Thanks for the thoughtful response. I will agree that there is a serious lack of empathy within our society for most of these kids of issues/people.

I was focusing really on the practical decision to cancel the talk, against the will of the speaker, and all of the other people who wanted to attend. I think that the talk did not need to be canceled, and the people who have very serious emotional responses to these situations know that about themselves, and would just avoid the talk or walk out. But that is the practical part of this, and I agree that some people (including me) tend to focus that those parts, leaving no room for thinking about what can and should be done in these situations. Compromises can be made, like giving full disclosure and proper warnings _before_ subjecting people to situations that are going to be painful for them. Also, simply recognizing that this is a very real problem, for a lot of people. That goes a long way.

-Mark

Is it too much to expect the rest of the world to take some care and have some empathy in helping you manage? I mean really - sure it's all a blind person's problem for being blind. Or an elderly person's problem for being elderly. But still, we make allowances for these "problems" and treat such people with dignity and respect. We make changes to how we'd interact with the world to accommodate them, and make them feel as comfortable as possible.

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This is a bit of a fallacy when put it in the context of the actual issue that we are talking about. You think that "Is it too much to expect the rest of the world to take some care and have some empathy..." means that a presentation at a major conference should be completely cancelled (30 minutes before it was to begin) because one person walked up to the guy in charge and said "I won't like one part of this presentation because I have some personal issues that relate to that small part, and it will make me uncomfortable"

That is not "taking some care to have some empathy", that is insanity!

Do you seriously think that was a reasonable accommodation, like helping a blind person cross the street?

for the fire drill!