[nfb-talk] Cash

[Mike Freeman]

In a perfect world, you'd be absolutely correct. And, in fact, at one time, 
NFB's R&D Committee was, in fact, looking at the possibilities of 
constructing a hardware device that would intercept video signals and would 
do all the interpretation. Unfortunately, this is the real world and not the 
perfect one and the R&D Committee found that AI software wasn't at the point 
that it could be introduced as firmware in a hardware gizmo. Hence, we live 
with screen-readers which, like it or not, *require* web pages to conform to 
some guidelines to present information intelligibly to us. You know this 
already but I present it to set the stage for what I shall say next.

In a perfect world, you'd be absolutely correct; there would be a 
contradiction in philosophy between NFB's opposition to changes in the 
currency for the sake of the blind and NFB's Target lawsuit. But again, this 
isn't a perfect world. So in addition to philosophical purity, some 
pragmatic considerations come into play. NFB has judged that in the world of 
cyberspace wherein more and more marketplace transactions are taking place, 
it is becoming increasingly important that the blind have access to 
commercial and financial websites since there is or may well soon be no way 
for the blind to participate in the cybereconomy without it. Hence, the 
Target lawsuit.

On the other hand, with respect to cash transactions, the blind handle their 
currency and have always done so with very little difficulty. So we of NFB 
feel that the ACB lawsuit is asking the world to be modified in an area 
which we feel doesn't need modification and is positing a problem that, for 
the most part, doesn't exist. Oh yes, theoretically, the blind could be 
cheated. But, anecdotally, the instances of being bilked in the *real* world 
are few and far between and are, I suspect, no more prevalent than they are 
for the sighted public.

I would not object were currency changes made that would benefit everyone. 
But I believe that we, the blind, don't need currency changes to live our 
lives and engage in commerce in society. The ACB lawsuit sends the opposite 
message -- that we live in constant fear of being short-changed and cannot 
make everyday financial transactions. This is obviously false.

Yes, I have a money identifier. But I think I've used it three times this 
year and could have gotten along perfectly well without it. It certainly 
makes me bristle at the "poor, defenseless blind person" image propounded by 
the lawsuit.

Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
To: <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 10:22 AM
Subject: [nfb-talk] Cash


> Can someone please explain an apparent contradiction in NFB policies to 
> me?
>
> The NFB says that making the government change bills so that blind people
> can tell them apart implies that "the blind are not capable of looking out
> for our own best interests and that the whole world must be modified for 
> our
> protection."
>
> Doesn't the suit against Target do the same thing? Doesn't it imply that 
> the
> worl must be modified for us? If the NFB is to be consistent, shouldn't 
> they
> be working on a screen reader that will work with the Target site rather
> than trying to make Target change their site?
>
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