Discuss.
Would you rather post a ridiculously offensive question or just keep your thoughts to yourself?
What’s offensive about the question? Legitimately asking, in case I’m just ignorant at the moment.
The hell do you think you’re going to learn by asking other ignorant people?
If you want to understand what it is like to have a given disability, search out materials written by and for people who have experienced those disabilities. If you get a chance to ask a disabled person about how that disability affects them, without being a boring, insensitive, dehumanising dickhead, do so.
Don’t ask a bunch of people without those disabilities to debate which would be most awful. And do not pretend it’s about educating yourself when you’re addressing your question to people who are mostly as clueless as you are. You’re not going to learn anything useful at all and you can’t possibly have imagined you would. You’re just adding to the mountains of awful dehumanising bullshit that is already out there.
I feel like you’ve just projected a lot of your own context onto OP’s question. I think I understand what you’re getting at, but there’s a of anger in there that feels misplaced.
I think you’re maybe reading too much into it… pretty sure it was just intended to be a hypothetical for discussion, not an attempt to learn about disabilities. It’s like, “Would you rather have unlimited money but be perpetually depressed, or always be happy but be perpetually broke?”
If someone who actually has no legs came in and offered their opinion, that’d be a bonus, but it doesn’t strike me as the intended purpose of the post.
If there’s anyone here who actually has no legs who is offended by this, I’d be interested to hear from them, but… if you have legs (because you’re clearly literate), are you sure you’re not just taking offense by proxy where none should exist or was intended?
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.
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?
I think the impact would be lessened with things like Alexa and Siri capable of translating speech to text.
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.
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.
Illiterate because I can learn how to read. Can’t learn how to regrow legs.
Would you, in your situation currently, survive financially if you woke up tomorrow without the ability to read or write?
Probably not but at least I could get out of bed and walk down the stairs
I cannot discuss on the basis that I gave up my literacy for legs. 🦵 🦵
Seriously though… I think I would rather be illiterate. I could learn how to read, and in the meantime there are assistive screen reader apps and apps that let you scan something to read it aloud.
While there are bionic legs and I would love the chance to have tall robot legs 🦿🦿, I haven’t done enough research on the long term effects of walking around with two fully bionic legs, or how much leftover leg is required to attach a bionic leg, etc.
Self-reply because it occurred to me… if I had to be illiterate and could never learn to read or write again, I’m absolutely choosing the no legs option. My above answer is entirely predicated on the fact that I’m very good at picking up other languages and other alphabet systems, and therefore could re-learn fairly quickly… but if that’s not an option then I’m going legless and saving money on dress pants. Shorts for life 🩳
