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Had this conversation with someone who chose to no longer be at my table after meeting a blind NPC
(files.catbox.moe)
Another player who was at the table during the incident sent me this meme after the problem player in question (they had a history) left the group chat.
Felt like sharing it here because I'm sure more people should keep this kind of thing in mind.
In our world we do have the magic to push a wheelchair around, and it's not even hard to do this. Tinkerers can cast the spell of self-propelling wheelchair in their garages.
But magicing someone's legs to work is still a far way off.
(Remember, when magic is well explained and documented, and people get used to it, they tend to call it technology.)
Depends on the kind of magic. Magic machines that do wondrous things? Sure, technology. Magic where you manipulate energies with the power of thought and will alone? I'ma stick with magic, thank you.
"oh that's just telekinesis"
"cool nickname, still magic!"
If by "not even hard" you mean "costs as much as a car", then sure. My friend also let me know just how costly power chairs are.
"Not even hard" and "costs as much as a car" aren't mutually exclusive when it comes to the field of medicine, especially in the US. Many drugs cost pharmaceutical companies pennies to manufacture, but they still sell them for hundreds per pill simply because they can. Medical equipment often employs similar price gouging for no other reason than to profit as much as possible from people who have little choice but to pay.
My friend talked a lot about the forces at work. Not all of it was simple capitalism. Disabled people are notoriously hard to design for because each disabled person is different and has different needs. This kind of business is not scalable and disabled people are already a minority. Even proper hand wheelchairs are fucking expensive cuz only a couple companies make them.
That does make sense. But still, making a powered chair is not at all technologically difficult. You need the chair, two motors and an input system that works for the user.
Sure, if there's a lot of bespoke parts and manual labour, coupled with basically no economy of scale, it's going to be expensive. But it's not difficult.
It's expensive for sure, but that's mostly because powered chairs are made by medical companies and in comparatively low numbers.
A mobility scooter has almost all components a powered chair has, and these can be had for as little as €1000.
The technology behind a powered chair isn't hard.
And even if we use the high price of a power scooter: How much does it cost to make a paraplegic person walk?