Please don’t take this the wrong way: Sound & hearing is a BIG part of my life, and while I have experimented with sensory deprivation (sound and vision, years ago), it is still hard to imagine that as a permanent condition.
However... It almost appears as if you are handicapping yourself. I’ve been around a decent while, and have had the blessing of, well, “so-so” sight, and good hearing over that time. But when it comes to, not enjoyment, but real learning, I’d have to say that 80-90% of what I have learned since I was a young child was learned by reading. (This excludes transitory stuff such as the daily traffic report, or physical learning, such as how to shoot basketball, not that I’m any expert at the latter!) I sat here after reading your post and thought about it a while: I truly believe that at least 95% of what I have learned in some sort of academic sense I could have learned if I was deaf. In fact, without the often distraction of sound (particularly music) I surely would have learned even more in some areas.
Now, that doesn’t mean I’d want to give up music(!!!). But, humans are adaptable, and most real “knowledge” out there doesn’t require sound to be communicated. I doubt there was much in the Berkley lectures that cannot be accessed in other ways.
OTOH, the Berkley free online lectures are (or were) a convenience. So, I’d also ask, how can this outcome, at least as it presently stands, be viewed as a positive? Or is spite your goal?
Would it not have been better for the plaintiffs to have spent their time and money working WITH Berkley and Gallaudet University to approach charitable organizations to fund and organize the addition of closed captioning to the videos?
I wonder if people who speak only Afghan will sue because Berkley non-existence CC was not in THEIR language!