Discuss.

  • room_raccoon@kbin.social
    18·
    1 year ago

    At first I thought this question was a no-brainer, that I’d rather have legs. But after thinking about it a little, the question becomes much more interesting to me.

    If the case is that you can still learn to be literate, the obvious choice is to have legs. But if it means you have no possibility to ever read or write, I’m now thinking I’d rather have no legs.

    I learn best from reading and writing things down, and I think I communicate better in text, too. I love learning new skills and that would be hard for me without using text. It’s very sexy to have legs and I’d miss mine a lot, but I chose to be literate… I think.

    Edit: I hope this is okay to do, but I made a magazine on kbin for these kinds of questions. I think would you rather questions are so fascinating and fun to discuss. Maybe someone would like to come post one or discuss? https://kbin.social/m/would_you_rather

  • AlternateRoute@lemmy.caEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    Assuming you were completely illiterate it would VASTLY limit your interaction with the current world and ability to work than having no legs.

    I am not even sure it is a contest here. Having no legs would absolutely limit my physical mobility but there are accommodations and workarounds for that. I can 100% do my current desk job with no legs, play online games etc.

    Being completely illiterate would heavily isolate you and your ability to grow and learn. You would have to be verbally / visually be taught everything yet somehow not ever learn how to read or write?

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.oneEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I think the impact would be lessened with things like Alexa and Siri capable of translating speech to text.

      • AlternateRoute@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        You clearly haven’t tried to use them for any significant task, the error rate gets bad. Hell I just use Siri for my shopping list and have to figure out some of the random garbage it inserts.

        At the very least READING works well but speech to text is very hit and miss. You also can’t use it everywhere.

        As far as communication goes it would be similar to being blind but not knowing braille or Tactile signing and being 100% dependant on technical aids.

        • paol@lemmy.ml
          1·
          1 year ago

          The ChatGPT app uses the speech-to-text model Whisper, and it’s always spot on in English. Whisper is open source. I don’t understand why it’s not widespread, but hopefully it will be or similarly capable software will be soon.

        • CmdrShepard@lemmy.oneEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          You’re correct I don’t use them but I do know several people who might be straddling the illiteracy line and use them almost exclusively. It does result in errors but it also opens many doors that wouldn’t be available without it. The reverse is also beneficial as it allows these people to have text read aloud to them.

  • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    I’d rather have no legs.

    Yes, I could learn how to read/write. But so many of my passions require high aptitude in those regards, so it’d take way too long to get up to speed. I’d also not be able to perform my job.

    On the other hand, prosthetics and bionics are taking leaps and bounds. There likely would be little I’d have to give up physically, if I had access to that tech.

  • chimeras@kbin.social
    3·
    1 year ago

    I’d rather have no legs. I could manage to live with a physical disability without too much shame or hassle, but I couldn’t cope with not being to read and write (and learn, and communicate properly.) You know what they say: knowledge is power. A person without legs can get an education and do something with their life, but someone who is illiterate is doomed to work menial jobs (or resort to crime or prostituion, idk.) I think it would be akin to a mental disability, not only it would make life harder on a practical level, but it would also make you the target of hate and manipulation from others. I’m aware that physically disabled people endure hate, too, but not as much.

  • PlexSheep@feddit.de
    3·
    1 year ago

    Learning to read would be easier than getting new legs, so I guess that be the better choice

  • thatsTheCatch@lemmy.nz
    3·
    1 year ago

    Depends what country I’m in.

    A developing country with poor education and lots of agricultural/manual labour jobs? Illiterate.

    A developed nation with good education and knowledge work jobs that can be done even without legs? No legs.

    A developed nation is also likely to be more wheelchair accessible, which is how I’m assuming I would get around.

    • neamhsplach@beehaw.orgOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      For the purposes of the argument, you are you. You are in your current situation. You wake up tomorrow morning with either a lack of legs or a lack of reading ability. Which is preferable?

  • Bizarroland@kbin.social
    3·
    1 year ago

    The real mind blower in this situation is that once you are literate you can’t turn it off.

    You have no way to stop reading this while looking at the words.

    Your brain is permanently wired to automatically translate this into language that you understand for the rest of your life whereas if you want to have no legs you can just cut your fucking legs off.

    Even if you were to lobotomize yourself, that is no guarantee that you would lose the ability to read.

    The only way that you can guarantee that you would lose your ability to read words is to kill yourself. And you shouldn’t kill yourself because you won’t survive that.

    You will die if you kill yourself, and that is bad.

    I said all of that to say think it would be super fun to learn how to read all over again.