how Landsburg sees any relation between these two. I’m also surprised that someone who would suggest something as ridiculous as this was able to get a book deal.

Why aren’t you signing in? Are you having problems?

That’s not saying that they shouldn’t, mind you. Besides being the nice thing to do it would generate some good PR. Sadly, both of these concepts are lost on SONY.

it’s basically a minefield.. but a well intentioned one. what it boils down to is if you are a hairdresser or a lawyer and your shop isn’t accesable you would agree to make a home visit or hire a space that was.

Taken to it’s illogical extent then it’s ipods for the deaf etc etc. but it all comes down to what would be reasonable.. I’m also not sure it applies to goods as well as services.

It certainly applies to buildings and is very tricky to reach a compromise with (how do you fit a lightswitch that will suit someone 3 foot tall and someone 8 foot tall.)

As for Sony, they would substantially benefit from being forced to support blind gamers. Their multimillion dollar titles could easily absorb the cost of token support, but many indie developers would be driven out of business or wouldn’t be able to start up in the first place.

I didn’t realize he was such a jerk though– he seems to be saying there’s no real moral obligation for anything, hence no morals (“. . . I’m given a free pass to do no good at all”). Nice.

If we were allowed to rent or hire based on race, how long before only the star-bellied Sneetches had the money and power?