Do you even have the first clue what a disability is? Iâm asking, because you seem to be a very ignorant sort of person. Allow me to educate you a little.
ââŚour modern world with all its accomodations[sic]âŚâ Bwahahaha! You silly, silly able-bodied person, you. What accommodations? You think the occasional wheelchair ramp and some IEPs count as accommodations? You have no idea. The modern world is already hugely inaccessible to disabled people. Weâre used to it.
I bet you think âsurvival of the fittestâ means survival of the strongest, the fastest, all of that, donât you? But it doesnât. It means survival of the most adaptable. You think youâre automatically more capable of surviving than people who have to adapt every single day of their lives to an inaccessible world? Do you even biology, bro?
Life has survived apocalypses on this planet before. The Permian-Triassic extinction event killed 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates and 96% of all marine life. Yet here we stand, because life did survive. And it isnât the big, strong gorgonopsids that we descend from. They didnât make it. Nope, it was the tiny diictodon. Diictodon, a creature little bigger than a chihuahua, that could burrow to survive the elements. In fact, itâs possible that diictodon, like modern lagomorphs, could sever tree roots as a source of water. They survived because they could adapt to the harsh changes in their environment. Not because they were the strongest or the fastest.Â
The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction (otherwise known as that thing that killed the non-avian dinosaurs) took out three-quarters of all plant and animal life on earth. And yet again, here we stand. And the reason for that is because there was life that could adapt, and once again, it wasnât the biggest or the strongest. Why do you think avian dinosaurs (more commonly known as birds) are the only ones who survived? Because yeah, birds have some traits that make them very suited to survival, but odds are all dinosaurs had these traits. Yet all of the non-avian ones are gone.Â
A combination of factors played into this. Many non-avian dinosaurs were far too large and specialized. Their strength and speed were no longer advantages after Chicxulub laid waste and the world began to deteriorate. And yeah, the birds had the advantage of flying, but that wasnât the only thing. Birds were small, and theyâd taken over a very important niche. As pterosaurs evolved, they grew from small flying insectivores to large, ground-stalking carnivores. They overspecialized into that niche, while birds started sitting pretty in the niche the pterosaurs left behind: Small, flying insectivores. Notably, it wasnât just birds that survived, but most of what did survive was small, and thus in need of less energy than those big strong creatures that are gone now.
And why do you think itâs Homo sapiens that stands as the dominant hominid today? By all accounts, Neanderthals were actually stronger, faster, and smarter than us. Yet here we stand. Of course, modern science shows that to some degree, at least, Neanderthals were bred into Homo sapiens. But we still had an advantage over them. Being smaller, we needed less food for energy. A few bad years food-wise would knock down the Neanderthal population far more than it would the Homo sapiens one. For all we were not as big or as strong or as fast, we had an advantage in hard times.
Now tell me, taking all of that, why able-bodied and neurotypical people, who spend their lives sitting comfortably in their overspecialized niches, should be so very much better suited to survival to those of us who spend each and every day adapting?
Maybe itâs because you think weâre all bed-ridden and helpless? Newsflash: Disabilities come in many, many types. Maybe you think none of us can survive without modern medicine? Newsflash: Not only do many of us already survive without access to care that would make our lives easier, but the standards of modern medicine also illegalize substances like marijuana, which has been shown to be effective on disabilities ranging from glaucoma and fibromyalgia to ADHD and bipolar disorder. Legal narcotics arenât the only effective ones, theyâre just the only legal ones. Maybe you think none of us have any sort of useful skills? Or that we arenât strong enough to protect ourselves? You go ahead and fuck with this guy after the apocalypse, see how far that gets you.Â
Yeah, a lot of people wouldnât survive an apocalypse. Thatâs part of the point of post-apocalyptic fiction, dude. But we make up one seventh of this worldâs population and yet you think all one billion of us would go down simply because of your ignorant preconceptions?
Pfft. Please. Weâve survived you assholes for millennia. We have the same chances of survival as you do and weâre more used to adapting.Â
