Ok, so you got your job thru affimative action, fine. but the myth of the deaf culture is a result of coping with a handicap. bottom line. and deafness is definitely a handicap, the difficulties with the lack of passive learning is the primary one (not to mention the guy coming up behind your with a 2x4 you can't hear) so I understand the attitude, but please, don't advocate for people unborn, to keep them from full enjoyment of the world around them. I used to work for a supplier of deaf educational devices, worked with the two main centers for deaf education in
St. Louis, we need to cure people of the causes of deafness, hell, I'm losing my hearing after years of abuse. It's a symptom of disease and injury, let's fix it.

It's fine and dandy to want to stay deaf, but logically it is an argument based on ignorance and fear. Deaf people literally don't know what they are missing. That being said, I'd probably rather be deaf than have a speech impediment after being "cured". I'm pretty sure being introduced to a whole new sense late in life could easily lead to MANY more negative effects than just a simple speech impediment. It is someone's personal liberty if they want to stay deaf and that is basically the bottom line. But then again, depriving a young child of hearing is tantamount to abuse IMO. And then determining some age where they should be allowed the choice is a huge gray area. Children lack a lot of confidence and other qualities that would allow them to make a choice that will lead them to the greatest happiness in their lives. After a certain point though, it could easily be argued to be harmful to "cure" someone.

I didn't want to put quotes around "cured" by the way.

Advantages of being Deaf:

1. Sleep anywhere at any time like a baby.

2. More focus on your work instead of being distracted by office gossip or people bugging you at work.

3. Not having to deal with irritating sounds like babies crying, kids whining, women screaming at you, etc.

4. Not get incapacitated by pain or problems with sound like sonic booms or stun grenades or stuff like that.

5. Not have to worry about loud neighbors or parties with music set up high.

6. Not have to listen to people the next apartment over having sex all night long.

Also, I believe that people should be given a choice whether they want to be cured or not. If they prefer to stay Deaf, they have the right to do so. If they want to be cured, they can go ahead. Do not take away free will and people's right to make decisions for themselves. Take that away, and you're violating human rights and are no better than the Nazis, Soviet Russians, the KKK, etc. who wish to impose their will upon others, damn the consquences.

OMG, it's nice that you jump to the conclusion that I got my job via AA.. It's not.. I got my job HARD way. I was in co-op program of 45 people (hearing people) and I was runner-up for the hire simply cuz I solved two difficult projects in just 10 weeks (took employees 2 years without any real success) for NASA during my co-op period.. They wanted me badly so they offered me two job offers so I got in due to my skills that I bested other co-op students. There were no AA involved.. Actually, EEO at NASA tried to block me from getting the job that two branches wanted me in badly simply cuz they were afraid of me to speak out for disability's rights and their equal access, etc. They were heavily biased toward blacks but not for disabilities. They actually marked my name off the list out of 20 potential disabled applicants and gave to HR. None got hired. I told my branches that I didn't get any offers and was ready to accept Boeing's offer for engineer position about 2x more pay (I only wanted NASA but Boeing was backup) but my branches got really pissed off and talked to director of NASA about the situation. One of their friends eventually found out about the list that my name was removed from the list simply cuz EEO didn't like me.. So director got mad and decided to open a position JUST for me. I was very honored and accepted the offer and turned Boeing's offer down. Yes, even til today. I refused to work with EEO. I can't rely on them at all. I learned to rely only on myself because it's safer that way.. Yes, I got in HARD way. There were NO AA or favorism involved. I got in simply cuz I proved my worth for NASA and I'm darn proud of it..

Handicap is a perspective.. Let me tell you a story. My two deaf friends (back in '90s) were divers who worked on the bottom of the ocean on various projects.. When they decided to apply for a job in CA from diving company and they were flatly rejected simply cuz the interviewers were just ignorant so my friends challenged by telling them that they can do a test to compete against company's two best divers (both hearings).. The condition was that the project must be unknown on the bottom of the ocean and must be figured out on the spot.. Two teams (one hearing and one deaf team) dived in to complete the projects.. The Deaf team came out 15 minutes later and they finished the job.. 45 min later, hearing team (they were best for the company) came out.. Why? Deaf team was able to communicate via ASL easily to figure things out and get the job done while hearing team wasted too much time trying to understand each other.. Needless to say, deaf team got hired immediately by the diving company because they proved their worth.. Question is.. Who was handicap in that situation? Sadly to say, hearing team was handicapped.. Not the deaf team..

Same for me at job in extremely noisy place (wind tunnel).. Hearing people had to wear headgear for protection while I didn't even need one.. Who relied on "tech" to bypass the handicap? They are.. Not me.. The workers there were amazed how well I do my job in very noisy environment. while they get really annoyed and distracted. They are basically handicapped in that situation. Not me.. List goes on.. There are in many situations that I was in that my hearing friends had "handicap" while I didn't. Some situation, I had a handicap and they didn't.

You are losing your hearing ability and you view it as a disease simply because you are not used to it and you are not part of Deaf community. You merely work for them but not accepted by them. Being a deaf person vs working for a deaf person are two very big different things.. To work with them or work in medical field for deaf people won't help you to understand them fully. It takes a deaf person to understand the depth of deafness other than not able to hear.

Again.. Deafness is a disability.. Deafness is NOT a handicap.. If a person accepts his/her deafness as a handicap then that person won't be productive at all and accepts the inferior and a defeat. It's very poor way to label them as a handicap. Almost all the time in hearing school systems, I was basically top of classes and graduated with honors. I was above the average of any hearing people.. To me, I definitely don't feel like a handicap.. A handicap means a disadvantage.. I didn't even have any apparent disadvantages other than not able to hear but I was able to "hear" using other ways to bypass that.. Heck, A Spanish person tried to speak to English person. Then both of them are actually handicapped at that because they can't communicate but it can be solved by other ways such as getting a translator.. They never felt like handicap that way.. Same applies for deaf people.. Heck. I almost always seen deaf child being born in deaf family with deaf parents and they almost always raised in very healthy way and rather very advanced citizens compared to average deaf people who raised in hearing family with different expectation who tried to convert them into hearing kids.. Deaf people in deaf family almost always have very important roles and usually leaders in deaf community and also in hearing community because they got well educated. They got nurtured very well since birth by deaf parents because parents communicated with deaf kid off the bat with full of love, etc exactly the same way as hearing parents nurtured their own hearing child in very healthy way and those kids will grow into fine people.. As long as hearing parents understood the value of deafness and learn ASL to communicate with their deaf child off the bat instead of wasting too much time trying to convert then that child will grow into fine people because of no time lost and love is still there between parent and a child via lot of communication.. More than often, a deaf child in hearing family are mostly neglected and didn't communicate much. That will make their brain to grow in unhealthy way making harder to learn things when they get old.. Communication and nurturing baby immediately after birth is VITAL for healthy early child development. Lot of deaf people missed that healthy child development.. Is that their fault? Nope.. It was parents' and the system's fault for doing the child development approach in very wrong way..

Hey. Wanna hear very interesting story that my deaf friend had at AGB meeting?? There were a panel on CI issue full of politicians, doctors, businesses, etc.. They were obviously in for $$$ by using deaf kids as G. pigs for experiment. Anyway.. My deaf friend came forth to ask them questions..

He asked, "Does hearing parent have RIGHT to attempt converting their own beloved deaf child into hearing child to be same as them?" The group of doctors, etc all said, "DEFINITELY!"

He was glad and asked, "So.. Does deaf parent have RIGHT to attempt converting their own beloved hearing child into deaf child to be same as them?" The group of doctors didn't reply and left the meeting..

It shows that hearing parents do have rights but deaf parents don't.. Of course, we don't convert hearing child to deaf child (my friend merely asked the analogy) at all because we want them to have choice not us. They have right. Not us.. Sadly.. Deaf child don't even have right to choose. They are forced to be changed. While hearing child has right to decide if they want to change into different person.. To them, deaf people are inferior with inferior rights and they have every right to experiment on deaf community and kept suppressing their rights and successes. I practically was forced to be tried to become a hearing person when I was a kid and it had done lot of damage to me and I really resent that badly.. But. Good thing that I came out ok to undo most damages when I got free from them by convincing my parents to get me out of that horrible hearing school into different school system where they don't waste time trying to convert me so I finally prospered nicely and faster than average to catch up all lost time including my own time outside system to catch up.. Then finally became top of classes afterwards due to my very hard work as determination to make up.. I guess I "thank" them for damaging me so I can become a better, stronger person for the long run.. If I stayed at that school all way, I would never be able to get into any colleges.. They actually put me into classes with all mental illness students for 6 years cuz they thought I was retarded simply cuz I can't learn to speak. 6 years was very bad for me.. I'm just glad that it wasn't 13 yrs..

Well those deaf parents would be the "cultural" equivalents of bigots themselves. Your not going to find a blind parent that wouldnt want their kids to have sight if it were possible. I understand that gaining hearing later on could cause ADD, schizophrenia, being ostracized and plenty more things. Thats a total guess BTW, I didn't even google it. The thing is children have literally NO IDEA what is best for them, they have very little confidence and they give up on things much too easily when they aren't pleasurable and I would think the choice a child would make would likely leave them with a less fulfilling life. I'm sure there are exceptions and nocifer would probably fit into that category rather easily, but the younger a child is, the more ludicrous it is to wish for them to have a disability like deafness.

Edit: if anyone brings God into this, I will assume I am correct

Hey. One fine example of youtube. It's actually a joke and just try not get mad til very end and you'll understand.. Don't quit midway because too much to take in. The joke is at the end.. But that is fine example but a total reverse role where hearing parent with deaf kid that they try to change that is actually happening all over. In that show that there is a role of deaf parents with hearing child that they try to change. Did the viewing of the show alienate your feeling that you wanted to protect that poor hearing child? It's the same way how deaf community felt alienated seeing poor deaf kids being cut up and forced to be changed into new people they didn't want to be in first place..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YN5Fdz1En0

Enjoy..

Pretty funny. I laughed at the "we can always have another one" part. It was pretty funny that the ad would cover up the subtitlees as well. Someone deaf should have a pop-up advertisement actually embedded into the video and have clicking on the video link to advertisements for noise-canceling headphones.

The thing about the argument is that hearing people don't hear sound and the opposite is true for people that do. Deaf people argue that the absence of something is better than actually having the thing implies that noise is in essence an inherently bad thing. There are obviously pros and cons and weighing them would be essentially entirely skewed by the only two biases that exist. I can cover my ears but that doesn't mean I know what its like to be deaf my entire life. The reaction of someone gaining hearing isn't the same type of reaction as someone covering their ears and it isn't the same thing. It is a philosophically and a psychologically based argument on either side. A lifetime of deafness reduces passive learning and can act as a physical disabilty. Not hearing music is like not tasting food, and we all know we would place muuuuch less importance on taste and smell than we would on sight and hearing. I suppose a benefit of being deaf would be that one gains a different type of focus that can't be obtained any other way than a lifetime of deafness. Active, focused learning is ideal for engineers like yourself, but if someone had a mind predisposed to multi-tasking, absorbing knowledge and life in general with natural musical skills and generally a left brained person; well that person would be detrimentally handicapped for life and they would have no frame of reference to know any better. If not being deaf is a challenge to a deaf person, then I can see why deaf people don't complain about being deaf.

I'm Deaf and I don't have problems with learning, passive or not.

I learned how to read and write at a very early age, much earlier than most hearing kids do. As a consquence, I love reading books and learning from books. I've learned far more from books than I ever did from lectures. This was before the Age of Internet. After it came around, whenever I'm curious about something, I look it up on Google and learn about it. I also watch more educational TV like Discovery, Science, History, National Geographic, and Animal Planet channels. Not reality TV drivel like American Idol, Survivor (first couple were OK, the rest became stale), Bachelor, Bachelorettes, Desperate Housewives, Real Wives of (X location- NY, LA, Jersey, Florida, Atlanta, whatever), and so on. While hearing people have their brains rot watching those drivel shows, my brain is continually being educated more and more on the educational TV and googling up interesting stuff on TV.

So my learning process is much better than most hearing people, and I know a lot more intellectual stuff than hearing people. So no trouble or retardation in the learning process for me AT ALL.

Yeah. I'm sure that the pop-up ad to cover subtitle was not intentional. More than often that things are designed without any accommodation in mind.. It's always an afterthought process to incorporate any accommodations..

I do multi-task because too many things to do at once so I had to multi-task to save lot of time. I do communicate via pager, emailing alot.. AIM/MSN a lot, posting stuff like this GL and do two or three projects per day on rotation just to keep me interested. I don't like to focus on one thing all day for several days. I just gotta rotate to keep myself interested.. I do watch TV while playing games at home at the same time but of course, I don't play games if TV program is awesome. I do miss some TV information while playing games. I can't do all at once using eyes alone. I'm sure using ears helps to free up "bandwidth" that can promote multi-tasking more..

5 senses to run at once does have inherent filter system in place to prevent brain overloading.. Deaf person has just 4 senses that has reduced filter system to increase signal to noise ratio for visual sense and feeling too. I don't see any difference in filter system for smell and taste compared to hearing people but we do have increased signal to noise ratio in vision and feel. We do pay more attention to small details than hearing people as evidenced in several experiments..

One nice example of the experiment.. One experimenter put a penny on the sidewalk knowing that deaf people walk on that sidewalk on occassion.. Hearing people kept walking over penny without noticing it at all. Every time a person noticed the penny and stopped to pick it up or just noticed it and ignored and walked past. That experimenter stopped that person asking if he/she was deaf or not. Every time he/she replied, "Yes, I am Deaf". It shows that Deaf people do pay more attention to anything within the field of vision than hearing people. Both of then have same average vision mechanically (20/20). Deaf people don't see sharper than hearing people but deaf people do use their vision more EFFICIENT (reduce filter system). When I am talking to someone, I continuously also pay attention to any moving objects including people at the edge of my FOV. When I see person waving at me 90 degree to either side of my head, I immediately turned my head to reply even talking to that person or I just handsignal "wait" to that person to hold on.. I always waved to deaf people and they can see me even if they got pre-occupied. I did the same way to hearing people and they NEVER see me at all. I had to yell to get their attention.. I have hearing friends to describe what their FOV looks like and their description was obviously reduced efficiency of paying attention to more stuff at once within FOV. I compared my FOV against their FOV at same place staring at each other and describe what I see and what he see. He missed out lot of details while I could. He was shocked heh. Basically, I have 4 senses and it's fine for vision to take in more data per sec without overloading my brain even pay attention on needless noises that hearing people vision will filter them out to regulate the data flow to brain from 5 senses at once.. I know how functions work all because I'm a robotic engineer for 3 years and I had to develop algorithms to regulate several sensors to filter out any unnecessary noises to keep CPU from being overloaded (lag too much) unless I upgrade CPU/ bus speed to be able to run those sensors at increased efficiency. Of course, our human brain cannot be upgraded so we just have to live with the filter system that brain was provided with since dawn of human existance.

Oh yes. One thing that really proved the filter system that we have.. My Gallaudet class (Discovery class) went to go spelunking in private cave (on a private farm property) for 6 hours. The smell in the cave was extremely weak and very dark so all of our noses filter system got removed so all our 4 senses can pay more attention to everything to be able to go spelunking better. Because the cave was dark all the time with just flashlights so our vision data flow was reduced than we would be outside that allows filter system to be removed for smell.. How do we know? When we finally came out of the cave for first time in 6 hours, we were soo excited and in shock how much we could smell everything like dead leaves, etc that we never even notice the scent when we came in. The scent was rather overwhelming and we talked alot on identify what scents were. It lasted for about 30 minutes then quickly we lost ability to smell those little scents and we kinda got disappointed. That's how I realized about that human actually has filter system to regulate data flow to brain from 5 senses.. I never forget that unique experience of smelling. I did experience unique, increased smell ability before when my wife and I first arrived Hawaii and it was full of aroma scents and we thoroughly enjoyed it but we quickly lost ability to smell them continuously thanks to stupid filter system to filter those smells out.. Same for people with strong perfume.. They made me cough sometimes but when I stayed with them longer for days, I nolonger could smell their perfume and I asked if they still use perfume and they said yes.. Aha! My brain didn't want to smell that specific perfume all the time because not even needed so just block it to allow more data flow from other sources that would have higher priority.. That person would have to change perfume if that person want me to smell her ha or don't see that person for long time then can smell it again for a while..

Bottom line.. for 4 senses. I can tell you that filter system for vision is greatly reduced and somewhat reduced for feeling and virtually no change for smell and taste. Brain learned to compensate the loss of hearing by increasing efficiency of the vision to be able to pick up information.

Huh?

That was a bad joke... sorry..

To all legions who are interested or already submitted NAP request with us, We are not interested in NAP with any legions in the galaxy at this time. It serves us no benefit at all and we fight against many legions already just to keep ourselves interested and strong.. We love our freedom without any hassles of diplomacy avenue that will restrict us. I hope you can understand that..

Thanks!

aww shucks all i wanted for christmas was my NAP with the Dysonians

tl;dr

Deafness is a loss of one of your senses plain and simple. People who are deaf need to overcome this since there are many professions which require hearing not all doors are open to them. If it were such a benefit to be deaf the military would have brigades of deaf soldiers as elite troops because of there heightened senses, instead of classifying them 4f. To claim that one is better off being deaf or in some way a better person seems as silly as saying being black is better then being white. Its not the color of the skin or shape of the eyes or ability to hear or not that make the person better its environment that make you are what you are.

Been reading the thread, this bit stood out that needed to be addressed.

This argument is Not Even Wrong. The premises the argument is based on are themselves flawed, making the overall argument invalid.

Premise #1
Deafness is not a disability.

Yes, it is. It is the profound lack of a sense which the overwhelming majority of people have, and upon which our society is built. There may indeed be benefits to being deaf, but there are more problems than benefits. It is a net loss.

Premise #2
If you were born deaf, you do not know what you are missing.

False. While true that you do not have the experience to describe what you are missing, it is perfectly rational to say that you are missing a sense which others possess, rely upon, and enjoy.

Premise #3
A deaf person does not experience a net gain when their hearing is restored.

False. The gain of a sense, particularly as a child when during childhood the brain is plastic enough to absorb that sense, is a net gain.

Premise #4
Giving a child a sense they did not have, or have lost, is identical to taking that same sense from a child who currently has it.

False. Restoring hearing, or Giving hearing, are not the same as Taking hearing away. This is basic mathematics.

Premise #5
A parent who can hear, who chooses to treat a child who is deaf, is doing so because they want their child to more resemble themselves.

False. A parent restores a child's hearing because deafness is a disability (Premise #1) and because a child whose hearing is restored can experience a net gain (Premise #3). It also goes along with an unspoken rule that parents wish the best for their children.

Related - it is a false conclusion as well. There are more deaf children with hearing parents than deaf children with deaf parents, as there are overwhelmingly more hearing parents in general. Thus, any given cure of deafness in a child is more likely to result in a child more like their parents. That is coincidence, not causality.

Premise #6
It is acceptable for parents to physically modify their children to more closely resemble themselves.

False. It is never acceptable for a parent to cause physical trauma to their children for the sole purpose of making parenting easier. Related - the bond that may grow as a result of a parent and child sharing a disability is not in any way guaranteed to last into adulthood.

Conclusion
The doctors left the room because they were uncomfortable with the thought of harming a child, not because they were filled with realization that the presenter was correct.

Problem is.... So many people think Deaf people are lower than nothing just because they're Deaf. Just like how KKK think Blacks are lower than dirt, or Nazis think Jews are less than worthless.

Again.. Same as all other medical people with same perspection on deafness. They are too focused on the deafness mechanically and medically. Sure, gaining hearing ability is a "net" gain (not a completely straightforwarding net gain) because you'll have filter set in place in brain if you get hearing ability and reduce the efficiency of the vision ability. I actually love increased efficiency of the vision personally because it serves me so much where I live and work. I am able to do things that many hearing employees kept wondering how I could do those all because I have rather very unique perspective of the world, ideas, etc cuz I was raised in very silent world that helped to shape the way of my thinking. They actually NEED me at NASA all due to my uniqueness that no other employees could match. I rather retain my uniqueness than to gain hearing ability. To me, it's a net loss if I am hearing since birth.. I also have great Deaf community and has unique deaf culture.. Gain hearing ability loses that. I don't want to belong in hearing community because it's too standard and too majority for my taste. To follow the majority always bores me. I always love to do things differently from the majority. Deafness allows me to do so and always give me high motivation and lot of fun. I love challenges and break down obstacles.. Deafness give me strength to do so. Gaining hearing ability removes too much obstacles and challenges that actually weakens my character overall. It won't give me same motivation and drive if I'm hearing. To me, it's a net loss. Deafness makes my character very strong and unique and I actually stand out in the crowd even NASA.. I always shock people all the time what I could do. I do enjoy that.. If I am hearing, I never can shock them. BORING... To me, it's a net loss.. Thank you. Hearing people are way too focused on deafness on ear mechanically and medically alone instead of looking at the whole picture of the deafness.. It's akin to look at hand ALONE what it can do but didn't realize that hand belongs to the whole body and paints entirely different picture..

For premise #1. .Did I say that Deafness is NOT a disability? No. I said that deafness *IS* a disability BUT NOT a handicap. Handicap can be overcome if deaf people learned to turn the disadvantage into advantage. It can be done easily.

Lol at the conclusion about doctors leaving room cuz harmful to child.. Newsflash.. Doctors that we, deaf people, always see always think of $$$ and use us as guinea pigs for their experiment.. That's why we learned to hate those type of doctors. We sure have lot of resentment against them because they are the ones who kept trying to destroy our lives but we are quite resilient. They don't really care if experiments on deaf child fail. They just try different methods as long as they can earn good $.. $ is most powerful force to do bad or good. They had done bad things to us.. They did experiment on me and it crippled my 6 years worth of education opportunity when I was kid but thankfully, I made up those lost time on my own time to learn things quickly. But not many deaf people have similar brain as mine so they got crippled forever thanks to those experiments and it won't stop doctors to continue..

Heh, FBI/CIA actually has "army" of deaf lipreaders to eavesdrop people's communication lip-wise at great distance because those certain type of deaf people are actually above average at lip reading that hearing people because they spent entire life reading lips without sounds.. That's one example.. There are many certain groups of deaf people to serve the benefit of USA that you aren't even aware of..

Heck, you know the football huddle? Who's idea is that? Hearing football stole that idea from deaf football team to hide their sign language communication and got implemented into their hearing football system that huddles are now required (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huddle) .

Communication technology advancement that you saw so far was actually largely because of the Existance of deaf people and their participation.. Video phone right now is becoming mainstreamed ALL because of the HUGE HUGE demand in that market by deaf community that we already got deaf companies developing that technology a decade ago and it now is starting to benefit hearing community down the road. There are so many technologies that were developed for deaf people ended up in hearing community with different purposes.. Heck. The telephone technology was developed for Alexander Bell's deaf wife only to revolutize the world..

Funny, 2 years ago.. NASA team in electronic system branch struggle to develop algorithms to give rover ability to self-localize themselves using omni-directional camera (using vision) to remove the reliance on GPS to give them. Heck, nobody in the world had that breakthrough YET. They knew that I excelled in vision field because I spent all of my life analyzing things in the vision to understand things better than hearing people on average thanks to increased efficiency so offered me to take that project and I gladly took it. I solved that problem in just 6 months and wrote the paper about it. My paper got accepted by ICINCO 2009 (http://www.icinco.org/ICINCO2009/CFP.asp) to give presentation to the audience. I would be very first deaf person EVER to give presentation that will shock everybody along with my breakthough in robotic vision field that I was first one to solve it. However, I wasn't able to go ALL because of lack of travel funding (thanks to USA recession) and EEO (they REFUSED to give me $ for travel) who always hate me cuz they seems to rather to keep disabled people especially deaf people in low profile for some reason.. So, my paper wasn't published yet.. I might re-submit this year or two once NASA finally get travel fund going and get my darn paper published.. I'm not going to explain how it works yet.. I'm darn proud of what I'm doing. I have unique skill that hearing people don't have for the vision field because I always think things visually and understand vision MORE than them because I spent entire life using vision NOT sound.. I would LOVE to continue the robotic vision field to get it much more advanced but too bad that NASA funding at my center isn't covering it and the demand of my skills from various branches are tearing me apart so I had to choose "best" projects to have ability to help NASA well as long as it got funding.. I hope to land on robotic or machine vision field once again in near future once funding for it finally comes in..I already have many ideas how to make it better and practical without the need of GPS and helps it to develop topological mapping visually that can be very handy for solar exploration system for rovers that lack GPS. I think I would probably propose that idea to NASA and get the project going and I definitely will be team leader in that field to get it going. Right now, I am too focused on the cold fusion technology cuz it's also offers most promising break-through.. Soon, we will finally have deuterium generator operational this late Spring! NASA is darn fun place to work!!!!! I actually put DAWN AIR (3-d wind profile for hurricanes) at back-burner cuz it's "less" interesting for me, heh. I understand that my DAWN AIR team leader is kinda disappointed and he tried his best to convince me how cool his project is and offered some interesting tasks to do but LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reaction) project held most of my attention at this time.. I don't care if DAWN AIR team kicks me out cuz I do have several other projects waiting and would take them if they are that interesting.. They do compete for my help. They kept telling me that I'm practically irreplaceable because I am not like any other employees they ever seen in their lives. Of course! All cuz of deafness that gave me rather unique perspective on everything.. I LOVEEEE BEING DEAF!!!!! That's actually NET gain for me thanks to unique skill sets and perspective and way of thinking that I grew up that deafness helped to shape my character/talents.. It's no way that hearing people can match mine.. They excel in their own ways that hearing helped to shape their character/talents and there are too many hearing people out there that actually are "similiar" and too competing.. There aren't many deaf people out there so that have unique skill sets that hearing workplaces need badly that hearing employees couldn't deliver well but deaf employees can for specific tasks, etc..

You see? Deaf people actually serve unique role in the world with their unique set of skills that hearing people lack. Too bad that world doesn't utilize those deaf people. They spent too much time trying to convert those deaf people into hearing people OR just put them in isolated areas and forget about them because they viewed them as liability.. That's very bad approach.. Utilize them will actually improve world's overall productivity by adding new areas that can come up from those deaf population's contributions that will eventually benefit hearing community. Repressing deaf population is very negative way and shuns the overall productivity level. It's exactly the same way as Repressing black population for too long to shun their overall productivity level. Inspire them and encourage them to become very productivity WILL improve the world overall productivity level. Too bad that majority are too busy not letting it to happen.. Once they accept/respect minorities (races, gender, disability, etc) ' ways and encourage their productivity level, the world will be better off rather than repress them..

Thank God for deaf people Will. In no way a put down of deaf people, and your different perspective is important to the world. How boring it would be if everyone was the same. As a photographer i have met a good number of deaf people. I always found them to be more patient then other people when doing our photos, but have only met them like that so i really have no deep prospective into this. I was just commenting on that it is a handicap, but many over come this and excel as yourself.

BTW i was aware of such things for CIA/FBI and it makes total sense as not many hearing people could match their skills.