Pop-up concerts sold by word of mouth... tickets sold for and all involved paid in cash. In oher words:illegal. But if you want to officialy convert a space, if you want to sell via ticketmaster or get financing through a bank, then suddenly there is plenty of government. Forget fire inspectors, what is the state of the bathrooms? An ADA suit will cut far deeper than having to install sprinkers.
It is far easier to push some industrial-looking stuff into a club than try to setup a legit club inside a factory.
Why shouldn't public businesses be accessible to people without a working pair of legs?
ADA compliance is all about opening up freedom to more people. It's the coolest thing in the world to see some quadroplegic dude in a wheelchair enjoying a concert as much as the people dancing. That's freedom for that dude. Bring it on.
But if you have an old building with restrooms that are not ADA accessible does that mean you should not be allowed to host concerts there? I wasn't arguing that new buildings shouldn't be built accessibly, but do the old ones NEED to either be abandoned or remodeled?
I understand the urge to respond when we see something we think is unfairly down-voted. However, the down votes actually only says something about the few (lone?) individuals who down-voted, and very little at that. One can speculate as to their reasons, but we really can't know for sure unless they choose to comment and explain. That's one of the reasons the guidelines ask us not to comment on down votes: It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
I think the best, most constructive thing to do is upvote and expand on the comment you support. That adds to the conversation and reinforces the point the first comment made.
I'm aware of this principle, but I don't find it boring at all that more people on HN are willing to downvote accessibility than upvote it. It's horrifying. People with zero empathy are influencing the future of technology.
I wouldn't wish disability on anyone, but if you downvoted this sub-thread and you do end up disabled someday, may your curb cuts always be blocked, may the handicapped parking spaces always be parked in by your uncaring former self, and may your wheelchair break on a badly-maintained sidewalk, leaving you stranded, humiliated, and broke.
Thanks for your response. I appreciate where you're coming from. And I get frustrated, too, when I see comments that don't take others into account. I also know that when I allow my emotions to drive my actions and words without filtering them through what I think is actually going to be effective in promoting the change I want, I'm all too likely to work against those goals.
I really do believe that it's impossible to know the full motivations of who ever down voted the comment. It's easy to assume the worst, particularly when we perceive ourselves or our values as being attacked.
And to be fair, I almost never view net down votes the way you do ("more people on HN are willing to downvote [X] than upvote it.") Thank you for including that because it gives me another perspective. When I saw your comment, the text of your parent was black. I think it's likely that it was a single person who downvoted, particularly that it's so far down in a comment thread. It's definitely not the case that the comment or its context was presented to a majority of HN members and they were given the opportunity to vote. It's a small subset of members who read the comment. This subthread itself is charged: emotions are likely running higher than normal, and those who are willing to commit so far down a thread are likely to be that much more committed to whatever position they hold and may be that much more vote emotionally. I think this happens in a lot of cases. Internet forums are difficult places to have useful discussions on contentious topics.
I strongly believe that the only way we're going to be able to make progress on difficult topics (and there are a lot of them) is if we can figure out ways to honestly talk with each other from a place of giving each other the benefit of the doubt. Having empathy for people we don't agree with is even more important if we hope to make a difference. That charity, empathy, that benefit of the doubt, aren't infinite. If we come to a point where we don't think those we're in disagreement aren't dealing honestly with us, then communication has broken down. Anything we say further has to be even more strategic. How are people who you disagree with hear you talking about downvotes? Is it more likely going to change their minds? More likely to think of you as more unreasonable? I know how I tend to react.
Above I quoted the full "It never does any good, and it makes boring reading" mostly because I copied the full sentence. I think the first phrase is the most important, which is why I focused on that above. The second phrase I think is true as well, as the outcome of such comments is boringly predictable. The key for me is figuring out what is effective in producing the change I want to see.
And that's why I commented above. I hope you find this further exposition is useful for you as it as for me. Thanks again for sharing your interpretation of the downvotes. That's helpful for me.
At some point you and dang are going to have to stop excusing the sizable fascist faction on HN as being "just a few people" or some kind of balance for the other "extremist" POV. Here we have someone saying something utterly mainstream - accessibility is good - and getting downvotes for it.
HN has lurched to the right, and fascism is now acceptable here.
In many cases, accessibility rules (or fire safety rules for that matter) can prevent a business from being viable. Are we better off with a store that has a huge sign "does not meet fire code, enter at your own risk" in front of it, or with no store at all? I prefer the former.
I think you might be overzealous in using the word fascism here. While fascism does lead to the oppression of minorities and has historically lead to the oppression of the disabled [1], I do not believe that my view is a fascist one.
There is positive discrimination, telling quadriplegics that they should be euthanized. And there is negative discrimination, failing to provide an ADA compliant restroom. The former is fascist, however the latter is not in my opinion. Of course it is best if all venues have restrooms that are wheelchair accessible, however the idea that any which does not provide accessible restrooms is fascist is a logical absurdity.
Lets take your argument to its end. There are 1 million wheel chair users in the US [2]. Lets just say that any venue that negatively discriminates against 1 million or more Americans is fascist. How many restaurants are there in the US that provide separate gluten free work surfaces in order to prepare gluten free food for the 3 million with celiac disease [3]? Another million people have a milk or egg allergy and need separate work surfaces for those ingredients as well [4]. I know, it's just 120 000 people in America that are actually blind [2], but not a single grocery store provides braille packaging on all their produce. All in all there are 2.4 million who are visually disabled, they should be given well lit venues, no darkness and light shows at concerts for them, they might trip and fall in the dark. But if things are going to be well lit, what about the 3 million Americans with chronic migraines (which causes photo-sensitivity) and therefore cannot bear the bright light [5]? Its literally impossible to not negatively discriminate against someone, and I've not even gotten into religious or ethical diets and norms. So is everyone who tries to open a venue a fascist?
I could be wrong, but FWIW, I read 'DanBC's reference to fascism as applying to trends of behavior and comments on HN as a whole, not with respect to the ADA and related issues in particular.
Yeah, no kidding. We live in this era where people with all kinds of handicaps can engage more and more with society in so many ways.
Wheelchairs and the building standards that open places up to access.
Phones that can speak to you and parse your words and act on voice commands. A few weeks ago I saw a blind dude carry on a text message conversation on the bus, with someone he was going to meet, via his iphone. How cool is that??
Video game controllers that you can work with your neck movements and puffing breaths into an actuator tube.
HOW COOL IS ALL THIS STUFF??
And when it's gadgets and gear, people geek out over it all day long. How cool that that one GNOME developer submitted his last patch--when he was nearly totally paralyzed--a few days before he passed on, right?
Yet when it's building codes to open up physical spaces, suddenly the gubmint is burdening you? Fuck. that.
All this stuff is up to us to decide--what do we care about? Building a society that serves everyone, including the most vulnerable? Or propping up a status quo that leaves the most vulnerable locked out?
Sorry for the rant. Accessibility is important. Gets me riled up.
It is awesome that a paralyzed GNOME developer was able to submit a patch. However, GNOME was not accessible from the first commit, or even the first major version. GNOME is not yet %100 accessible, and if it was illegal for GNOME to be published before it was ADA compliant, than GNOME would not exist at all.
You might want to revise your original comment, then. In your first comment you clearly wrote, "In oher words:illegal," but now write, "red flag."
If the customer base exists, and the promoter can rely on word of mouth for advertising, why is it a red-flag to not want to pay anyone for advertising?
Also, why is it a red flag to accept cash, which 100% of attendees can produce instead of relying upon other payment methods which have been shown to make less money for the promoter?
Reflect on it for a moment. In this exact case, people purchasing tickets into a concert, where there is a tremendous amount of business, why pay a third party for every credit card swipe? You get the exact same number of customers if you only accept cash. In many demographics, you actually get more customers from cash-only.
Sure, some promoters and business owners will evade taxes, but people do that anyway for all sorts of businesses. In this case, accepting cash only is not an indicator of attempting to evade taxes.
Because any manager knows that handling that much cash comes with risks. Someone standing at club door taking cash, sans cash register, is dangerous. Either money goes "missing" or someone gets robbed.
That has absolutely nothing to do with your comment that people who accept cash are engaging in illegal activity.
In an all cash business, the truth is you make money hand over fist. You can't count it fast enough, even with your door person skimming - which you already expect to happen. Besides, you don't have your door people stand around all night with loads of cash in their pockets.
It is far easier to push some industrial-looking stuff into a club than try to setup a legit club inside a factory.