[HN Gopher] Banning words won't make the world more just
___________________________________________________________________
Banning words won't make the world more just
Author : furrowedbrow
Score : 717 points
Date : 2023-03-02 18:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| ckemere wrote:
| My takeaway from the article was that rather than spending lots
| of cognitive effort/ capital on language, we should invest in
| improving access for the disabledn and marginalized, actually
| stand up for the poor, etc.
|
| For people like me that come to look at the discussion. Quick
| TL;DR - lots of "I agree, too much wokeness" from people that
| chose not to get the point. BUT also exciting conversations like
| "how can I start in trying to make my web material more
| accessible for the blind." HN community has some really great
| contributors.
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| All too often the people calling for a certain change, often
| aggressively and with great judgement ...
|
| Have never bothered to ask those they claim to fight for what
| they need or want.
|
| Its a form of virtue signalling that needs to end.
| iamnotsure wrote:
| How about recovering forgotten words.
| ftxbro wrote:
| a meta comment but look how much engagement the culture war posts
| get in here
| t344344 wrote:
| Is not "equity language" just another form of neocolonialism? How
| can "rich educated people" rename entire ethnic group (latinx)
| without their consent? Also there is nothing offensive about
| being "poor"...
|
| Equity language is just another tool to oppress people.
| mc32 wrote:
| It's the new prescriptivists who want to set the rules for the
| commoners to follow -reminds me of the apocryphal story about a
| Spanish king of some sort who had a lisp and in turn, the
| population not wanting to offend him began speaking with a lisp
| so Spanish ended up with a "th" sound where other romance
| languages did not.
| herewulf wrote:
| That's apocryphal. Sound change in language is constant and
| "s" and "th" are close sounds. This was just a natural
| process in Castilian Spanish.
| majormajor wrote:
| The term latinx didn't come out of "rich educated people" -
| certainly a lot of educated folk have been pushing it in the
| last decade (self-identifying grad students and recent college
| grads, for instance) - but there's a weird sort of prejudice
| going on in assuming everything can only come out of "rich
| educated [non-latino, based on your use of "their" there]
| people"
|
| Some discussion here:
| https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-27/op-ed-latin...
| t344344 wrote:
| Ok, two points:
|
| 1) anyone who studies in US university, is "rich educated"
| for South American standards
|
| 2) Quote from article bellow:
|
| > a queer Latina ... mostly from white, right-wing Latino
| men.
|
| > "When you're a white Latino ... Black Latino ...
| transgender Latino, next to a queer Latino, next to an
| Indigenous Latino
|
| > understand the diversity of our community
|
| Those three paragraphs paint picture that "Latino" is some
| sort of community. And you can be in-group or out-group (by
| being right-wing-white-Latino). There is also somebody who
| speaks on behalf of "our community".
|
| But that is simply not true. It is an ethnic group. Its name
| may change over a few decades, if new name gains use in South
| America. Not in a few years, because some US citizens said
| so, and decided to rename "their community"!
| brabel wrote:
| There's literally no one in the actual Latin American
| countries that call themselves Latinos outside the USA (and
| perhaps some other rich countries).
|
| I would be called a Latino in the USA, being a Brazilian of
| brown skin. That amuses me as I have literally never
| thought of myself or my fellow Brazilians as Latinos...
| we're simply Brazilian (we may be region-specific, like
| carioca - from Rio, or Paulista, from Sao Paulo... but
| still Brazilian, obviously) and I am pretty sure Mexicans,
| Guatemalans, Peruvians, Colombians and others are the
| same... just like white Americans do the same: are you ever
| a white person when presenting yourself to another
| American, or e.g. Texan, Californian or whatever??
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| Where the term originated matters to some extent, but also
| where it comes from & is being used also matters. And the
| drive for 'Latinx' is coming from rich educated people.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| The Latinx term is a neocolonial re-appropriation of the
| proud heritage of many peoples that isn't even
| grammatically correct.
|
| I know no one from these groups that uses this term.
|
| > And the drive for 'Latinx' is coming from rich educated
| people.
|
| rich educated people, or rich uneducated people pushing a
| narrative and inventing words that are patently offensive
| to the speakers of said language?
| ilyt wrote:
| It coming from some random mentally demented blogs is even
| worse origin
| [deleted]
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| People want to recognize inequities and lived experiences and
| choose to do something about it that is within their power,
| change their language. As the article embraces, this is a
| morally driven impulse that is unimpeachable in its intent, but
| in aggregate, fails and sometimes, even oppresses. Interesting
| article.
| autodev1 wrote:
| I wonder... what is the difference between an "experience" vs
| a "lived experience"?
|
| If I have an experience-- such as walking through the park,
| this afternoon and picking a blackberry... What is a "lived
| experience" version of that same experience?
| ticviking wrote:
| As our societies functional literacy has declined we have
| lost words that gave us nuanced shades of meaning.
|
| "Experience with" meaning, "Have dealt with this
| personally, first hand" gradually became, "has been near or
| studied and feels comfortable claiming authority on that
| basis." So the new compound word "Lived experience" was
| created to allow us to still use the first definition
| reliably.
|
| Many times people who have "experience with" a topic have
| really "studied" it.
| feoren wrote:
| > As our societies functional literacy has declined
| [Citation badly needed]
|
| Words change. That doesn't mean everyone is getting
| stupider. In fact the more literate people are, the
| faster words are likely to change, since the more
| situations they'll be put to use in.
| ticviking wrote:
| > Citation provided
| https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-
| literacy#:~:text=by....
|
| Functional literacy means more than simply knowing
| specific vocabulary words. It includes the shared
| knowledge to use and understand idioms and cultural
| references.
|
| Needing to coin a new expression to replace a word we
| already have a perfectly good word for seems to be a
| symptom of poor literacy. I suppose the chronic
| dishonesty and doublespeak involved in corporate jargon
| could be the source of this phenomenon instead.
| [deleted]
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| It's the difference between growing up blind and growing up
| with a sister who is blind. Only one of those is 'lived'
| experience with blindness.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| "lived experience" was generally first used to
| differentiate between a person saying "I have experience
| with x issue" who could be saying "I've studied it; I've
| worked with the population" but "lived experience" makes it
| specific to being an individual's own life.
| sanderjd wrote:
| It's still used that way. I'm always confused why people
| criticize this one in particular. The distinction makes
| perfect sense. There's an enormous amount of stuff that
| I've read a bunch about or watched a lot of media about
| or talked about with people, but is nonetheless outside
| my lived experience.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Because claiming experience with something when you've
| only studied it is a lie.
| ticviking wrote:
| The idea of having direct first-hand contact with a thing
| is part of the understanding of the word "experience."
| Second hand contact or learning is generally some other
| noun or verb, depending on what we're talking about.
| sanderjd wrote:
| The word "experience" encompasses many kinds of contact,
| which is why it is often modified in various ways. It is
| not redundant to say "first-hand experience" or "direct
| experience". These are commonly used and broadly
| understood. There is no reason "lived experience" should
| be any different, and indeed I think it is more of an
| anti-woke shibboleth to make fun of this than it is a
| woke shibboleth to use it. Normal people with no skin on
| either side of that game understand it perfectly well.
| pwinnski wrote:
| My family members have experience with deafness. They've
| had direct first-hand contact with someone who is deaf in
| one ear, and have learned how to interact with that
| person successfully. They are familiar with the
| challenges of being deaf (in one ear, least), both from
| having interacted with the person, and because the person
| in question has explained the challenges they have faced.
|
| I have lived experience with deafness. I've been deaf in
| one ear for decades now. However well I explain myself to
| my family members, there is a degree to which their
| experience will never be the same as mine, despite their
| first-hand contact with me.
|
| We can either reserve the word "experience" for me, and
| try to police it so that nobody can say they have
| experience without being prepared to demonstrate the
| first-hand nature of their experience, or we can
| understand that people will use the word to mean
| "prolonged exposure" or similar, and add a qualifier when
| important to people like me: e.g. I have lived experience
| as a deaf person.
| User23 wrote:
| > I wonder... what is the difference between an
| "experience" vs a "lived experience"?
|
| It's a shibboleth that indicates adherence to a certain
| world view. The speaker is communicating that they are a
| Good Person and thus you should give their experiences
| greater weight.
| jimbokun wrote:
| That is the exact opposite of "doing something about it".
| nonethewiser wrote:
| It's oppressive to both the group being used and those that
| don't buy in.
| rayiner wrote:
| I love reading this stuff to figure out what new words elite
| white people have for me. Apparently I'm not a "minority" or a
| "naturalized citizen" anymore, and my kids aren't "second
| generation Americans."
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm involved in local politics in Oak Park, IL, also known as
| the People's Republic of Oak Park, 85.5% Clinton in '16, 72%
| college educated, median income about $15k higher than
| Evanston, and I have never heard any of these words in the
| elite white conversations I am continually dragged into.
|
| These guides get published to give The Groups something to
| do. Very few people in the real world --- yes, even the elite
| whites --- take them seriously. The only durable change I've
| noticed in the last few years is capitalizing Black, which is
| something our mutual fave John McWhorter has been advocating
| for some time.
| prawn wrote:
| I know you were responding to the "elite white people" bit,
| but is there an age element at play with this? If there are
| people that have absorbed the idea that you unquestioningly
| adjust your speaking/writing to be a perfectly respectful
| person, I'd guess they were 20-30yo?
| rayiner wrote:
| It's definitely "in the real world" here in DC, especially
| in the legal profession. This is where Sierra Club is,
| after all.
| tptacek wrote:
| So, in The Groups, then, and around the headquarters city
| of The Groups.
| testfoobar wrote:
| It's also heavily pushed in high school level journalism
| now.
| tptacek wrote:
| What, and where?
| viridian wrote:
| I'm in academia, just underwent this sort of training
| this week. Not interested in risking self identifying so
| I'll only go so far as to say that the Sierra Club's
| language is fairly close to how we are expected to talk
| with students, faculty, and staff. It is of course a
| "learning process" and so there is room for "growth and
| critical conversations", but the die has been cast, so to
| speak.
| tptacek wrote:
| The parent comment is referring to high schools. I'm not
| surprised, and don't think anyone else is either, that
| there might be a university that has gone fully up its
| own butt this way. I'm curious to hear stories about high
| schools that have formalized it in some way, though. Do
| you have a story like that?
| testfoobar wrote:
| I'm sorry I can't point you to a public online source. My
| comment is anecdotal; relying on my own observations
| across family and friends with kids at the HS level. It
| is pretty obvious speaking to them that their advisors
| and administrators expect all written pieces to comply
| with DEI principles. I have asked if there is a formal
| style-book and no one has pointed me to one yet. But
| there is a powerful group think. Not complying is asking
| for censure or excommunication.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| There's a sign in the assistant principles offices at my
| local high school which defines what critical race theory
| is, including the "critique of liberalism" part.
|
| I would ban public high schools from encouraging a
| "critique of liberalism". Being a critic takes no skill
| and doesn't help the world. Critical theory, and critical
| thinking are extremely overrated skills. We need
| constructive thinking and constructive communication.
| tptacek wrote:
| It is not in fact the case that you can work out what
| Critical Theory, Critical Legal Theory, and Critical Race
| Theory (3 distinct concepts originating at 3 different
| points in the 20th century) axiomatically from the the
| word "critic".
| Pigalowda wrote:
| I'm at UW - mentioned in the article. It's rampant and
| absurd here. I can't wait to get out. This place has only
| driven me right politically.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| > capitalizing Black, which is something our mutual fave
| John McWhorter has been advocating for some time
|
| Is this sarcasm? I am not quite sure what this is supposed
| to convey.
| tptacek wrote:
| No, there is nothing sarcastic about this.
| testfoobar wrote:
| We'd have to know the CMYK value of your skin before sharing
| updated 2023 nomenclature. Please download the app.
| undersuit wrote:
| >How can "rich educated people" rename entire ethnic group
| (latinx) without their consent
|
| I mean someone named them in the first place. The people of
| Latin America didn't ask to be called Latinos, it was assigned
| to them, purportedly by a French man.
| muyuu wrote:
| in more ways than one
|
| they have no qualms in oppressing and showing intolerance
| towards cultures that won't play ball with those linguistic
| impositions, especially when they cannot just ignore them as
| foreign
|
| they will impose actual systemic intolerance and litmus tests
| to force their cultural supremacy
|
| the people who say disagreement is invalidating someone's
| existence will actually deny the existence of the culture they
| spun from, violently so if necessary
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Equity language is just another tool to oppress people.
|
| And absolutely everything in this World should be about someone
| oppressing someone else.
| 0dayz wrote:
| I'm actually a bit torn on this. On the one hand it does seem to
| be very silly but also ironically enough excluding certain groups
| (religious and social outcasts).
|
| On the other I think there is a valid point in looking over how
| language is used and what implications it has.
|
| But to try and over correct it with new words is like trying to
| add another layer of paper to make the boat not leak. Since
| instead of saying you are a retard, now you just say: person with
| mental challenges.
|
| It has the same result when used as an insult, it stigmatizes
| people with "retardation" and it still insults the other person.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| This has got to be one of the most over-anxiated, one side
| arguing with itself sociological phenomena since the white slaver
| panic that afflicted upper-class ladies in the late 19th century.
|
| There is some magazine wash lib, crucifying themselves on this
| hill on the HN front page every other day. Yet there is
| practically no one arguing back.
|
| Except of course on Twitter. Which apparently some large set of
| journalists believe reflects some significant portion of public
| opinion and influence.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I can't tell if you're referring to the phenomenon of banning
| words, or the phenomenon of criticizing banning words. The
| first sentence makes it seem like you're referring to the word-
| banning, but the second sentence is about magazines, which
| makes it seem like you're referring to The Atlantic (which is
| criticizing the word-banning).
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| The free speech panic. I'm all for free speech but we are
| like defcon 100 from anything resembling an actual clampdown
| on speech and it's extremely tiresome to watch people with
| editorial boards and national readerships act as if they are
| being brave for saying what pretty much everyone already
| believes.
| Svip wrote:
| > defcon 100
|
| So everything is fine? DEFCON 5 is the _lowest_ threat
| level, it's DEFCON 1 people should worry about.[0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Yes everything is fine. Norms around language change. 50
| years ago you could lose your job for impugning most
| major religious, governmental or other "respectable"
| institutions in writing. You probably weren't going to
| jail for it but you just didn't talk that way about the
| Catholic church.
|
| At the turn of the century, the same kind of uber-libs
| who are so jealous of their speech today were getting
| anyone who even tangentially endorsed labor organization
| kicked out of college econ departments and black-balled.
| One econ professor had some good things to say of The
| Knights of Labor which was the most ubiquitous and one of
| the most moderate labor organizations in the country, The
| Nation called into question his economics chair. Godkin
| himself tried to have the man fired from Johns Hopkins.
| Many economists who didn't tow the classically liberal
| line found themselves dealing with unhappy boards of
| trustees.
|
| Two wrongs obviously don't make a right. But this is not
| new. The people claiming it is just have very little
| familiarity with history. And they take for granted that
| they have just never been on the wrong side of language
| norms.
|
| Have the woke language grammar police gone too far?
| Probably. Does it warrant these interminable
| sanctimonious soap boxes from the Atlantic and their
| like? No.
| luckylion wrote:
| > Norms around language change.
|
| That was addressed in the article, I think: _Although the
| guides refer to language "evolving," these changes are a
| revolution from above._
|
| You reference slow, natural evolution of norms. Those
| happen everywhere, not just in language, but they happen
| organically. People change and then they change what they
| tolerate, how they speak etc. It's not that someone
| decides "people now have to speak like this, so that they
| then change to become like me". That's the "creating a
| new man" approach that lead to endless suffering under
| the socialists/communists, though I guess now it would be
| "creating a new person".
|
| > Two wrongs obviously don't make a right. But this is
| not new.
|
| "Everything is fine, because we've seen bad things happen
| before, so this isn't new, and only new things can be a
| problem"?
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > You reference slow, natural evolution of norms. Those
| happen everywhere, not just in language, but they happen
| organically. People change and then they change what they
| tolerate, how they speak etc. It's not that someone
| decides "people now have to speak like this, so that they
| then change to become like me". That's the "creating a
| new man" approach that lead to endless suffering under
| the socialists/communists, though I guess now it would be
| "creating a new person".
|
| That hasn't been true since the printing press and
| particularly the invention of the nation state.
|
| > Everything is fine, because we've seen bad things
| happen before, so this isn't new, and only new things can
| be a problem"?
|
| That's disingenuous. You know that if these authors were
| writing these articles in the spirit that these kinds of
| editorial limitations were a long standing problem that
| needed to be addressed, they wouldn't be on the front
| page and commented ad-nauseum. The entire selling point
| of this kind of article is that it is attacking some
| novel and dangerous schorge which menaces our very
| rights. They are broadly in the genre of panic-mongering.
|
| What we consider "free speech" has existed since about
| the 70s. If you considered that paradigm to be free
| speech, in which there was virtually nothing you could
| say which would get you arrested but there were things
| you could say which could get your fired, then you must
| concede that what is happening now is a roughly
| equivalent level of free speech. If you find these new
| limits on your speech onerous but not the old ones, then
| your gripe is with the flavor of the speech which might
| get you fired not the fact that speech exists which might
| get you fired.
|
| These articles are generally written by people who just
| happened to live lives and held values which were highly
| compatible with the rules of the institutions. So they
| are by and large, blissfully unaware of the previously
| extant limitation and how they biased the discourse.
| luckylion wrote:
| > That hasn't been true since the printing press and
| particularly the invention of the nation state.
|
| I disagree. There's not much success in the state forming
| its citizens, nor with the media. Take Germany for
| example. Germany's public broadcaster is deeply
| progressive on all social issues, and has a funding of
| EUR8bn per year. Most of Germany's private print media is
| similarly progressive. They've been pushing hard on
| genderized speech for years, yet the population rejects
| it continuously. If a primary objective isn't fulfilled
| with near-endless budgets, the tool seems to just not
| work for the task at hand.
|
| > If you find these new limits on your speech onerous but
| not the old ones, then your gripe is with the flavor of
| the speech which might get you fired not the fact that
| speech exists which might get you fired.
|
| These new speech rules are strongly being pushed, from
| state/quasi-state institutions (e.g. universities), are
| being pushed into legislation and aren't based on the
| population's norms (or there wouldn't be any opposition).
|
| There's a difference between going into a room, behaving
| a certain way and the group rejecting your behavior, and
| going into a room, behaving a certain way and having one
| person pull a gun and forcing the group to reject you.
| The former is an organic group-response based on their
| shared values, it can change over time. The latter is
| what the speech-crusaders are trying to do.
| yibg wrote:
| "Mother" being a no no doesn't both you?
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| A constutional amendment that had a snowball's chance in
| hell of passing which banned the use of the word "mother"
| would start to bother me. A handful of largely out of
| touch institutions believing that they are doing Rosa
| Parks type activism by banning the word "mother" from
| their meeting minutes shouldn't be mentioned in an
| article on any media site with a readership above 5,000.
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure how to parse your comment.
|
| Did you notice this section?
|
| >Equity-language guides are proliferating among some of the
| country's leading institutions, particularly nonprofits. The
| American Cancer Society has one. So do the American Heart
| Association, the American Psychological Association, the
| American Medical Association, the National Recreation and Park
| Association, the Columbia University School of Professional
| Studies, and the University of Washington.
|
| >....
|
| >Public criticism led Stanford to abolish outright its
| Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative--not for being
| ridiculous, but, the university announced, for being "broadly
| viewed as counter to inclusivity."
|
| Even if no one is arguing back, it seems like the language
| police are winning.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I would ask you to consider where the mass of everyday people
| get their information. Consider the edifices from which
| actual powers spring.
|
| Now read that list again and see if it seems important.
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| Fair point, but on the other hand, if language policing
| leads the American Medical Association to make decisions
| which decrease the quality of medical care, I'm not
| enthusiastic about that. The relative importance of the
| opinions of everyday people vs these associations is not
| obvious.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35006303
|
| Re: "the edifices from which actual powers spring" -- if
| you want a high-paying job as a doctor, maybe you'll be
| best served by adopting their language guidelines. I could
| see the trend spreading through the general population
| because playing the language game becomes the best way to
| achieve "actual powers".
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I think the thing much more likely to shorten people's
| lives than their doctor not being able to speak frankly
| because of woke vocabulary, is not having a house. I'm
| not even talking about the homeless here. The Atlantic
| should be running an article every day extolling the
| virtues of home building and questioning the morals of a
| country which fails to shelter even working people.
| Rather than pouring over the editorial policy of wonkish
| publications, they should be lambasting every state
| legislature that so far has done nothing to ensure there
| are enough houses.
|
| I think that far worse for democracy than woke
| grammarians ratioing you on Twitter, is the rise of a
| surveillance state which previously couldn't exist but is
| now totally enabled because of AI automation. Obama
| firmly planted mass surveillance into and "acceptable"
| "legal" framework. We have learned little of what this
| apparatus can do operationally since the Snowden leaks
| which were before the deep learning stuff really
| exploded. The Atlantic should be questioning every day
| the moral fiber of a supposedly open and democratic
| society which has a shadow supreme court and an entire
| secret apparatus.
|
| What I'm willing to bet has a far greater impact on
| people's ability to control their employment future and
| therefore their own autonomy far more than the
| possibility of getting fired for accidentally saying
| "gimp" during the next inclusivity training? The
| breakdown of organized labor and growing inequality. The
| Atlantic should be railing every day about the fact that
| sub-living wages and make workers desperately dependant
| upon their employer and less able to exercise their
| democratic rights.
|
| But if you write for the Atlantic, you have friends in
| CIA. Your kids go to daycare with the kids of several
| corporate VPs. You don't know anyone that cleans rooms 10
| hours a day and lives in a Super 8 for lack of permanent
| affordable housing. Writing about those things is
| actually controversial. It's actually risky. So instead,
| you turn inward.
|
| This country's elite media appear to me to have totally
| lost any grip on reality. There is some fantastical
| disconnect from what actually impacts people. Instead
| they only see and obsess about what impacts them. They
| have gazed so far into their own naval that they are
| instead playing this Alternate Reality Game, chasing
| phantoms and navigating mind mazes.
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| The "this topic is less-than-maximally-important"
| critique applies to pretty much every story on the HN
| homepage.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| My critique is not that this topic has shown up "a time
| or two" on the HN frontpage. And to be perfectly frank, I
| think you know that. My critique is that this topic shows
| up constantly on the HN frontpage. And more broadly, it
| claims a level of coverage far out of proportion to its
| impact on almost anything.
| peyton wrote:
| Surprisingly, a lot more people struggle to understand
| their doctor than you'd think. It's a big problem.
|
| I'd bet there are way more people shortening their lives
| by mismanaging diabetes than by not having a house.
| zuminator wrote:
| Who's banning whom, though? If I decide to call a pregnant woman
| a "person with pregnancy" and someone jumps down my throat and
| screams, "she's a PREGNANT! WOMAN!!" who's doing the language
| policing here? If I've adopted some trendy equity lingo, that's
| on me. I'm not telling you what to call her, why are _you_
| insisting that I call her by the god-given American apple pie
| Christian traditional term? I mean, I can fairly guess why,
| because "person with pregancy" probably sounds icky,
| performative, and vaguely dehumanizing to you. But if you are a
| Defender of Free Speech, then you should be supporting my right
| to utter the terms I prefer from my own mouth, as long as I don't
| try to force those words into yours. And yes I know there are
| plenty of "progressive" types that will try to force people to
| use socially correct speech, but Packer's article is complaining
| about equity language guides being used by corporations, an
| entirely different phenomenon. Why is he bent out of shape about
| this? I don't have a problem with Sierra Club enforcing stylistic
| etiquette in their own writings, as long as I myself not being
| compelled to conform with their corporate judgment call. Polite
| language changes over time, and it's reasonable for companies to
| adapt to that. I'm old enough to have heard tales of when
| "pregnant" wasn't used in polite company at all, and people
| instead said, "she's with child."
|
| Packer recognizes this on some level, stating, "The battle
| against euphemism and cliche is long-standing and, mostly, a
| losing one." But I think he's a bit off with his next assertion:
| "What's new and perhaps more threatening about equity language is
| the special kind of pressure it brings to bear. The conformity it
| demands isn't just bureaucratic; it's moral." No, euphemism has
| always been moral. What's new now is that everyone's a publisher
| now thanks to social media. So it's not just Emily Post, The Hays
| Code, the US Congress, and other big gatekeepers determining by
| fiat what counts as offensive, and the rest of us passively
| falling into line. Now every loser gets to proclaim to the world
| how offended they are, and due to the nature of social media, the
| more controversial and theatrical their level of offense is, the
| more engagement they will receive. Couple that with modern
| tribalism where people have to prove their loyalty by completely
| accepting all tenets of their tribe and utterly rejecting all
| tenets of the opposing tribe.
|
| Personal anecdote: I was raised to believe that "the n-word" was
| inherently offensive. It was never spoken in my house, and to
| this day I don't use it in casual conversation. But I also loved
| the work of John Lennon. He had an album which featured a song
| entitled "Woman is the N*** of the World." The word was spelled
| out on the album cover and sung in the lyrics. When I was young I
| would feel hot and embarrassed listening to that track, so I
| would generally skip it. But I understood and appreciated the
| sentiment behind it. Even at a young age I could separate his
| laudable intentions from the potential inappropriateness of his
| methods. Anyway, it would never have occurred to me to stop
| listening to Lennon entirely just because of one cringey song.
| Much less to call radio stations or whatever and try to get them
| to stop playing his music. It's not that I don't get highly
| offended over people saying the N-word. I do. I just believe
| that, although we should strive not to be needlessly offensive,
| in the hierarchy of things that are wrong with the world,
| "getting offended" is pretty far down. Thus I can't get behind
| hair trigger "social justice" warriors who want to destroy the
| lives of everyone who in their estimation holds shitty personal
| beliefs. But what's even worse are the "free speech" warriors who
| with no sense of irony will attempt to enact laws banning the
| speech and ideas of their opponents.
| reportgunner wrote:
| This is common sense for people who agree.
|
| People who disagee don't do it to make the world more just.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > "elevate voices" replaces "empower"
|
| Doesn't sound very inclusive towards mute people, does it?
|
| Those morons are not even good at their own bullshit.
| Animats wrote:
| Is this going anywhere outside the US?
|
| The "pronouns" thing went nowhere in France. It was considered
| damaging to the French language.
|
| > The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to
| black, to African American, to Black, to person of color.
|
| Also, the shift from moron to mentally defective to retarded to
| whatever.
|
| This is such a sideshow. First, conservatism lost its way. Then
| liberalism lost its way. If only we had a center with a clue.
| Nobody wants to tackle the hard but solveable problems. We get
| "defund the police", rather than "fire the bottom 10% of cops".
| feoren wrote:
| > We get "defund the police", rather than "fire the bottom 10%
| of cops".
|
| That's because we _can 't_ fire the bottom 10% of cops. Who
| gets to decide who the bottom 10% are? There are deeply
| engrained cultural issues, systemic perverse incentives, in
| most police departments in the country. If you ask them to fire
| 10% of their forces, it's more likely to be the people who
| speak _out_ against the Clan Police than it is the "bad
| apples" you're thinking of.
|
| Besides, while maybe only a small minority would brutally
| murder a man by kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes and 43
| seconds while he cries for his mother, almost every single
| police officer on the force would stand there next to him and
| protect him while he did it. If you ran up and pushed the
| murderer off the man he's killing, trying to save his life, the
| other cops would _beat you_ , possibly to death. Not 10% of
| them. 90% of them. You would be beaten and arrested. It's 90%.
| At least.
|
| Whereas we _can_ reduce funding to police departments; that is
| within the power of elected officials that the "defund"
| movement can help get elected.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| How about mentality retarded -> special so that now "special"
| is the cruelest taunt on the schoolyard?
|
| As for "defund the police" I think I'm the only one who
| remembers the Reaganite "defund the left" slogan
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/11/opinion/defund-the-left.h...
|
| which "defund the police" seems to be modeled after.
| Thatcherism (the British strain of Reaganism that was just a
| bit meaner) became so ingrained that the fish who swim in it
| can't even recognize it. Today there is such a poverty of the
| imagination that the left can't imagine anything else.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > which "defund the police" seems to be modeled after.
|
| I think that's probably a coincidence. I didn't get the sense
| at the time that the genesis of that phrase was a sly
| historical reference.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I don't see it as a sly reference. I see it as a lack of
| imagination, cynicism, people getting carried along
| thoughtlessly.
| spiralx wrote:
| "Defund Planned Parenthood" has been a Republican rallying
| cry for abolishing PP for almost two decades and is but one
| of many "Defund" bills they've introduced going back years:
|
| * Defund EcoHealth Alliance Act (2023)
|
| * Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2023
|
| * Defund Cities that Defund the Police Act of 2021
|
| * Defund Federal Vaccine Mandates Act (2021)
|
| * Defund National Endowment for the Humanities Act of 2021
|
| * Defund Davos Act (2022)
|
| * Defund Putin Act (2022)
|
| * Defund the Ministry of Truth Act of 2022
|
| * Defund Planned Parenthood Act (2021)
|
| * Defund de Blasio's Injection Sites Act of 2021
|
| * Defunding Abortion Transportation Act (2022)
|
| * Defund the People's Liberation Army Act
|
| * Defund the Wuhan Institute of Virology Act
|
| * Defund Cities that Defund the Police Act of 2020
|
| * Defund National Endowment for the Humanities Act of 2019
|
| * Defund Executive Orders that Suppress Free Speech Act
|
| * Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2019
|
| * Defunding United Nations Act of 2017
|
| * Defund National Endowment for the Humanities Act of 2018
|
| * Defunding the Corrupt and Incompetent United Nations Act
| (2017)
|
| * Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2017
|
| * Defund the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Program Act of 2015
|
| * Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015
|
| * Defund Amnesty Act of 2015
|
| * Defund Obamacare Act of 2013
|
| * Defund United States Assistance to Pakistan Act of 2011
|
| * Defund Libya Act (2011)
|
| * Defund the Individual Mandate Act (2011)
|
| * Defund the Crooks Act (2010)
|
| * Defund ACORN Act (2010)
|
| All of these introduced by Republicans.
| alar44 wrote:
| [dead]
| jamesfinlayson wrote:
| In Australia yes - many big companies now ask you to put your
| preferred pronoun in your email footer.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > First, conservatism lost its way. Then liberalism lost its
| way.
|
| It's almost as if the underlying issue is independent of
| political leanings.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > We get "defund the police", rather than "fire the bottom 10%
| of cops".
|
| Even if there was an objective way to measure the bottom 10% of
| cops that wasn't subject to the same structural/institutional
| biases that are the main problem that "defund" is about, that
| would be a temporary solution that wouldn't address the
| fundamental problems.
|
| As it is, the structural problems means that any "Fire the
| bottom 10%" initiative in practice would reinforce, rather than
| mitigate, the problems, since the structural biases would
| factor into the evaluation.
| fyloraspit wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EMiSsxpP0E
| mrhektor wrote:
| `Equity language doesn't fool anyone who lives with real
| afflictions. It's meant to spare only the feelings of those who
| use it.`
|
| This perfectly describes what's going on. Rather than working on
| the actual problem, the people gunning for purifying language are
| yak shaving. I think we all recognise the good intentions, but
| how do we convince the people with good intentions that they're
| solving the wrong problem? Sounds like the classic case of a
| startup not talking to their customers :)
| dimva wrote:
| The ever-changing euphemistic language seems to me like mostly
| just a new way to be a hipster. The new vocabulary is a
| shibboleth to distinguish people who got the right sort of
| education from the right sort of places. Your knowledge of all
| the proper euphemisms to use sets you apart from the uneducated
| rubes.
|
| The problem is, it sets you apart from the people you're
| allegedly trying to help, given that the marginalized are rarely
| those who got an elite education at an elite institution. This is
| how Republicans, a coalition of rich tax-avoiders and poorer
| people resenting the contempt of the elites, stay in power. And
| their political program - slashing benefits, cutting social
| services - hurts marginalized people the most.
|
| By creating a way to be a "good person" that only the most hip
| and educated people can follow, the language policers are
| creating a rift between themselves and the people they are trying
| to help, preventing a political coalition from forming that would
| be able to pass helpful policies.
| echelon wrote:
| > shibboleth to distinguish people who got the right sort of
| education from the right sort of places
|
| I don't think you're right. We're being told our words are
| wrong on a daily basis.
|
| I think that this started with Tumblr in the early 2010's and
| has grown into a movement sometime during the Trump presidency.
| dimva wrote:
| Does this fundamentally disagree with anything I wrote?
| Before Tumblr became a place where some people showed off
| their inscrutable social justice terminology, it was mostly a
| place where hipsters showed off their inscrutably cool
| aesthetics.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| The Tumblr kids went to college and corporations
| fundad wrote:
| Has anyone considered that non-binary Latine benefit from
| inclusive language differently than people pretending there is a
| ban on the word Latino?
| deely3 wrote:
| Could you help me, I have a question: who should define how
| group of persons should be called? * Group that outside of the
| group * Majority of the group * Minority of the group * Any of
| the above when they think its for inclusion ?
| fundad wrote:
| Nice, you're discovering intersectionality.
|
| Seriously though, you are pressed about other people using a
| term you don't use even though you're free to say Latino or
| Hispanic as much as you want.
|
| The context matters immensely: The Sierra Club, a lobbyist
| group, conducts their work with politicians and government
| officials who are not pressed by inclusive language.
| [deleted]
| eimrine wrote:
| In my language there are three wordforms: masculine, feminitive
| and middle. If you want to harass someone you can just missplace
| a letter in any verb about some person and he will be insulted!
| English is enough good by not having such a word formation, why
| does somebody need to insist of euphemisms?
| monetus wrote:
| Language is fluid and dictionaries aren't that old historically.
| I wish more people thought about this. Go with what you feel is
| useful _and_ respectful. Brevity is useful, rephrasing of those
| words in common use will trigger people, and getting angry at
| someone 's desire to be respectful is going to trigger someone.
| Don't like it, come up with your own words. Shakespeare did.
|
| _when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first
| time_ - is bs when used to preclude the ideas of change and
| compassion, or shut down communication. I 'm guessing that likely
| wasn't its original intent, language is fluid.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| _As a practical matter, I strongly doubt whether a guy who has
| four small kids and makes $12,000 a year feels more empowered or
| less ill-used by a society that carefully refers to him as
| "economically disadvantaged" rather than "poor."
|
| Were I he, in fact, I'd probably find the PCE [Politically
| Correct English] term insulting---not just because it's
| patronizing (which it is) but because it's hypocritical and self-
| serving in a way that oft-patronized people tend to have really
| good subliminal antennae for.
|
| The basic hypocrisy about usages like "economically
| disadvantaged" and "differently abled" is that PCE advocates
| believe the beneficiaries of these terms' compassion and
| generosity to be poor people and people in wheelchairs, which
| again omits something that everyone knows but nobody except the
| scary vocabulary tape ads' announcer ever mentions---that part of
| any speaker's motive for using a certain vocabulary is always the
| desire to communicate stuff about himself. Like many forms of
| Vogue Usage, PCE functions primarily to signal and congratulate
| certain virtues in the speaker---scrupulous egalitarianism,
| concern for the dignity of all people, sophistication about the
| political implications of language---and so serves the self-
| regarding interests of the PC far more than it serves any of the
| persons or groups renamed._
|
| "Authority and American Usage"
| nonethewiser wrote:
| This reeks of criticizing others for your own faults. Someone
| who makes 12k is poor. If this is offensive to someone then
| clearly they have a low opinion of poor people. Yet everyone
| else is reprimanded for it.
| bilalnpe wrote:
| I don't have an issue with using the term poor to describe
| people lacking money but it has other definitions and uses.
|
| The second and third definitions I get from define:poor on
| Google are:
|
| - worse than is usual, expected, or desirable; of a low or
| inferior standard or quality.
|
| - (of a person) considered to be deserving of pity or
| sympathy.
|
| I suspect these might be why the term is discouraged.
| noah_buddy wrote:
| In ten years, the shoes become economically disadvantaged
| too
| schroeding wrote:
| In German the word for poor ("arm"), while there is some
| connection to pity like in English (one can be "arm dran",
| "poorly off"), can't be used to describe bad / undesirable
| quality.
|
| It was still replaced with "sozial schwach" (literally
| "socially weak", but actually means _financially_ weak,
| people who don 't have much money) in many contexts,
| especially by politicians and journalists.
|
| (Thankfully, there is a push against "sozial schwach", to
| use "arm" again - it's a horrible phrase)
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Are you seriously asserting when people say "poor people",
| they do so in a non-poverty manner and use it instead to
| describe people as inferior?
|
| Also, people in poverty should be deserving of sympathy and
| charity. Is that now suddenly offensive that people should
| want to help others that are less fortunate than
| themselves? If you are in a position where you need help,
| part of your responsibility is to humble yourself and let
| people help you (while not eradicating you're personal
| responsibility either). Someday you may be the one to give
| charity, and it's also just as insulting and disheartening
| when your charity is rejected out of pride.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| So what? Natural language is complicated, because a) It
| does something very complicated, and b) it is the result of
| a complex process.
|
| Yes, many words have more than one meaning. That's one of
| the many reasons why we need formal, context-free,
| specialized languages to communicate our will to machines
| effectively.
|
| But humans are not machines. We can do context, and we can
| use words that mean more than one thing. We can also deal
| with misunderstandings much better than an automaton.
|
| And this newspeak even fails at the goal of providing an
| unambiguous: Unless context is provided, a person who makes
| 6 figures a year is "financially disadvantaged" when
| compared to a billionaire. But noone would mistake someone
| earning 6 figures with someone who is poor.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I am French so the wording part did not reach us yet (we still
| have one word for deaf and blind, and handicapped (disabled)).
|
| What unfortunately is present is the way disabled people are
| perceived, intellect-wise. I can talk of two examples: a wheel-
| chaired guy in my team, and my wife who got progressively
| disabled due to MS.
|
| The way they are addressed is different from the way others are
| addressed; It seems that people will be less inclined to argue
| with them (because god knows what can happen to these feeble
| people, who should also be shielded from this because of their
| physical disability that also affects their intellect), but also
| treat them more child-like.
|
| This is infuriating because they are progressively pushed away
| from the normal interactions in life (for their own good, poor
| beings) and there is not much they can do to avoid this.
|
| My wife still has the character she had but somehow cannot
| express it anymore because her interactions get so washed down
| that it is disturbing to watch. Her disability is not that
| visible yet so she still has some time, but the guy in my team is
| really fed up with that.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > I am French so the wording part did not reach us yet
|
| This is not true at all. The absolute trainwreck that is
| "ecriture inclusive" is spearheading those inclusivity
| initiatives, and we have also incorporated a lot of the other
| words mentioned here in the language.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| ecriture inclusive is basically non-existent in France, whee
| did you see it except on some university pages that wanted to
| be "ahead of their time"? It is BTW forbidden by the ministry
| of education.
|
| Which other words have we incorporated? Un handicape is a
| disabled person. We do not have any "mobility challenged"
| words. Aveugle is blind, malvoyant is vision impaired (which
| is not the same, one being an extreme of the other).
|
| There was an attempt to use iel as il+elle (he+she). The only
| places you can read it is in articles that debate whether it
| is a good thing on not. It is completely absent elsewhere.
|
| Now - my comment was about everything except that intro line.
| Nemrod67 wrote:
| Guess you never heard the joke about the Education
| Nationale using the term "Referentiel Bondissant" to
| designate balloons/balls... Quick search indicates it was
| used by the Grenoble academy at one point in the 2000s XD
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| This is indeed unexpected (details at
| https://www.liberation.fr/societe/2015/05/26/referentiel-
| reb..., in French obviously).
|
| This said there has always been some insanities here and
| there in the administration - but they remain funny. I
| know "outil scripteur" for instance (this is a pen)
| [deleted]
| fleddr wrote:
| We should spend less time on the crazy outcomes of these
| institutes and more time on _why_ they can even exist in the
| first place. They are somehow funded yet not accountable to
| anyone.
|
| Nobody asked for this, it doesn't help anyone, and it cannot
| survive the most basic scrutiny of the public or market. And yet
| it exists and even grows. Rather than playing whack-a-mole with
| outcomes, the underlying mechanism should be explored.
|
| My unscientific take on it is that it is not a matter of real
| belief, instead a matter of fear. Case in point, businesses do
| not really care about things like DEI, but a series of impactful
| lawsuits has scared them senseless. Hence they dress up the
| optics of DEI to stay out of trouble.
|
| Similarly, universities are under pressure to appear "on the
| right side of history" by aggressive student activists, fueled by
| the flames of BLM, MeToo, whichever other social justice outrage.
| Hence, they dress up an extensive administration and force it
| upon all staff as part of their performance review: demonstrate
| the 3 ways in which you contributed to the cause this year. It
| doesn't matter if you believe in any of it, just do it
| regardless. Since none is equipped to do anything actually useful
| (livable wages, accessible healthcare and housing, etc) the next
| best thing is some imagined micro aggression.
|
| A factory of bullshit and optics driven by fear.
| mold_aid wrote:
| >Similarly, universities are under pressure to appear "on the
| right side of >history" by aggressive student activists, fueled
| by the flames of BLM, MeToo, >whichever other social justice
| outrage.
|
| Oh is Turning Point USA not a social justice group
| nhchris wrote:
| > why they can even exist in the first place
|
| They're legally required by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
| its consequences. Let me explain:
|
| The act prohibits discrimination on several protected
| characteristics, and the Supreme Court has expanded that to
| cover even things that merely _correlate_ with those
| characteristics, unless an employer can convincingly show those
| characteristics are required [1].
|
| But how can employers shield themselves from the legal risk of
| a discrimination lawsuit, when "discriminating" is so vaguely
| defined? By showing they engaged in "best effort" _not_ to
| discriminate, which means mouthing all the right platitudes,
| employing ever-evolving "best practices", and having
| departments devoted to the cause (first HR, now DEI).
|
| It's a red queen's race to be the most progressive and anti-
| racist, plus positive-reinforcement as the alumni of these
| institutions take up influential positions in society, and
| these are the results after 60 years of it. Any corporation,
| school, or university that goes against it, that merely tries
| to stay neutral, will fall behind and be made a legal and PR
| example of [2].
|
| [1] To see how harsh a test this is, requiring an IQ test for
| management positions is prohibited:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
|
| [2] https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-
| is-j...
| docmars wrote:
| Not to mention, the amount of violence committed by members of
| these outrage groups against whoever stands in their way -
| primarily towards the "offending" group or class they're
| prejudiced against, particularly whites, males, and straight
| sexual orientation.
|
| Worse, this violence often goes unaccounted for with impunity,
| without penalty, because people are terrified of the
| consequences of criticizing these groups, whether that's losing
| friends, family, or jobs that are too closely attached to these
| justice movements, while quite blatantly refusing to
| acknowledge that these movements have grifted the crap out of
| our world, as we find that their leaders and spokespeople are
| everything from: disingenuous scammers using donation money
| entirely for self-serving purposes that do not advance their
| cause, all the way to being convicted child sex traffickers
| (Fox: BLM, reports from 2020).
|
| But to condemn these movements for these reasons is nearly
| suicide in a society obsessed with staying in line with the
| "current thing", without scrutiny.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| I don't think it makes sense to argue against the logic of
| identity politics by actively identifying as a victim, that
| only reproduces the very logic you are critiquing, since it
| is they who also view themselves as victims and who seek
| retribution for perceived violence against them as an
| identity group. This is the logic of Nazism at its core, and
| when you use it to defend traditional values it becomes even
| more blatantly obvious.
|
| The horror (for you) is realizing that now this very same
| logic has been adopted by neo-liberal forces who seek to use
| radical politics not for freedom but to impose an even
| stricter, more terrible form of security, where it's not that
| people aren't allowed to speak their minds but rather that
| they police themselves first, they are unconsciously
| compelled to limit the range of acceptable discourse. Anybody
| who criticizes this regime is prevented by Corporate America
| from finding employment, effectively starving and killing
| them. Its fortunate that we have protected freedom of speech
| (at least in the US), but freedom of speech is not in the
| interest of our corporate masters and this regime of power
| limits it to the utmost degree for nobody in particular
| (since nobody benefits from this, in truth), but simply to
| serve a vast architecture of domination that most individuals
| in power are not even aware of, or aware they are being
| subjected too.
|
| What most people fail to see is how neoliberal politics are
| WORSE than fascism--its almost like an advanced form of
| fascism, where the organized chaos of the market is utilized
| to rapidly generate victimhood and individual identities
| which rapidly alienate and atomize each and every person in
| society, who then believes their struggles are theirs alone,
| that resistance to power is futile because everyone fights
| their own battles, and that its not worth it to talk to
| anyone who isn't a member of your "identity", the numbers of
| which are so vast that it becomes impossible for anyone to
| talk to anyone else who has a difference of opinion, staying
| inside their little social bubbles which only interact
| through the means the very same technology and infrastructure
| employed in that domination.
| khazhoux wrote:
| What pisses me off is that bullshit like this drives just enough
| people to vote Republican, and then we can't get proper
| healthcare or energy legislation.
|
| This is why we can't have good things.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| > Although the guides refer to language "evolving," these changes
| are a revolution from above. They haven't emerged organically
| from the shifting linguistic habits of large numbers of people.
|
| Yes, that's sort of the point. The goal here is not only to
| _force_ people to behave and even think in a certain way, but it
| is simultaneously a loyalty test and a flex. If it were to happen
| organically it wouldn 't serve these purposes.
| divan wrote:
| > won't make the world more just
|
| For whom?
|
| Here is a comment of one of the members of roller skating
| community on the renaming "mohawk" and "choctaw" terms in figure
| skating.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Rollerskating/comments/jn7ewi/comme...
|
| It's pretty clear this change makes world more just, but not for
| the majority. Which is kind a whole point.
| farnsworth wrote:
| Only tangentially related but I think it's interesting that just
| as we popularized the word "Ms.", and I think it makes perfect
| sense not to refer to women primarily by their marital status, we
| sort of worked around the issue by... largely just not using
| title/last name anymore. Right? I don't think I've referred to
| anyone by a title since my grade school teachers, and at least in
| my industry and corner of society, it's a complete non-issue.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> I think it makes perfect sense not to refer to women
| primarily by their marital status_
|
| Not in isolation, but in full context there may be some
| practical merit. In the earlier age where these titles were
| used, women adopted their husband's entire name. A woman who
| married Mr. Robert Smith would become Mrs. Robert Smith. This
| provides feedback that her given name isn't Robert. Ms. Robert
| Smith would be ambiguous. Is her given name actually Robert or
| is she married to Robert? Who knows?
|
| But, indeed, in the modern age nobody cares about titles. We
| have heavily curated Instagram feeds, or whatever it is the
| cool kids are into these days, to serve as a status indicator
| instead. That's the thing about status indicators: They only
| serve to display status for so long until it becomes
| commonplace and those with status have to move on to new
| indicators to stand out.
| flangola7 wrote:
| There's always Mx too.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Right. Except when you apply for a bank account, loan,
| passport, drivers license, enter a contract and so on.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Was there a time when adults referred to each other by Mr. and
| Mrs. in regular spoken conversation? Like if you were asking a
| work colleague where another colleague was, it was normal to
| say "Where is Mr. Smith?" rather than "Where is Mark?"
|
| Since in my lifetime I've only known calling everyone by their
| first name (except, like you say, teachers in childhood), I'm
| curious when the change occurred and how.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I can tell HN users mostly don't live in the south by the
| fact that they think it's so foreign to use "mr" or "ms".
|
| Please go drive through and visit Louisiana or Alabama at
| some point in your life. You'll find America has a lot of
| variance in it's cultural norms.
| [deleted]
| rendall wrote:
| There are older Americans who insist that calling a stranger
| by their first name is rude. That was never my culture so I
| was taken aback to hear this.
| vixen99 wrote:
| For some the use of the first name assumes a familiarity
| which probably does not exist. The universal rule is that
| appropriate levels of interaction are both accepted and
| used in common parlance by everyone. Thus it's rare for a
| speaker at a press conference to be addressed by their
| first name though the speaker might well respond using a
| first name if they know the journalist. 'Anthony, how did
| your chat with Sergey (Lavrov) go?' is not something we're
| likely to hear. Of course it's down to preferences with
| ordinary conversations as in 'please call me Joe' or
| whatever.
| rendall wrote:
| First name informality has been a feature of American
| culture since before its founding. We use a more formal
| protocol for official business. It seems controlling to
| insist against common practice that normal persons treat
| one with this kind of formality.
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| Not sure, but people certainly talk that way in Victorian
| novels (does anyone actually know Mr. Darcy's first name? :)
| jen20 wrote:
| Fitzwilliam.
|
| But yes, that notwithstanding, any period drama (Downtown
| Abbey) will give a good indication of this.
| retrac wrote:
| Yes. The rules were complicated, too. Children referring to
| adults and teachers with Mr./Ms. is a relic from what was
| once a more complicated set of rules about social hierarchy.
| Relative age, familiarity, and social status, both of the
| audience/listener and of the speaker relative to the referred
| person, were the main factors that determined the choice in
| how to refer to someone. The older, more socially distant,
| and socially superior they were to you, and the more formal
| the situation, the more likely you used the title. If the
| listener was socially distant or inferior to the party, you
| were more likely to refer to the party with a title. Using
| simply a last name without a title was also an option for a
| superior to an inferior. Given names were considered intimate
| to use alone, and reserved in private between family and
| close friends and sometimes close colleagues.
|
| The change started in the '70s and it's not quite complete.
| More progressed in some regions than others. A couple decades
| ago, the manager at my first job was addressed as Mr. and it
| seemed quite natural to me at the time.
| suddenclarity wrote:
| It's an exception but latest names are still somewhat common
| in the army, in sports teams (even at the lowest level), and
| doctors. No Mr before though but rather last name as a
| nickname. Maybe the common denominator is a disciplined
| authoritative environment.
| ranting-moth wrote:
| People start using the "new" words as a derogatory slur.
|
| For example, to belittle people, you don't call them retarded.
| You call them mentally challenged. Now being "mentally
| challenged" has the same politically incorrectness about it as
| being retarded.
| pibechorro wrote:
| Banning words, burning books, shadowbanning, etc.. history shows
| us where it goes and what kind of people get behind it. The path
| to hell is paved with good intentions.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Look into the entomology of the word "retarded." They keep
| changing the word, but whatever they replace it with becomes a
| pejorative, because the thing it's describing is intuitively
| understood to be negative. Preying upon people's sense of justice
| to promote censorship in the name of justice is... oh what's the
| word...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| politician wrote:
| > The project of the guides is utopian.
|
| What I've learned from history is that every utopian dream
| realized is a dystopia. "In theory, theory is no different from
| in practice..." as the saying goes.
| realjhol wrote:
| They are "putting the woke away" now. Alienating your population
| isn't a winning strategy for the regime, especially if you're
| going to need their kids to fight your wars.
|
| Notice how Black History Month was dialed right back this year.
|
| The woke will go away, but none of the equally and speech laws
| that lead to this mess are going anywhere.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| "The American Cancer Society advises that Latinx, along with the
| equally gender-neutral Latine, Latin@, and Latinu, "may or may
| not be fully embraced by older generations and may need
| additional explanation."
|
| Cool cool, I look forward as a white guy to explaining to a group
| of Spanish people why they are wrong and are really LatinX and
| I'm doing it for their protection.
|
| Imagine being an immigrant and having to learn both English and
| then a made up filter created by well paid academics on top of
| it.
|
| Just don't be racist, we don't need all these made up rules
| created by our betters.
|
| It's all so tiresome.
| germandiago wrote:
| I am spanish. I fully agree this is all deeply stupid
| political-industry stuff that just generates artificial
| conflicts.
|
| Like many other things in politics.
| soiler wrote:
| [flagged]
| stillkicking wrote:
| Spanish-speaking non-binary people are hopefully not so
| stupid as to conflate a lack of appetite to rewrite the
| entirety of Spanish grammar with a refusal to acknowledge
| someone's existence.
| soiler wrote:
| You will actually find that the vast majority of Spanish
| grammar is untouched by this change. The only change,
| actually, is that it will now be possible to acknowledge
| the existence of nonbinary people. Or do you think that
| binary gendered pronouns already do that job?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Except progressives are pushing LatinX as the default
| term that all Latinos fall under.
| 13years wrote:
| Thinking your existence is determined by the grammatical
| structure of language is a self defined prison of ones own
| making.
| soiler wrote:
| Ok cool, they get to exist. And they speak Spanish. What
| word do they use to refer to themselves?
|
| Oh, no, how did we get back here...?
| 13years wrote:
| There are new terms added to the lexicon every day for
| each persons individual experience. They can refer to
| themselves however they wish. Yet, it is not reasonable
| to think that unlimited possibilities can be assumed to
| be known and forced into the grammatical structure of
| language. It begins to drift into much broader domain of
| identify expression of simply how I wish to be known. Not
| every concept of how I want the world to see me could be
| expressed in a single grammatical construct of language
| and it is a futile effort to do so.
| leonidasv wrote:
| And there was no need for bringing up this unreadable "Latinx"
| word in the first place.
|
| There's already a centuries-old gender-neutral word for
| Latino/Latina that is, surprise, "Latin". Or "Latin person" if
| you will.
|
| I was born in South America, and I really reject being called a
| "Latinx". It sounds dehumanizing.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| I think the only sensible way to resist this is to poke fun
| at it. Humor did a great job at whittling away the
| absurdities of the Soviet Union, and it can do the same with
| this dystopian diversity nonsense.
| JohnFen wrote:
| A good friend of mine is a Spanish translator for a social
| services agency. She was telling me that the "latinx" thing is
| a real problem, because for people -- particularly older people
| -- who are not strong on their reading in the first place, they
| hit "LatinX" and genuinely have zero idea what that's supposed
| to mean.
|
| So then time, energy, and goodwill gets wasted by having to
| explain to people what they "should" be calling themselves. The
| people she's talking to thinks the whole thing is just stupid,
| and is a thing that only white people care about.
|
| But she also mentions that the younger generation of LatinX
| people do care, and often prefer the term. It's all a big mess
| and makes compassionate communication more difficult.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| > "LatinX"
|
| How is such a word pronounced? Is it "Latin" + "ex" or is it
| "La" + "tinx" (-inx like in Sphinx)?
| blahblah1234567 wrote:
| X is pronounces EK-EES in Spanish.
|
| so its "LA-TEEN-EK-EES" if we are respecting the Spanish
| language.
|
| but in reality such silly butchering of a language isnt
| respecting the Spanish language in the first place. its
| merely more communism attempts to disrupt tradition &
| reform societies towards some immature high school wanna-be
| communist ends by people who've never lived in communist
| society.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I don't think you understand the meaning of the word
| "communist".
| hirvi74 wrote:
| Okay, but my understanding is that this word is an
| English word, hence the premise of the article.
|
| The article/this discussion is my first exposure to the
| word.
| throwawayapples wrote:
| The most amusing part about this is that literally the entire
| Spanish language is gendered, so we should probably change
| all words to 'x' replacements as well.
|
| No more "los gatos"!
|
| _Lxs gatxs_ has so much more of a latin ring to it. ( /s)
|
| Spanish is being obliterated by lXs que lo hablan peor.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| Spanish, from Spain, a country in Europe, is a language
| made up by white people.
|
| Latinx is form a handful of non-binary latin activists in
| the US, and co-opted by left-wingers who think they're
| doing the right thing.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| They weren't White to my grandparents.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > No more "los gatos"!
|
| Do you often use "cats" to describe a particular group of
| humans, whise gender identity you are concerned about
| including?
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I think you have finally hit upon the solution to the
| pronoun problem.
|
| In almost no case till I care about the express sexuality
| of the person for whom I am using a pronoun and I resent
| having to be forced to care about their self-centered
| nature, being self-centered myself.
|
| However, instead of saying "he is wearing a weird hat", I
| can say "that cat is wearing a weird hat"
|
| And I don't have to worry about it.
|
| Gracias.
| fundad wrote:
| Any group is the girls, the dolls, the girlies... Haven't
| used cats since I stopped wearing all black.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I mean technically white people invented Spanish
| open-paren wrote:
| It should obviously be pronounced "le-teh-quis gah-teh-
| quies", right?
| cwkoss wrote:
| There is an amusing and depressing irony to a colonizer's
| language being re-colonized by another colonizer.
| blahblah1234567 wrote:
| "Spanish is being obliterated by white people."
|
| Spanish is being obliterated by a very small minority of
| politically biased and likely neo-marxist-propaganda-
| influenced young people.
| throwawayapples wrote:
| You're right, fixed it to 'those who speak it worst'
| dontcancelmebro wrote:
| [dead]
| lolinder wrote:
| > But she also mentions that the younger generation of LatinX
| people do care, and often prefer the term. It's all a big
| mess and makes compassionate communication more difficult.
|
| As someone who's interacted extensively with the Hispanic
| community in the United States, I just want to point out that
| the younger generation generally are not completely fluent in
| Spanish. They often can understand their parents perfectly
| well but have trouble actually speaking the language.
|
| With that in mind, I'm still suspicious that preferring
| LatinX correlates primarily with fluency in Spanish rather
| than age.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| >The people she's talking to thinks the whole thing is just
| stupid, and is a thing that only white people care about.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/call-latinx-what-it-lexical-
| imperia...
|
| sorry, newsweek's a bit of rag these days, but it's where i
| happened to find the essay republished.
| soiler wrote:
| There's an extra layer of post-colonialism in this situation,
| but it's otherwise almost identical to the discussion
| happening in English about gendered pronouns. I think the
| following can both be true:
|
| 1. It's bad to tell people that they're using their native
| language badly if you're not a native speaker (especially in
| a scenario where there's a social power dynamic at play, like
| Spanish speakers trying to navigate discrimination in the
| US). People making things harder for immigrants without
| compassion for their challenges are probably making a
| mistake.
|
| 2. It's bad to say "this whole thing is just stupid" about a
| radical shift in language that's being deliberately embraced
| by younger people to break down discriminatory gender
| traditions, just because it's new and you're mildly confused
| about it. People making things harder for gender-
| nonconforming people are probably making a mistake.
| onecommentman wrote:
| Replace "younger people" with "a few younger people from a
| particular socioeconomic class" to be more accurate.
|
| The eternal outraged youth will always find a few hobby
| horses to ride. Sometimes they lead to good things. This is
| a particularly smelly one, unfortunately.
|
| It's not bad to say "this whole thing is just stupid". It's
| just incomplete to say...it's also musically ugly (language
| is a song of sorts) and culturally insulting. The intent is
| understandable, the linguistic implementation ridiculous.
| How about _actual_ younger people developing another, more
| beautiful, culturally acceptable, word to achieve the same
| objective? Why continue to ride this malodorous hobby horse
| their elders forced between their legs? (I think that image
| is acceptably gender-nonconforming, and oddly appropriate.)
|
| Anyway, according to _la Asociacion de Academias de la
| Lengua Espanola_
|
| https://www.asale.org/la-asociacion
|
| the body responsible for the preservation of the Spanish
| language across the Spanish-speaking world, it isn't a
| Spanish word (not acknowledged in the official dictionary)
|
| https://dle.rae.es/Latinx
|
| Santiago!
|
| BTW your phrase "mildly confused" is demeaning and
| insulting to readers who would genuinely struggle with
| incorporating this in their normal Spanish speech after
| decades of surviving without it. Bit ironic for someone
| concerned with "sensitivity" to write.
| soiler wrote:
| > The eternal outraged youth will always find a few hobby
| horses to ride. Sometimes they lead to good things. This
| is a particularly smelly one, unfortunately.
|
| Nonbinary people face real discrimination, including but
| not limited to the dismissal of that fight as pointless
| outrage.
|
| > it's also musically ugly (language is a song of sorts)
|
| This is ridiculous. Ugly-sounding words will always
| exist.
|
| > and culturally insulting ... How about actual younger
| people developing another, more beautiful, culturally
| acceptable, word to achieve the same objective
|
| What does any of this even mean? Real Spanish-speaking
| nonbinary young people did come up with a working
| solution. If you think it's too ugly sounding, fine, you
| get to have an opinion. If you think it shouldn't exist
| because it's too ugly sounding to you, honestly, fuck
| off. That's not a valid complaint.
|
| > https://www.asale.org/la-asociacion
|
| I am aware of La Asociacion. I understand that they
| literally make the rules. I need you to understand that
| they _do not actually make the rules_. Language is how
| people communicate. New words happen.
|
| So on the one hand: 1. You don't like the sound of the
| word 2. An intrinsically conservative body hasn't yet
| recognized the word
|
| On the other hand: 1. Nonbinary would simply like a word
| to refer to themselves because one doesn't exist.
|
| But, I will concede that it was pretty rude of me to
| write "mildly confused". I shouldn't have been so
| uncharitable.
| hellojesus wrote:
| > Nonbinary people face real discrimination, including
| but not limited to the dismissal of that fight as
| pointless outrage.
|
| Nonbinary-ness is a made up fad that people have embraced
| for the exact same reasons they've embraced this
| language: to feel apart of some special group and to gain
| social points for doing so.
|
| If they need a word to describe themselves, mental is a
| good one.
| kanbara wrote:
| gender and sexuality are a spectrum. take your hate and
| bigotry elsewhere.
|
| straight people exist, gay people exist, queer people
| exist. trans people exist. NB people exist.
|
| it must be so tiring to be so full of hatred.
| hellojesus wrote:
| Nonbinary claim to exist, but no human to date has been
| able to produce viable sperm and eggs simultaneously.
|
| There is a gender spectrum, agreed, but that doesn't mean
| we can't classify people into a singular description, and
| it surely doesn't mean we need to change entire languages
| to appease made up oppression.
|
| Gay? Makes sense and no issues. No demand for language
| changes.
|
| Nonbinary,trans? Totally made up because they want to 1.
| Signal their oppression status and therefore be part of
| the proletariat, or 2. A true mental issue is at foot.
| Neither are justifications for removing gendered
| language, and plastic surgery doesn't remove the
| biological differences between men and women.
|
| The way I see it, this is going to have to go up to the
| Supreme Court, where it will be determined that either
| there is no difference between men and women for legal
| purposes, and therefore any separation is discrimination
| (goodbye gendered bathrooms, women's sports, women in
| engineering clubs, etc.), or we will in fact determine
| there are biological differences which justify separation
| in specific circumstances (sports, locker rooms), and no
| amount of plastic surgery will allow one to change their
| classification. Of course, that is only insofar as anyone
| else in those environments could tell (aka having your
| penis out in a women's locker room would be the tell).
| leonidasv wrote:
| This word is also an issue for screen readers that some
| visually impaired people rely on. The use of "x" in the end
| of words to signal gender neutering is a very debated topic
| in Portuguese-speaking forums and nowadays, most people tend
| to agree that it's not optimal because it's not universally
| intelligible.
|
| Latin person, person from a Latin-heritage background, and
| such, although more verbose, are preferred.
| humanrebar wrote:
| Also the grammar of Spanish doesn't have an X suffix at all.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| As a Hispanic American, I very regularly tell people I am
| Latino and that Latinx is incredibly offensive to my heritage.
| I'm in my 30s and the younger people I know also find it
| offensive.
| mcguire wrote:
| Out of curiosity, more or less offensive than referring to
| you as Latina?
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| If it's blissful ignorance where someone doesn't know the
| how gendered pronouns work, that's not a problem. If it's
| someone who is intentionally adding an X to the end because
| of some perceived gender nonsense, then that's offensive.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| [flagged]
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| White people colonizing another language to virtue signal
| isn't inflammatory to you?
| QuercusMax wrote:
| As others have said in this thread, it wasn't created by
| white people. That's why I'm saying this is inflammatory.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| BS its origins are unknown. You have no idea who made it.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| Regardless of who created it, I've never seen a non-white
| person use it. My wife is Hispanic, and it has been
| offensive to her and her family.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| But _why_ is it so offensive? All I see is knee-jerk
| reactions giving supposed racist motives to the term,
| when it 's been established that this term originated
| with native Spanish speakers!
|
| I personally think that choosing 'x' was a poor choice,
| and it's basically unpronounceable by everyone in both
| Spanish and English. But making up supposed racist
| origins is a bit much.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| > All I see is knee-jerk reactions giving supposed racist
| motives to the term, when it's been established that this
| term originated with native Spanish speakers!
|
| Do you have a credible source for this claim? All I've
| ever seen are vague assertions it originated
| "organically" in the early 2000s.
| blahblah1234567 wrote:
| [flagged]
| wonderwonder wrote:
| How would you feel if people of another race, especially
| one that has historically oppressed yours decided they knew
| better than you and decided to change the rules as to how
| you were referred and if you objected told you it was for
| your protection?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Latine and LatinX don't come from "people of a different
| race" than those it applies to (even without considering
| the artificial race/ethnicity distinction.)
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Does it really matter? If the majority of latin people
| don't like it, then why force it on them?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Does it really matter?
|
| Insofar as people are repeating the false origin as if it
| matters, apparently.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| There is no proof to the origin of the term. Your claim
| that it was invented by Latin Americans is as solid as
| mine that it was a white construct.
|
| Either way I have never seen it used by anyone besides
| DEI types and academic white people
| bl_valance wrote:
| Our language doesn't need fixing, that's just the way it
| is. This whole latinx is literal cultural imperialism. It's
| not about not understanding the meaning of using these
| terms, it's the fact that it suggests that our entire
| language should be changed to be more "inclusive".
| QuercusMax wrote:
| [flagged]
| bradleyjg wrote:
| There's nothing more prescriptivist than a term
| propagated entirely by HR fiat.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Is it being updated in Latin America or is it being force
| updated in the United States?
| bl_valance wrote:
| You clearly don't understand how the language works. Let
| me give you an example. "The latinx" "La/El latinx",
| where La(F) -> '-a' and El(M) for '-o', how do you
| replace that? Everything is gendered and this is not
| restricted to just Spanish.
|
| Americans can continue to use latinx, fine, but don't
| impose that onto natives because that just doesn't make
| sense in their native language. And saying, "we need to
| educate the older generation" is arrogant and
| disrespectful, we understand it quite well.
| phlakaton wrote:
| Seems to me the retort there is, "Assuming this is a
| problem with old people is ageist."
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| Far from it, the term disregards the history and linguistic
| heritage of my mother tongue for the sensibilities of white
| people, who for whatever reason have problems accepting
| feminine and masculine word pronunciations.
|
| Just because white people like rewriting their history and
| language doesn't mean they have a right to rewrite mine.
|
| If you find that inflammatory or offensive, now you know
| how I feel.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Far from it, the term disregards the history and
| linguistic heritage of my mother tongue for the
| sensibilities of white people
|
| It was created by native apeakers of your mother tongue,
| as a conscious rejection of the way they saw it-- _their_
| mother tongue--as erasing, or at least obstructing
| communication of, their gender identity.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| No it was not since the origins of the phrase are
| unknown.
|
| And even if for a moment it is true, since when do those
| few represent the whole?
|
| I swear you linguistic imperialists are insufferable.
| Leave your hands off of my language and butcher up your
| own mother tongue.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I swear you linguistic imperialists are insufferable.
|
| The funny thing is that I haven't even mentioned _my_
| preference for a label the group in question in this
| discussion.
|
| > Leave your hands off of my language and butcher up your
| own mother tongue.
|
| While at least some of the labels under discussion
| _originate in_ your language and its community of
| speakers, the discussion is about use _in English_. So
| unless your mother tongue is English, no one 's hands
| are, metaphorically, on it in this discussion.
|
| So, I guess to be consistent, keep your "linguistic
| imperialism" to yourself...
| freitzkriesler wrote:
| [citation needed] We have no idea where the term
| originated from. Stop lying and posting this BS because
| your incessent need to belabor your otherwise incorrect
| point proves otherwise.
|
| > So, I guess to be consistent, keep your "linguistic
| imperialism" to yourself...
|
| Right back at ya pendejo.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| From what I've found there is no definite proof of it's
| origin. Saying whites or Latinos created it has equal
| validity. Can you provide your source? Not attempting a
| gotcha here, just curious
| Tade0 wrote:
| Who said these people represented the general Spanish-
| speaking population?
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Nobody said they did? They were representing themselves
| as non-binary Spanish speakers.
|
| New terms arise all the time. There's no 'native-spanish-
| speaker referendum' for each new term that is created.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Who said these people represented the general Spanish-
| speaking population?
|
| That's a very good question. Since you appear to be
| arguing against that strawman, tell us, _who said that_?
|
| EDIT: My point is, if we can acknowledge that, like
| Hispanic and Latino and Latino/Latina (each of which are
| strongly objected to by some in the community, preferred
| by others, and tolerated but neither preferred nor
| objected to by others when talking about the broader
| group inclusively) these are preferred identity labels of
| part of the community which is being addressed, we can
| then talk about how to address a community with internal
| divisions over preferred identity label, when one
| specifically wants to address the whole group and not
| just those who favor a particular label. But we can't
| even get to that point as long as we pretend that this is
| just an external imposition unconnected to preferences
| expressed within the population described.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I'm asking because I genuinely don't know who decided
| that this group should make the call regarding how the
| general population is referred to, especially that the
| general population is disregarded in this matter in
| favour of the mentioned group?
|
| EDIT: to elaborate: I take issue to the fact that this
| word is used to describe not just people who wanted to be
| referred to like that, but the general population.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I take issue to the fact that this word is used to
| describe not just people who wanted to be referred to
| like that, but the general population.
|
| This I agree with. This is a problem. And, in fact, we've
| been through and addressed almost this _exact same
| problem_ with the inherently gendered nature (and
| default-male gender) of Spanish-derived demonyms and how
| that conflicts with some people's gender identity before
| - and the problem of conflicts of preferred identity
| label for reasons other than gender - before. And mostly,
| what was done when addressing a group of mixed demonym
| preference with no single mutually-acceptable one was use
| multiple, joined with a slash (or, sometimes, here they
| differed only by a suffix, to separate the alternate
| suffixes with a slash.)
|
| Actual, rather than performative, inclusion means _not
| imposing a shared label just because you view the group
| as one for your purposes_.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| But as others have said in this thread, it was created by
| non-binary Spanish speakers, not "white people".
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| No it was not since the origins of the phrase are
| unknown.
|
| And even if for a moment it is true, since when do those
| few represent the whole?
|
| I swear you linguistic imperialists are insufferable.
| Leave your hands off of my language.
| autodev1 wrote:
| I go by XatinXox, personally. And I expect people to call me
| that before I even inform them of what I am called. They
| should just know.
| mock-possum wrote:
| I think you're joking, but 'Xicanx' is a real neologism in
| the same realm as Latinx.
| convolvatron wrote:
| maybe instead of arguing about what non-gendered term we
| should call this group of people we should instead admit that
| 'latino' is a projection onto a wide variety of people that
| have different cultural backgrounds but roughly share a
| language and sometimes a skin tone.
| ilyt wrote:
| Or maybe we should tell people who _started_ latinx garbage
| and _started_ the arguing to fuck off and
|
| > we should instead admit that 'latino' is a projection
| onto a wide variety of people that have different cultural
| backgrounds but roughly share a language and sometimes a
| skin tone.
|
| instead of inventing more names to divide people by,
| just... not ?
| convolvatron wrote:
| I guess I should go back to referring to all people from
| SE Asia as Chinese since my American friends are just too
| lazy and dismissive to bother with people's actual
| nationality and prefer broad and vague terms for the
| other.
| ilyt wrote:
| You could just call them asians as is widely accepted
| since forever.
|
| There is nothing wrong with using more generic term if
| you don't know exact nationality of the person.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Imagine being an immigrant and having to learn both English
| and then a made up filter created by well paid academics on top
| of it.
|
| Latine and LatinX both originate in (different geographical
| parts of) the spanish-first-language non-binary community,
| originally for use in Spanish, neither (AFAIK) by "well-paid
| academics".
|
| Latinu and Latin@ I'm less sure about, but wouldn't be
| surprised if they are the same. While there's legitimate
| debates about their use, the "created by white English-speaking
| academics and imposed on the people labelled by them" narrative
| is itself White-centering myth.
|
| (OTOH, the anglicized, instead of mixed, pronunciation of
| LatinX is probably a White anglophone invention, the original
| is like latino/a with the final vowel removed, and with the
| english name of the letter "X" in its place.)
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| These idiots should just use the word "Latin", which has been
| a normal word for centuries, instead of creating newspeak.
| Cultural Marxism doesn't even attempt to fix anything; it
| simply complicates and distorts pedestrian matters in the
| ivory towers it has penetrated, confusing the very people
| they're trying to "help".
|
| So, this is a linguistic trojan horse. There's no proper use
| case for the term "LatinX" except to normalize the
| pronoun/trans agenda in the Spanish-speaking world.
| fundad wrote:
| Do you think Spanish-speaking trans people exist?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I mean not if you can't say LatinX. It essentially
| removes them from existence.
|
| Obviously sarcasm but that's pretty much the argument.
| blahblah1234567 wrote:
| "There's no proper use case for the term "LatinX" except to
| normalize the pronoun/trans agenda in the Spanish-speaking
| world."
|
| This is an excellent summary of the entire discussion on
| the topic of the silly, childish, politically-motivated
| concept of "LatinX"
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| thanks, friend! I don't write much lately; most of my
| thoughts end up as 1 or -1 comments on this site.
| blahblah1234567 wrote:
| >Latine and LatinX both originate in (different geographical
| parts of) the spanish-first-language
|
| I doubt it. Having lived in Latin America, Latin American
| social norms are influenced by Catholicism and their
| societies are more conservative & traditionalist than the US
| and Europe.
|
| The vast majority of people in Latin American countries
| (outside of Costa Rica & Chile) struggle with academic
| achievement (including literacy levels), adequate n utrition,
| enviornmental pollution.
|
| To claim that they would put neo-marxist language changes
| before actual human needs (literacy, nutrition, environment)
| is a paltry claim and demonstrates a lack of experience with
| such societies.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| > The vast majority of people in Latin American countries
| (outside of Costa Rica & Chile) struggle with academic
| achievement (including literacy levels), adequate n
| utrition, enviornmental pollution.
|
| Do they?
|
| * Literacy rate: The average for 2020
| based on 7 countries was 93.91 percent.The highest value
| was in Colombia: 95.64 percent and the lowest value was in
| El Salvador: 89.98 percent.
|
| https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/literacy_rate/Lat
| i...
|
| * Food security: During 2019, 7.4% of the
| population of Latin America and the Caribbean lived with
| hunger In 2019, almost a third of the
| population, 191 million people, were affected by moderate
| or severe food insecurity. Of these, 57.7 million,
| approximately 10% of the region's population, was severely
| food insecure
|
| https://www.fao.org/americas/publicaciones-audio-
| video/panor...
|
| * Tertiary education: Between 2000 and
| 2018, higher education gross enrollment rates in the region
| more than doubled (increasing from 21 percent to 52
| percent), making LAC the region with the third-highest
| average higher education enrollment rate in the world after
| North America with 86 percent, and Europe and Central Asia
| with 70 percent.
|
| https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/738931611934489480-009
| 0...
|
| * Environmental pollution
|
| You're probably right about this one, but it's not worse
| than most of the rest of the world, including very rich
| countries such as the UK and Germany.
|
| https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/738931611934489480-009
| 0...
|
| > they would put neo-marxist language changes
|
| This is just nonsensical gibberish. I'll call it neo-
| misesist language.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| The last link (pollution) got pasted wrong. This is the
| reference I wanted to use:
| https://ourworldindata.org/outdoor-air-pollution#share-
| expos...
| RichEO wrote:
| You've commented a number of times on this post, and every
| time you relate equity language to communism/Marxism.
|
| I'm struggling to follow your reasoning. What does
| communism have to do with anything?
| obscurette wrote:
| It might be a simple association. The war against
| language as an instrument to control people has been part
| of every communist regime.
| [deleted]
| lolinder wrote:
| > Latine and LatinX both originate in (different geographical
| parts of) the spanish-first-language non-binary community,
| originally for use in Spanish, neither (AFAIK) by "well-paid
| academics".
|
| This is disputed, both sides have evidence for them and no
| one really knows.
|
| I'm fluent in Spanish and have a hard time seeing a native
| Spanish speaker inventing LatinX. There's no good Spanish way
| to pronounce it, and inserting the English pronunciation of
| the letter 'x' is an odd choice for someone who's paying
| attention to identity politics--you would think they'd try to
| find an alternative that feels less anglo.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I'm fluent in Spanish and have a hard time seeing a
| native Spanish speaker inventing LatinX. There's no good
| Spanish way to pronounce
|
| There's no good English wsy to pronounce it either. Its a
| deliberate linguistic transgression. (Aesthetically, its
| why I _personally_ like Latine better for the specific
| purpose of explicit inclusion of non-binary identities,
| but, being neither Latin nor non-binary, I don 't weight my
| aesthetic preferences heavily on the issue.)
|
| EDIT: Really, the problem of how to identify a group in a
| way inclusive of a subgroup to whose existence the broader
| group is at best, as s whole, ambivalent is the real issue,
| and the origin stories, and more to the point the attempt
| to impute malign motives based on particular origin
| stories, is a way to avoid reaching the issue.
| lolinder wrote:
| It's still a deliberate linguistic transgression that
| borrows from English. Its English pronunciation ("Latin-
| eks") is awkward but not completely foreign.
|
| It's a word designed to convey an inclusive Spanish-
| speaking identity. Why would a native Spanish speaker
| choose to invent a word that is far easier to pronounce
| in English than in Spanish?
|
| > EDIT: Really, the problem of how to identify a group in
| a way inclusive of a subgroup to whose existence the
| broader group is at best, as s whole, ambivalent is the
| real issue, and the origin stories, and more to the point
| the attempt to impute malign motives based on particular
| origin stories, is a way to avoid reaching the issue.
|
| No, the origin stories are very much part and parcel with
| the issue you're discussing. Either the Spanish community
| itself decided that it needed non-gendered words, or a
| bunch of white Americans decided the Spanish community
| needed non-gendered words.
|
| If the drive to change Spanish did not originate with
| Spanish speakers, that is very much a concern, and
| grandstanding about including subgroups doesn't make it
| less of an imperialistic affair; it just comes off as
| "civilizing the savages".
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Either the Spanish community itself decided that it
| needed non-gendered words, or a bunch of white Americans
| decided the Spanish community needed non-gendered words.
|
| Pretty sure that whatever identifier is right for the
| community of interest here, its not "the Spanish
| community", and, irrespective of any debate about the
| _origin_ of the terms, a subset of the community of
| interests has decided they need gender neutral terms and
| expressed preference for one or more of them. The
| question then is how to refer to the community as a
| whole, given the _existence_ of a diversity of
| preferences.
| [deleted]
| autodev1 wrote:
| [flagged]
| germandiago wrote:
| Hahahahaha! Best post I read today.
| autodev1 wrote:
| excuse me, but it's not a post. It's a publicacixxn. Please
| respect its lived lexiconical truth
| User23 wrote:
| I personally think we need to introduce Latin-American-
| American to the lexicon.
| autodev1 wrote:
| I just had a realization:
|
| "Latin" already includes "la" at the beginning of the
| word-- which is the feminine infinitive. Therefore, LatinA
| and LatinX are redundant.
|
| Or, perhaps we as arbitors of global culture, should
| enforce our new inventin:
|
| ElTin and LaTin ...and maybe a LeTin. or LxTin
|
| Actually let's go with all of the above. And any other
| creations as well. because who cares-- throw in the kitchen
| sink!
|
| /more silliness
| ilyt wrote:
| Xatinx should cover everything then
| hirvi74 wrote:
| > Just don't be racist
|
| I am so sorry if this pedantic, but I think it's an important
| distinction to make.
|
| Both Hispanic and Latino are not races but rather an ethnic
| group. The race of people who belong to the Hispanic and Latino
| ethnic groups varies by country and even at the individual. One
| can have predominately African ancestry, predominately European
| ancestry, or predominately indigenous ancestry, while all
| belong to the same ethnic group of Hispanic or Latino.
|
| I do not bring up this point to try and detract from the
| legitimate discrimination and oppression that many individuals
| and groups in the Hispanic and Latino community face.
|
| People of Jewish heritage belong to what is known as an ethno-
| religious group. The idea that "Jews are a race" was either
| first proposed, or at least heavily perpetuated by the Nazis,
| and it is still considered offensive to refer to people of
| Jewish heritage as belonging to a different race.
|
| Regardless, the idea of race is a social construct with
| absolutely zero biological or scientific basis behind it. There
| is only one "race", and it's the "Human Race."
|
| In an ideal world, we would not even need to make these
| distinctions because we are all Homo Sapiens -- we have no
| subspecies. Maybe one day we can achieve this world if we stop
| the pathetic, needless, and disgusting hatred for our fellow
| man.
| stefantalpalaru wrote:
| [dead]
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I'm a white Jew from Africa:)
|
| So race wise I'm either Jewish, White, African or maybe
| African American now that I live in America.
|
| Joking aside, I agree with your point
| hirvi74 wrote:
| > So race wise I'm either Jewish
|
| What did I just say? ;)
|
| Which part of Africa?
|
| As I understand it, Middle Eastern (including Egypt).
| people are considered "white" by the US Census (for those
| unaware).
|
| If natively from Morocco/Egypt/Perhaps more, would you not
| be considered Mizrahi or are you talking like European
| ancestory? Not like any of this matters in the absolute
| slightest at the end of the day.
|
| I, myself, have 0% < x < 25% Sephardi with another 0% < x <
| 25% Ashkenazi heritage. My other half is pure Wonderbread
| levels of European whiteness.
|
| Apparently, I'm a mutt because my ancestors liked to travel
| and liked to bang whatever population was there when they
| arrived (I am kidding, this goes for most people).
| wonderwonder wrote:
| My great grandparents fled Russia to South Africa during
| the pogroms. Ancestry wise I'm 99% Ashkenazi Jew (not a
| lot of mixing going on in my background I guess) and 1%
| (I can't remember what the test said, it's been years
| since I looked but it was a couple different ones). I
| kind of ended that by marrying into an Irish family and
| having kids that look like leprechauns :)
| mock-possum wrote:
| I can't tell if you're intentionally misconstruing here, but
| assuming you're not - you would not be in a position of
| explaining to Spanish people why they are wrong and are really
| one thing or another (Also I assume you mean _his_ panic
| people, or Spanish-speaking people?) You'd be explaining the
| reasoning behind the modern use of the term, and allowing them
| to decide for themselves how to engage with it.
|
| The idea isn't to design a new armband that you require people
| of a particular group to wear each week - the idea is to ask
| those people what they want, and then respect them when they
| answer you.
|
| If someone says they identify as Latinx, then you identify them
| as Latinx. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than
| that. It's not about the enforcement of identity, *it's about
| the deconstruction of traditionally enforced identities in the
| first place*, it's about exploring the creation of new
| identities outside of the bounds of conservative tradition.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| "may or may not be fully embraced by older generations and
| may need additional explanation."
|
| I directly quoted the article that specifically said
| additional explanation had to be made.
|
| "If someone says they identify as Latinx, then you identify
| them as Latinx" except that's not what the article says. It
| discussed how LatinX is often used as the default in
| progressive language.
| jredwards wrote:
| Spanish people are not Latino (or Latina, or Latinx). Latino
| means from Latin-America (or descended from people who are).
|
| Hispanic means from a Spanish-speaking country.
|
| Spanish people are Hispanic, but not Latino.
| luckylion wrote:
| In that first paragraph, you can also read it as a society for
| the study of the American Cancer, and it also makes sense.
| Unfortunately, it metastasized and any connected tissue gets
| infected as well.
|
| I guess most immigrants don't need to learn the shibboleths,
| unless they suddenly get into money and want to join the upper
| class. It's about discriminating between the commoners and the
| rulers, that's why it constantly evolves, too. Need to
| regularly release new ciphers if you're communicating in the
| open with a trivial cryptography.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| It's about class. Not in the usual American sense of how much
| money you make, but in the older sense of people thinking they
| are better sorts of people because they have the correct
| diction, education, religious views, professions, and so on.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I wonder how much if this is a result of corporate power
| fighting for ever-increasing economic inequality.
|
| Class discussions about material wealth are excluded from the
| zeitgeist because they make the ultrarich people who control
| things uncomfortable and they don't want any discussion that
| could lead to change.
|
| The war over language could perhaps be viewed as a way to
| enjoy the privileges of classism without the material
| requirements. It doesn't threaten capital, so it is amplified
| to drown out dissent.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| > It doesn't threaten capital, so it is amplified to drown
| out dissent.
|
| Wedge issues have been political footballs since the Reagan
| Era. Keep everyone riled up about something essentially
| trivial and no real economic changes happen.
|
| A ~20 year old punk song goes "we are the queer / we are
| the whore / the ammunition / of the class war"
| germandiago wrote:
| It is a universal truth that all of us feel worse or better
| than. No matter how mich politically-correct stuff you put on
| top.
|
| And there is nothing wrong with it. Respect is the only thing
| needed.
| walleeee wrote:
| Indeed, and someone with money and a desire to prevent
| _actual_ class conflict can get a lot of mileage out of
| encouraging tensions in the narrow, purely expressive sense
| you describe
| bradleyjg wrote:
| That's the Marxist analysis and there might be something to
| it, but I think the main driver is just human nature.
|
| People like to feel superior. In one era that was "I'm a
| devout Christian from a good family unlike those other
| whores and sodomites," in another it was "I'm a hard
| working industrialist unlike those lazy, old money
| playboys," and now it's "I'm a social worker dealing with
| the problems of BIPOC folx, unlike those finance bros that
| only care about money."
| walleeee wrote:
| Right, this is not a new phenomenon. Whether it's
| meaningful to pin it on human nature, I'm not sure; we
| consider ourselves unique as a species largely for our
| ability to recursively adapt the environment to
| ourselves, and then ourselves to the new state of
| affairs, and so on. We do generally prefer to think we're
| smart and good and well-informed and justified in our
| decisions, no doubt. We also usually prefer to keep what
| we have, which could be taken to support the traditional
| Marxist line.
|
| All I'm saying is in an attention economy, one does well
| to reflect and ask who benefits from one's beliefs and
| their mode of expression. Substitute money for power,
| reputation, or any scarce social resource, and I think
| the analysis still tends to work, whether or not it
| echoes Marx.
| myshpa wrote:
| The road to hell is paved with good intentions
| rayiner wrote:
| The Sierra Club guide is hilarious:
| https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/sce-authors/u....
|
| > People of color" has in the past served as a collective term
| for people who are not white. A preferred term today is "BIPOC"
| referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color, which
| provides a unifying term for ease of use while still
| acknowledging the reality that Black and Indigenous people in the
| United States are impacted by structural and individual racism in
| a different way than other people of color.
|
| I love the "first among equals" aspect of BIPOC. It's literally
| just white people creating hierarchies of the other races. Again.
| chakintosh wrote:
| All there is to it is white people inventing words to stake a
| claim to them.
| glonq wrote:
| Yeah, it could have been IBPOC.
|
| Also, since we are exposing the silliness of all of this --
| aren't "black" and "poc" discriminatory to "people who are
| experiencing albinism" ?
| lumb63 wrote:
| My opinion is the motivation behind "BIPOC" is to exclude
| Asians, who are rarely considered as minorities due to their
| economic and academic success.
| j-krieger wrote:
| They're also the victim of harassment and hate by primarily
| other minorities, which makes for an uncomfortable fact.
| rayiner wrote:
| I think "BIPOC" is designed to be able to exclude or include
| asians selectively depending on political needs. They want
| Asians to identify their interests with those of other non-
| whites, and in opposition to conservative whites. In that
| context, Asians are "BIPOC." But when it comes to
| preferential treatment amongst different non-whites, for jobs
| or admissions, then Asians are in the second-tier of "POC"
| not the first tier of "BI."
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| NAACP stands for "National Association for the Advancement of
| Colored People". Interesting how "Colored People" was an
| enlightened term in 1909, but "Colored People" is now out and
| "People of Color" is the new way to go.
| zuminator wrote:
| Colored People and People of Color are two different things.
| Colored People was the polite term for blacks 60+ years ago.
| People of Color means nonwhite. Also, side point, the
| founders of NAACP included both black, white, and at least
| one person (Mary Church Terrell) that we would in 2023
| consider mixed race. And initially it was predominately led
| by white Americans.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| As a non native speaker I would have never known this.
| Learned something today!
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| No, "people of color" is now in the "past" as Sierra Club
| says. The "preferred term today" is "BIPOC" which
| acknowledges that black and indigenous people are more
| important than other "people of color." I don't remember
| Asians signing off on this change request; I doubt Hispanics
| did either.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Why are you attributing a ranking to an initialism?
| [deleted]
| chownie wrote:
| Initialisms apparently naturally have a hierarchy, like
| when lesbians invented the LGBT and graciously donated
| the other letters to good causes.
| exolymph wrote:
| The ranking is the point of the initialism. Black and
| indigenous people were already included in the blanket
| term "people of color," so why introduce BIPOC if not to
| highlight those groups specifically?
| rayiner wrote:
| Exactly--and the Sierra Club guide discloses that exact
| motivation in the part I quoted above.
| slackdog wrote:
| The old phrase is inside the new phrase of course, or at
| least it is if you try to say it out loud. Or maybe only
| the initialism is meant to be spoken, I'm not sure. I
| suspect these kind of situations (BIPOC, Latinx, Xir/Xer
| etc) occur when terminally online people accustomed to text
| communication forget that language is spoken too, not just
| typed. That's why they come up with all these new terms
| that can be read as text but become unintelligible noise
| when spoken.
| Arainach wrote:
| This is the way language and respectful culture evolve.
| Something can both be an improvement over previous terms and
| imperfect and thus replaced by something more preferable
| later.
| slingnow wrote:
| What made the first term imperfect? Who decided what was
| preferable later?
| cedilla wrote:
| No one and everyone. Language changes as our world and
| societies change.
| vaxintar wrote:
| People of Color
|
| Of color black, of color brown, etc
| jrmg wrote:
| Are you aghast at the number of points?
|
| It's referring to two points from "The Chicago Guide to
| Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation", which is understandably (I
| hope), a large (and respected!) guide.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Taken out of their respective roles in the context of the
| conversation, comparing the Chicago Guide to the Catechism
| is, admittedly, a really funny comment.
| rayiner wrote:
| Yes, that went over my head.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| If we continue like this, a child born 10 years from now won't
| understand a book published 10 years ago. We would need to
| translate "Old English" to "Woke English".
| [deleted]
| kepler1 wrote:
| The funny thing to me is that it felt like this whole field of
| pronouns, over-sensitivity, not wanting to call things
| straightforwardly, was propagated by white female journalists and
| HR directors.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| " But the people in Behind the Beautiful Forevers know they're
| poor; they can't afford to wrap themselves in soft sheets of
| euphemism. Equity language doesn't fool anyone who lives with
| real afflictions. It's meant to spare only the feelings of those
| who use it."
|
| Ouch. Bull's eye.
| diedead wrote:
| Some very fun ones relating to the IT/tech industry (To me, some
| of these are reasonable, but "whitespace" and "brown-bag",
| seriously??)
|
| https://itconnect.uw.edu/guides-by-topic/identity-diversity-...
|
| https://www.it.northwestern.edu/about/it-projects/dei/glossa...
| messe wrote:
| "Sanity check" is flagged there as well. That's a first for me.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| I recently had a comment on another site flagged by a bot for
| using ableist language when I used the world "insane". It was
| a first for me as well. Will go with "batshit" next time.
| exodust wrote:
| It's insane there's backroom string-pullers trying to take
| out words like insane.
|
| Rick from Pawn Stars uses the word, so it's good enough for
| me! He often describes certain amazing facts or objects as
| insane. Because he likes those things. It can be positive.
|
| Is the motivation to onboard "use this list or be on wrong
| side of ethics and get nasty reviews"? there's an element
| of that.
|
| Microsoft 360, all that new stuff, surprised to find shiny
| new morality-checker sitting alongside the spellchecker.
| Watching over my every word. I unchecked 5000 checkboxes to
| disable it all. Auto-nicer-word enforcer is not for me.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| It was more like "If you want to participate in this
| obviously PC online community, here's how we talk." They
| didn't ban me or even threaten to.
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| I acknowledge that language shapes the way people think. But the
| replacement of cost-benefit analysis and evidence-based debate
| with arguments regarding the connotations that different words
| pull in has been a huge mistake in my view.
|
| There might have been a point at which language policing was done
| in good faith. But I strongly suspect that the replacement of the
| word _felon_ with the term _justice-involved person_ is
| essentially attempting a _fait accompli_ on a debate regarding
| the extent to which convicted criminals should be considered
| culpable for their crimes. The problem with this mode of debating
| is that winning correlates with the ability to wield social
| power, not with having facts on your side.
| calt wrote:
| It can often depend on the purpose you're writing for. Do you
| want to be bland, professional, and as inoffensive as possible?
| Great.
|
| In contrast, I think the highlighted excerpt really summed up the
| article well.
|
| > Good writing--vivid imagery, strong statements--will hurt,
| because it's bound to convey painful truths.
|
| Writing poetry, songs, fiction, and impactfull writing with
| equity language will always feel hollow.
| variant wrote:
| Can we just all start operating from the perspective that we're
| _not_ trying to offend each other?
|
| Do away with all these rules that serve no purpose other than to
| slot each other into buckets of enlightened and evil.
|
| It's a sign that we have things way too good.
| deely3 wrote:
| But how can we logically separate "trying to offend" and "not
| trying to offend" stances here, on a social platform, by
| reading two or three sentences comment written by some
| anonymous?
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| By assuming others are not trying to offend, and practicing
| apathy when we suspect they are. Offense is not violence.
| nomdep wrote:
| Easy. You always asume "not trying to offend" unless there is
| strong evidence to the contrary
| twodave wrote:
| You shouldn't try. Assume the best and move on. This is just
| basic manners.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Assume good intent and interpret as generously as possible. I
| believe some version of these common sense notions are even
| in the site guidelines for Hacker News.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| >It's a sign that we have things way too good.
|
| That is not the case though.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| The right wing censor by banning books.
|
| The left wing censor by rewriting books.
| eli wrote:
| Who is _banning_ words?
|
| I feel like people are deliberately misunderstanding what a style
| guide is.
| scarmig wrote:
| The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of
| intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that
| linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
| is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow
| situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from
| negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of
| color. And none of them are better or worse than the other
| (though the 2020 innovation "bodies of color" managed to find a
| way to be more degrading than the worst that Stormfront could
| come up with).
|
| Why? We feel powerless to fix the problems that plague our
| society, so instead we turn to things we have agency over. Maybe
| we can't prevent group X from suffering from social
| discrimination, but if everything is just a matter of what words
| we use, we can just choose to use those words, stridently
| denounce everyone who hasn't gotten with the program, and pat
| ourselves on the back and call it a day.
| paulv wrote:
| > The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to
| black, to African American, to Black, to person of color.
|
| You missed a couple at the beginning of your list. A really
| significant one in particular.
| scarmig wrote:
| Including it would distract from the main point (though IIRC
| there was no point at which it wasn't a slur; replacing non-
| slurs with novel non-slurs is a different category).
|
| That said, I think it supports my point. How effective has
| tabooing that slur been at eliminating racism in the USA?
| QuercusMax wrote:
| I'm the furthest thing from N-word apologist, but it's
| pronounced the same as the Latin word meaning "black"
| (modulo vowel pronunciation shifts), and spelled nearly the
| same. It's clearly derived from a word which did not
| originally have any meaning as a slur, and I bet you could
| find early usages in English which were merely descriptive.
|
| There's no reason to use it now, but understanding the fact
| that was originally a descriptive word is useful for the
| history of it.
| jimbokun wrote:
| There have been a few kerfuffles in soccer where a
| Spanish speaking person used the Spanish word for black
| person in an English speaking country...and were charged
| with making a racial slur.
| majormajor wrote:
| Why does a taboo have to "eliminate racism" to be
| considered useful or effective instead of just "reduce the
| amount of times people have to put up with hearing others
| call them that"?
| scarmig wrote:
| Do you have an estimate for how much tabooing that word
| decreased the racial wealth gap or increased the number
| of black children with access to healthcare?
| ilyt wrote:
| Well it's american site and people get itchy when you mention
| it, because apparently having voldemort words that are
| simultaneously used by people supposedely offended by it in
| their culture is "good" thing to do
| [deleted]
| blahblah1234567 wrote:
| the correct term is no longer "persons of color"
|
| I received a letter in the mail from official sources, ordering
| me to use:
|
| "skin appropriating mammals & pseudo-mammals of complexions
| including greyscale shades from #FFFFFE to #000000"
|
| (pseudo-mammals is important so as not to exclude platypus &
| echidna identifying peoples)
|
| It's ok though-- I will let it slide this time.
|
| Next time though, it will be reported to the Commissar. And
| they will listen to me-- Because I am half skin appropriating
| mammals & pseudo-mammals of complexions including greyscale
| shades from #FFFFFE to #000000 (anything more than a quarter is
| considered full validated and verified via the official
| channels)
| ccooffee wrote:
| Can you provide sources for "the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is more
| or less rejected by linguists"? I took a university course in
| "Philosophy of Language" around 2008 and I was taught in no
| uncertain terms that language structures thought.
|
| The wikipedia article for Linguistic Relativity[0] states:
|
| > Research has produced positive empirical evidence supporting
| linguistic relativity, and this hypothesis is provisionally
| accepted by many modern linguists.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
| scarmig wrote:
| That quote is a relatively recent addition (17 Jan 2023) and
| isn't well-cited. A longer standing and more objective
| statement from the article:
|
| > Many different, often contradictory variations of the
| hypothesis have existed throughout its history.[4] The strong
| hypothesis of linguistic relativity, now referred to as
| linguistic determinism, says that language determines thought
| and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive
| categories. This hypothesis was held by some of the early
| linguists before World War II.[3] This version is generally
| agreed to be false by modern linguists.[2]
|
| You can read a reasonable discussion of it here:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/6aqsex/how_muc.
| ..
| ccooffee wrote:
| Thank you!
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| It's a shame. Many people who call themselves left instead have
| views similar to violent communism (as opposed to social
| democracy or Marxism) and fascism of the hard right in terms of
| inflexibility, harsh punishment, mercilessness, and aggressive
| intellectual and social domination. Gen X and older tend to
| have more of an idea of the spirit of left liberalism and what
| it means socially, life outlook, and pragmatically.
|
| Furthermore, there are nonzero people in groups who object to
| victim monikers like Latinx and over-sensitive terminology as
| demeaning. If it were me, since I can only speak for myself, I
| would want to be treated as equal without ceremony, pity, or
| unfair advantages. Alterations of language where there is
| little or no offense (asking the targets rather than the busy
| bodies) seem like token thoughts and prayers and inconvenience
| to the many rather than direct, positive help to anyone. Solve
| real concerns rather than pearl clutch the next unfashionable
| word.
| agnos wrote:
| From the article:
|
| _The project of the guides is utopian, but they're a symptom
| of deep pessimism. They belong to a fractured culture in which
| symbolic gestures are preferable to concrete actions, argument
| is no longer desirable, each viewpoint has its own impenetrable
| dialect, and only the most fluent insiders possess the power to
| say what is real._
|
| Though I wonder if this diagnosis is actually too optimistic,
| in that it assumes people are 1) aware and care about the real
| problems and 2) willing to put in effort to enact meaningful
| change. Perhaps this is too cynical, but I think most people
| who adopt this sort of symbolic gesturing are pretty detached
| from the root issues of power and wealth inequality. "Virtue
| signaling" is a product of vanity, not pessimism/powerlessness.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| This what people do to distract from the fact that they don't
| want to give up housing as a lucrative investment if it means
| more housing, as that would infringe upon their lifestyle.
| roughly wrote:
| Alternatively, there's a theory of change at play here that
| follows a relatively long path of inquiry through politics,
| sociology, and neuroscience to identify in-group/out-group
| dynamics and mental shortcuts as central blockers to attempts
| to increase cross-group empathy and drive social change.
| stillkicking wrote:
| Even if that were true, I'd still not put any faith in the
| empathy skills of people who use e.g. "incel" as a slur, who
| claim "it's okay to be white" is hate speech and who call
| arson, vandalism and looting "mostly peaceful protests"
| because the in-group did it.
| roughly wrote:
| So long as you're not reducing entire groups into
| caricatures of themselves, it's probably fine.
| stillkicking wrote:
| It's not a caricature if it's taught at supposedly elite
| institutions of education, into which admission is
| contingent on a declaration of adherence to said ways of
| thinking.
| pwinnski wrote:
| This is three gross mischaracterizations in one!
| scarmig wrote:
| I don't dispute that there's a theory of change here: "if we
| explore the linguistic landscape, we can discover a set of
| signifiers that will help us to destroy racism/sexism/etc."
|
| I just reject that. We don't live in a Harry Potter book
| where the correct series of incantations affect the material
| world.
| roughly wrote:
| That's not the theory of change at play here. You're
| rejecting a straw man.
|
| As to the rest of it: "Officer, arrest that man" is a
| series of incantations that affect the material world.
| scarmig wrote:
| I can say that right now, and nothing happens. The words
| aren't the causal elements here changing the world; it's
| the referants and power hierarchies that do.
|
| The proper analogy would be thinking that requiring
| saying "Officer, detain-in-an-official-capacity that
| man!" instead would somehow fix police violence.
| roughly wrote:
| > I can say that right now, and nothing happens. The
| words aren't the causal elements here changing the world;
| it's the referants and power hierarchies that do.
|
| And you think this is something that's not understood
| among those pushing for linguistics changes?
| jimbokun wrote:
| I think that.
|
| I think those people distract and soothe themselves from
| their inability to enact change with linguistic games.
| cwkoss wrote:
| > the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except
| perhaps in some very narrow situations
|
| What do you mean by this? Hasn't linguistic relativity been
| studied and demonstrated quite extensively?
|
| I don't disagree with your overall point, but found this
| surprising.
| scarmig wrote:
| It's meant a lot of different things in the past. The initial
| version (the "strong" hypothesis) has been roundly rejected.
| Claims associated with it are what people usually think of
| ("the Ancient Greeks couldn't see the color blue!") when they
| think of Sapir-Whorf.
|
| Weaker versions with much more narrow claims are debated and
| controversial, but even for those, it's the most flashy (and
| least supported) claims that get the most popular press.
| majormajor wrote:
| You say it's both "intellectual decay" and "feeling powerless"
| but I see no reason that the two are connected, causal, or both
| happening. Hand people victimized by the past few centuries of
| American history the ability to fix, say, the generational
| wealth gap that resulted from denied opportunities and seizure
| of property, and see if they still only focus on words.
| fundad wrote:
| That would be a great experiment.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > The euphemism treadmill is a running joke,
|
| It feels more like a minefield than a joke. A minefield that
| gets new mines added every so often just to keep everyone on
| their toes. When I was younger, I used to feel like I could
| keep up with all the new taboo words, but it seems like it is
| happening faster and faster these days.
|
| You can unintentionally say something that turns out to be
| taboo, and you're done for. Some years ago, I causally used the
| "r-word" and didn't even think anything of it, and blam! big
| mistake. We used to toss that one around all the time back in
| the 80s and 90s, felt kind of like a jerk when you used it in
| the early 2000s, but in the 2010s it's become totally lingua-
| non-grata. We learn the hard way from these experiences, but it
| does feel like a growing minefield.
|
| Worse, when something innocent we write/say today becomes a
| slur in 2040, future people will dig back in time and judge us
| by the words we wrote in 2020. Do you know what will be a slur
| in 20 years? I don't.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| >in the 2010s it's become totally lingua-non-grata*
|
| I thought it was the 2020s.
|
| But it's too good not to use, and it's the last good insult
| we have. Mental ableism is the last bastion. I make my stand
| here.
|
| The slippery slope we're being forced down on leads to "don't
| be mean to anyone ever", and I, as a product of the era of
| https://youtu.be/C4dnCZSYmbY, fundamentally refuse to accept
| that.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| I personally have replaced it with fucktard, just so there
| isn't any confusion.
|
| Also I'm bringing back "special".
| ok_dad wrote:
| > I causally used the "r-word" and didn't even think anything
| of it
|
| You casually called someone a "retard" (I assume that's the
| word) and someone took that wrongly? Of course they did! Even
| when "retard" was an acceptable put-down, it was still a put-
| down.
|
| Maybe the way to avoid the "minefield" you speak of is to not
| put others down? Even deservedly! Just try to be nicer to
| everyone, even if they are not, themselves, nice.
| sertsa wrote:
| I've never thought of retarded as a putdown, it was just
| the sound used to describe a certain group of people. Be
| careful assuming you are in possession of the one true way.
| ok_dad wrote:
| > I've never thought of retarded as a putdown
|
| You may be one of the few, in that case. Good! Other
| people might not understand that about you if you used
| that word around them.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| There is a difference. Retarded was used to describe a
| person's condition. It means slow. Retard the noun was
| more a slur or put down.
| alar44 wrote:
| [dead]
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Retard?
| tzs wrote:
| > It feels more like a minefield than a joke. A minefield
| that gets new mines added every so often just to keep
| everyone on their toes.
|
| It gets new mines because when a word becomes a widely used
| derogatory term for a group of people we need a non-
| derogatory word to use instead when when we are trying to
| talk about people in that group and aren't trying to be
| derogatory.
| nomdep wrote:
| That what tone is for! And when is written, you use the
| context. And when there is no context, you asume the
| kindest interpretation
| tzs wrote:
| So when a word that starts out as a neutral term to
| describe some condition or collection of people gets
| adopted over time by the general public as a slur or
| derogatory term, and that's how it is used 99.9% of the
| time, we should assume when we hear it out of context it
| is the 0.1% case?
|
| Also for many of these words most the general public has
| complete forgotten the non-slur/non-derogatory meaning
| (or has never known it). No amount of tone will fix that.
|
| Imagine an unmarried couple with a child who gets a copy
| of the child's medical records from their pediatrician
| and see the child described as a "retarded bastard". The
| chances that they will know that "retarded" was once a
| medical term for someone who is behind on mental
| development and that "bastard" means a person born out of
| wedlock are pretty low. At best they are going to be
| greatly puzzled by the doctor using those words.
| pwinnski wrote:
| I know that kindness never goes out of style.
|
| Negative words can change meaning or severity over time, in
| both directions, but if you aim for clear expression and
| avoid insults, it is unlikely anything you say or write will
| be judged badly in the future.
| corbulo wrote:
| Why do you need freedom of speech? Just be nice!
|
| This might be the most British comment ive ever replied to
| Nemrod67 wrote:
| Oi MATE!
|
| You got a license for that joke!?
| Tade0 wrote:
| > Some years ago, I causally used the "r-word" and didn't
| even think anything of it, and blam! big mistake.
|
| Doug Stanhope has a great skit in which he explains that the
| word "retarded" was originally the sensitive way to refer to
| this group, because at the time they were called directly
| derogatory terms.
|
| But, like with every such attempt it was quickly adopted as
| an insult.
|
| My not particularly original take is that policing language
| addresses only the effect, not the cause. Question remains:
| should the world learn of our peaceful ways by force?
| swimfar wrote:
| Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dqsgxLyl5E
| pwinnski wrote:
| Yeah, there's no word to describe something negative that
| can't be turned into an insult. Whatever words we use to
| describe people on the fringes of society will be turn
| against those we don't like to treat them as if they are on
| the fringes of society.
|
| If it somehow became popular to describe people of a
| certain type using the phrase "people on the fringes of
| society," then within a generation or two kids would taunt
| each other in schoolyards with "No, _you 're_ on the
| fringes of society," and "No, _you_ are! "
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Just like Special Education students in schools, students
| who require one-on-one teaching from trained teachers. It
| was abbreviated as sp.ed., and where I grew up, "sped"
| was a common insult, as in "you're such a sped", or "that
| sped is so retarded".
|
| I once got into a debate with someone on Reddit where
| they claimed "Middle East" is an offensive term, which
| was news to me. They preferred "West Asia and Northern
| Africa", or something. I claimed that this is just taking
| the same path that "oriental" took, which is now taboo in
| some countries, even though it literally means "from the
| east" and is the opposite of "occidental".
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Even just special ed is used as an insult
| [deleted]
| autodev1 wrote:
| Today, it's no longer person of color.
|
| It's "theirsxn of sholor". Please respect this and stop the
| violation and violence against theirsxns of sholor which is
| incurred when you use othering phrases.
|
| (not thereson-- because it has the word "son" in it, which is
| offensive to non-sons. sholor because it's closer to shalom
| which means peace.)
|
| /le jokes
| blahblah1234567 wrote:
| I welcome "The semantic turn of the Left". It shows the emperor
| has no clothes.
|
| By increasing the silliness, more and more people observe "Wow
| these folks are ignorant lunatics, unaware that they're driving
| the perception of themselves as immature, ignorant hypocrites
| whose identity is built upon political trends."
| [deleted]
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| This article makes it clear how quickly and rabidly cultural
| Marxism can transform a society using the university
| institutions. If you don't use the Orwellian newspeak, you're not
| simply misunderstanding $ISSUE_X, you're incapable of talking or
| thinking about it. So, how much longer until we have equity re-
| education camps?
| yrdmb wrote:
| Isn't theatlantic one of the leading proponent of censorship?
| low_tech_love wrote:
| When I first read this post and commented on it, it had the same
| title as the underlying article. Why was it changed to something
| else that is not in the article at all?
| nicbou wrote:
| Counter-point: we used to call lousy things gay, and made up a
| whole sexuality for men who took care of their appearance
| (metrosexual). Perhaps it wasn't as bad as the Nazis' "useless
| mouths", but it certainly wasn't great.
|
| Nowadays we call white immigrants "expats" and other immigrants
| "immigrants".
|
| Words have power.
|
| The problem is when people start using words to create a sort of
| password game. It keeps some people busy, makes them feel better
| than others for knowing the passwords, and does little for anyone
| else.
| [deleted]
| karaterobot wrote:
| This language got popular not because people thought really hard
| and all arrived at it independently, through cold-blooded
| analysis, but because they heard it was what the better class of
| people did now, and there was peer pressure around it. Because it
| never had a firm foundation, never really made sense when you
| thought hard about it, it can easily change to something else. In
| other words, it's a fashion, and fashions change.
| hedora wrote:
| Honestly, I think it got popular for the same reason slowly
| backing away from the dude playing with a switchblade at a bar
| is popular:
|
| It's generally better to avoid taking the bait when someone is
| trying to pick a fight with you.
| Penyngton wrote:
| I agree with you, but this is how bullies get their way.
| iamnotsure wrote:
| Not to have the last word.
| Aidevah wrote:
| > _Traditionally, Prescriptivists tend to be political
| conservatives and Descriptivists tend to be liberals. But today's
| most powerful influence on the norms of public English is
| actually a stern and exacting form of liberal Prescriptivism. I
| refer here to Politically Correct English (PCE), under whose
| conventions failing students become "high-potential" students and
| poor people "economically disadvantaged" and people in
| wheelchairs "differently abled" and a sentence like "White
| English and Black English are different, and you better learn
| White English or you're not going to get good grades" is not
| blunt but "insensitive." Although it's common to make jokes about
| PCE (referring to ugly people as "aesthetically challenged" and
| so on), be advised that Politically Correct English's various
| pre- and proscriptions are taken very seriously indeed by
| colleges and corporations and government agencies, whose
| institutional dialects now evolve under the beady scrutiny of a
| whole new kind of Language Police._
|
| > _From one perspective, the rise of PCE evinces a kind of Lenin-
| to-Stalinesque irony. That is, the same ideological principles
| that informed the original Descriptivist revolution -- namely,
| the rejections of traditional authority (born of Vietnam) and of
| traditional inequality (born of the civil rights movement) --
| have now actually produced a far more inflexible Prescriptivism,
| one largely unencumbered by tradition or complexity and backed by
| the threat of real-world sanctions (termination, litigation) for
| those who fail to conform. This is funny in a dark way, maybe,
| and it's true that most criticisms of PCE seem to consist in
| making fun of its trendiness or vapidity. This reviewer's own
| opinion is that prescriptive PCE is not just silly but
| ideologically confused and harmful to its own cause._
|
| - David Foster Wallace, _Tense Present: Democracy, English, and
| the Wars over Usage_ , 2001
|
| https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-...
| teucris wrote:
| This article goes way overboard.
|
| While some of the things referenced are ridiculous, the author is
| really misinterpreting many of the guides here, to a point where
| it feels like willful misinterpretation. For instance.
|
| > If we don't know how to end racism, we can at least call it
| structural. The guides want to make the ugliness of our society
| disappear by linguistic fiat.
|
| If anything, using the term "structural" helps associate _much
| more_ context about racism, its causes, and its ugliness, not
| less.
|
| Also, these guides aren't targeting literature. They mostly meant
| for situations where you _don't_ want to evoke emotion in your
| writing.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Also, these guides aren't targeting literature._
|
| Considering the news that Roald Dahl's books are now being
| altered in precisely some of the ways described, we are very,
| very clearly seeing literature start to be targeted.
| kodah wrote:
| > The guide also rejects the disabled in favor of people living
| with disabilities, for the same reason that enslaved person has
| generally replaced slave : to affirm, by the tenets of what's
| called "people-first language," that "everyone is first and
| foremost a person, not their disability or other identity."
|
| The reason people first language fails is because there's some
| subjects of this language that find the original wording
| insulting and there's some subjects of this language that find
| the new words insulting.
|
| I have back issues. Major ones that pinch my sciatic nerve due to
| a fractured column that healed improperly. They've gotten to the
| point a few times in my life where I could not walk much less
| feel (at all) my leg for prolonged periods of time. If someone
| called me a "person experiencing a disability" it sounds like
| you're trying to remove the hurdle that the disability puts in my
| life. I already had to grapple with the idea that I am not bound
| to that disability. I have found ways to climb small mountains,
| to hike, pack, move/lift heavy things, sit, and work out all with
| abundances of caution and very proper form.
|
| That's to say, codifying this language just does what the first
| correction set out to correct: it institutionalized language some
| people don't like. In a world with a big variety of perspectives
| and experiences, the best resolution to these problems isn't some
| authoritarian document telling people how to talk. It's
| gracefully correcting people on the way that you'd like to be
| spoken about and people respecting that. Nobody needs to walk on
| eggshells around how I'd like to be referred, they just need to
| meet me where I am when I make a choice.
| phlakaton wrote:
| This is great advice for one-on-one groups and small
| discussions, but provides little help if you're writing for a
| broad audience and want to minimize blowback. Which is where I
| think that Stanford guide, and other such guides, come into
| play, whether I agree with them or not.
| kodah wrote:
| > but provides little help if you're writing for a broad
| audience and want to minimize blowback
|
| Does writing a guide or policing language that causes
| blowback provide help? If you're speaking to a room full of
| people and half favor this language and half don't then
| you've only shifted the grievances from one side of the room
| to the other.
|
| There's no easy answers here, but I don't think writing
| language guides or policing peoples language actually
| accomplishes much.
| 78124781 wrote:
| All it takes is one or two very angry people to start a mob
| online and destroy someone's entire career. I'm not
| surprised that authors, especially in a field as precarious
| as writing, are more than willing to follow what is deemed
| to be "safe" language, though it's definitely a loss for
| society as a whole and indirectly works to undermine
| writing as an art.
| jimbokun wrote:
| I think that's becoming less true. A lot of recent
| "cancellation" attempts have failed.
|
| Of course, it's probably much more difficult for those
| who aren't already successful and famous.
| phlakaton wrote:
| If it's truly 50-50, then no. But I don't see any way that
| a whole 50% of your audience is going to freak out if you
| change from "homeless" to "person experiencing
| homelessness," for example.
|
| The guides are probably banking on most of the changes
| being accepted, however grudgingly. Of course, they may be
| wrong, and even if there's pushback, they may be convinced
| enough of the righteousness of their cause to press ahead
| anyway.
| quantified wrote:
| The tenet assumes that people are in the large just dense.
| Following it, you have no airline pilots, mothers, mentors,
| judges, felons, idiots, and maybe not even proper names. Just
| "person who is female and has borne living children", "person
| who judges others in court", "person named Judy", etc.
|
| There might be a worthwhile transition to a new framing that
| makes sense. I've heard people rip on using the metric system
| because supposedly its proponents wanted 10-hour days and 10
| days a week, etc, which was taking tenets to ridiculous points.
| The problem now is trying to frame some changes in grander
| terms because you might well get ridiculous outcomes ( and in
| current society definitely will).
| derbOac wrote:
| I had sort of a similar reaction to the piece -- reading
| through it really clarified for me some impressions that had
| been sitting in the back of my mind.
|
| Language at some level is really about the speaker, in terms of
| their background, knowledge or lack thereof, what they want to
| communicate and so forth. Sometimes I think what this equity
| language betrays is some desire to convey moral or intellectual
| status, or even some assertion of social power, but sometimes
| it reflects a genuine attempt to respect the wishes of the
| subjects of what they're saying.
|
| The problem as you point out is different groups might see
| things in different ways, and maybe even want to be seen in
| different ways in different settings or at different moments.
| Maybe they want to be seen as strong or resilient in one
| setting, and maybe in another they want to discuss the
| injustices they have to be resilient against. I think this is
| only a natural part of human nature.
|
| So it makes sense that these edicts about proper language
| aren't just morally problematic because they reflect some power
| motive on the part of the speaker, at the expense of the
| subject of the speech, but because in doing that, they deny
| some flexibility in how certain topics and persons can be
| portrayed or portray themselves.
|
| The example of the passage from _Behind the Beautiful Forevers_
| is compelling in how it illustrates how equity language can be
| disenfranchising and therefore counter to its own stated
| purposes. The passage works because it is meant to convey
| something about the parents ' perspective and to cause us to
| wrestle with that. The author is channeling the parents'
| language. In a different context, maybe the same situation
| might be described differently, more positively. It's not just
| that the language in the second version is intellectualized and
| distanced, it's that it denies choice of language from those
| who potentially are in the best position to say something about
| it.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I think it's much easier to just see it as in-group out-group
| signaling. You're in the in-group if you comply with the new
| arbitrary language and you're a slew of bad words if you're
| in the out-group using the old language. The stuff about
| being nice to low status people is fake, the purpose is to
| identify low status people (the people who don't know/use the
| new made up language).
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/8TnxC
| [deleted]
| subpixel wrote:
| On a related note, I feel certain that mandating new words (or
| capitalization of existing words) does not make the world more
| just or the lives of its inhabitants more harmonious.
| maxrev17 wrote:
| Lol seems like a reductio ad absurdum long game on trying to make
| people be nice to each other. I might use the 'wrong' word or an
| offensive one but I sure as hell don't mean it to be and that is
| easy to spot.
|
| Interestingly the people who push these crazy (lol) agendas are
| normally nowhere near the intended 'offendees' of the
| terminology.
| jmull wrote:
| I hope people realize The Atlantic is baiting us to outrage. For
| the clicks, of course.
|
| No question, these language guides are pretty absurd (at least to
| someone my age) and have very doubtful moral value... but these
| are internal guides, for their own communications. It's the
| Sierra Club's job to figure that out what language their
| donors/members (potential or current) want to hear. I have no
| idea if they are getting it right here, but few of us do, because
| that's highly domain-specific knowledge and tricky to nail down.
|
| It's downright dishonest and sensationalistic to apply one of
| these guides to a book like _Behind the Beautiful Forevers_. What
| does a communications guide have to do with book authorship?
|
| The article is really just an extended straw man argument. BTW,
| the first sentence of the Sierra Club guide explains it's
| intended purpose:
|
| > One of the most visible ways the Sierra Club can demonstrate
| our commitment to equity, justice, and inclusion is by using
| respectful, thoughtful language in all of our communications.
|
| But delving into that isn't going to drive a lot of click so they
| went another way.
| legitster wrote:
| "Avoid metaphors, which can introduce unneeded baggage." This is
| my favorite one from UC Irvine's language guide. Nothing better
| encapsulates the irony and lack of self-awareness most of these
| guides display.
|
| This is clearly not actually about morality - no one in their
| right mind would argue that someone is racist just because they
| didn't know the etymology of "cakewalk". And a complete racist
| could follow these rules easily enough.
|
| This seems to me that these are a set of moral grounds to _punish
| people for having a low EQ_.
|
| None of these rules or guides are even _internally_ consistent.
| What it will and has always come down to is understanding how to
| read a room and follow imposed social etiquette (aka, _EQ_ -
| something that we know is not equally distributed!)
|
| Whether people promoting this stuff understand it or not (I think
| some of them are _very aware_ ), they are going to be roping of
| sections of society just on the grounds of being "too impolite".
| dmonitor wrote:
| The fact that they use a metaphor in their ban of metaphors is
| unintentionally hilarious
| yibg wrote:
| This seems like pretty on point: "The whole tendency of equity
| language is to blur the contours of hard, often unpleasant facts.
| This aversion to reality is its main appeal."
|
| Language can and should be provocative at times, because reality
| can be messy. Sterilizing language like this besides being
| completely untenable also removes the power of language, both as
| a positive and negative force.
| gumby wrote:
| The use of Sierra Club as the lead example is a good one because
| of the racialist motivations in the founding of the club.
|
| The change of usage to "enslaved people" is an important one
| because of the lack of agency in being enslaved (!). It's easy
| for the brain to make the connection that a term like "slave" is
| an inherent property of the person so described, like "brown-
| haired" rather than something imposed upon them.
|
| But as a non-American who's lived in the US a long time, seeing
| the term "American" used generally doesn't bother me: it's
| trivial and automatic to see when it's simply synecdoche for
| "resident", "taxpayer", or, yes, "US citizen, so not applicable
| to me". I am not offended when I see a headline, as I did this
| morning, saying "your passport will be delayed so apply early".
| Just doesn't apply to me so who cares?
| mc32 wrote:
| It's like they want to abolish metaphors and want to become
| language prescriptive --which people and grammarians wanted to
| get away from in the 60s and later (not that that ever
| persuaded the French against prescriptive language). And I
| guess English lends itself to more demands like this because
| its vocabulary-rich. Other languages have to re-use and recycle
| words for different meanings a lot more and are not able to
| accommodate these demands.
| gumby wrote:
| > Other languages have to re-use and recycle words for
| different meanings a lot more
|
| A rather extraordinary and unlikely claim. Not to mention
| that words in languages like Arabic have much deeper semantic
| ramification compared to a Germanic language like English.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| The problem with "slave" (as an example) for me is, how do we
| know this is actually a problem for enslaved people? How do we
| know this isn't just a "white man burden" thing? Yes, it makes
| sense, but just because something makes sense doesn't mean it's
| inherently good or applicable. Lots of things make sense from a
| theoretical, conceptual perspective, but are not feasible in
| practice.
|
| It seems to me that enslaved people have much bigger problems
| than to worry about this, and if they don't anymore, then the
| wording doesn't matter. They are either "former slaves", which
| emphasizes the severity of the situation they were put through,
| or they are still slaves, which again----emphasis. I could
| argue that the new wording diminishes the seriousness of the
| predicament (but I won't as I don't believe that, given the
| horrors of slavery, the word matters at all here).
| tgv wrote:
| > the lack of agency in being enslaved
|
| I don't get this, at all. It makes at least one fallacy, namely
| assuming that people are born free. They are not. Every newborn
| is restricted by parents, society, environment, etc. We must
| accept that: we can't think, act or sustain ourselves until
| much older. Thus, we loose our restrictions slowly, and we
| don't loose them all. Some people were actually born as slaves.
| That's the horror of it: to be born as property.
|
| Agency has nothing to do with it: suggesting that it does
| implies the possibility to avoid it, and ipso facto that
| staying enslaved is the slave's problem. The appeal to a made-
| up brain process doesn't improve your case.
| gumby wrote:
| > Agency has nothing to do with it: suggesting that it does
| implies the possibility to avoid it
|
| That was the point of my referring to it: the agency lies
| with the enslaver, not the enslaved.
| tgv wrote:
| But the word is not about agency: it expresses a state. How
| that state was achieved, doesn't matter. Are we going to
| say "enprisoned people", "people who somehow and totally
| against their will caught COVID", "people who accidentally
| experience permanent, fully reduced hearing"? Do you still
| call people who once were, but not longer are, slaves,
| enslaved?
|
| The assumption behind it all is that if someone can make a
| inference about _your_ thoughts, no matter how far-fetched,
| those thoughts must contribute to an undesirable state,
| hence you are a bad person.
| feoren wrote:
| > seeing the term "American" used generally doesn't bother me:
| it's trivial and automatic to see when it's simply synecdoche
| for "resident", "taxpayer"
|
| Nitpick: synecdoche would be if someone called you "America".
| You can imagine a teasing "Hey America, get out of the way"
| toward a tourist who encapsulated their views of Americans.
| "American" is just a regular adjective.
| gumby wrote:
| I meant "American" as a noun ("Americans benefit from the
| investment in national parks") -- sure, I do too.
| otikik wrote:
| Relevant: George Carlin on "Soft Language"
|
| https://youtu.be/o25I2fzFGoY
| civilized wrote:
| Contemporary word fixation is a distraction. People should get
| off the social media hamster wheel, take a walk, and dream up a
| more meaningful way to help their fellow man (human / hxmxn /
| whatever).
|
| It's blown up to the extent that we must now write essays about
| it, but it would have been better if we had never gone there in
| the first place.
|
| This stuff is very not new. George Carlin did a rant about it
| over 30 years ago [1]. Seems like the only real effect is class
| signaling; those who invest in staying "with it" signal their
| willingness to pay lip service to the latest ideological fads.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| The poor and vulnerable don't exist, empowerment is not allowed
| and "corporation" should be spelled "pbuh".
| mbfg wrote:
| if people don't want certain words associated with them, i'll do
| my best not to do that. I may not know, or i may fail, but i will
| attempt to do that which is asked of me. Because it's not a
| problem for me to try.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| That's the thing, most of the people described by these changes
| are not requesting them. Small self appointed experts are
| coming up with the rules and attempting to force them on
| society.
| 13years wrote:
| None of society wanted most of this. They were convinced it
| was necessary for promotion of moral good. Essentially an
| elite language of virtue signaling making it easier to
| identify with others in the club.
| deely3 wrote:
| Heh, reddit moment: "I disagree, therefore I downvote".
| Sunspark wrote:
| In my life, I have been deaf, hearing impaired, hard of hearing,
| hearing challenged. I suppose at some point I will be
| acoustically disadvantaged.
|
| You know what? At the end of the day, I'm still deaf. It's true.
| I have limitations that others take for granted. If I can't see
| someone speaking or if I'm out of batteries, we aren't going to
| be communicating well. That's pretty deaf. I won't be offended,
| it's just reality.
|
| Changing language does not, and never did, give me preferential
| treatment. People are always always going to discriminate and
| pretty words won't stop them.
|
| Character and intent is what matters.
| smcl wrote:
| Aren't "hard of hearing" and "hearing impaired" intended to
| cover a range of deafness or hearing-related problems though?
|
| "Hearing challenged" definitely sounds a bit daft though for
| sure.
| elcomet wrote:
| Yeah that's what I thought, like "blind" and "visually
| impaired" are not the same thing to me, the second refers to
| many different visual issues
| imoverclocked wrote:
| > Character and intent is what matters.
|
| This. I recently ran up against a filter on Reddit where I used
| a phrase that I was completely unaware of. My account was
| flagged for hate speech. The comment had no ill-intent.
|
| The problem with language is that we want individual words to
| have inherent meaning but as people adopt phrases to identify a
| movement, those meanings get carried along for the ride. eg:
| until recently, I would have just curiously nodded along to the
| phrase "It's ok to be _____" but learned that it's actually a
| dark dog whistle thanks to Scott Adams.
|
| I suspect the unease you perceive with people using different
| terms for blindness are unease with their own attachments to
| those words. Fighting to keep using words with established
| meaning is laudable IMO. I still use "literally" as not
| "figuratively" despite the media-dulled connotation.
| tpoacher wrote:
| I find it highly unlikely that Scott Adams is a "dark dog
| whistle" kinda guy.
|
| At best the most I'd believe would be that "some people who
| Scott Adams pissed off now like to say that when he says X he
| actually means Y".
| delecti wrote:
| Scott Adams' descent into reactionaryism [1] has not been
| subtle or quiet. If you were surprised that it eventually
| exploded in a public way, that just tells me you haven't
| heard much of anything about him in the past decade.
|
| Also, "it's okay to be white" is not a hidden rake of a
| dogwhistle to stumble on. If that were a serious position,
| it immediately leads to the question of "who is saying
| otherwise". And then you learn about replacement theory, "a
| white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory" [2], and
| realize what Scott Adams was really saying without saying.
|
| Lots of language policing is dumb. Hell, language policing
| would drive me away from even using "dumb". Scott Adams did
| not stumble into this controversy through zealous language
| policing, he charged into it with eyes open, and knew
| exactly what he was saying.
|
| [1] I think the word is actually reactionism, but chrome's
| spellcheck prefers reactionaryism
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement
| jwond wrote:
| > Also, "it's okay to be white" is not a hidden rake of a
| dogwhistle to stumble on. If that were a serious
| position, it immediately leads to the question of "who is
| saying otherwise".
|
| I found a few examples if you are interested:
|
| > conservatives are objecting after the discovery of a
| speech by Berkeley Professor Zeus Leonardo in which he
| discussed the need "to abolish whiteness." [...] "to
| abolish whiteness is to abolish white people"
|
| https://jonathanturley.org/2022/03/02/abolish-white-
| people-b...
|
| > Abolishing whiteness has never been more urgent
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/11/17/abolishing-
| whi...
|
| > Coca-Cola, Facing Backlash, Says 'Be Less White'
| Learning Plan Was About Workplace Inclusion
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/coca-cola-facing-backlash-says-
| less...
| delecti wrote:
| I'll start with addressing the second one, because it
| sets up the first. To start, the author of that article
| is himself white. He seems to be saying (and pointing to
| others who have said) that "whiteness" as a cultural
| identity leads to white supremacy. For example, "white
| pride" is white supremacist in a way that "Irish pride"
| isn't. The article isn't saying anything should happen to
| people considered white, just that lumping us all into a
| single "white" identity is a problem.
|
| Meanwhile, the reaction to that first link seems to prove
| that professor's point. In context, it seems clear to me
| that he's saying is that people interpret arguments like
| those presented in the second link as attacks on those
| _people_ rather than just calling out that singular
| _identity_ as an issue. He 's not saying "the solution to
| white supremacy is to get rid of white people", he's
| saying "whiteness as a singular identity is a problem,
| and pointing out that it's a problem is seen as an attack
| on white people themselves", which is clearly true based
| on the reaction to his speech.
|
| Newsweek is trash, but I'll put that aside for the
| moment. The training seems to be presenting the same
| arguments as the first two, but badly. A workplace
| training is really the wrong context to try and make that
| kind of nuanced point, and that seems to have been an
| especially clumsy attempt at it.
| slackdog wrote:
| If you listen to the video of what Scott Adams says, he's
| quite explicit about it. It doesn't seem like a plausible
| misspeak. He didn't merely say "It's okay to be white" in
| an ambiguous context (plausibly not related to the 4chan
| propaganda campaign.) He said that because some poll claims
| whatever% of black people disagree with the phrase, that
| black people are a hate group, that white people should
| stay away from them, and that he would no longer advocate
| for black interests. If you don't trust my paraphrasing,
| fair enough, but you can watch the video yourself and I
| think you'll find that my paraphrasing is fairly accurate.
|
| Suppose for the sake of argument the poll is legitimate,
| and suppose he wasn't aware that the phrase is a 4chan
| propaganda slogan.. I think he still grievously erred when
| he decided to judge _all black people_ by the opinions of
| only a portion of black people, as though black were a
| political affiliation that people can enter or leave at
| will. But it 's not a political affiliation, it's an ethnic
| group. You legitimately can't claim that an entire ethnic
| group is a "hate group" because whatever% of them believe
| hateful things, even if that statistic is true. It's not as
| though the remaining% can disassociate themselves from the
| ethnic group, it isn't a voluntary association. I think his
| failure to distinguish an ethnic classification
| (involuntary association) from an ideological
| classification (voluntary association) is where he really
| went off the rails with no plausible deniability.
|
| I interpret this whole affair as: he's rich, wants to
| retire, and decided now is as good a time as any to finally
| speak his mind. He lost his inhibitions.
| tarotuser wrote:
| Previously, Scot Adams "identified as a black person
| because he wanted to be on the winning team".
|
| And then he decided that 'its OK to be white' was
| perfectly fine and re-identified as white, and that black
| people hate white people, and called them a hate group
| that should be stayed as far away as possible.
|
| The only good out of that whole situation is that Scott
| Adams is a trashy racist, and anybody who likes him is
| also a trashy racist.
|
| The real insidious racists are the ones who know how to
| use diplomacy, and affect organizations with "culture
| fit" (aka: not white enough), and other types of hard-to-
| identify racism.
| glonq wrote:
| Reddit is a cesspool.
|
| If I had time and money to waste, I'd do reddit a spiteful
| favor and write a WokeBot that calls out every instance of
| non-equity language. Maybe it even auto-submits hate speech
| reports for significant transgressions.
| josephg wrote:
| > I suspect the unease you perceive with people using
| different terms for blindness are unease with their own
| attachments to those words.
|
| Nah. I think people are just terrified of coming across as a
| jerk for not knowing the latest non-offensive term for
| things. Black? African American? Oh black is ok again? Will I
| get in trouble with HR/Twitter for calling you blind? And if
| so, what word do I use instead? Do I ask? Is that awkward? Am
| I making it awkward??
|
| It feels like a minefield, where the location of the mines
| change every few months and stepping on a mine could cost you
| big time.
|
| The language police keep finding new things to get offended
| by, too. The Stanford "harmful language list" includes things
| like "user", "tribe", "client" and "addict". Pleasing these
| people is exhausting.
|
| [1] https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlang
| uag...
| smcl wrote:
| "Terrified" is a bit much, I think most people just want to
| get along and are happy to use whatever term is acceptable
| to those it describes. Our understanding of what those
| terms are might shift over time, and it may get muddied by
| well-intentioned people trying a bit hard to avoid offence
| (or by people clumsily trying to police it) but it's
| generally progressing fine. And I think as long as you're
| compassionate, willing to listen and learn it's hard to
| _really_ fuck up to the point that you 're "cancelled" (to
| the extent that actually exists) unless you're deliberately
| looking to cause trouble.
| josephg wrote:
| I agree it's usually fine in practice, but I know plenty
| of people who still find the whole thing quite anxiety
| inducing.
|
| Having your language policed isn't an enjoyable
| experience. Doubly so when it feels counterproductive -
| like avoiding the word "blind" with blind people who
| might quite like the term.
| smcl wrote:
| I'd say more generally "Being embarrassed isn't an
| enjoyable experience" - it's embarrassing to find out
| you're using an offensive word or to feel like you're out
| of touch, but what's important is what you do with those
| feelings, how you react.
|
| If someone politely reminds you that some word is
| inflammatory and not well-liked among a given community
| it describes, then you can either take it politely or
| blow up about how the world is going crazy and complain
| about stuff being "woke". That said if someone goes
| thermonuclear on you because you used "deaf" instead of
| "hearing-impaired", yeah that person is clearly a dick,
| doesn't deserve your time of day (note: just re-purposing
| the example from earlier, obviously this is not something
| anyone in this thread has done)
|
| It'd be good to be able to convey that to someone who
| does feel like there is a "language police" or that it is
| anxiety-inducing to engage with younger people. I should
| note though that when I've encountered this - among
| people being racist or homophobic - people tend to dig
| in, become stubborn and rant about "woke culture" or
| genders so clearly the problem cuts both ways (and I
| _hope_ you can see I 'm clearly not the type to fly off
| the handle at someone for something innocuous).
| josephg wrote:
| Is the word "client" offensive? Stanford apparently
| thinks so. Is "blind" offensive to blind people? Is
| "mother" offensive? Apparently some people take offence
| at this stuff. Should I respect them for it? Should I
| feel embarrassed for being "out of touch" because I don't
| side with the censors here?
|
| Being told not to use these terms is language policing.
| It's especially odious when it comes from people taking
| offence on behalf of others. My experience having my
| language policed isn't as simple as feeling embarrassed.
| I would angry at people who demand I stop calling my
| mother my mother. So would she.
|
| And you don't merely "feel like" something is anxiety
| inducing. That's not how anxiety works. People can and
| will feel anxiety for all sorts of reasons that might
| seem ridiculous to you or I. I find awkward scenes in
| movies anxiety inducing. I don't just think they're
| anxiety inducing - I feel actual anxiety while watching.
|
| I'm happy for you that you never feel anxious about the
| idea of getting yelled at for your word choices. I wish
| everyone had that privilege. But we don't live in that
| world. Lots of people - rightly or wrongly - feel
| terrorised by the idea of using the wrong words and
| getting yelled at for it. And I think that sucks for
| them! The experience you have - of people getting
| defensive about this stuff - where do you think that
| reaction comes from? I think it's a social immune
| reaction to being told what to say. People hate that.
| smcl wrote:
| > Is the word "client" offensive? Stanford apparently
| thinks so
|
| Has someone singled you out and told you that you're
| being offensive for using the word "client"? I suspect
| not, I think you've overreacted to this a bit. The
| document you linked has this in its third paragraph:
|
| > The purpose of this website is to educate people about
| the possible impact of the words we use. We are not
| attempting to assign levels of harm to the terms on this
| site. We also are not attempting to address all informal
| uses of language.
|
| So they're stating ahead of time they're not trying to
| get rid of this and create a form of "newspeak" or
| whatever, they're outlining some words some people use
| that have a variety of different implications and
| suggesting some alternatives to them in some contexts.
| The word "client" is under their "Imprecise" section,
| they suggest "user" instead. It is worth noting that I
| have personally encountered its ambiguity - a "client" in
| my current role can variously mean:
|
| - a user or a person
|
| - one of the accounts of that user/person
|
| - a hospital or healthcare provider
|
| - the application calling an API ("client" in OpenID
| Connect)
|
| - a package/lib we published to call an API
|
| We can either live with the idea that "client" is always
| going to need clarification, or start using the terms
| Person, Account, Organization, Client and API Client
| (respectively).
|
| > Is "blind" offensive to blind people? Is "mother"
| offensive?
|
| Have you been confronted for saying "blind" or "mother"?
| This sounds very hypothetical. If you want to have my
| feelings on "blind" check out what I said about "deaf"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35007350 - two of
| the words interpreted as euphemisms were actually broader
| than strictly "deaf", and one sounded comical.
|
| > Should I feel embarrassed for being "out of touch"
| because I don't side with the censors here?
|
| You've mixed things up a bit here, and I hope it was by
| accident so I'll clarify. This "embarrassed" was me
| contextualising what people feel in the situation where,
| for example, Andy uses an antiquated and offensive term
| to refer to an ethnic minority without realising it, then
| Bob corrects them. In your terms Bob has "policed" Andy,
| and it's not nice to feel that. I'm saying that what's
| actually happening here is Andy is embarrassed or
| ashamed, which is a thing that can happen easily (they
| could've called Andy "Albert" or farted or something
| else) and _that 's_ why they feel bad. What happens next
| is on Andy - they could do what they do in _all_ other
| embarrassing situations and say "ah sorry I didn't
| realise" or they could fly off the handle and dig their
| heels in. There's obviously a limit to how forgiving
| people are, I don't think Andy would get off lightly for
| using the n-word, for example.
|
| So I can't think why you should feel embarrassed about
| the existence of this document, but I also can't think
| why you'd get so upset about it if it isn't affecting how
| you talk or causing problems in your life.
|
| > I would angry at people who demand I stop calling my
| mother my mother
|
| Who is demanding that? Is someone in your life telling
| you to do this? If they are - tell them to fuck off,
| that's none of their business. If not ... why are you
| inventing a situation where someone tells you not to call
| your mother "mother"?
|
| With the situations you've brought up, it sounds like
| you're more annoyed about _the idea_ of being told what
| to say, than anyone actually doing it to you. _That_
| sounds anxiety-inducing but I don 't know what I can
| suggest that would help. For what it's worth if you're a
| famous Gen Z streamer then yeah you're going to be held
| to some pretty high standards language-wise, and people
| will outright be looking to cause drama (and tbh they
| often court it and play it up themselves but that's
| another matter). The rest of us aren't held to that
| standard, and normally people don't enter a conversation
| looking to _destroy_ their conversation partner, they
| usually go in with best intentions and if you meet them
| at that level and act respectfully there 's not a great
| deal that can go wrong. When that's not the case (in a
| small amount of situations) and you're dealing with an
| oddball, you can excuse yourself or you can nod along and
| then later text your partner or best friend about the
| weirdo you spoke to :) It's very unlikely they would be
| in a position to cause you any trouble in either case.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| Terrified might be a bit strong but fearful or afraid
| isn't.
|
| I am definitely afraid of stepping on a verbal landmine
| in a work context. This is my meal ticket, and what's
| keeping my family housed. There is a very real fear or
| stepping on toes, even if accidental, and that translates
| to behaviors.
|
| I'm also afraid of sticking my neck out in heated
| situations. I've had to push back managers, PMs, and
| other coworkers in ways that will often make them angry.
| I've seen the race card get played against other
| managers, so I have to CYA on any vaguely negative
| interaction.
| smcl wrote:
| It sounds like you've got a pretty stressful workplace
| overall to be honest. I don't exactly want to be having
| debates about the big social issues of today with my
| colleagues, but on the other hand I don't think anyone
| should feel like they are walking on eggshells.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >"Terrified" is a bit much, I think most people just want
| to get along and are happy to use whatever term is
| acceptable to those it describes.
|
| I'm supposing some people might be more anxious about it
| than others, and in different contexts. If you see a lot
| of stuff in the news about people saying things you might
| have said and getting hounded for it that might make you
| super anxious - you don't know the etiquette anymore!!
|
| I mean people get anxious about getting robbed when they
| read a robbery happened, why shouldn't they get anxious
| about having their life destroyed for something they said
| if they read someone got their life destroyed in that
| way.
| smcl wrote:
| Yeah that's something where you'd hope people could step
| back and realise that the news is often sensationalised
| and _seeks out_ salacious stories of people being
| "cancelled" because they get people riled up and engaged.
| I still think that if you're open-minded, conscientious
| and not looking for conflict you can navigate a
| conversation with even the most extremely over-sensitive
| of people without having any issues.
| josephg wrote:
| I think you can too, when you're in person and in a calm
| situation. And when there's trust between you. And when
| you have some skills at conflict resolution.
|
| I'm comparatively good at this stuff, and even I find it
| very tiring even in best case scenarios. I dated someone
| who was very woke about a decade ago. She and I
| eventually decided to just never talk about politics. She
| would get really worked up over small disagreements that
| avoiding the subject entirely was the only strategy we
| found to keep the peace. And that was despite agreeing on
| about 95% of our political opinions.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I would not take claims of something being a "dog whistle" at
| face value. The entire concept has largely been weaponized
| and bastardized, appropriately enough as a means of effecting
| language policing. A perfect example is over the past several
| years how the media spent quite a lot of energy dedicated to
| convincing people that "America first" was some sort of a
| secret dog whistle. [1] The "logic", so far as it can be
| called that, runs that e.g. the KKK also liked this concept
| and slogan. So if you like this concept and slogan you're
| therefore somehow secretly dog whistling for the KKK. It's
| just a mind-bogglingly stupid idea. If the head of the KKK
| really liked Honey Nut Cheerios then I suppose that also
| becomes a secret dog whistle?
|
| It's simply a way to attack things without actually
| considering what's being said. I think if you polled
| Americans, white/black/brown/blue/green and orange, almost
| all would agree that the government should put the interests
| of the country and the people above the interests of other
| countries and the people of other countries. But in a world
| where political power emerges from divisions in society, that
| sort of unity is dangerous. So rather than attack the idea,
| which would be likely to backfire, they instead chose to
| attack our language. And it was successful. People who still
| believe anything the media says became cautious about
| advocating for things like 'America first', because they
| didn't want to be seen as e.g. endorsing the KKK.
|
| By contrast those who are actively skeptical of the media,
| mostly disregarded what they did and continued to happily
| advocate for 'America first.' Now the members from the other
| group not only were no longer comfortable saying 'America
| first', but even began to see those as advocating for it as
| secret racists, or even KKK advocates. Divisions widened,
| policy destroyed (or at least made into a partisan affair),
| language policed, mission succeeded.
|
| [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/21/end-of-
| the-ame...
| erulabs wrote:
| I couldn't agree more. The "dog whistle" concept is
| somewhat brilliant as an iron-clad logic trap though. Any
| time anyone is saying something you don't want to engage
| with, you can ignore everything they're saying and claim
| they're _really_ saying something else. There is absolutely
| nothing the person can do to change your mind, because you
| can make their words mean whatever you want!
|
| The exact second you stop engaging with what people are
| saying, and start deciding what they actually mean, is the
| exact second you stop all learning and all growth.
|
| These terms "dog whistle", "normalizing", "shifting the
| overton window" are all just means of being able to ignore
| the argument itself in favor of ad hominem.
| glial wrote:
| I don't disagree, but to play devil's advocate, maybe the
| Trump campaign could have used a slogan that wasn't used by
| the KKK or Nazi sympathizers? If they REALLY believed in
| the idea behind the slogan, and not the historical
| connotations of that exact set of two words, they could
| have done better. But, they didn't.
|
| To put a finer point on it, what if they had chosen
| "America over everything"? Would you still be criticizing
| those who detect certain...implications in the phrase?
|
| edit: I am generally not sympathetic to language policing.
| But I'm not so sure this is language policing.
| erulabs wrote:
| I think in the beginning both sides played into it. Trump
| probably knew there'd be a group of people who would say
| exactly that, and probably made the bet that a larger
| group of people would roll their eyes at that point.
|
| Certainly the provocative language (what could probably
| even semi-fairly be called dog whistling) or maybe better
| described as "trolling" lost out to the language-policing
| though.
| dqpb wrote:
| [dead]
| bbarnett wrote:
| _" It's ok to be _____" but learned that it's actually a dark
| dog whistle thanks to Scott Adams._
|
| The fact that someone can be labeled something, because they
| use a phrase which is currently, out of the blue, a big deal?
| And you can only know if you obsessively read all sorts of
| popculture websites, or fluff news stories daily?
|
| That's very sad.
| yathaid wrote:
| Sure. But you should do your research on the phrase and the
| polling company that pretends it is a straightforward
| question before going on a racist screed to get away from a
| racial group.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Even the most progressive of tiktok circles refer to it as "The
| deaf community" so I have no idea why you think it was renamed.
| Sunspark wrote:
| Context matters here I think. Historically "the deaf
| community" was used to refer to people who used sign language
| to communicate and did not include people who didn't. It is
| possible to be deaf, and not part of the deaf community in
| this context if one is not a signer.
| 13years wrote:
| Given time, "woke" will evolve into its own dialect completely
| incomprehensible to common language.
|
| Every persons unique experience becomes new terms to be added to
| the lexicon. A burden of irrelevant knowledge for the rest of
| society to navigate in order to communicate.
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| They're already near incomprehensible for myself. It's like
| they're casting spells and wards in some pseudolang that
| moderately resembles English.
| b800h wrote:
| The curse of Babel.
| ticviking wrote:
| ADnD called these kinds of dialects, "Alignment Languages."
| They're a larger form of Shibboleth that provide a filter of if
| someone is in a particular in-group, and the rulebook actually
| explicitly calls out speaking an Alignment Language in public
| as seen as very rude.
|
| Being able to code switch between them, or simply avoid jargon
| from your own Alignment Language and understand the jargon from
| others is a critical communication skill when you need to work
| with people who have radically different values than your own.
| 13years wrote:
| > radically different values than your own
|
| These values didn't originate naturally. It is a side effect
| that creates division.
|
| Cyberpunk RPG 1995 rule book NeoTribes ...
|
| "It is now accepted among historical scholars that in the
| decades before the Collapse, America suffered from the
| sicknesses of racism and "cultural identity'. Everyone wanted
| to be seen as special. Every group had to be "equal" to or
| preferably better than its neighbors, and fought to protect
| its "special" rights. If anyone had something that someone
| else wanted, they were painted as racist, sexist, elitist or
| worse. This divisive "me first" attitude eventually tore the
| fabric of American culture apart and caused it to self-
| destruct in a fireball of competing ideologies, none of which
| truly recognized each other's validity. Diversity led
| inexorably to anarchy."
| fundad wrote:
| I'm dying picturing someone with the skills to work at Sierra
| Club and totally believes climate science but inclusive language
| is a dealbreaker.
| blackhaz wrote:
| At last, the ray of common sense in this ocean of bullshit.
| dqpb wrote:
| [dead]
| JenrHywy wrote:
| My 11yo came home from school today:
|
| "Dad! We can't get rid of any of our Roald Dahl books. They're
| changing the words in them. My class talked about it and we all
| think it's stupid".
|
| A few months back, my 16yo was telling me about a class
| conversation about their futures, and what everyone wanted most
| was a stable relationship, a job they enjoyed and to be able to
| afford a modest house.
|
| It's reassuring that in a seemingly insane world, the kids who
| are coming up seem have their heads screwed on straight.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| [flagged]
| lukeramsden wrote:
| > and what everyone wanted most was a stable relationship, a
| job they enjoyed and to be able to afford a modest house. >
| It's reassuring that in a seemingly insane world, the kids who
| are coming up seem have their heads screwed on straight.
|
| One might say that the reason is because this is seemingly
| becoming harder than ever in Western countries.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| I was going to say just that. I don't recall people thinking
| like that when I was 16 because it was assumed that is what
| people did.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >When the San Francisco Board of Supervisors replaces felon with
| justice-involved person, it is making an ideological claim--that
| there is something illegitimate about laws, courts, and prisons.
|
| Wouldn't it be more appropriate, thoughtful and sensible to use
| the term "justice oppressed person instead"?
| goatlover wrote:
| I'm going to guess this wasn't done for the benefit of felons,
| who would probably laugh and roll there eyes, or get pissed at
| the thought that changing a word to a phrase helps their
| situation in any sort of way. In general with this sort of
| thing, how is a phrase preferable to a word? You're increasing
| the cognitive load and time to write it out.
| lynx23 wrote:
| What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably
| nervous when they were coming near a description of my
| disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess
| what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive
| and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the
| community started to fumble around with "visually challenged",
| and all the nonsense variations of that in my native language. It
| is so weird, because it adds yet another layer of distance
| between "us" and the "normal" people. You can almost feel how the
| stumbling-word is making communication even more awkward. I (and
| almost all of my friends with a similar disability) make a point
| of letting people know that we actually prefer the word blind
| over everything else, and not even that does put people at ease.
| It sounds a bit provocative, but it feels like that: The language
| terror they were subjected to has made them so unsecure that they
| actually dont want to hear that blind people have no issue with
| being called blind. They somehow continue to argue, sometimes not
| wanting to accept that and going on to use weird language.
|
| Its a weird phenomenon. The longer I watch all of this, and I
| also mean the gender-language-hacks, I feel like this move has
| added to the distance between various groups, not made it
| smaller.
|
| It is so condescending to believe your own language-police more
| then the person you are talking to. Yet, the peer pressure seems
| to be so high that this actually happens. Sad.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _It is so weird, because it adds yet another layer of
| distance between "us" and the "normal" people._
|
| Yeah, and those "sensitive" people also don't seem to get what
| normal means. It just means "how the majority is supposed to
| be/the baseline fully functioning state regarding X". It's not
| a moral judgement if one is not in the normal group regarding
| some ability.
|
| > _Its a weird phenomenon. The longer I watch all of this, and
| I also mean the gender-language-hacks, I feel like this move
| has added to the distance between various groups, not made it
| smaller._
|
| I think the smaller distance is when groups can be relaxed and
| casual about language - and even joke about their differences.
|
| This is as opposed to hostile (as back in the day regarding
| e.g. whites against blacks) and overcautious tip-toeing around
| the other group.
| kenjackson wrote:
| This line is probably smaller than it may appear. The reason
| much of this language policing started is because of the
| dominant group using language to reinforce the inferiority of
| a less powerful group.
|
| It's always easier for the dominant group to say "it's just
| words -- no one cares" since the words are never at their
| expense.
| account42 wrote:
| Which dominant group isn't subject to slurs?
| kenjackson wrote:
| Everyone is subject to slurs. That's not what I'm
| referencing.
|
| I'm talking about the use of language where you use the
| less-dominant group as a negative reference point. For
| example "retarded". Or "fag". You apply those terms to
| people who are neither as a way of disparaging them.
| andsoitis wrote:
| I'm gay. Whether someone calls me fag or gay or LGBTQI+
| (this one I hate more that "fag", BTW) is orthogonal to:
|
| a) how they treat me
|
| b) whether they would actually stick their neck out for
| me when it really matters (e.g. marriage equality).
|
| I will almost universally guarantee that the same person
| who insists on non-offensive language for me would NOT
| fight for marriage equality if it means they have to give
| up something or risk something. True ally.
| kenjackson wrote:
| I think you missed my point. It isn't about calling you a
| fag (which they may). It's about calling people they
| think are less than in general - fags.
|
| On your other point, you think that people who call you
| fag or other offensive language will fight for marriage
| equality? As a black person I've found that people who
| call me coon typically haven't fought for me -- even when
| they have something to gain (drain pool).
| andsoitis wrote:
| You're right that someone who calls me X or you Y won't
| fight for us. What I tried to communicate is that folks
| who spend a lot of time fighting for using specific
| verbiage to refer to me so as to not offend, are not
| really helping me. In fact, as Dave Chapelle has pointed
| out, when it really comes down to it, even people who
| obsess about using language that they think would offend
| me don't stick their necks out when it really matters;
| they might correct speech or go to a march (gay pride for
| instance), but ask them to sacrifice something and it is
| crickets.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Fair enough. I generally agree.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > It's about calling people they think are less than in
| general
|
| OT, but does anyone know where this specific usage of
| "less than" came from? I'd never seen it until about five
| years ago and now it's _everywhere_. The word "inferior"
| would have been used before. What's the origin of this?
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| Interesting, thanks for chiming in. I wonder if the best way to
| push back against language policing is to simply poll various
| groups, see which language they prefer, and publish the
| results. The deltas could be interesting as well, e.g. even if
| most blind people dislike the term "blind", it would still be
| interesting if they are _more_ likely to prefer the term
| "blind" than a member of the general population.
|
| I think public opinion polling _might_ actually solve the
| problem, because the actual group has greater moral authority
| than language police activists. I suspect people might not cite
| this Atlantic article during a discussion of whether their
| organization should adopt language policing for fear of coming
| across as a reactionary old fogey. But if you were citing a
| poll of the group in question, that 's a level of moral
| authority that's hard for a language police activist to argue
| against.
|
| Basically the hypothesis to test here is that a latinx-type
| reaction is fairly common, it just doesn't generally reach
| public consciousness the way it did in the case of latinx.
| parineum wrote:
| Groups don't have homogeneous opinions on this stuff. The
| prime example these days being Latinx.
|
| If people aren't called what they prefer, as long as they
| weren't called a slur, a simple correction is fine. Or, if
| you're never going to see them again, just let it go.
| prepend wrote:
| The challenge is when there is no single term that doesn't
| offend everyone.
|
| So you can call a group "Latinx" and offend some and call a
| group "Latinos" and offend some and call a group
| "Latinos/Latinas" and offend some.
|
| I want to offend the fewest people with my speech. I would
| like to use opinion polling to both offend fewest as well
| as signal that I'm working to offend the fewest.
|
| What's annoying and frustrating to me is when someone tells
| me "You must use term X because term Y offends." Then I
| change it and someone else tells me "You must use term Y
| because term X offends." And the worst part is the circular
| waste of time. I work in an organization that has a
| communication clearance process for the purpose of
| scientific accuracy and we spend a decent amount of time on
| this kind of editorial preference change/revert. Most isn't
| even "offensive" words but stuff like Oxford comma, data
| are plural, etc.
| parineum wrote:
| I don't want to be offensive to people either but I also
| don't want to have to keep up on polling of what the
| plurality of any particular group is okay being referred
| to as. There are an infinite set of groups that I'd have
| to keep track of.
|
| I'll find out if something's offensive when I say it,
| with no ill intent, and someone respectfully lets me know
| that they'd prefer to be called something else. My
| language will change over time in response to the overall
| language changing over time.
| stephen_g wrote:
| From what I read about Latinx, a significant majority of
| that community seem to hate the term that has been applied
| to them (which doesn't even make any linguistic sense in
| Spanish anyway). Seems to be a small minority pushing it.
| Izkata wrote:
| I vaguely remember a poll about that, I think the
| majority didn't even know the term, then the next largest
| group hated it.
| recuter wrote:
| I was going to recommend a masterpiece of cinema to you called
| Blind Fury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Fury
|
| The realization that it would be pointless, alas, came to me
| too late. Let me just give you a taste: While
| serving in Vietnam, American soldier Nick Parker was blinded by
| a mortar explosion. Rescued by local villagers, he recovered
| his health and, though he remains blind, was trained to master
| his other senses and becomes an expert swordsman.
|
| So, he wears 80s sunglasses and wields a goddamn katana. He is
| also a hobo. Like Caine from Kong Fu he _roams_ the earth and
| lowlifes always pick fights with him because they underestimate
| his... err... blind fury.
|
| There is an "adorable" little kid aptly named Billy, and one
| dimensional baddies, 'etc. The character is masterfully
| portrayed by one of the best b-movie actors of all time --
| Rutger Hauer (best known for the best bit of Blade Runner).
|
| Anyway I think it is a shame woke imbeciles who run movie
| studios would refuse to make such a thing today because when I
| saw it as a kid it made me realize being blind is really not
| the end of the world. Here you are posting on HN and your
| insights about society are more astute than the majority of the
| population. So I just wanted to say that you certainly see what
| is going on accurately.
|
| P.S. - if you wish to visualize the language police people,
| they typically look like vogons and pull ugly faces when they
| speak.
| _0ffh wrote:
| As you mention _Blind Fury_ , do you know of the _Zatoichi_
| movie franchise [1], which is about a blind swordsman
| wandering Japan around the Edo to Meiji period? Really good
| films! ( _Blind Fury_ is a reimagining of the 17th movie in
| the series, _Zatoichi Challenged_.)
|
| [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/Zatoichi
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Following up on this I wonder if Tropic Thunder (2008), a
| relatively new movie could be made today.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Someone asked Mel Brooks the same about Blazing Saddles
| once.
|
| "Today? You couldn't even make it then!"
|
| We overestimate the effect the this sort of thing has.
|
| I imagine someone reading that line is about to talk about
| the cancelling of some so-and-so, but in almost all cases
| that is either just a lot of hot air from Twitter or the
| so-and-so in question is legitimately and obviously
| actually a bigot.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| "Chapelle was canceled!!!" which is why he is selling out
| stadiums and making millions right?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| People who say you can't make movies as offensive (or
| playing as much with offensiveness, anyway) as Tropic
| Thunder or Blazing Saddles anymore need to look into some
| of Lloyd Kaufman's output with Troma... the 2020
| _Shakespeare 's Shitstorm_ is about as wildly-offensive
| (but maybe to good purpose? I'm still not sure, LOL) as
| it gets, and even directly targets the (in the pejorative
| sense) "woke" crowd (plus, like, a lot of other groups,
| including stuffy conservatives, big business, and shitty
| bigots) which is one of the riskiest moves a film could
| make these days, and that's just _one_ of several risky
| moves it makes. Like, the movie 's basically _built of_
| risky, boundary-pushing creative choices relating to
| very-relevant topics, which... might serve some greater,
| noble whole? Maybe? I think it 's _trying to_ , at least.
|
| Now, a wide-release, mainstream movie, that might be
| true.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Ben Stiller himself has commented on the blackface in the
| movie being a satire of blackface in cinema. There would be
| no problem with a popular director making that kind of
| movie today.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I would note (and this was true at the time, too) that
| there are people that would either fail to make the
| distinction of "satire" or fail to find its invocation in
| the case of the particular work a convincing excuse.
|
| I suspect there would be more resistance to the same film
| now, but its well within what could be made.
| recuter wrote:
| Could You Make Tropic Thunder Today? w/Robert Downey Jr. |
| Joe Rogan (12m views, from 2019):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ugC3TXSKoE
|
| tl;dw - Nope.
|
| Ain't that some shit?
| JackFr wrote:
| A shame because Les Grossman is without question Tom
| Cruise's greatest work.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Monty Python said the same thing about Life of Brian,
| another great classic for the ages!
| circlefavshape wrote:
| The Life of Brian was banned in Ireland until 1987
| recuter wrote:
| So back in 1979 when it was released this rather infamous
| debate transpired between them and a bishop:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgKFWnZLgdc
|
| Exact same sort of asshole and arguments as today. He
| called them blasphemers and tried to cancel them. During
| the commercial break he would lean in to John Cleese and
| say "this is great television" with a wink.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyn_Stockwood#Later_life
| _an...
| mdp2021 wrote:
| The two ### (you forgot the "journalist") had not seen
| the (whole) movie, they arrived at the theater late.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Hehe, thanks, I know about Blind Fury, Daredevil, and See No
| Evil, Hear No Evil...
|
| As I am embedded in a visual culture, I do consume movies
| from time to time, so there is actually no reason to be self-
| conscious about mentioning media products like that...
| recuter wrote:
| Not self conscious at all my dude (I'm not one of those
| insensitive woke people who get off on making everybody
| feel like shit to try and elevate themselves at all costs),
| glad I made you chuckle. How do you consume movies? I
| didn't know that the accursed "visually impaired" do that.
| Dope.
|
| Don't know why I'm surprised. I bet blind fury would watch
| movies somehow too. Also, you should obviously change your
| username. :)
|
| P.S. - Daredevil sucks so bad it makes me wish I was blind.
| You aren't missing out on anything there.
|
| See No Evil, Hear No Evil is a classic. Yet another example
| of something great that currently wouldn't get made.
|
| I've decided I want a blind friend. Prank potential off the
| charts.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Regarding how to "watch" movies: Its actually as simple
| as turning the TV on and listening to what comes out the
| speakers... In the 80s, movies were actually much more
| story-driven then today. Even if you missed something
| happening because you didnt see the visuals, you would
| get it typically a few seconds or minutes afterwards,
| because somebody was refering to the event and therefore
| uncovering the riddle. Something like "Hey, did you see
| the car explode back there?" These days, there is the
| concept of audio description.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_description
|
| You might have noticed a second audio channel with some
| movies or sports broadcasts, depending on what country
| you are in. Even Apple TV has an ability to configure
| such a descriptive audio channel, and have it played back
| when the movie actually comes with one.
| kenneth wrote:
| When I first got Disney+ because an ex-girlfriend wanted
| to watch Wanda, the app was misconfigured to have the
| audio description turned on. It's a pretty weird show, so
| it took me 3 episodes of being confused by the weirdness
| of the show to realize something was really off and it
| wasn't meant to be watched like that. Took me forever to
| find the setting to turn it off; and it got a bit more
| watchable after that.
| recuter wrote:
| Makes sense actually. Now that you mention it I can
| imagine Casablanca to be enjoyable to "watch" even with
| my eyes closed. A lot of the black and white stuff. I
| guess they were (better) written, more like plays, with
| actors projecting their voices. Now they do the mumble
| whisper thing, even native speakers are forced to turn on
| subtitles for increasingly terrible plots.
|
| BTW you should know my comments had a +5 and now are
| being downvoted by the woke mob, who know what is best
| for you.
|
| Edit: And its back to very positive. I only remark on
| this when the cowardly woke _losers_ try to bully people
| with downvote brigading otherwise the points don 't
| matter. Bet there's a lot of screeching on a Mastodon
| somewhere.
| xupybd wrote:
| Off topic but have you noticed a trend in modern movies
| that it's harder to hear dialogue?
|
| I find the music and background noise is so loud in
| modern movies that I struggle to hear some of the
| characters talk.
|
| I thought I was just getting old but recently watched
| some older movies and found they were much easier to
| hear.
| tpxl wrote:
| Part of the problem with modern movies is they're
| designed for surround sound 5.1 systems or similar. In
| those systems, the middle front channel is generally used
| for dialogue, but that channel often gets entirely
| dropped when remixing for stereo systems. This
| predictably results in inaudible dialogue.
|
| This was discussed on HN a few months ago, but I can't
| find a reference to that thread.
| bombcar wrote:
| Some receivers have "dialogue boost" or otherwise let you
| adjust each channel individually.
|
| More and more we just leave subtitles on, as too much
| dialog is easy to lose in the rest of the sound. I think
| it's also a difference in how movies are made now;
| compare the pacing of Rocky with anything modern. Older
| movies stop the action to dialog; modern movies have
| quips over explosions
| PaulHoule wrote:
| That's one problem, not the only one.
|
| If there's a root cause it is that they make movies to
| get Oscars, not to be watched by the audience.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Well, now that you mention it. My take on this is pretty
| subjective because I am not a native english speaker.
| While I watch a lot of english-movies these days, I was
| brought up with a rich world of overdubbed movies in my
| native language. These overdubs tend to have a very good
| quality when it comes to clarity because they are always
| done in a studio afterwards. When I started to watch
| english movies, I was thrown into an abyss of very hard
| to follow dialogue, but that was mostly because I was not
| used to hearing the actors speak on set during whatever
| they were actually doing.
|
| However, that said, I do also feel it is getting harder
| with more action-loaded productions, which is basically
| everything in the past 10 years or so.
| tpxl wrote:
| Afaik, a lot of modern AAA dialogue gets re-recorded in
| the studio these days, and is then mixed to be inaudible
| in post because fuck us I guess.
| bombcar wrote:
| The "subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing" on modern
| videos are a wonder and amazing. We regularly use
| subtitles because it can be hard to hear the movie over
| the kids, but SDH is great if you are mainly listening.
| Highly recommend everyone try it sometime.
|
| Sometimes it is even a separate "language track" that
| describes what's happening.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Ah, damn, another one of Rutger's great films! Now I have
| something to watch over the weekend!
| atoav wrote:
| Isn't there is an actual difference between blind and visually
| impaired tho? The way I understood it blind people are a subset
| of visually impaired people, but not all visually impaired
| people are blind in a medical sense.
|
| So the reasoning behind such language might be to include
| people who are not technically blind, but still require similar
| consideration, assistence, infrastructure and so on.
|
| Language is odd here. The public used to call neurodivergent
| people "retarded" till the word had developed such a negative
| connotation that you wouldn't be able to use the word when
| adressing actual neurodivergent people without feeling like you
| are swearing. Of course that negative connotation didn't come
| out of nowhere, it is an expression of the way society looks
| (or looked) at the people it described. Of course people who
| live with mentally disabled people (or mentally disabled people
| themselves) often self-label themselves as "retarded" very
| bluntly and not without some sense of humour. But a bit like
| with race there are certain things you can say when you are
| part of the minority, that might not be okay to say when you
| are part of the majority.
|
| When I was a kid people would constantly call something or
| someone "retarded", my niece's generation talks about how that
| is not okay. And they don't do it out of political correctness,
| but because they truly don't think neurodivergent behavior is
| something anybody should have to be ashamed of.
|
| But of course there are also people who don't go that deep and
| just want to not offend anyone (good luck with that). They are
| the people who will feel uncomfortable when they describe
| something that isn't part of their perfect little world.
| [deleted]
| taylorius wrote:
| It's certainly unfortunate, but not that weird in my view.
| People in general don't want to offend, but rightly or wrongly,
| there is a perception that the acceptable terms for any person
| who has some "protected characteristic" are an ever-shifting
| minefield, and any infraction will be unforgivable. This fear
| is 99% unfounded of course, but due to the disproportionate
| prominence of such "woke takedowns" in media, has absolutely
| added to the distance between groups.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| From non-native speaker perspective, it sounds like it also
| obscured the truth: visually challenged can still consume
| visual info, blind - can't. For the former larger fonts,
| adapted color palette, simplified graphics, etc can be useful,
| for the latter no amount of adaptations will work and you have
| to completely switch to audio or tactile mode of communication.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's complicated by "legally blind" being a term that
| includes people who can see "somewhat".
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The difficult part of this being, some of the 100% blind people
| effectively don't like the word and don't want to be called
| blind. Then some people are 'only' 80% blind, and don't want to
| be called blind. Then some family members of blind people don't
| want the word to be used.
|
| I think it's pretty common phenomenon, like the people who call
| themselves "black", those who are called "black" but hate it,
| and everyone in the middle usually not knowing what's the
| position of any specific person's on the issue.
|
| I don't think there even is a correct answer, as long as there
| are many people in different situations with different
| perceptions of what the words mean, there's no way we get a
| consensus on this. At most we could get a majority sharing a
| common sensibility and bully the rest into submission, as it
| happened so many times in history.
| parineum wrote:
| The answer is for people to make their preferences known and
| not hold it against people what is not done with malice.
|
| It's pretty simple.
| [deleted]
| lazyeye wrote:
| Its this new concept that says you can only be a nice,
| respectful person if you sign up to a particular ideology and
| view the world through this lens.
|
| This ideology is usually espoused by people who have only have
| a couple of years life experience as an adult yet believe they
| are best positioned to tell everybody else how to think and
| behave.
| msla wrote:
| I have a similar story:
|
| When I was a child, I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.
| This is now malady non grata: For one thing, it's been folded
| into autism spectrum disorder, the DSM-5 being more on the
| lumper end of things than previous DSMs were, and, for another,
| it has a checkered history, with Hans Asperger using his
| position as a doctor in Vienna during the Second World War to
| choose which children were saved and which were murdered in
| camps. His collaboration with the Nazis and odious views have
| resulted in a backlash against the diagnosis.
|
| Later still, the very word "Autism" seems to have faded out of
| polite speech, with people like me being referred to as "on the
| spectrum" with no explicit mention of _which_ spectrum. This
| is, as far as I 'm concerned, a straight-up euphemism
| treadmill: The DSM-5's lumping of Asperger's into autism
| spectrum disorder is something that can be defended on its
| scientific merits, but moving away from any mention of autism
| is purely down to the word's use as an insult. OK, so be it.
| The treadmill rolls on.
|
| The final point is person-first language and why I don't use
| it: I am an autistic person. I don't say I'm a person with
| autism because I can't possibly be _without_ autism. Is someone
| who identifies as a man a "person with gender" or is anyone a
| "person with race" or "person with ethnicity"? No. Some things
| are fundamental enough to how we experience the world that
| saying we're a person with that thing, which implies we could
| be without it, is wrong.
| prepend wrote:
| I think it's a consequence of the well-intentioned, but foolish
| idea of "bias toward action" that doing something is good and
| not doing something is bad or complicit.
|
| When people see something bad-discrimination against disabled-
| they want to improve the situation but don't know what to do.
| So they do something, anything without considering if the
| action is effective or if the best course is to do nothing.
|
| So making a list of words to use or not use is doing something.
| There's no way to measure if it makes things better or worse,
| but at least it's something.
|
| If they don't make a list, and do nothing then that might be
| confused with not recognizing the problem.
|
| So I think it's well meaning people who want to help and do
| something stupid rather than not doing something.
|
| I wonder if just releasing a statement of values is more
| appropriate for noting that an organization is against all
| these injustices but not advocating for lots of dumb little
| changes.
|
| That and I think these lists naturally suffer from
| collaboritis. Where someone makes a document and circulates it
| for edits. All the obvious stuff is already on there so people
| want to help and think up any edge case and add it to the
| document. It's hard to argue for parsimony for fear of being
| called out as a bigot. And it's hard to suggest removing an
| item for the same reason.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It's a superficial thing to complain about, because it's rare
| that isn't linked to action - from dropping kerbs, to adding
| lifts and ramps, to building special toilets for wheelchair
| users.
|
| It's questionable how many of these things would have
| happened if the language wasn't made _memorable._
|
| Of course it irritates people who would prefer not to think
| about these things - because it's supposed to.
|
| There's actually far more us/them divisive language on the
| right. Even if you hate progressive tropes and don't always
| agree with the politics they're at least making an effort to
| be inclusive.
|
| Right wing language is always irredeemably divisive - usually
| aggressively so. Frequently with outright contempt, and
| sometimes with normalisation of violence.
|
| And it makes no attempt to be anything else.
| prepend wrote:
| In my experience it isn't rare at all. In work I see this a
| lot where an error is ambiguous and changes make it worse.
| I see "bias toward action" frequently in work presentations
| and whatnot.
|
| For debugging it's not so much to change nothing, but to
| investigate and figure out what to change rather than
| change things without an understanding of the intended
| impact of the change.
|
| Also, it's not that I don't think about these things. It's
| that I think and determine the best course of action is no
| action. That gets conflated with not thinking about these
| things because on the outside it's hard to differentiate
| those that thought and care and think to do nothing vs
| those that are oblivious vs those that choose not to think
| about this.
|
| In this example, I think the best course is to not include
| disabled in the list. I want to include disabled people,
| but I think changing language in this way is not valuable.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It's bafflingly common for someone on this site to say
| something along the lines of "woke people should stop being
| woke and instead should listen to my opinions as a minority and
| change their ways to suit me better because I have special
| insight into the problems I face that they don't".
|
| Which to most people, is what being woke is.
|
| But I guess if you are on team non-woke and some kind of a
| minority then things get complicated quickly.
| mistermann wrote:
| > It is so weird, because it adds yet another layer of distance
| between "us" and the "normal" people.
|
| I like to call normal people "Normies", and with all the terror
| and hardship they've brought to the world (being the vast
| majority of the population), while _self-righteously_ pointing
| their fingers at other people, assigning 100% of the underlying
| causality to them (usually based on heuristics or blindly
| accepting the mainstream narrative explanation) it only
| increases my enjoyment when I 'm insulted and downvoted/rate-
| limited in response.
|
| "We have met the enemy and he is us".
|
| > Its a weird phenomenon. The longer I watch all of this, and I
| also mean the gender-language-hacks, I feel like this move has
| added to the distance between various groups, not made it
| smaller.
|
| I often wonder if this is purely accidental/organic.
| [deleted]
| naasking wrote:
| > It is so condescending to believe your own language-police
| more then the person you are talking to.
|
| This is exactly it. They have theories that spin a narrative
| telling them that you just don't understand why your preferred
| language is oppressive. Like women who just want to be
| housewives and stay at home with kids are suffering from
| internalized misogyny, or that Hispanic people almost
| universally hate the term LatinX but we must keep using it
| because gender neutrality is way more important than pissing
| off almost everyone.
| ookblah wrote:
| I think it all starts from a good place. Would you rather
| people just using words "carelessly" without regard to how you
| might feel? It's questioning the assumption that the word used
| is fine throughout history.
|
| I don't think there is anything nefarious about it, just that
| "people" always co-opt the motives in the end and make it
| muddled for their own benefit. Overthinking it I guess. I know
| it when I see it, but it's hard to articulate it to something
| that works for everyone.
| recuter wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with.
| ..
|
| > It's questioning the assumption that the word used is fine
| throughout history.
|
| Bullshit. It forbids questioning of the questioning. That is
| all it is really about.
|
| > "people" always co-opt the motives in the end and make it
| muddled for their own benefit
|
| At least you can concede that point. Which is an enormously
| important point and more than enough of a reason not to go
| down this idiotic path of linguistic power struggles.
| ookblah wrote:
| I'm not arguing what is currently happening or the end
| result, just that from even my own personal perspective I
| usually want to ask "is this word okay to use around you?"
| instead of just assuming it as such or automatically making
| someone else responsible for their feelings around my
| words. You might ultimately be right, but go down that road
| enough and these people are usually called "assholes" lol.
| That phrase isn't an indictment of good intentions, just a
| warning to be aware.
| recuter wrote:
| > or automatically making someone else responsible for
| their feelings around my words
|
| If people are not responsible for their own feelings and
| the onus is on you, you are at their mercy. Some
| percentage of them are going to abuse you as a result.
|
| Where is the win? All you are enabling is psychos and
| mentally/emotionally unstable people.
| ookblah wrote:
| Like I said, people ARE ultimately responsible for their
| own feelings, but that doesn't mean we can't do with
| erring on the side of empathy in our day-to-day. Don't
| mistake this for me saying "policing language is fine to
| preserve someone else's feelings".
|
| My comment was mainly to the parent on why it's bad for
| someone to feel awkward about potentially using a "wrong"
| word and for me sometimes it stems out of care.
|
| All that said, I basically think all this shit gets
| perverted in the public space where there's a lot more
| gamesmanship and manipulation.
| ramblerman wrote:
| We have millions of years of evolution that allow us to
| pick up on these subtle signals though. And we are really
| good at it.
|
| Do you think the worry of always having to ask up front
| (if xyz is ok) comes from ironically a lack of natural
| empathy in your case?
| Timon3 wrote:
| Those same millions of years of evolution have also made
| us quite adept at reinforcing power and dominance
| structures through those same signals. Seems like there
| might be more to the discussion than "doesn't matter",
| no?
| ookblah wrote:
| I mean sure, if I asked up front every single time to the
| point where people get annoyed? But that's what we are
| discussing here.
|
| Yes, we humans have millions of years ready subtle
| signals, but we are also really fucking bad at reading
| minds and knowing what others are thinking. Thus, by
| clarifying with things like actual words in a direct and
| non-confrontational way we can actually communicate and
| understand.
|
| I don't know why people are so keen to get me in some
| kind of "gotcha!" when it's pretty simple what I'm
| suggesting. Like since when has the intention of wanting
| to be sure that you're not offending someone become a
| replacement for inept social person who can't read subtle
| signs?
| ramblerman wrote:
| Your suggestion is akin to the Victorian gentlemen who
| didn't swear around the ladies and talk about
| intellectually heavy and upsetting things because they
| couldn't handle it.
|
| It's the opposite of empowering somebody to speak up and
| decide on their own what they can and can't handle.
|
| So yes you might get some pushback when you "simply"
| suggest we change our interactions.
| ookblah wrote:
| what are you even talking about? My original post to the
| op was about why is it wrong to not want to offend
| someone? It has nothing to do with trying to dictate
| anything for the rest of the population, just my opinion.
| No where do I tell you that it's better to shut up for
| fear of offending someone.
|
| It's you who is projecting whatever issue you have with
| people even remotely suggesting thinking about what we
| are saying to some greater problem.
| tremon wrote:
| _why is it wrong to not want to offend someone_
|
| Because it's patronizing. You can use normal language
| without _intending_ to offend someone, but if you
| actively censor your own language in their presence, you
| 're removing their agency.
| ookblah wrote:
| Yeah you lost me there I guess, then. There are numerous
| instances I can think of where we censor our own language
| and it has nothing to do with removing someone's agency.
| And of course you can intend to not offend someone and
| still offend them; that doesn't mean your intent was
| wrong.
|
| We can agree to disagree here. In the end, I would rather
| converse with someone who errs of the side of not wanting
| to "offend" me, but can still freely say whatever they
| want vs. someone who speaks with no regard to how their
| words might affect me and makes no apologies for it.
|
| The outcome is the same, but to me, one person is
| thoughtful and the other person is a jerk. I have never
| thought that someone trying to be thoughtful with their
| words was patronizing me, but that's only my experience.
| viridian wrote:
| > The outcome is the same, but to me, one person is
| thoughtful and the other person is a jerk. I have never
| thought that someone trying to be thoughtful with their
| words was patronizing me, but that's only my experience.
|
| I have the opposite visceral response to this sort of
| thing. If someone refers to me either singly or as a part
| of a collective such as "persons having a mental
| impairment" I immediately know I'm dealing with the sort
| of bastard that no human connection can be formed with.
|
| The language betrays the intent, and the intent is to
| proclaim a shibboleth for the purposes of in-group/out-
| group reinforcement.
| andsoitis wrote:
| I think the problem is assuming what you think might
| offend someone, which is a form of categorization and
| stereotyping.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| > why is it wrong to not want to offend someone?
|
| In my opinion, it is not wrong to not want to offend
| someone, but it is wrong to give that priority over
| actually communicating.
|
| I do not intend to deliberately try to offend someone,
| but I think that it is more important to actually say
| things, freedom of speech, making an argument for or
| against something, etc, than it is to avoid offending
| someone.
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| >Would you rather people just using words "carelessly"
| without regard to how you might feel?
|
| I can't speak for anyone else but surely the answer to this
| is yes?
| pibechorro wrote:
| It is. Similarly Latinx is hated by 99.99% of latinos, yet here
| we are.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| I agree with what you are saying, but I also have my own
| comments relating to such things.
|
| What I had seen is that these use of banning words and using
| different words, mostly just makes it more difficult to
| communicate properly, rather than actually helping anyone.
| (Occasionally some specific change is helpful in some contexts,
| but often it just makes it worse.)
|
| I think that all of these changes are rather excessive.
| Sometimes they do make an improvement, but often they don't,
| and may make it worse. Sometimes it is an improvement in some
| contexts, but it should not be applied to contexts in which it
| is inappropriate.
|
| I also don't like such words like "visually challenged", etc.
| It is better to use words such as "blind", although it can
| depend on the context. Sometimes "unable to see" might be more
| appropriate (since, just because you are unable to see
| something does not necessarily mean that you are blind; e.g.
| maybe you are looking at something else at the time, or your
| eyes are closed, etc).
|
| "Disabled" is OK (using words such as "people with
| disabilities" or "differently-abled" or "people living with
| disabilities" or whatever, does not help), but usually it is
| better to specify the specific disability (e.g. "blind" or
| "deaf"), which is usually much more helpful than writing
| "disabled". (Although, in some contexts, it may be sensible to
| write "disabled", because it isn't about a specific kind of
| disabilities. Even in some cases, "differently-abled" may be
| appropriate, possibly.)
|
| Accessibility features can be helpful whether or not you are
| blind, deaf, or other kind of disabilities. For this reason, it
| is helpful to not restrict their usefulness or to claim that
| they are only good if you are disabled in this way. (For
| example, many people can use captions on TV even if you are not
| deaf, although they are also useful if you are deaf, which
| should not be disregarded.) I think that many kinds of features
| can be useful whether or not you are blind/deaf/etc, if the
| system is well-designed.
|
| In some cases, there just aren't any good words to describe
| some unusual situations clearly, though.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| That's because they care more they were bullied in the past
| than about your feelings.
|
| People appropriating your disability to excuse their bullying
| has led to what is effectively PTSD dealing with the groups
| whose voice was appropriated.
|
| That's sad -- and has impacted not only disabled people, but
| race and gender relations.
|
| I miss 10-20 years ago, when people were people rather than
| defined by protected class.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Amen. Its sad, and there seems to be nothing we can do about
| it. To a degree, I am used to being treated in a
| condescending way. This is just a level up, the worst kind:
| "I know better how you should be treated then you because you
| are to simple to know what I already know."
| recuter wrote:
| [flagged]
| mihaaly wrote:
| Apparently people wanted to intensionally offend people so much
| the traditional swear words or offenses were not enogh so used
| anything they thought could hurt - disability or mere
| difference in the shade of the skin - that forgot the original
| meaning of the words (raising childs learned the offensive
| meaning first?).
|
| People need to stop being intensionally offensive instead of
| using then banning more and more words doing that. The words
| are the symptom not the cause.
| KielFisch wrote:
| Recently I came across a discussion on Twitter where a
| selection of scientists were arguing that the long-used term
| "blind peer review" (i.e. where the authors do not know the
| identities of the reviewers, and vice versa) could be construed
| as able-ist and should be referred to as "anonymous peer
| review". I'm all in favour of using inclusive language, but at
| the time this discussion struck me as odd because I've never
| connected the definition of "blind" in "blind peer review" to
| the disability, although its obvious that the link exists from
| a linguistic standpoint. What are your thoughts on such
| discussions? I do believe that none of those arguing for the
| change were themselves blind.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Hehe, wait until you hear about the controversy cause by
| calling something "their most seminal work".
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Wiktionary has attestations for use of 'blind' to mean
| 'concealed' or 'not visible' going all the way back to the
| 16th century, and if you follow the etymology it becomes
| likely that that was the original sense of the word, with
| 'sightless' coming later. This same disingenuous reasoning
| was used with Twitch with the phrase 'blind playthrough' (to
| mean 'playing a game without having seen any of it before').
| arbitrarian wrote:
| Not OC, but I am also totally blind, so I'll bite. IMHO, just
| more silliness. The biggest problems that I as a blind person
| face don't generally stem from my blindness. Don't get me
| wrong, it's incredibly inconvenient, and causes a whole host
| of problems. But the biggest, most life altering problems
| tend to stem from societies misconceptions. And the best
| weapon we have against misconceptions is communication. But
| all this fuss over words does not aid communication in any
| way. In fact, I think it does the exact opposite.
|
| The only thing the language police have done for us is to
| make communication more awkward. How am I supposed to have a
| real conversation with anyone if they're constantly worried
| they're going to not use the right code words (which, by the
| way, change routinely). How is a blind person supposed to
| convince a potential employer that they can handle the work
| when they (according to the language police) can't even
| handle people using regular words. People learn by asking
| questions, and people aren't likely to ask questions if they
| are afraid of stepping on a verbal landmine and being labeled
| insensitive, or worse.
|
| I don't know who the language police think they're serving by
| all this outrage and/or false concern, but it certainly isn't
| me. If I need to, I can get offended on my own behalf just
| fine thanks.
| 00F_ wrote:
| i used to live on the coast and moved to a midwest state. i did
| it because property is cheaper in the midwest and also i
| thought it would be refreshing to get a break from coastal
| culture. i moved to the midwest but a metro area in the
| midwest, not a rural community. the state is red, we have
| constitutional carry and we have stand your ground rather than
| duty to retreat.
|
| i have gotten into developing real estate in this place and i
| have had a lot of theft. naturally, i thought that because the
| state is red, constitutional carry and stand your ground i
| would be able to confront someone committing a crime. i thought
| that if that person attacked me, i would be well within my
| rights to defend myself. one day i did catch someone
| trespassing, looking for something to steal. i did confront him
| and he did try to attack me. luckily, drawing my gun was enough
| to make him change his mind. it was a whole incident. and what
| happened next shocked me to my core and changed my
| understanding of what is going on in this country. the police
| treated me like the criminal. they didnt charge me but they
| were really mean and aggressive with me, as if i were not the
| victim of a crime, and they lied to me. they said i should have
| just called and not followed the man. i said if they hadnt
| taken 20 fucking minutes then i wouldnt have needed to keep him
| in sight. i said if it takes you 20 minutes to show up to me
| following the guy, it would have taken you an hour to get here
| otherwise. and i said that the guy would have gotten away. if
| people follow your advice the criminals will get away every
| fucking time. how the fuck does that work? his response, from a
| midwestern cop, was that i should just let insurance cover the
| losses. the insanity of that statement is shocking. but not as
| shocking as this: people in the community didnt support me.
| nobody was in favor of me confronting criminals. these people,
| who are often victimized and stolen from, are not just
| apathetic about crime but look down on me because i was
| involved in a violent interaction. these people wont confront
| criminals or be associated with people who do because they dont
| want to reduce their social status. thats what it is, its
| snobbery. these people "support the police" and there are blue
| porch lights everywhere, and they claim to be tough on crime,
| but they are no different than los angeles liberals when it
| comes to actually confronting crime. and people wonder why we
| have crime in this country. its because people are fucking
| retarded. they have no fucking principles.
|
| this mind virus has taken over the entire country. and its all
| connected. these are the same people who allow themselves to
| fumble over language, who bend over backwards to not call a
| spade a spade. people who stumble over not offending a blind
| person, as if it would make them less blind, are the same
| people who shy away from confronting crime. in both cases,
| there is a total lack of critical thought, a total blindness to
| the bigger picture.
|
| the simple and plain fact is that society cannot be good or
| even exist unless everyone makes a little sacrifice every once
| in a while. people have to stand up to crime every once in a
| while or else crime will become rampant. and it has. people
| have to say what they think every once in a while even if it
| makes you look bad or else the truth, our only guiding light,
| will become extinguished. but all these idiots avoid any and
| all risk to their own wellbeing no matter whats at stake. these
| people wont even accept the tiny, tiny little loss of face
| involved in unintentionally offending someone. literally any
| loss of face or status, any tiny little deviation from the
| script, is simply too much for these people. its fucking
| disgraceful. everyone knows that the country has become much
| more crime ridden, much more seedy, much more crappy in recent
| times. especially when you control for technology. its cultural
| for sure, not economic.
|
| and since we are on the topic, let me just say it: fumbling
| around when calling a black person black or a blind person
| blind is _more_ insulting than not! when you dance around and
| fumble and so on, you are making a huge and embarrassing
| insinuation that the condition of the person you are referring
| to is problematic or undesirable. you are screaming in that
| persons face that you see them as less than and you are trying
| really hard to not portray them as such. thats what really
| cements these people in the category of "idiot." they are
| selfishly helping themselves by toeing the line and not helping
| anyone else despite the fact that the entire justification for
| that dogma is being selfless and helping others.
| dzek69 wrote:
| I used to work for a while with blind people. The boss of the
| local blind people community was shooting dad-like jokes about
| blindness all the time, I loved that attitude!
|
| It helped to make connection with these people and we needed
| that, because I was developing some app that main audience was
| blind people and to actually understand their needs and
| problems you need to make a connection with them.
| cpursley wrote:
| Decade or so ago I was once in a room with a group of people
| where one person was blind. An acquaintance of the blind
| person came into the room and said oh hey good to see you to
| him. The blind person replied back to them with one of the
| best comebacks I've ever heard in my life with "well I've
| never seen you" before" and had the whole room laughing.
| jopsen wrote:
| I also wish we could call it the "master" branch, renaming the
| primary branch to "main" is just pointless.
|
| But it's simply less risky and less work to just call it
| "main".
|
| It doesn't matter, and nobody gains anything from calling it
| "main" -- but if we call it "master" someone might get offended
| or waste my time arguing over it.
|
| There is no incentive to insist calling it "master". So
| similarly, I guess we'll end up calling you "photonically
| disadvantaged" :)
|
| Or maybe we can give it a positive spin and call it "darkness
| unimpaired"? (Just kidding of course)
| skissane wrote:
| Sometimes you end up with a random mishmash of repos, some
| with the default branch called "master", others with it
| called "main", and then a handful with something else
| altogether (e.g. "develop"). Someone pushes for a massive
| "master=>main" rename - but once you get "master" baked into
| umpteen dozen ultra-complex CI/CD/testing pipelines, etc, it
| takes a lot of time to change them all and deal with all the
| fiddly breakage that results. So people do the rename for
| brand-new projects, and some of the low-hanging fruit of the
| existing ones, but the "too obscure" or "too-big-to-deal-
| with" existing projects get put off indefinitely. And then
| you are constantly scratching my head trying to remember
| which one this repo is. Even worse, a few repos someone
| creates a new "main" branch but keeps an old outdated
| "master" branch around just to confuse people. Even if your
| organisation has been so diligent as to finish off the rename
| everywhere, sooner or later you need to make changes to some
| open source project you are using which hasn't.
|
| What Git really needs, is some kind of "branch alias"
| feature. Some config setting like "branch_alias.main=master",
| and then I could always write "git checkout main", and it
| would checkout "main" if that exists, and "master" if it
| didn't (and vice versa). That would solve it in most cases -
| except for the rarer "we decided to use neither main nor
| master" and "we made a new main branch but kept an outdated
| master branch hanging around".
| chronogram wrote:
| Your opinion as a blind person doesn't matter to someone not
| wanting to call you blind, it's the opinions of others around
| them that matter to them.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| From spending time with students of my local school for the
| blind and visually impaired, I am under the impression "blind"
| and "visually impaired" are seperate things. Some of the people
| I knew seemed to care about the distinction, so it seems better
| to stick with something neutral until I am sure.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Sure, but I was not refering to the somewhat blurry
| distinction between blind and visually impaired. I am well
| aware there is a spectrum. I was talking about my own
| experience, and that is limited to being pitch-black-
| darkness-blind myself.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Of course, but I was also talking about my own experience.
| If I randomly met you I would be hesitant to call you
| "blind" until I knew more about you. It stems from a young
| man being very angry at being called "blind" when he could
| see.
|
| Rereading your post, it sound like people are unwilling to
| call you blind even after you tell them you are, so we may
| be talking about different things.
| ladyattis wrote:
| >I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind
| because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short.
|
| Have you ever listened to the tv show Avatar the last air
| bender? There's a character who's blind named Toph and she
| always goofs on her friends who aren't blind throughout the
| series. It's quite amusing since it's not done in a manner that
| insults her for being blind but that they sometimes say things
| which might be insensitive which she makes fun of in her own
| way.
| jjav wrote:
| > I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and
| relatively short
|
| Always reminds me of the George Carlin bit on language
| euphemisms used to distance us from reality
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc).
| mnsc wrote:
| Funny you could argue that "disabled" is language that
| distances us from reality. Since describing someone not
| present as just "disabled" doesn't tell you anything whether
| that person in reality is able to do one specific thing, eg
| tedious react frontend development in a large organization.
| "differently abled" doesn't tell you anything more but
| clearly signals that "more information is needed".
| vasco wrote:
| It does tell us many things, you're being obtuse on
| purpose. If someone is disabled you know they generally
| suffer from some health issue which is serious enough and
| probably chronic, to afford them that status by the state.
|
| Among this umbrella you have many common things like, they
| can probably park closer to doors, if they are disabled.
| I'm not sure why people just pretend things are not how
| they are when discussing these subjects. Of course we have
| more information than less.
| mnsc wrote:
| If you are blind, are you disabled? And if you are blind
| can you park closer to doors?
| vasco wrote:
| Yes if you are blind you have a disability, as per almost
| every developed country's rules. My mom isn't even fully
| blind and pays less tax due to her disability status, she
| is officially disabled.
|
| Regarding parking closer to doors, I said "probably" and
| that was literally to illustrate that there is an
| umbrella that covers most cases even if there's edge
| cases. Obviously there are people with disabilities that
| don't even allow them to leave their bed so they can't
| drive. I think the most accurate part of my previous
| comment was about you being intentionally obtuse.
| mnsc wrote:
| I don't know if you misinterpreted but I meant that
| "disabled" doesn't tell you everything about a persons
| ableness across all functions that a human can do. Eg.
| one disabled person is able to drive a car, and this
| other disabled person (your mom, sorry I had to do this)
| can't.
|
| This is obvious ofc but my comment was about the OP
| stating that OMGWOKENESS, eg. saying "differently abled"
| is a language/semantic excercise that somehow takes us
| further away from reality and therefore is worse than
| using the traditional "disabled". In other words, using
| "differently abled" (with regard to the _norm_ al
| functions a human is able to do) doesn't hide any reality
| that "disabled" shows. IMHO.
|
| Edit: Disclaimer: I haven't watched Carlin in a long
| time, didn't rewatch this bit now either so I'm arguing
| from my "I love him but sometimes he's a dick and
| othertimes he's wrong" view of him.
| [deleted]
| duxup wrote:
| Distance worries me too.
|
| A school I would visit had a native American name for their
| sports teams. I attended a game where they opened the season
| with local tribe members singing, and drumming, the dedicated
| it to the coach of the opposing team who died during off
| season. If you've never heard Native American music live in
| person you really should, it's like nothing else.
|
| Several local tribes supported the school using the name, but
| one chose not to. The school the had to use another name, logo,
| etc.
|
| It struck me how nothing seemed to be gained except distance
| ....
| prewett wrote:
| I've been reading "Cynical Theories" by Pluckrose and Lindsay
| which explains this whole thing as coming from a one-
| dimensional, activistized Postmodern framework. In this
| framework, society is a subtle network of power that creates
| oppressors and oppressed, sustained by "truth" created through
| language. There is no such thing as objective truth, so truth
| is a social construct created through language. But since the
| word "blind" is used by the default, in-power group, your claim
| to prefer "blind" is acquiescing to the oppressive in-power
| structure. So if they really buy into the framework, they
| cannot actually use the word you prefer, or they would be
| furthering the oppressive structure.
|
| Ironically, intersectionality adds that truth is created by
| identity groups (e.g. "blind", "blind females", "blind black
| females", etc.), and cannot be truly known by people outside
| that identity group. So even by their own assumptions, your
| claims as a member of the blind identity group ought to trump
| their assertions. But, this is functionally a fundamentalist
| religion, and the assumptions are sacrosanct. (I am using
| "fundamentalist" here meaning a one-dimensional ideology that
| is non-negotiable, which is essentially how Christian
| fundamentalism, for example, currently operates.) You might be
| able to mess with the minds of cultural believers, though.
|
| This absolutely has increased the distance between groups,
| because the real goal is not kindness but activism to disrupt
| entrenched power structures.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Attitudes around such things vary by disability community,
| peoples relationship to it (self proclaimed "ally's" or people
| who work with the disabled for a living tend to use pained
| language, people with the actual condition tend not to), and
| individual differences.
|
| Personally though people using extra syllables to describe me
| when a more terse way to describe me gets the point across
| always comes off as condescending. People seem to be utterly
| obsessed with the connotation of words and if a word starts
| having a bad connotation they will just replace it with a
| different usually inferior word and consider themselves heroic
| for doing so. Blind becomes "visually impaired" making 1
| syllable into 5 and ironically making language more complex and
| less accessible (since the entire point of such language is
| that it's so awkward that nobody who isn't woke will use it
| allowing it to have a signalling purpose). In reality what such
| people attitudes come off as is "you're such weak shit
| everybody around you should be like me and constantly expend
| effort to protect your feelings".
|
| It's the language of "allyship", not the language of the
| disabled most of the time. If people need such terms to feel
| comfortable with the disabled, I'll humour them I guess, but I
| just hope people understand that this language mostly exists
| for the sake of people who are immensely uncomfortable with the
| concept of disability and those people tend not to be disabled
| who tend to be VERY comfortable with disability.
| sva_ wrote:
| I once had an injury in both of my legs after a long hike. It
| caused my legs to be so swollen that I had very limited
| mobility, but I could still walk - though it probably looked
| very awkward.
|
| In school, children get taught that when someone looks
| disabled, you shouldn't look at them, because staring at them
| is some kind of discrimination or so. I couldn't disagree more.
|
| When I had that injury, and was kind of crip-walking, people
| would intuitively stare at me for a second, then -very
| obviously- force themselves to look away.
|
| The injury wasn't that bad and went away after a week or two.
| But the way people forced themselves to look away, was much
| worse. I can't imagine dealing with that every day.
|
| I'd argue that the people who make up these kind of "rules"
| probably aren't themselves affected by it.
| bombcar wrote:
| I kind of feel the euphemism treadmill is the language
| version of "looking away".
|
| Blind is stark; powerful; forces me to contemplate the lack
| of vision - I can't escape it.
|
| But if I start using "visually challenged" then it's softer,
| sounds like a game, challenges can be overcome, this isn't
| something I need to worry about.
| [deleted]
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| George Carlin has a great bit on euphemisms
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isMm2vF4uFs
| notamy wrote:
| > When I had that injury, and was kind of crip-walking,
| people would intuitively stare at me for a second, then -very
| obviously- force themselves to look away.
|
| > The injury wasn't that bad and went away after a week or
| two. But the way people forced themselves to look away, was
| much worse. I can't imagine dealing with that every day.
|
| Having experienced this, I personally find that what's worse
| is the way people look at me in the first place. It's not as
| simple as someone looking at me, I can _see_ on their face or
| in their eyes or ... what's going through their mind, before
| they reassert control and hide it again.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I see it as unintentional discrimination. It's treating the
| people they are relabeling as children that need the kind
| progressives to step in and save them. It's so condescending.
| Minorities don't need white Knights to save them, neither do
| the disabled. If an individual wants me to not refer to them as
| x because they find it offensive, no problem. But a group of
| academics should not be able to sit around and decide that a
| group as a whole needs saving. It very much forces otherness on
| people and to your point furthers the divide. it forces us to
| see them as different.
|
| Side note, and this is completely off topic and I really mean
| this in the most positive way but you typing here has
| completely altered my perception of the need for following web
| standards for accessibility. I don't know any blind people in
| real life so really just assumed that accessibility standards
| really weren't worth the effort as they wouldn't make a
| difference. But here you are reading and responding in a manner
| that's probably better than I do. I am 100% on board now. You
| opened my mind today, thanks for that.
| pas wrote:
| ... but ... are "group of academics [..] sit around and
| decide that a group as a whole needs saving"? (Yes, probably
| some are, academia always has a few truly crazy people.)
|
| Mostly they parrot the same "old tautologies" (like language
| matters, structural issues are real, people's personal
| prejudices manifest in many ways, etc) in various new forms,
| shapes, phrasings.
|
| However, that doesn't mean they are wrong. (Nor that they are
| automatically right.)
|
| white knights are not academics, they are usually the
| walking-talking examples of severe Dunning-Kruger phenomena.
|
| ... I'm writing all this, because your post uses very broad
| and general terms like progressives and academics, and I
| think that's bad. (Because it forces my ego to reconsider the
| `progressive` label, that I used to apply to myself.
| Naturally without doing anything good/bad progressive really.
| :| )
| erulabs wrote:
| The absolute worst incarnation of this is "latinx". Don't
| worry latin world, the english speaking world is here once
| again to tell you how backwards your entire language and
| culture is! The absolute height of "offensive sensitivity" in
| my opinion.
|
| > But a group of academics should not be able to sit around
| and decide that a group as a whole needs saving
|
| If this isn't one of the core problems with every aspect of
| society...
| 8note wrote:
| You'd think that, Latinx does come from Spanish speakers,
| both with the -x and -e endings
|
| https://youtu.be/P3yfGQivroE
| scotty79 wrote:
| I think that people feel increasingly alienated. They feel
| bad so they search for their special "community". In doing
| that they alienate themselves further from average person.
| They create terminology and adopt language for their niche
| with clear disregard of any real people and issues.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _It 's treating the people they are relabeling as children
| that need the kind progressives to step in and save them._
|
| It also help give the later a role, some power over others
| (policing various such language and issues, using it against
| their enemies -out of good nature of course, sure), and
| sometimes, a full career...
| azangru wrote:
| > If an individual wants me to not refer to them as x because
| they find it offensive, no problem.
|
| It's a pretty big cognitive load though, to remember what
| everyone finds or doesn't find offensive. This is what
| bothers me about the recent obsession with pronouns - I have
| enough trouble remembering people's names; and now I am also
| asked to remember how to modify my grammar or lexicon when in
| vicinity of a given person? That's the complexity I don't
| want.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| We have externalized what used to be an internal issues
|
| Offense is a you problem, not a me problem. We have
| abandoned the axiom of "sticks and stones" and replaced it
| with "words are violence" or even worse "silence is
| violence"
|
| Today it no longer enough to be "tolerant" you have to
| actively affirm, support, and validate everything about
| everyone at all times and support their emotional state no
| matter the practicality or reality of the situation.
| tsgagnon wrote:
| It feels a bit hypocritical to make this sort of
| proclamation on a social media site with extremely strict
| moderation.
|
| Almost as though this isn't as simple a topic as "stick
| and stones" and that everyone has different tolerances
| for what they'll put up with depending on the setting and
| context.
| skissane wrote:
| > Today it no longer enough to be "tolerant" you have to
| actively affirm, support, and validate everything about
| everyone at all times and support their emotional state
| no matter the practicality or reality of the situation.
|
| That's absolutely not true though - you only have to
| affirm/support/validate people's identities and emotional
| states when their identity/emotions aligns with the
| zeitgeist; if those things contradict the zeitgeist, then
| affirm/support/validation is somewhere between optional
| and evil.
| jraph wrote:
| > Offense is a you problem, not a me problem
|
| Most definitely not. Of course people need to work on
| themselves to avoid being offended.
|
| But if you communicate with other people, it's because
| you want to achieve something. Probably not offending the
| target (or else fuck you I guess ;-)). So, usually,
| offense gets in the way, so you should care about not
| offending your target. And beyond this, as human beings,
| we usually care not to hurt other human beings.
|
| It's a we problem.
|
| > no matter the practicality or reality of the situation.
|
| Do you have example of this? Of course you are expected
| to show some empathy/sympathy, but I've never seem people
| impose unrealistic expectations.
| nasmorn wrote:
| I would not call anyone the N-word but would ask for a
| brown paper bag if I needed it at the grocery store. I
| have personally never met someone that is offended by the
| use of eg. colors as a concept but yet some people are
| trying to remove them from language.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Nobody is saying you can't say the word brown FFS.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| There are entire documents in technology written to erase
| words
|
| White / Black List -> Allow / Deny
|
| Git "master" -> Main
|
| and about 10,000 other examples.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| You can name a branch master on git to your hearts
| content. We still have branches named master. We still
| have stuff we refer to as "whitelist" even though that
| was never an accurate descriptor for it in the first
| place.
|
| This shit isn't banned. Nobody stops you from using them.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| It would be unconstitutional in the US to ban it, the
| question or comment thread is not about being illegal to
| use the word..
|
| The issue the social pressure against these terms, and
| the ever changing landscape one political segment of the
| population has in being forever offended by everything
| cherrycherry98 wrote:
| Companies now have "inclusive language" policies. There
| are dashboards that track team compliance and people that
| cheer this stuff on.
|
| Master branch gets renamed to main meanwhile one can
| freely talk about how they used their MasterCard to buy a
| new Jazzmaster guitar that they keep in their master
| bedroom with a Master lock on it and they're almost done
| with the master of their new album showing off their
| mastery of musical and production that they learned
| taking lessons on MasterClass. Did I mention there's a
| cover of Master of Puppets?
|
| Think this sounds crazy? Don't read this:
| https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675987
| nasmorn wrote:
| Exactly. Nobody is saying that but still it was removed
| from eg Roald Dahls books.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >Do you have example of this?
|
| How about the push to rename words in technology that
| have been in use for decades, like changing the default
| git repo from master to main.
|
| or the parent comment I replied to originally -- "This is
| what bothers me about the recent obsession with pronouns
| - I have enough trouble remembering people's names; and
| now I am also asked to remember how to modify my grammar
| or lexicon when in vicinity of a given person? " for
| which there is not even any social indicators of this,
| and for a given person could change at any given time
| from week to week or day to day. A person that changes
| their pronouns daily seems to me to have an unrealistic
| expectation that people will be able to keep track of
| that.
| foldr wrote:
| Have you come across anyone who changed their pronouns
| daily _and_ expected you to keep track of it?
|
| It annoys me how often this discussion gets bogged down
| in weird hypothetical scenarios. In my experience, people
| who use nonstandard pronouns (or pronouns that you might
| not guess from their appearance) are completely
| reasonable about it. They only ask that you make a
| genuine effort to remember the correct pronoun choice -
| which is not very much to ask. It's certainly no more
| work than, say, remembering the correct pronunciation of
| their name.
|
| I might add that almost anyone will be ok with singular
| 'they', if you're ever unsure, as it is gender neutral.
| prewett wrote:
| I have met people like this. And heard someone correct
| someone else for using it wrong. In fact, when during
| introductions, this person said their pronoun so loudly
| that I forgot their name (partly because it made no sense
| to put two pronouns after a name, so it spent a lot of
| time trying to parse the grammar, as I had just recently
| moved to a very Progressive city and it was the first
| time I had encountered it personally).
|
| There is another group I am in that has name tags and
| there are stickers with pronouns I've never even heard of
| (something like ver/ver, xe,xer, etc.).
| jraph wrote:
| > How about the push to rename words in technology that
| have been in use for decades, like changing the default
| git repo from master to main.
|
| How is this unpractical/unrealistic?
|
| Some people adopted main, some people kept master, the
| world did not end, things are going well. Not much
| thought on this in the day-to-day work.
| [deleted]
| tolien wrote:
| > Some people adopted main, some people kept master
|
| Some people used "trunk" since well before Git existed.
| If ever there was an example of how the umbrage at
| renaming things was baselessly manufactured, master ->
| main has to be right up there.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Offense is a you problem, not a me problem. We have
| abandoned the axiom of "sticks and stones"
|
| I think you miss the point of "sticks and stones". The
| point is not that it's ok to say whatever you want to
| anyone else. The point of "sticks and stones" is not to
| let other people bring down your self-esteem.
|
| Other people will _intentionally_ try to denigrate you.
| They 'll call you "stupid". They'll call you "ugly". Or
| they may call you a racial slur. That's all unacceptable.
| That's a "me" problem for the speaker. The point of
| "sticks and stones", on the other hand, is to resist
| internalizing these external insults and degradations.
| It's to put on a virtual suit of armor to protect you
| from verbal attacks -- and let's be clear, they're real
| attacks.
|
| You don't just "accidentally" beat someone with physical
| sticks and stones, right? The intention is to hurt, to
| break their bones, as it were. That's the analogy, with
| intentionally hurtful words.
| [deleted]
| jraph wrote:
| > I am also asked to remember how to modify my grammar or
| lexicon when in vicinity of a given person?
|
| No? Same grammar regardless of who is near, just need to
| remember which pronouns to designate which people, which:
|
| - is the intuitive one for most people
|
| - the asked pronoun for the few people who have pronouns
| that don't match your intuition.
|
| (I also have troubles with remembering names, but pronouns
| are fine)
|
| And for not implying a gender when speaking of someone for
| who we don't the gender, it's a constant exercise that also
| does not depend on the vicinity of a given person.
|
| It requires some effort, of course.
| Jorengarenar wrote:
| You just like that assumed their native language?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I work with maybe 100 people on a consistent basis. I
| probably know 25 of their names. Many of these
| interactions are random one offs, large meetings, etc.
| Many of them are foreign (to me) compounding my
| difficulty with their names. In addition I'm remote so
| can't associate names and faces, everyone is just white
| text on a black background. If any portion of this group
| started requesting I use varied pronouns I would probably
| lose my job in short order. Not because I don't care but
| because I am so incredibly busy I simply don't have the
| mental reserves to do it. Currently I am regularly
| working weekends and until 4 in the morning. I'm burnt.
| To expect me to somehow remember people's pronouns is a
| mission impossible.
|
| I don't remember individual interactions with many of my
| coworkers at all, they all blur together.
|
| If work wants me to do it then they'll need to reduce my
| workload by half just so my mind can absorb it.
| jraph wrote:
| You situation doesn't seem very healthy regardless of the
| topic at hand. I hope you'll be able to find a way to get
| a lighter workload.
|
| Remote too, but I met most people in person at least
| once, we use avatars, and definitely don't work with 100
| people.
|
| That said I know a few trans people, the number of people
| I know with pronouns that don't match the name is 0. The
| number of people wanting the equivalent of they in my
| language is so small I can remember it easily.
| beardedetim wrote:
| This seems extremely unhealthy for you. Specifically the
| work environment you are currently in.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I agree, crazy thing is this is the 4th straight job I've
| had like this. As far as I know this is just what work is
| red1reaper wrote:
| They requires effort... or just using they left and right
| for everyone, who needs pronouns when they exists anyway?
| Or better yet, avoid using pronouns by using the name
| over and over. That is what I do, not he, not she, not
| it, not especial ones. Only they, they supremacy.
| jraph wrote:
| Repeating the name over and over would be cumbersome.
|
| I would agree with always using a genderless pronoun, the
| gender should almost never matter, but I would probably
| be in for endless debates if I started to do this now.
| nasmorn wrote:
| I agree that would be an actual progressive agenda. But
| people wanting me to call them with another pronoun where
| I can no longer use biological cues is just cementing
| gender roles. Because if I present as a man but say I am
| a woman you just also gotta accept that since a woman
| does not need to conform to some societal gender role. If
| a guy dresses up like a woman he can still be a he, maybe
| he just likes skirts and nail polish. If a woman can be
| whatever she wants what does being a woman even mean
| except biology. If you want to assume a gender role
| previously tied to sex it clearly reinforces the idea
| that gender roles are an actual immutable category. How
| you can at the same time also hold the belief that
| biology is not doesn't make any sense to me.
|
| Maybe it is the just deserved revenge on a society that
| ties so much to sex and gender roles that logically has
| no relation to it. I am talking about things like job
| expectations or assuming competence at random skills,
| division of domestic responsibilities etc. I cannot
| believe though that this fixation on gender identity
| continues forever. It just doesn't seem like a sensible
| end state.
| jraph wrote:
| I'm with you on the second paragraph.
|
| > But people wanting me to call them with another pronoun
| where I can no longer use biological cues is just
| cementing gender roles
|
| I believe there's more to this. IIUC, for some (most?)
| trans people, there's actually something, probably
| related to their biology, that makes them feel as the
| gender they were not assigned at birth. They have may
| look like one gender, but feel like the other one: gender
| dysphoria [1].
|
| These people might be fighting more for solving this
| issue than for getting rid of the gender roles. Some
| would actually transition to the other sex for this,
| though I would expect trans people to also be more
| familiar (and sensitive?) to these gender identity
| questions, since they had to think about them.
|
| Would gender dysphoria be less of an issue in a society
| that would not have such gender-assigned roles? Open
| question for me.
|
| Now, it would be best if a trans people could directly
| speak about this, because this stuff is mostly
| theoretical for me, I haven't experienced it first-hand.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria
| blep_ wrote:
| (hi, I'm a trans people)
|
| Your understanding is largely right, though I'd expand
| "look like one gender" to "be perceived and treated as
| one gender". I regularly confuse the hell out of people
| with my obviously feminine name and appearance and very
| deep voice.
|
| > Would gender dysphoria be less of an issue in a society
| that would not have such gender-assigned roles? Open
| question for me.
|
| Depends on the person, I think. Many trans people still
| would. I probably would've just shaved a bunch of body
| hair off and started wearing skirts and been done with
| it.
|
| As for pronouns, "he" is just another sound people use to
| refer to other people. It has no inherent meaning beyond
| what we ascribe to it. I don't use it because society
| _does_ ascribe a lot of meaning to it that doesn 't apply
| to me - the same sort of feeling a man would get from
| being called "she". If genders weren't so much of a
| _thing_ in society, I can 't imagine myself caring nearly
| as much, though maybe in that world we'd all use the same
| pronoun anyway.
| Izkata wrote:
| In English, "they" has two main purposes: Theoreticals
| where sex doesn't matter, and as a gentle nudge to the
| person you're talking to that you don't really know the
| person you're talking about. That second one is
| completely lost when you just use "they" for everyone.
| jraph wrote:
| Interesting, I didn't know that, makes sense :-)
|
| Though I haven't felt the need for this so far, nothing
| comparable in French, annoying to have to stop to say the
| equivalent of "he or she, btw?". I guess we could use iel
| now. Still sounds new and weird to most people but it
| might become familiar at some point.
| blep_ wrote:
| I've seen people using -@ as a suffix in Spanish to cover
| both the -a and -o forms of gendered words. I have no
| idea how it's pronounced, and it's probably comically
| inconvenient in actual use, but I have to admit it looks
| mildly clever.
| Izkata wrote:
| > just need to remember which pronouns to designate which
| people
|
| And over time. Plenty of people who have custom pronouns
| will also change them occasionally.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Identity politics is not unintentional. Those indoctrinated
| into it may be unaware but the intention is to divide us.
| cutemonster wrote:
| I think that's not the only reason, sometimes not a reason
| at all.
|
| Instead, 1, sometimes, someone is looking to make a career,
| or get a job, make money. And then, in identity politics,
| they might see an opportunity. Career, status, money then
| being a goal, and any division a side effect.
|
| And, 2, I'm not saying that identity politics is or would
| always be bad or anything like that. So many unfairness in
| the world, to try to correct.
| kenjackson wrote:
| While partially true, what most fail to see is that
| identity politics is played by virtually everyone. It's
| just "your" side is the right approach and "not really
| identity politics".
| sangnoir wrote:
| Identity politics has been the bedrock of American
| politics since before the Mayflower Pilgrims[1] landed at
| Plymouth rock, and hasn't ever stopped for even a day.
| Any claims of recency says a lot about the speaker rather
| than reality.
|
| 1. That they were "pilgrims" is enough evidence. All the
| jey moments in American history are underpinned by
| "identity politics": the the 13 colonies, manifest
| destiny, expansinf west, the declaration of independence,
| slavery, civil war, reconstruction - _all of it._
| jraph wrote:
| > the intention is to divide us
|
| Who actually has this intention and why?
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| The "who" is pretty easy - it's corporate media outlets:
| https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/media-
| great...
| meany wrote:
| In general, creating division between classes, races,
| religious groups presents opportunities for individuals
| to gather power by taking up the cause for one group. By
| establishing an "other" you have an enemy to rally
| support for your leadership. This is the basis of power
| for every demagogue from the Cleon in Athens to Joe
| McCarthy and the American Red Scare. This is also a core
| theme in Orwell's 1984.
|
| In the context of the OPs topic, there are those who
| honestly are trying to improve the world, but many people
| have new found careers and political power created by the
| division on both the Right and Left.
| jraph wrote:
| Still not buying this in the current context but
| interested if you have any concrete example.
| lazyeye wrote:
| This is like someone swimming in an ocean asking for
| proof that water is wet.
| [deleted]
| yosito wrote:
| What if we all just stopped for a second and realized that
| no matter what "side" we're on, we're all just human
| beings? Namaste.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| I mean, this sets off my satire alarms but wouldn't that
| be a worthy goal? We can cynically deride all attempts to
| connect humanity as worthless hippy mumbo jumbo, and
| while I think perfect adherence would be impossible, I
| think a step or two in that direction is both possible
| and beneficial for us. This cynical attitude (assuming
| satire) is exactly the type of thing preventing us from
| making that kind of progress.
| alexvoda wrote:
| Call me a cynic but I am all for that. And afterwards you
| encounter the flat earthers and the holocaust deniers and
| the Putins and Alex Jones of the world and all kinds of
| other extremists in all kinds of extremes of all
| directions. And then it's not so simple.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I wish we could ban cliches on HN. This has less value
| than "we live in a society"
| pas wrote:
| Well, it's a newish power niche that's getting exploited.
|
| (One (postmodern) interpretation is that it's yet another
| "society of control" in crisis. Basically, the old tools
| that provided stability (social conventions, morals,
| beliefs/prejudices) all used to look like big formalish
| institutions, from family-school-factory-military-prison,
| and you were either in the system or completely out of it.
| But as this system of systems post-WWII has "eaten the
| world" it's now bound to face its own limitations, hence
| the crisis. Hence all the reforms, real and so-called
| ones.)
|
| The niche is (was) that most people has (had) only a super
| basic over-simplistic belief about language, which could be
| summed up as "something something the n-word". Instead of
| the more correct "when talking to/about someone it's very
| disrespectful to call them names they don't like".
| rayiner wrote:
| > I see it as unintentional discrimination. It's treating the
| people they are relabeling as children that need the kind
| progressives to step in and save them. It's so condescending.
|
| I don't know how "unintentional" it is, but it sure is
| "discrimination" and "condescending." It's like how liberal
| whites dumb down their speech when talkign to black people:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/30/white-
| liber....
|
| The dynamic is entirely consistent with them thinking about
| themselves as shepherding sheep. It's why they don't really
| care that nobody likes "Latinx." Who care what the sheep want
| to call themselves? It's also why they don't care whether the
| people they platform as icons of minority groups (Ilhan Omar,
| etc.) are representative of those groups or not. It's not
| coalition politics with give-and-take and compromise. It's a
| parent/child relationship.
| tptacek wrote:
| Isn't it enough just to point out that Hispanic/Latino
| people reject "Latinx", rather than continuously trying to
| psychoanalyze the people (who are not exclusively white)
| who do choose to use it? At a minimum, you're now citing
| social science research to make your point, but you are
| yourself a vociferous critical of social science research.
|
| You're making it hard to agree with you or to reach a
| shared understanding; like, I think "Latinx" as a universal
| term for Hispanic/Latino people is silly and mostly an
| elite discourse shibboleth, too, but the Extended Rayiner
| Cinematic Universe of paternal white behavior is not
| something I buy into.
| rayiner wrote:
| "Latinx" is just an easy-to-analyze example of a wider
| phenomenon where elite whites intervene on behalf of
| minorities while being wholly indifferent to what those
| minorities actually want. "Defund the police," racial
| preferences for hiring and education, "micro-
| aggressions," and many others are examples.
|
| I think the psychoanalysis is necessary to understand the
| phenomenon in a coherent way. Obviously I can't get in
| their heads. It's just a theory based on conversations
| where mentioning polling and statistics would be met with
| dead shark eyes in response.
| tptacek wrote:
| Well, racial preferences for hiring and education was
| something you used to support. What were you thinking
| when you supported it? Does it line up with your
| diagnosis here?
| sonjat wrote:
| I can't speak towards how other people, particularly
| minorities or the disabled think, but, as a woman, I hate the
| unintentional "othering" of people trying to do the right
| thing. I am typically the only woman at work, and people will
| often correct others who use terms like "guys" with
| statements like "guys or girls". I understand that they are
| doing it with good intentions and don't get angry, but to me
| it just serves to drive home the point that I am different. I
| am not like the others.
| clarge1120 wrote:
| As a "minority" I completely agree with you. IMO, the White
| Knights target the "others" for an opportunity to virtue
| signal. It got old after the first time it happened.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Web accessibility is indeed a very important thing for people
| like me. I am aware we are a very small minority with rather
| special needs in this regard, but believe me, investing in
| accessibility and therefore allowing people with visual and
| motor disabilities to interact with the digital world can
| have unexpectedly wonderful consequences for those benefiting
| from it. It is not often that I manage to pull tech people
| into this topic such that it actually lasts, but the few I
| know have made quite a difference. I am pretty thrilled to
| hear I might have sparked an interest in web accessibility in
| you. Thanks for caring! Its a wonderful rabbit hole.
| eru wrote:
| I'm only colour-blind, but I am too, benefitting from
| accessibility work meant primarily for blind people.
|
| And so do the elderly. Which will be all of us in the
| future (except those who plan to live fast and die young).
| Humanity is getting older and older on average, too.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Thats right. My girlfriend works for an assistive
| technology reseller. A growing number of their customers
| are elderly people who end up using technologies designed
| for the blind to keep on communicating. iOS with
| VoiceOver comes to mind. This was designed for the blind.
| But a determined elderly person whoes vision has
| deteriorated enough can also use it to avoid being cut
| off from everything.
| Tzela wrote:
| I'm interested as well. I run a small science club for
| kids, mainly coding and electronics. Accessibility and
| being more inclusive is a very old bullet point on my long
| list of things to do, but I never found a place to start.
| Do you have any recommendation on where to learn this?
| lynx23 wrote:
| Hard question, because the field so diverse. In a sense,
| accessibility is much more then just trying to make
| computers useable for the blind. At a fundamental level,
| it is about making software flexible enough to be used in
| different modalities. People with very little motor
| capabilities are quite capable of looking at a screen,
| but they need help moving the mouse and perhaps a good
| predictive onscreen keyboard to be able to type. Blind
| people on the other hand are mostly quite content with a
| standard keyboard, but they need a totally different way
| of output, like tactile braille or synthesized speech.
| For the output part, it boils down to having an API which
| makes a third party app (like a screen reader) able to
| traverse the logical structure of what the application is
| presenting on-screen. That is mostly a sort of tree which
| reflects which widget contains what, and the different
| types of content. Such an API, however, is not only
| required for screen readers, but also very useful for
| things like automated testing, for instance. So a web
| automation or testing framework could actually be written
| on top of the accessibility APIs, and sometimes actually
| is. I am rumbling about this to get you in the right
| mindset. Its so hard to not see the forest because of all
| the trees around...
|
| That said, if we're talking about web accessibility, the
| obvious recommendation is the WAI WCAG. Maybe not the
| best reference for learning on how to implement things,
| but its a good start.
|
| Depending on the platform you're at home with, there are
| screen readers (NVDA, Orca, BRLTTY) which are open source
| and can be studied. On the user side, and on the "how is
| this implemented" side.
|
| Installing NVDA on Windows and turning the monitor off is
| a good way to get your feet wet. It might feel strange at
| first, but you will notice that things can actually get
| done this way. Its also a good way to test a website if
| you have no specific accessibility knowhow yet. Just try
| to navigate and read its contents.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| > In a sense, accessibility is much more then just trying
| to make computers useable for the blind. At a fundamental
| level, it is about making software flexible enough to be
| used in different modalities. [...] For the output part,
| it boils down to having an API which makes a third party
| app (like a screen reader) able to traverse the logical
| structure of what the application is presenting on-
| screen. [...] So a web automation or testing framework
| could actually be written on top of the accessibility
| APIs, and sometimes actually is.
|
| I agree. If the features are well-designed, then they can
| be good for many uses, whether or not you are blind.
|
| You could also add pronouncing file (especially if a
| document is using unusual words), it is useful if you are
| blind and using synthesized speech, but also if you are
| not blind and do not know how is the word pronounced then
| you can easily learn. (Likewise, if you watch television
| then you can put on caption in case you do not know how
| to spell some unuusal word (such as someone's name).
| Captions could also be useful for a "caption scrollback"
| menu to display prior captions in a list, although I have
| never seen this implemented, but I think it would be
| useful.)
|
| Another situation where speech synthesis is often used
| (by people who are not blind) is GPS-based navigation
| systems. They often pronounce the street names wrong, so
| adding data for pronouncing, and then implementing that
| properly, would be better.
|
| (I have mentioned before that I think that adding a "ARIA
| view" (with user-defined CSS) might be a best way to make
| a consistent visual display which uses ARIA instead of
| the visual styles defined by the web page author
| (widgets, etc can also be used, and would also be
| consistent instead of each web page having its own widget
| styles). However, I have not seen such a thing
| implemented in a good way.)
| cesarb wrote:
| > [...] and turning the monitor off is a good way to get
| your feet wet.
|
| Is it weird that I, as someone with normal sight, had
| never thought of that as a simple way of testing whether
| your software (and the whole operating system together
| with it) works correctly with screen readers? It's like
| there's some sort of unconscious bias which links typing
| on a computer with its monitor being turned on.
|
| And I lived through the times when most computers didn't
| come with any pointing device, which led to most software
| back then being accessible to keyboard-only users
| (notable exceptions being things like Paintbrush, which
| required a mouse), so I understand the link between the
| lack of a device and software being designed to work well
| without that device.
| pflanze wrote:
| I'm currently debating with myself whether I should
| create GUI programs (with the main code written in Rust)
| using Qt or Tauri. Tauri is a Rust based GUI framework
| based on a webview, similar to Electron, although it can
| use the OS's native web renderer [1]. Do you think one
| would be better than the other with regards to
| accessibility? Or is it mostly a question of how I, as a
| programmer, make use of the tools? For context, those are
| currently just small tools and utilities I make on my own
| and provide as Open Source.
|
| I don't currently have Windows. Is there a good way for
| me to test accessibility on Linux? As a fallback, I will
| get myself Windows once I port the tools to Windows, so I
| could test accessibility then.
|
| [1] https://crates.io/crates/tauri
| xhxhxh wrote:
| Hey man, what software do you recommend for screen reading?
| I'm trying to test my websites on accessibility and I've
| tried JAWS and NVDA so far (while using Lynx to navigate
| it) but found them a bit confusing. I'm not sure how one
| would use them in practice to navigate a site like Hacker
| news, which is relatively simple.
|
| Do you use something else entirely?
| lynx23 wrote:
| I am not quite sure I understand. If you're really trying
| to use JAWS or NVDA to work with lynx on the web, you are
| mixing things up. There are basically two worlds for
| blind users: the "old" text-only terminal interfaces
| thing which started in the good old DOS days at least for
| me) and was kept alive in Linux terminal applications.
| And the GUI world, where you have a screen reader
| interact with the various elements an application is
| putting on-screen. In the first world, the screen reader
| basically just sees a grid of characters. In the second
| world, the screen reader needs to reconstruct a text
| representation from the widget info it can obtain.
|
| In other words, if you want to work on the web, with
| something like NVDA as a screen reader, you want to use
| Firefox or some other modern browser, not lynx.
|
| If you are like me, spending 99% of your time in tmux,
| lynx is a nice thing to use, but there is nothing really
| accessibility specific here. Lynx is just a terminal
| application. And if you are a skilled blind user used to
| dealing with plain-text grid-stuff, you can use it just
| fine for whatever it still works for...
| xhxhxh wrote:
| Thank you for the explanation, it's a lot more clear now!
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I have been told in no uncertain terms that the word
| "minority" is offensive, as it has come to have pejorative
| use. No alternative term was suggested, rather that one
| should refer to specific groups of people with their specific
| terms, and never generalise.
|
| Additionally, "white knight" I have also been told off for,
| for the reasons you might expect.
|
| In both of these cases (actually, almost every case I can
| think of) my language was being policed by, um, materially
| unencumbered birthgivers of reduced melanin.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| I feel like, Materially Unencumbered Birth Gives of Reduced
| Melanin, is approaching an actual usable acronym for the
| typical pejorative, Karen. I bet chatgpt could bridge the
| gap
| samastur wrote:
| I don't see white women standing out in their behaviour,
| but they sure will always remain an acceptable group to
| beat up on without losing your progressive or otherwise
| credentials.
|
| Karen at this point is always pejorative and pretty much
| just not well hidden sexism at best.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| That's been the most impactful change of the entire
| progressive movement. It's now ok to be sexist and racist
| against white women. It's feminism stood on its head. The
| reduction of white women to a meme has been incredible to
| watch. No idea why anyone would be for this.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I love the term white knight specifically because it's
| offensive to those I reference with it and because it does
| such a great job describing my view of them and ironically
| their unconcious view of themselves. Also the amusing thing
| is that they are always white.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > they are always white
|
| Might it be because they think they know best?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Minorities don't need white Knights to save them"
|
| It always depends and I would not generalize too much. The
| jewish minority in europe during Nazi reign did needed
| someone to save them. As does the single minority outsider,
| that gets beaten up on the school ground, for being the
| outsider.
|
| But yes, if you want to emporer people in general, you cannot
| fight their battles for them and declare them uncaple of
| fighting their battles.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| There are always exceptions and genocide is very obviously
| one. I was referring more to the socially constructed self
| inflicted battles society has been engaging in lately.
| cutemonster wrote:
| It's a somewhat common exception unfortunately.
| attemptone wrote:
| I was looking around for societal battles that were not
| socially constructed. But I guess I'm visually impaired
| in that respect. Maybe you can help me?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Got me ;)
| raspberry1337 wrote:
| I was looking around for something that is not socially
| constructed. But I guess I am socio-constructually visio-
| impaired in that respect. Maybe you can help me?
| attemptone wrote:
| In that case I think we have to find some one-eyed man
| and make him king.
|
| Maybe we can take some of the 'intellectual dark-
| web'figureheads and blindly follow them. They pretend to
| have a grasp of this scoial-construction thing.
|
| But I'd rather like to continue searching the
| intellectual deep-web for a person with actual sight.
| marmee wrote:
| Jews in WW2 needed the Allies to bomb Auschwitz, they did
| not need Churchill to stop using the word Jew because it is
| offensive.
|
| It is not similar, unless if you have the preconceived
| notion that 'language is action'
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Jews in WW2 needed the Allies to bomb Auschwitz"
|
| I don't really think, the jews in the camp, would have
| welcomed to be bombed, on top of the daily routine.
|
| Can you elaborate how being blown to pieces would have
| helped anyone, except maybe a lucky person used the chaos
| to escape (to where exactly)?
|
| Also I did not say anything about language equals action
| and were just speaking in broad terms about helping
| minorities.
|
| And "jew" is not offensive, but there are offensive terms
| for jews. And whether banning them would have helped, I
| did not made any statement about.
|
| But I forgot, it is friday and probably not the best time
| to comment here.
| marmee wrote:
| Auschwitz was effectively a factory of death. Bombing the
| gas chambers, crematorium, rail lines might have helped.
|
| About Jew:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/05/jew-
| not-sl...
|
| Also forgive me if I have assumed because of the context
| that you argued through analogy for protecting minorities
| of harmful language, my bad
| froggit wrote:
| > Auschwitz was effectively a factory of death. Bombing
| the gas chambers, crematorium, rail lines might have
| helped.
|
| I think there's a misunderstanding happening here. You
| seem to be suggesting Auschwitz get bombed assuming it
| would not blowing up the Jews (and gypsies, and
| homosexuals, and others that made the Nazi list of
| "deviants") being actively imprisoned, which sounds great
| but would have been unfeasible. The previous reply
| doesn't seem to be asking what would be specifically
| helpfully in blowing up Auschwitz. I think it's unanimous
| "that factory of death was bad and making it stop is
| good, " so I think it's more like they're taking into
| account how dropping bombs in WWII actually worked, which
| was a pretty imprecise process. Ultimately, bombing
| Auschwitz would also have blown up the people held
| prisoner in Auschwitz, and those people might not think
| being blown up was super helpful for them, regardless of
| whether Auschwitz was destroyed in the process.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| There a historical documentary film that tells the story
| of people who escaped Auschwitz to bring definitive proof
| of the atrocities happening there to the Allies.
|
| As I recall it, their request was for the Allies to bomb
| Auschwitz, though presumably targeting railway lines and
| other elements that could knock it out of action.
| marmee wrote:
| Train loads of people were coming in daily to be
| slaughtered, over 80% were killed on arrival and were not
| kept as prisoners, while deaths among prisoners was very
| high.
|
| This was not a static prison camps that kept the same
| people during the war (except for very few). That's why I
| think this was effective even if bombs had hit the living
| quarters themselves.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| As a Jew, what else would you call a group of us? A flock
| of Jew? A gaggle of Jew? A Jewbilee?
|
| Feel free to use the word Jews, otherwise it's just going
| to get weird ;)
| kanbara wrote:
| as a fellow jew: "he's a jew" vs "he's a _jew_"
|
| and "the jews run X"
|
| i'd prefer jewish / jewish people.
|
| we're not a monolith, nor is any other minority group.
| and for that matter, navigating society and learning that
| not all people prefer the same terms/words/pronouns is
| just life.
|
| i'm sorry people cant do and say what they please and
| offend others, but that's just part of being an agreeable
| human and living in society
| 8note wrote:
| I'm not Jewish, but I find the distinction between Jewish
| and jew-ish to be entertaining, and really descriptive
| tarotuser wrote:
| Human migration.
|
| The thing that makes it weird is that "Jew" represents
| both a religion and a people. We really don't see that in
| other cultures or religions. Now as likely as my profile
| isn't going to be outed, but 'joining in' is a great way
| to be tarred as an anti-semite, whether you sincerely
| hate Jews or not.
|
| And also, since you're Jewish, you're allowed to use
| comments and jokes like "Jewbilee". It's similar to how
| African Americans can use "nigga/nigger" amongst each
| other but is completely forbidden for anyone else. That's
| primarily due to the power dynamic of those words, and
| how they traditionally were used as a slur. This is
| examples where members of the group change the definition
| to be positive rather than negative.
|
| I grew up with my trash of parents teaching 6 year old me
| to negotiate at flea markets by "jewing them down". And
| although I won't have children, I make a conscious choice
| not to continue that language. My language shapes my
| reality. So no.
| [deleted]
| wonderwonder wrote:
| What do you call a group of Jews though? If Jews is off
| the table?
|
| I totally hear what you are saying though and I know you
| are coming from a good place. The Jewish race/religion
| thing is an odd one. Ive always considered myself Jewish
| by race, 99% Ashkenazi but not religion, I have no
| religious beliefs.
|
| Conversation reminds me of the infamous lunar new year
| invite.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/ap6022/m
| an_...
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| A Jewish group
|
| A group of Jewish people
| wonderwonder wrote:
| So in a sentence you would say
|
| "The church is full of christians and the temple is full
| of a group of Jewish people"
|
| That sounds odd.
|
| "The church is full of Christians and the temple is full
| of Jews" sounds correct and treats each group equally.
|
| I know you mean well but I just disagree with linguistic
| gymnastics in order to be pc
| tarotuser wrote:
| To be fair, its best not even to discuss. It's not like
| discussing Jewish stuff is normal... well, outside being
| Jewish or being a neonazi/white supremacist, or awkward
| discussions here.
|
| But discussing here, I try to keep as neutral as
| possible. If we're talking about the religion, I use
| people of Jewish faith. And if talking about Ashkenazi
| Jews (hereditary), I use that term. And past that, I try
| to keep as matter-of-factly plain simple language, and
| check for any colloquiums that have alternate white
| nationalist meanings.
|
| But usually, this topic doesn't even come up. It's only
| awkward HN comment chains that have this weird political
| forced neutral writing. But that too is self-defense.
| bombcar wrote:
| This right here strikes at the root of the issue - if
| someone wants to refer to a group with hate, there is NO
| way to fix that by changing the term.
|
| And changing the term to try to avoid it just results in
| weird terms and euphemisms, it doesn't eliminate hate.
| hardlytrueisit wrote:
| Please don't shoe horn in Jew and Nazi political points
| from 100 years ago into a hacker news tech discussion. We
| aren't interested, lots of fights occurred in history, lots
| of people were slaughtered. Simply look at what the British
| Empire did to the 7 million Irish when they manufactured a
| famine and genocide. There are millions of examples and
| it's off topic.
| Veen wrote:
| I didn't know the British had manufactured potato blight.
| That's quite advanced tech for the time.
| rocketbop wrote:
| Parent doesn't say that they manufactured blight but that
| they manufactured famine.
|
| This is also incorrect although they did preside over one
| and were reluctant to intervene for a variety of reasons,
| some economic and some philosophical.
|
| Edit: and just to add, it was certainly not an attempt at
| genocide.
| coldtea wrote:
| If you mean the disease, no.
|
| If you mean blight as in "a thing that spoils or damages
| something", that something being the Irish substinence,
| they absolutely did. Read some history.
|
| And since a million died, it's not exactly laughing
| matter to joke about.
| [deleted]
| raspberry1337 wrote:
| The blight in itself of course was not manufactured,
| however the policies that led up to the total dependency
| on one type of crop never failing, and the botched
| emergency reponse; was.
|
| However, this famine is of course, not even a tear in the
| sea compared to the holocaust, which remains the most
| horrific act ever, forever; and every other act past or
| future will only be a tiny fraction of the depth of its
| importance. History begin and ends with the holocaust the
| plight of the Jews.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, the nazis and jews and the evaluation of the events
| is a quite clear example.
|
| The jews went into the death camps, because no one came
| to save them and they had no chance on their own at that
| time.
|
| There are not many people debating this, I supposed. (but
| might have been wrong)
|
| That's why choose this example and not to discuss about
| Hitler.
|
| Where on the other hand your example, is pretty much
| debatable, like you see on the reactions.
|
| So why on earth, are you lecturing me about HN from a
| green account?
| boredumb wrote:
| You mean the home-country-challenged people living among
| THE biggest oppressors in history needed help after
| literally-hitler was about to unalive them?
| recuter wrote:
| [flagged]
| hutzlibu wrote:
| So your family members would have rejected the help of
| Schindler and co while under occupation and in direct
| death threat?
|
| Or would have rejected the allies when they came
| liberating the camps?
|
| Seriously?
|
| As far as I know, the jews and all other surpressed
| minorities of europe were making great risks, to get
| information (like from a hidden radio) about the advance
| of the allies. Because this was the main thing bringing
| hope.
|
| edit: and sure, it was the gestapo who flagged you and
| not simply people annoyed by your insulting debate style.
| recuter wrote:
| [flagged]
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Nope. I did not made any claims about myself here.
|
| I merley stated, that no one came to save the jews in
| europe, which is why they went to the death camps.
|
| Which you are debating for some reason, along with
| personal insults.
|
| I suppose because you think the jews should have been
| organized better and fend for themself? Well, maybe. But
| they were not organized. They were in the weaker position
| and chased by the Nazis. In this situation, outside help
| is needed in my perception, but you may think whatever
| you want about it all. And if you can share what you
| think without insults, I might read it.
| recuter wrote:
| [flagged]
| coldtea wrote:
| > _So your family members would have rejected the help of
| Schindler and co while under occupation and in direct
| death threat?_
|
| They would have accepted it out of necessity. Doesn't
| mean depending on "white knights" is desirable or
| effective. Didn't work out of several other million, for
| starters.
|
| Even less desirable when there is no "direct death
| threat", and the victims are perfectly capable of having
| opinions and speaking for themselves, as opposed to
| others co-opting and/or hijacking their concerns.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Doesn't mean depending on "white knights" is desirable
| or effective."
|
| Well sure, no one wants to be in the position, where he
| or she needs to be saved in the first place, but if you
| are in that position - help is still needed and wanted.
|
| "Didn't work out of several other million, for starters."
|
| And that is simply, because no one came in time.
|
| "Even less desirable when there is no "direct death
| threat", and the victims are perfectly capable of having
| opinions and speaking for themselves, as opposed to
| others co-opting and/or hijacking their concerns. "
|
| And yes, which is why I wrote: "if you want to emporer
| people in general, you cannot fight their battles for
| them and declare them uncaple of fighting their battles.
| "
| jrd259 wrote:
| I can't explain the downvotes. Visit
| https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous.html for a chronicle of
| some of the people who saved some of my people.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "I can't explain the downvotes"
|
| I forgot it is friday and "white Knight" is a trigger
| word for some.
|
| So when there's a headline that says:
|
| "Banning words won't make the world more just"
|
| and then I say "it depends" to a subpoint with white
| knight, then I seem to represent the woke enemy to them,
| who wants to dictate what words they are allowed to use
| (even though I am actually very pro free speech).
|
| And as a german regarding the righteous and why there
| were so few of them:
|
| I know the mindset from my grandparents and it was/is one
| of having a very strong taboo of doing anything against
| the state, or just thinking about it. They were not nazis
| and knew what the state was doing was wrong even though
| they didn't know the details. But they kept their head as
| low as possible, as most did. And marched in line, if
| ordered so. So they share their responsibility.
|
| I would like to think, that I would have acted different,
| but would I? I would have been a different person, being
| born into that time and culture.
|
| So it is also a tough question of what I personally feel
| about it. Should I feel personally sorry about industrial
| mass murdering done by "my kind"?
|
| Well, I don't really feel connected to those germans as a
| whole at all.
|
| But I do feel connected to my grandparents, so sorry on
| their behalf, that my family didn't do anything to my
| knowledge, to help your people. (And personally I do my
| best to keep the local nazis in check today)
|
| edit: and those words still feel empty. But I don't find
| better words.
|
| Because the holocaust was just outstanding industrial
| mass murder with the goal to wipe out a whole race. What
| can you say about it? Certainly not, what a member of the
| new german right said: "The german history is a great one
| and the holocaust was just a litle dirt on it"
|
| So back on topic, I think this person should have the
| right to say this. Because everyone else now knows what
| those people (who are all officially against nazis) are
| really standing for.
| roenxi wrote:
| > The language terror they were subjected to has made them so
| unsecure that they actually dont want to hear that blind people
| have no issue with being called blind.
|
| It is unusual for the opinions of the minorities involved to be
| relevant.The language policing appears to be a power play
| within the majority. What you are observing is consistent with
| that - they aren't worried about offending the blind, they're
| worried about how their language will allow their peers to
| jostle for position.
| funcDropShadow wrote:
| > It is unusual for the opinions of the minorities involved
| to be relevant.The language policing appears to be a power
| play within the majority.
|
| That is so true. Often the stated goal is to deconstruct
| society, not to help any minority.
| [deleted]
| sbuk wrote:
| It not even a majority that dictates. It's ostensibly a vocal
| minority of professional offence-takers who wield power,
| generally on social media. My partner has MS, and I made an
| off-the-cuff joke about it, and got pilloried by people that
| neither of us know. Not one of them took the time to consider
| that this is how we deal with it; they were too busy being
| offended on her behalf.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| > a vocal minority of professional offence-takers
|
| A role that used to be filled (in Ireland) by priests and
| nuns, and the Legion of Mary. One of the big problems I
| used to have with religion was the moral policing - imagine
| my surprise when the power of the church waned, but the
| moral policing only intensified
| Lazare wrote:
| My partner is disabled, and by chance and via support groups
| she is a member of, she has many friends annd acquaintences who
| are as well. And while it's by no means universal, she and all
| her disabled friends absolutely _loathe_ the "people first
| language" currently in vogue (ie, "person with a disability"
| over "disabled").
|
| And it's odd! Because while there are certainly disabled people
| who prefer one form over another when they speak or when people
| refer to them (although again, in my experience, the
| overwhelming majority prefer the clarity of "disabled"), the
| only time I've _ever_ run across someone making a universal
| dictate about how everyone should speak about all disabled
| people everywhere, the speaking has been non-disabled. And
| invariably backing a viewpoint which is tenditious at best
| among actually disabled people!
|
| And to what end? It sometimes feels - certainly to my partner,
| hence her anger - an attempt to just sort of pretend the issue
| dosn't exist so that nobody has to be uncomfortable. Her
| disability is, at the moment, entirely incurable. She has
| experienced significant grief over her disability; she would
| love not to have it. But she does, and relabelling her as
| "differently abled" or a "person with a disability" doesn't
| suddenly remove the physical limitations she is struggling
| with.
| eru wrote:
| Of course, 'disabled' is just the euphemism you grew up with,
| so it feels neutral enough.
|
| The euphemism treadmill has a long history. At some point
| cripple used to be the neutral term for many kinds of
| disabled. It's long been deemed offensive. Similar with idiot
| or retard.
|
| Give it a few decades, and all of the 'people first language'
| will perhaps turn into neutral and then offensive, too.
|
| (I am writing the above dispassionately. But given the
| generation I grew up in, I share your sensibilities about the
| words. 'Disabled' feels fairly neutral to me as well, and
| 'idiot' or 'cripple' feel somewhat offensive.
|
| But I recognise that this is just an artifact of exactly when
| in time I grew up. And old people complaining about shifts in
| language and culture is an even older trope than the
| euphemism treadmill.)
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| 'Idiot' is a particularly good example of how pointless it
| all is. "Person of idiocy" is probably still offensive, so
| 'people-first language' doesn't really do anything.
| cornholio wrote:
| The definitive resource on the euphemism treadmill, by a
| member of a previous generation:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc
| [deleted]
| sunderw wrote:
| I suffer from a disability and so does my girlfriend. Note
| that our main language is French and so there is a bit of
| nuance to how the terms are used. Disabled is usually said
| "handicape" (this word means more "incapacitated" that
| anything) and "person with a disability" is usually said
| "personne en situation de handicap" which more literally
| translates to "person in a disability situation" / "person
| currently incapacitated".
|
| While we don't have any problem with the term disabled, I can
| see some advantages to the "people first language" and try to
| use it when I can - but I agree it's often way more
| simple/clear to say "disabled", "blind", etc...
|
| The advantages are : - Including temporarily
| disabled people (maybe more in french than english). If you
| break your legs and spend a few months in a wheelchair, you
| might not feel legitimate to use the term "disabled" in
| comparison to someone who has never been able to walk and
| suffers more from it. I'd also add my personal story: I
| suffer from chronic pain that is very incapacitating in my
| life. I don't feel legitimate when I call myself disabled.
| It's not temporary, but it's not as clear as blindness etc...
| Using people-first language feels more right. -
| Including more person means reducing stigma and reducing the
| gap between abled/disabled. - Not letting that
| disabilty define you as a person. I am not disabled, I am
| Sunderw, a complicated person with many different aspects.
|
| That said, it should definitely not be a dictate because it
| only serves to divide more. Also, I had never heard the term
| "differently abled" which could sound almost sarcastic when
| employed to speak about someone in a wheelchair for example.
|
| [Edit: formatting]
| psyfi wrote:
| > If you break your legs and spend a few months in a
| wheelchair, you might not feel legitimate to use the term
| "disabled" in comparison to someone who has never been able
| to walk and suffers more from it.
|
| I would say "I am hungry" even if I have food in the
| fridge, I do not need to compare myself to poor starving
| people and decide to say "I am currently hungry" or "I am
| in a situation of hunger"
|
| > Not letting that disabilty define you as a person. I am
| not disabled, I am Sunderw, a complicated person with many
| different aspects.
|
| also I am still a complicated person and hungry does not
| define my personality.
|
| > Including more person means reducing stigma and reducing
| the gap between abled/disabled.
|
| Actually, taking too many steps to think of how to describe
| a person with a certain medical situation already increases
| the stigma, I would feel more bad if people try to avoid
| calling me "sick" so I don't feel bad about being sick,
| this is even worse.
|
| Imagine calling a midget "A person with less height" or
| some nonsense like that.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > I would say "I am hungry" even if I have food in the
| fridge, I do not need to compare myself to poor starving
| people and decide to say "I am currently hungry" or "I am
| in a situation of hunger"
|
| But saying "I'm starving!" when you are just hungry is a
| bit different. It's fine where there are no starving
| people around. It's just a exaggeration then. But if one
| of your friends starved last week while you are still fat
| and just a bit hungry it might not sound well.
| gdy wrote:
| The problem is that you let your friend starve, not that
| you used a wrong word. The humanity allocates too little
| money to medical research.
| sunderw wrote:
| Well, the difference may come from the language. "I am
| hungry" translates in french to "J'ai faim" using the
| "have" auxiliary. You "are" hungry in english, but I
| "have" the hunger, in french.
|
| So for me your example does not count as a label. Is
| there no nuance at all between "being hungry" and "being
| disabled" in english ? If so, you're right, my argument
| does not stand.
|
| > Imagine calling a midget "A person with less height" or
| some nonsense like that.
|
| I think midget is pejorative so this is not a very good
| example. But I don't know much about that so I'll take
| your argument as if it wasn't at all.
|
| I should have added that this is of course useful in some
| contexts. If you are talking to a specific person, then
| changing the language isn't very useful (except if this
| specific person feels the term is offensive, but that
| does not mean we should all change how we speek).
|
| Where it is more useful, for example, is when you talk
| about limitations due to a problem. You are writing an
| article about height problems ? No need to say it's about
| dwarfism, there are other small people that might relate.
| You're a store and design a special help to get objects
| on high shelves ? No need to call it "dwarf help" or
| "midget help", but just "help for small people" or even
| "high shelf help".
|
| In this case this is not about thinking about how to
| describe a person with a certain medical situation. It is
| about taking a step back and removing the medical
| situation altogether.
|
| This applies much more to "deaf"/"hearing impaired" (or
| whatever, my argument is about generalizing, not about a
| specific term). A lot more people have difficulty hearing
| than are completely deaf.
|
| Knowing about it is good. Trying to think about what your
| language implies is good. Forbidding the usage of words
| is obviously extreme and bad.
| Lukas_Skywalker wrote:
| Slightly related: in German, a strange thing happened at the
| end of the last century. Disabled people used to be called
| "behindert" (might be translated as "impeded" or "hindered").
| I think the word was a good choice, because it took the blame
| away from people, and just described that they had to
| overcome bigger obstacles because of their situation.
|
| In the eighties or nineties, people started to use the term
| as a slur. School children called each other "behindert" as
| an expletive.
|
| This lead to a new term being used for the disabled:
| "invalid". Which in my opinion is the worst word you could
| use, since it origins in Latin and just means "unworthy". But
| it seems to still be in broad use.
| throway33 wrote:
| "Invalid" used to be used in English in the 19th century. I
| see it in old books sometimes; had to look it up the first
| time. It's not a great word choice and sounds more like an
| illegal immigrant status or something.
| James_Henry wrote:
| Do people not use invalid anymore? I thought it was still
| used for people bed-bound by illness.
| perilunar wrote:
| English has "handicapped" which is similar and also became
| offensive. I thought it was a good word because it allowed
| for more nuance than the binary abled/disabled.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Ha, I wasn't aware that "handicapped" is considered
| offensive. Is that an American thing? A British thing?
| kbenson wrote:
| This points towards part of what's actually going on and
| why people keep trying to change the terminology. There's
| always a subset of people that use the terminology as a
| pejorative, because they see the people it refers to as
| either lesser or embarrassing to be a part of. Often
| children, because they don't know any better, but adults
| (whether children that never stopped or for other reasons)
| as well. Then the fact that the term is used as a
| pejorative spurs people (whether part of that group or not
| at this point) to change the accepted terminology to
| something else. Rinse and repeat.
| lynx23 wrote:
| I can relate to what she told you about language changes not
| improving ones own situation.
|
| I am well past the point where I have any grief related to my
| disability. Its a fact of life, a part of me, very much like
| not being able to fly, or having a nose above the mouth.
|
| But there are of course situations in life where I feel that
| the world isn't always particularily accessible. But it
| doesn't help at all if someone uses appropriate language to
| explain to me that they dont want me as a customer because
| they are afraid of liabilities. Thats a bit cynical, I know,
| but thats another trend. With "awareness" about special
| groups comes more exclusion. Anyway, I digress.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Ironically it's the opposite in the autism community, the
| white Knights insist it should be "autistic people" for some
| reason.
|
| None of this is going to change anyone's material conditions,
| it's just a distraction invented by well paid "diversity
| consultants".
|
| At least the fad for "differently abled" seems to have died.
| regularfry wrote:
| "People with autism" carries a connotation that the person
| and the autism are separable. Given the deep, dark, nasty
| history of autism "cures" that's a very raw nerve, and
| stamping out that type of thinking _will_ materially
| improve conditions.
| psyfi wrote:
| Even worse, some people will use "people of determination"
| despite being more vague and non-descriptive
| prepend wrote:
| Is this mean someone is determined or steadfast in their
| constitution?
|
| I worked with someone who was really smart but annoyed me
| because his variable names were cartoon characters, like
| Tom,jerry,bugs, etc.
|
| I asked him not to do this and he said that each variable
| was documented so it's better to use an arbitrary label
| that never needs to change should the business change it's
| name (ie if you called a variable division_names and the
| org decides to rename divisions to units). We argued over
| this and he never changed his variable names.
|
| But now I get it. I'd rather just have some arbitrary label
| that means disabled and never have to change it as "prepend
| is foo" would stand the test of time while "prepend is
| disabled" might change to "pretend is of disability" might
| change to "prepend is not hindered by disability" to
| "prepend is a human first and valiantly overcomes a
| limitation in ability" to "prepend only has one arm" etc.
| pizza234 wrote:
| This is the exact same dynamic that happens with comedy. When a
| comedian offends a group, it's typically not people from that
| group who complain - it's third parties who step in to
| represent that group.
|
| IMO the purpose of language changing is not to improve the
| world; instead, it's to give the feeling of changing the world
| without putting any real effort.
|
| Fun (in a sad way) fact: a friend of mine collaborates with an
| association that deals with diverse people. Some high-up
| complained that my friend's group (within the association) is
| "not diverse enough". Thing is: my friend is actually non-
| binary themselves. Go figure.
|
| EDIT: replaced the definition of my friend from "diverse" to
| "non-binary", in order to be exact; the same principle stands,
| though!
| Y_Y wrote:
| A single person shouldn't be able to be diverse on their own!
| That's a property of groups. You can try to define a "default
| person" and then say you want each individual to differ from
| that in your favourite characteristics, but that's a
| different game and provides none of the benefits of actual
| diversity.
| Scarblac wrote:
| It's me, actually. I'm 48, white, male, cis, hetero,
| graying, healthy, overweight but not obese, married with
| two kids, and slaving away in a wage job behind a computer
| somewhere.
|
| "Diverse" specifically means different from me.
|
| I feel it's good companies are looking for more diverse
| people to fill their jobs, I can't do them all.
| slackdog wrote:
| I think you could reasonably describe a single person as
| 'diverse' in the 'diverse set of skills or experiences'
| sense. Like a jack-of-all-trades handyman. Or maybe for
| somebody that has a wide array of personalities which they
| reveal in different social contexts.
| the_af wrote:
| > _A single person shouldn 't be able to be diverse on
| their own!_
|
| Agreed, but I've seen it used like this more than once, and
| it's both hilarious _and_ unintentionally offensive.
|
| A diverse group -- which makes more sense -- means
| something inoffensive: that the people in that group are
| different from each other, representing there's variety
| within the group according to some parameter (say, skin
| color).
|
| A "diverse" person as used in PC language is... exactly
| what? Someone with "diverse ethnicity" (seen this used!) is
| someone who _what_? Was this person the offspring of an
| orgy of people with different skin colors?
|
| Oooh.. I get it, a "diverse" person is someone who is not
| _white_ , meaning the standard/normal skin color is white,
| and being "diverse" is to be "other than white", which is
| of course abnormal, because being white is what's normal.
| And people saying "diverse" don't even notice the irony of
| this!
| golemotron wrote:
| > IMO the purpose of language changing is not to improve the
| world; instead, it's to give the feeling of changing the
| world without putting any real effort.
|
| It's worse than that. It's a way of signaling.
|
| When I started to read the article I hoped that it would
| mention Steven Pinker's Euphemism Treadmill. I was
| disappointed. The short story is that changing language is a
| quick way of differentiating an in-group from an out-group.
| The in-group are those that are aware of the change and align
| by adopting it.
|
| We saw this with the instantaneous change of Kiev to Kyiv in
| news media at the start of the war. It is not just a thing
| that society does with the names of disabilities, oops, I'm
| sorry, "different conditions."
| molsongolden wrote:
| Looked up the Steven Pinker article and it was an
| interesting read. Written in 1994 but could have been
| written yesterday.
|
| [PDF]https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/1994_04_03
| _newyo...
| golemotron wrote:
| 'Purity Spirals' are a related concept.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| > _Kiev to Kyiv_
|
| Why is this an instance of the phenomenon? Isn't Kyiv
| closer to what a Ukrainian would say?
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| But it's still Moscow, Russia and not Moskva, Rossiya.
| It's Tokyo, Japan not Toukyou, Nippon and Germany and not
| Deutschland. If you're going to drop exonyms, you should
| at least do it consistently, rather than only for
| currently-trending locations.
| dagw wrote:
| The main difference is that the request to change the
| English spelling from Kiev to Kyiv came from the
| Ukrainian government. As far as I know Japanese or German
| government haven't requested that we stop writing "Japan"
| and "Germany".
|
| The closest current example going on right now is the
| Turkish government wanting to change the English spelling
| of their country from "Turkey" to "Turkiye".
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| It went beyond official names of cities. Supermarkets
| actually changed the spelling of the Chicken Kiev to
| Chicken Kyiv. (But left Bombay Potato and Chicken Madras
| unchanged, even though Bombay and Madras haven't been
| called that for decades.). Zelenskyy probably has better
| things to do right now than dictate the spelling of
| breaded garlic chicken fillets.
| golemotron wrote:
| In Signalling theory this is known as an expensive
| signal.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > As far as I know Japanese or German government haven't
| requested that we stop writing "Japan" and "Germany".
|
| Because they know it would be silly. Do they go to every
| language and ask for a change? For instance ask France to
| stop using "Allemagne" and use Deutschland instead? Now
| repeat for hundreds or thousands of languages... not only
| would it accomplish nothing, it is pretty disrespectful
| to demand of the other language users how they refer to
| places.
| slackdog wrote:
| Counterpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcze7EGorOk
|
| In the examples you list, AFAIK, people from those
| countries are happy to use those names when speaking in
| English. At least, I've never met a German who insists on
| calling their country Deutschland when conversing in
| English. If they did, maybe things would be different.
| That's the way it is with Istanbul/Constantinople, and
| also Bombay/Mumbai.
|
| Incidentally, Germany has a startlingly large array of
| names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Do anglos read Kiev and Kyiv particularly differently in
| the first place? In any case, it sounds further from a
| normative Ukrainian pronunciation than Caillou.
| LangIsAllWeNeed wrote:
| The continuing to dissent aspect and persisting to use the
| "nice" words is dark to me. It represents to me the inescapable
| self referential pathway of all altruistic behaviors.
|
| That which makes cooperation and altruism possible also causes
| some strange glitches that sometimes reveals the motivating
| emotions are always self referential.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Orwell only got the date wrong
| HillRat wrote:
| Writers always see the perceived misuse of words in apocalyptic
| terms, and _The Atlantic_ is itself invested in a kind of elite
| moral panic over "woke culture," so I tend to look at articles
| like this with some skepticism.
|
| One thing is that Packer himself fails to analyze the language
| under consideration with precision; the examples he lays out all
| fall, roughly, under a few different categories, which should be
| considered separately:
|
| - Branding and inclusivity: Much of what he proffers as examples
| are not unfamiliar to anyone who's had to work with corporate
| style guides, where terms are favored or disfavored partially in
| relation to branding tone and voice, and partially to maximize
| clarity (idiosyncratic style being a frequent source of
| confusion). No one's harmed by a press release avoiding terms
| like "blind to" in favor of "refusing to see what's happening;"
| as a personal matter I prefer the concision of the former, but
| the latter is more plainspoken if also somewhat dull. Plodding
| and dull is often _exactly_ what you 're looking for in official
| communiques.
|
| - Specificity and Precision: Again, while using "Americans" to
| refer to US residents is reasonable in casual contexts, or where
| American citizens are under discussion (e.g., political
| contexts), it's also reasonable to refer to "US residents" or the
| like. The biggest problem is that there isn't a concise term that
| covers "US citizens and legal permanent residents" that doesn't
| make you sound like a DHS circular or a legal opinion. (An
| additional complication is when you're working with Mexican and
| LATAM entities, where "American" is strongly disfavored unless
| you're literally talking about the Americas broadly. Same problem
| when people use "North American" to refer to US-Candada
| exclusively.) Slicing your terms finely to clearly delineate what
| you're discussing, and what you're _not_ discussing, is again a
| perfectly reasonable goal in organizational communications, if
| anathema to a talented writer who is used to bending words to the
| context, rather than straightjacketing terms within specific
| contexts.
|
| Both inclusivity and specificity are goals of most guides,
| particularly in journalism. (I'm not sure what style guide _The
| Atlantic_ hews to, but rest assured their editors adhere to
| _something_.) Packer can argue that the Sierra Club 's guide
| tends towards creating uninspired, workmanlike prose, but making
| a moral panic of that seems unwarranted.
|
| - Instrumentalism: Instrumental terms are the ones that do have a
| real-world impact, because they're designed to either defuse or
| infuse a term with emotional valence. Instrumental terms contain
| arguments within themselves: using the term "slave" robs the
| person in question of their agency, which distances policy or
| analytic questions from those very people; "enslaved person"
| changes the context to slavery as an imposition on an agentive
| person; likewise, my preferred term (for Black slaves in US
| history), "enslaved American" goes evern further, being a
| deliberate and implicit argument against the legality of slavery
| even prior to the 13th Amendment. The term "justice-involved
| person" instead of "felon" is risible even to me, but the
| negative emotional valence of the latter term has a real effect
| on policy and the perception of policy, which is why terms like
| "ex-offender" are becoming more commonly used. Instrumentalist
| terms can be used for good or for evil; to make arguments, defuse
| emotional responses, or to invoke high dudgeon (Gingrich's famed
| GOPAC memo is a masterclass on using instrumentalist terms to
| whip up public emotion).
|
| Whereas the worst you can say about branding and precision terms
| is that they're frequently clumsy and bland, instrumentalist
| language can affect the real world in often direct ways, and it's
| well worth interrogating the use of those terms to make their
| impact clear. Unfortunately, Packer fails to distinguish between
| the context of different kinds of language (it should be
| unsurprising that a policy paper uses clear if clumsy language,
| while a literary nonfiction book uses poetic and impactful
| imagery), and lumps all kinds of language style requirements
| under a general "equity language" heading, which is unhelpful and
| arguably misleading.
| naasking wrote:
| > Public criticism led Stanford to abolish outright its
| Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative--not for being
| ridiculous, but, the university announced, for being "broadly
| viewed as counter to inclusivity."
|
| Ha, that's a great point. The language meant to broaden
| inclusivity actually erects barriers to inclusivity by excluding
| those who have never heard the words or the arguments justifying
| them, and the people excluded are largely marginalized groups to
| begin with (poor, uneducated, etc.). So basically, inclusive
| language is classist at the very least.
|
| I also think a lot of equity language is a barrier to
| communication, and that's its biggest problem. Possible offense
| should not be an impediment to clarity, as long as we're all
| being charitable. The loss of the default assumption of charity
| is the real problem here.
| beebmam wrote:
| Frankly, I don't care as long as government isn't involved.
| Companies (and other organizations owned by individuals) should
| have every right to hire/fire people based on the language they
| use, no matter what language that is. Same with companies that
| decide who they want to sell to and who they don't want to sell
| to.
|
| I'm very much against the idea of governments limiting speech or
| forcing behavior on private individuals, with some exceptions in
| the case of the tragedy of the commons (like with environmental
| protections, overextraction of renewable resources, etc).
| eldritch_4ier wrote:
| Would you say the same thing about lifestyles one lives? Or
| what if that language is something like "I like Trump" or
| "Black Lives Matter"?
| beebmam wrote:
| I think so. Individuals shouldn't be forced to hire/fire
| people or work/not work with people whose lifestyles they
| profoundly agree/disagree with.
| stordoff wrote:
| > The guide also rejects the disabled in favor of people living
| with disabilities
|
| FWIW, as someone with a disability, I just don't care about this
| - your intent and actions matter so much more, as I've commented
| before[1]:
|
| > I've had people who've obviously been trained to use person-
| first language be actively unpleasant (often the classic "you
| don't look disabled" and questioning the authenticity of my
| documents), and people who've used clumsy, borderline-offensive
| language go miles out of their way to help me (and the other way
| around). [...] I will say "disabled person" stands out to me
| less, as "person with disabilities" can come across as a little
| forced[, though it's probably because I've heard the former more
| often].
|
| Notably, however, the Sierra Club guide doesn't seem to actually
| call for that as far as I can see - it directs you to refer to
| the National Center on Disability and Journalism's Disability
| Language Style Guide[2], which currently states:
|
| > In the past, we have encouraged journalists and others to use
| person-first language (such as, "a person who has Down syndrome"
| rather than "a Down syndrome person") as a default. Even with the
| caveat that this does not apply to all, we have heard from many
| people with disabilities who take issue with that advice. For us,
| this really emphasizes the fact that no two people are the same
| -- either with regard to disabilities or language preferences.
| And so we are no longer offering advice regarding a default.
|
| The one part of the Sierra club guide I would strongly agree with
| though is:
|
| > Similarly, we should avoid making light of things like PTSD,
| anxiety or OCD, by using real medical diagnoses as a metaphor for
| everyday emotional experiences.
|
| It's frustrating to hear people cry "My OCD!" when, for example,
| they can't tidy something up even though it clearly doesn't
| bother them a few seconds later, as it feels like it is
| trivialising the problems this condition can cause, and doesn't
| even match up with many manifestations of the disorder (my own
| irrational obsessions cause me to be way _less_ tidy than the
| average person).
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29732405
|
| [2] https://ncdj.org/style-guide/
| christmm wrote:
| [dead]
| the_snooze wrote:
| >When Latinx began to be used in advanced milieus, a poll found
| that a large majority of Latinos and Hispanics continued to go by
| the familiar terms and hadn't heard of the newly coined, nearly
| unpronounceable one.
|
| There's also a practical case: these terms make you sound like a
| damn space alien. Unless your audience already agrees completely
| with you, you lose credibility by using this language. Posturing
| for your own team has become more important than relating your
| views to others and pursuading them to join your side.
| orangecat wrote:
| _There 's also a practical case: these terms make you sound
| like a damn space alien._
|
| That's part of the point: it's a costly signal that
| demonstrates that you're a true ally. See also: gang tattoos.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Here is the poll, which has been repeated for a few years:
|
| https://thinknow.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/thin...
|
| It is not _that_ large, but the tiny number of respondents who
| identify as Latinx has been stable. It 's crazy that this label
| is still being pushed.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > It's crazy that this label is still being pushed.
|
| This is a great example of how intellectually bankrupt some
| of the social mis-movements towards redefinition truly are.
|
| First they come up with a term that is clearly not a term
| used by the native speakers of that group. Then they utilize
| that term in order to collectively identify them. Then they
| push it across media, education, and many other avenues to
| make it "a thing".
|
| This term which originates in English, and doesn't truly
| relate to Latin* derived cultures but instead to a smaller
| subset of cultures from a specific geography, and is
| difficult to speak for a native speaker, and violates the
| grammar, is then hoisted upon them like a label to which
| they'd actually subscribe. As many of these cultures self-
| identify as uniquely distinct from one another, and are
| competitive, this type of collectivist label is all the more
| rude.
|
| What Chutzpah!
| docandrew wrote:
| My guess is an English speaker was forced to take French or
| Spanish in college and struggled to remember the gender for
| a word like "bicycle" and decided the whole notion of
| gendered language was silly and should be abolished.
| jimbokun wrote:
| I am much more sympathetic to that argument than the
| people pretending it's to avoid offense.
| herewulf wrote:
| Shouldn't intentionally butchering someone else's non-
| English language be considered offensive?
| flangola7 wrote:
| This author sounds really offended and sensitive.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > Urban, vibrant, hardworking, and brown bag all crash to earth
| for subtle racism.
|
| I'm seriously trying to figure out the riddle of how any of these
| terms are remotely racial.
| amluto wrote:
| I'll give it a try, not necessarily successfully:
|
| Urban, in the sense of urban or inner city youth, might be a
| reference to black children. (Or it might not. And one might
| actually be referencing urban things in the sense of not
| suburban or rural.)
|
| Vibrant: makes, ahem, people living with color blindness feel
| marginalized.
|
| Hardworking: I'm struggling to come up with something even as
| credible as the last two. Maybe it's ableist: some people can't
| work hard.
|
| Brown bag: I'm guessing this is in a similar category to
| "tarball" from the rather regrettable list out of Stanford
| recently: it has nothing whatsoever to do with equity or
| inequity, but one might imagine an alternative etymology in
| which it has an inequitable meaning, connotation or origin. So
| brown bag could somehow be about brown people, even though as
| far as I can tell, neither the origin of the phrase nor any
| common uses are at all related to skin color.
|
| At this rate, we risk running out of English words.
| Fortunately, English has a _lot_ of words :)
| superfrank wrote:
| > Hardworking: I'm struggling to come up with something even
| as credible as the last two. Maybe it's ableist: some people
| can't work hard.
|
| I'm guessing the logic is something similar the absolutely
| ridiculous (IMO) graphic I've linked below from the National
| Museum of African American History & Culture which lists a
| lot of aspects of white culture in the United States. One of
| the many items on their list was the "Protestant Work Ethic"
| and a few bullet points about how hard work equals success.
|
| https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203651?s=2.
| ..
| throwawayacc5 wrote:
| The first time I saw that I was _convinced_ it was a 4chan
| troll. I was _so sure_ it was an elaborate 4chan ruse that
| when shared by someone else at work I instinctively told
| them it 's a racist 4chan meme and they shouldn't be
| sharing that at work. It took some back and forth with
| links from the actual museum before it hit me that _it was
| real_. I was speechless.
| amluto wrote:
| The link in that tweet is IMO quite problematic, too:
|
| https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-
| race/topics/whiten...
|
| Since when are "white people" a monolithic group with all
| these privileges? There are many different groups of
| people who would be generally considered _white_ , and
| they have very diverse stories, privileges, and
| disadvantages. There are plenty of so-called white people
| who do not feel they have all these privileges. Just to
| pick on an easy one:
|
| > I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well
| assured that I will not be followed or harassed
|
| Many "white" women would disagree with this, although the
| extent might depend on where they go shopping.
|
| There are clearly many forms of discrimination that
| happen due to the ability of some groups to be easily
| recognized at a quick glance (regardless of whether that
| recognition is accurate), but that is far from the only
| form of social injustice in the US.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| While we're getting rid of words we consider offensive, let's get
| rid of "consumer." I find it particularly offensive when
| politicians refer to the public as consumers.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I'm on board.
|
| While we're at it, let's also restrict the use of the word
| "content", at least when it's only referring to a single type
| of media.
| ginko wrote:
| I hate that word.
| blt wrote:
| Totally agree. It's insulting.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| <sarcasm>
|
| Whaaaat? I thought so many lives were improved by making devteams
| replace all usages of "black/whitelist" with "block/allowlist".
|
| </sarcasm>
|
| Well, except for the lives of the users, on-call engineers, 1st
| and 2nd level tech support, the product owners, and everyone else
| who had to deal with sudden, unexpected, hard to track bugs
| resulting from such BS changes.
|
| <sarcasm>
|
| Oh, ofc I apologise for my use of the word "list", which may be
| historically charged, and also non-inclusive to people who prefer
| unordered data.
|
| </sarcasm>
| tommiegannert wrote:
| > people who prefer unordered data.
|
| I think "list" is a much more non-inclusive term than that,
| since you are either on the list, or you're not. /s
| imgabe wrote:
| Excuse me I have a tendency to drift to the left when I walk
| and I immediately assume you can only be using the word
| "list" to mock me.
|
| Please refrain from using this offensive language.
| burnished wrote:
| Hey not all change is bad, that one in particular is just less
| ambiguous.
|
| Really wish we'd take the hint and do some language house
| keeping, maybe clean up the discrepancy between electrons and
| current.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| > that one in particular is just less ambiguous.
|
| 1) Please show me an engineer who mistakes the meaning of the
| term "blacklist" in, say, an ACL system
|
| 2) The newspeak terms are no less ambiguous. Are the items on
| the list allowed _exclusively_ or are they just granted
| special privilege like source IPs from which no
| authentication is required? Without context, which is
| provided by the surrounding system in any case,
| "block/allow" is just as nebulous as "black/white" Plus, it's
| one example among many. What ambiguity did "master" branches
| in repos confer?
|
| 3) Problems with ambiguity were not the reason given to
| introduce such changes. The reason given was that using the
| newspeak would someohow improve the lives of people
| experiencing racism, a claim for which I am still waiting for
| any concrete examples showcasing its validity
|
| > Hey not all change is bad
|
| As shown above, the change didn't solve any problems or
| provide tangible improvements, so it becomes change for
| changes sake, which is bad, always, under all circumstances,
| period.
| burnished wrote:
| [flagged]
| pancrufty wrote:
| As a non-American, the dumbest change that affects me daily, is
| the renaming of the master branch. Master means teacher in
| romance languages and its variations are part of daily usage.
| In git there's no "slave" part so it always meant "main" and
| not "owner"
|
| It affects me daily because "look on master" became "look on
| the main branch" for no advantage to absolutely anyone.
| franga2000 wrote:
| The strangest thing about the git branch controversy is that
| "master" was clearly used in a master/copy sense, just like
| you used to have a master music record that was then copied,
| but at the same time, basically every embedded communication
| protocol and many distributed computing systems still use
| terms like "bus master" and straight up "master-slave"
| configuration. Sure, for many protocols it's a very accurate
| description, but if we're going to try and remove such
| language from tech, why not start with the places where the
| words actually _mean_ the same thing, not just happen to be
| homographs.
|
| (I do support the master-main change in git for other reasons
| tho: it's much easier to translate and more natural to say.
| "Master record" is a term that never got translated into many
| languages, or at least not in a way that still makes sense
| for git)
| slackdog wrote:
| I believe these sort of 'word bans' are motivated by
| Whorfianism; basically the idea that the sort of language
| we use can influence (or even set the bounds of) the kind
| of thoughts people have. But scientific evidence for
| Whorfianism is weak at best, and starts to seem
| particularly absurd when you try to state plainly exactly
| what you're trying to accomplish in situations like this.
| In this case, the idea seems to be that we can denormalize
| the practice of slavery by eliminating metaphorical
| references to slavery.
|
| If you think about this, it's obviously a complete farce.
| The sort of people who engage in slavery today are not
| enabled to do so by such metaphors. And those apathetic to
| the problem of modern slavery, who might otherwise be doing
| something about it, were not made apathetic by the
| metaphors. The premise of fighting slavery by eliminating
| metaphors to slavery is pure pseudoscience of the highest
| order.
| op00to wrote:
| Using inclusive language never bothered me. Never saw a bug
| related to inclusive language, and I worked on software I am
| confident everyone on HN uses.
| imgabe wrote:
| Wait, brown bag is subtle racism?
|
| Somebody needs to explain this to me because I know for a fact
| I've taken lunch to school in paper bags that were literally
| brown and I have no idea what else this could possibly refer to.
|
| Edit: Looked it up: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/theres-
| more-seattle-bro...
|
| > "the phrase 'brown bag' does bring up associations with the
| past when a brown bag was actually used, I understand, to
| determine if people's skin color was light enough to allow
| admission to an event or to come into a party that was being held
| in a private home.
|
| Yeesh, If someone hears a common phrase (and literal physical
| description) and immediately jumps to the conclusion that the
| speaker is referring to some obscure historical factoid in an
| attempt to slight them...that person needs to get a life. I
| refuse to believe a single person is actually offended by this
| rather than just stirring shit up because they crave attention.
| There's no way.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> I've taken lunch to school in paper bags that were literally
| brown_
|
| Are you sure they weren't a certain shade of orange?
| imgabe wrote:
| I'm no graphic designer or artist, they look brown to me.
| They still sell them at Walmart:
| https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Self-Standing-
| Lunch-B...
| Version467 wrote:
| I could be wrong, but I think the parent comment is just a
| reference to the fact that _brown_ doesn 't exist. There's
| no wavelength that our brains map to brown. Instead what we
| perceive as brown is just orange, but less bright. And
| wether we see it as brown or dark orange depends entirely
| on context.
| imgabe wrote:
| Ah, well I learned something new today
| layer8 wrote:
| Colors isn't the same as wavelengths, though. Two
| different colors having the same wavelength isn't a
| contradiction. Similarly, different wavelength mixes can
| constitute the same color, because the human eye only has
| three color receptors.
| nzach wrote:
| See this[0] for a longer explanation.
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh4aWZRtTwU
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| This seems like a needless distinction though.
|
| If people refer to a certain segment/shade of orange as
| brown in both normal discussions, art, interior design,
| etc., then it's brown.
|
| It's an interesting tidbit of knowledge, but it's a
| useless correction and needless distinction.
| bilvar wrote:
| I'm colourblind so I'd posit that the people who banned the
| term brown-bag are ableist.
| biorach wrote:
| > i'm colourblind so I'd posit that the people who banned
| the term brown-bag are ableist
|
| Upvoted on the optimistic assumption that this was a joke
| bilvar wrote:
| Of course it is! :)
| biorach wrote:
| in a thread like this Poe's law reigns
| AbusiveHNAdmin wrote:
| [dead]
| usrbinbash wrote:
| Wow, that's actually the justification people give for this BS?
|
| In that case, we should immediately ban bread, cars and stop
| using clothing. Because, Nazis ate bread, used cars and wore
| clothes.
|
| What the hell...
| awesome_dude wrote:
| They're right to drop "American" but not for the reasons
| outlined.
|
| An "American" is by definition is someone from the American
| continents (North and South America). Further a "North American"
| is someone from Mexico, USA, and Canada.
|
| It gets worse when people have "Black Americans", "Italian
| Americans", "Asian Americans" because that means that "Americans"
| is only referring to one group of people from the USA.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Not by common usage of the word.
|
| Particularly because I'm not sure I've ever come across a case
| in my life when a speaker or writer wanted to include people
| from both continents as a single group. It's just not a label
| that's useful for much of anything.
|
| "North or South American" isn't a particularly meaningful or
| relevant concept at all. In contrast with e.g. "Latin American"
| which is very useful/meaningful.
|
| And if people from the United Mexican States are Mexican for
| short, it's an easy shorthand to similarly call people from the
| United States of America, well, American.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Particularly because I'm not sure I've ever come across a
| case in my life when a speaker or writer wanted to include
| people from both continents as a single group.
|
| That's the thing: for many people, it's a single continent,
| called just "America", which can be further subdivided into
| "North America", "Central America", and "South America" (but
| these three are not continents, they're subdivisions within a
| single continent; another common subdivision is "Latin
| America", which corresponds to the countries colonized by
| Spain or Portugal).
| the_only_law wrote:
| Do these people also believe in a single continent called
| "Eurasia"? Hell those are mostly on the same plate, which
| can't be said for the Americas.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Do these people also believe in a single continent
| called "Eurasia"?
|
| It's the traditional six-continent model (America,
| Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, Antarctica), which
| according to https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continente is
| the model taught in school in many places, including
| Italy, Spain, Portugal, and all over Latin America. So
| no, "these people" (which includes nearly all of America
| outside the USA and Canada) have learned about Europe and
| Asia as two separate continents.
| crazygringo wrote:
| That's fine, but it still doesn't change the fact that
| there isn't really a need for a word to refer to its
| inhabitants collectively.
|
| The same way Oceania is often considered a continent, but
| nobody ever refers to people there as "Oceanians" in a way
| that includes both modern Australians and Polynesians, for
| example.
|
| I'm just saying that calling people in the USA "Americans"
| isn't taking away from an otherwise useful/important
| modern-day usage. Regardless of whether you consider it to
| be two continents or one.
| nverno wrote:
| It makes sense though, cause it's the United States of
| _America_. It 's usually obvious from the context. Mexico and
| Canada are already single word countries, so you can easily say
| Asian Canadian or whatever.
|
| South Africa would pose a similar conundrum, where people are
| called South Africans, but they aren't the only people living
| in Southern Africa.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Or better to say covering your eyes from the sky doesn't make it
| disappear, always gonna be there
| vannevar wrote:
| While I think a lot of these efforts are over-zealous, so is the
| response overblown. Take one example, the term _felon_. The San
| Francisco Board of Supervisors apparently recommended using the
| term "justice-involved person" instead. In response, the author
| writes:
|
| "When the San Francisco Board of Supervisors replaces felon with
| justice-involved person, it is making an ideological claim--that
| there is something illegitimate about laws, courts, and prisons."
|
| Huh? That's a huge leap. I think it's a lot more likely that the
| intent was simply to separate the person's state (having been
| convicted of a crime) from their identity as a human being.
| Labels like "felon" imply an essential, unchanging quality rather
| than a transitory state. Lots of people convicted of felonies
| later go on to live exemplary lives. I agree with the idea of not
| painting them all with the same brush. There are probably better
| substitutes than "justice-involved person", granted. But saying
| that term illegitimizes the court system is hyperbolic.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| These wholesale moves to prescribe new language in the interest
| of social justice are the reductio ad absurdum result of the
| whole menagerie of post-modern identity theories and movements,
| from critical race theory to post colonial theory to queer
| theory. It's all in service to the notion that you can create
| truth, particularly about identity, by modifying language and
| usage.
|
| Ironically, it's also deeply counterproductive to the goals of
| identity theories, because it draws overt attention to language
| and sensitivity about language, in a way that makes identities
| appear, and to some extent actually become, fragile and dependent
| on the language. Where a word is owned and deployed by a group to
| suppress and control some other group (ni**, e.g.), taking the
| word away, anathematizing it, can indeed be of value. But most of
| the targets in modern social justice language correction have
| very little such power, and are not deployed as tools of
| suppression or oppression by most people. Take a broad enough run
| at them though, and you can give them that power, at lead in the
| mind of those to whom the refer.
| ruszki wrote:
| The case of swearing discredits this whole article. It's banned
| from places, and it's still used widely. There are people who
| don't like it, there are people who use them constantly. Just
| like the topic of this article.
|
| Another thing is that this topic is a discussion in law in the
| past 100 years in different forms. Just because the public didn't
| care until now it doesn't mean that there wasn't discussion.
| There were a lot.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| I'm currently in a non-English speaking country and listening
| to the radio - and the lack of censorship regarding 'bleeps' is
| hilarious - and somewhat sad, too.
| [deleted]
| AbusiveHNAdmin wrote:
| [dead]
| jurassic wrote:
| The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors
| took this way way too far.
|
| People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes
| complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common
| English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow
| offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly
| everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be
| understood without deep diving on etymology to discover the
| racist origins. People are so far up their own asses on
| victimhood culture that the people of high education and
| privilege driving these initiatives are looking for literally any
| reason to feign offense on behalf of other peoples' identities
| and disabilities.
|
| With the prioritization of equity also comes erasure of identity.
| For example, it seems like we can't say "mother" anymore in
| medical settings. For my partner's entire pregnancy, our
| providers only referred to "birthing people" because of some tiny
| number of trans men that exist and also want to give birth. I
| support trans people living however they want, but my mother was
| a mother, goddammit, not a "birthing person", and I don't
| appreciate anyone implying that this word and identity are
| somehow offensive. At work, a "women in engineering" group got
| renamed to something bland like "gender minorities in tech".
|
| The recently reported bowdlerization of Roald Dahl by
| 'sensitivity readers' is another symptom of this illness. The
| whole equity language sterilization process forgets that words
| which are synonyms are not interchangeable because to the writer
| each word is chosen with intention for the flavor it provides,
| its connotations and rhythm, the image it creates in the mind.
| People should be able to communicate using whatever words they
| wish. Otherwise we're just deleting colors from the artists'
| palette.
| cassonmars wrote:
| I'm trans myself and this language policing game is insane. The
| most surreal part about it is it's rarely anyone allegedly
| impacted by it who is actually asking for these things.
| tjpnz wrote:
| How do you deal with it? The trans people I know tend to grit
| their teeth at risk of making an already awkward social
| interaction worse. But that surely must result in a lot of
| bottled up resentment.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Yep, same with disabilities, or children playing/costuming as
| cowboy and indian, or cultural appropriation where certain
| people are now not allowed wear a rasta haircut, or, or,
| or... Most ""affected"" people actually don't give a shit AND
| don't want this shit. But sjws can scapegoat any doubt to
| this holy mission and make one look like a Nazi.
|
| Usually never is also the intention or context taken into
| account.. You will always find someone who will say he feels
| insulted for anything, but we won't find a common denominator
| if we need to account for every salty person on earth. True
| respect, equality and no discrimination for everybody is what
| should count... but it feels today more and more that this is
| actually alienating, and also excluding people more than what
| it helps, the contrary! How to stop? Intention is good, but
| taken to the extreme, this is todays discrimination and
| exclusion..
| cassonmars wrote:
| Realistically I think what has happened is the puritanical
| culture has donned new clothes. Blind subservience and
| self-flagellations to ever increasing standards of a
| sacrificial victim sky man who never asked for these things
| in the words they twisted, replaced with blind subservience
| to sacrificial victims in the present who one again, never
| asked for these things in the words they twisted.
|
| It makes me feel like a pawn in their own self-
| actualization, not someone they remotely ever gave a
| thought or care about.
| leoedin wrote:
| I agree - it's basically a new strain of puritan
| thinking. The problem is that unlike established
| religions - where you can step away and say "I don't
| recognise your moralising" with pretty much no
| repercussions, the line between "progressive left"
| ideology and wider society is much less clear - and so
| fighting this type of thinking can have real
| repercussions for your career or social life. It's not
| really worth rocking the boat.
| [deleted]
| stephen_g wrote:
| I think the "people-first language" is actually kind of dumb in
| a lot of cases. Because the idea behind it is not really sound.
|
| Shall I now say I have to call a "person who performs plumbing
| work" to fix my drain because calling them a plumber indicates
| that they have no worth outside their job? No, that's not how
| language has ever worked.
|
| Basically for "people-first language" to exist, you have to
| create a problem that didn't exist before to come up with it as
| a solution.
| [deleted]
| nonethewiser wrote:
| That is ridiculous. Was this hospital on the coast? I did not
| hear this at our hospital.
| cauthon wrote:
| I largely agree with your first paragraph, but I do think the
| term "birthing parent" is important in contexts such as
| parental leave policies.
|
| "Mother" could be inadequately specific in situations involving
| same-sex relationships, surrogacies, and/or adoption. For
| example, Washington state offers up to 6 weeks of medical leave
| to the birthing parent, in addition to the 12 weeks of bonding
| leave that are offered to both parents.
|
| Policy language needs to be specific and able to accommodate
| minority or edge cases.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes
| complete sense to me
|
| Why is that? I'm genuinely curious. Who should be offended by
| the word _slave_? Is it I, the Slav? The etymology of the word
| concerns my heritage, and yet I'm not offended. It's not as
| though people toying with language today is going to bring back
| my relatives who died as slaves, nor will it undo the suffering
| they endured.
| Elyra wrote:
| I agree, and personally found it upsetting once when someone
| who was from a relatively well off family tried shaming me
| for using the term slave in my code. I'm of Ukrainian
| descent, and my grandfather was separated from his family at
| the age of 12 and sent to a forced labor camp, never to see
| them again. No human should ever have to experience that, and
| we must remember that even now there are still humans being
| treated like literal tools, as our computers are also nothing
| but tools. If seeing the word slave makes you uncomfortable,
| then good, it should make you uncomfortable that there are
| humans who have been treated no better than your computer,
| potentially even in the supply chain of making it.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Reminds me of Norm McDonald commenting on Patton Oswalt
| saying the worst thing about Bill Cosby was the hypocrisy.
| But he thought it was the raping.
|
| https://twitter.com/rexchapman/status/1437871709911195655?s=.
| ..
|
| I doubt slaves care so much about being called slaves or
| enslaved people, but having their freedom and autonomy
| stripped from them and treated horribly with no avenue for
| recompense.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Wait, it means slavery implies whites.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Slavery doesn't imply any particular race. Some people hold
| the belief that it does, or that one needs to be of a
| particular race to take a position on or claim victimhood
| of slavery, but this, quite frankly, is racist.
| angarg12 wrote:
| It seems to me that one of the issues is that the (more
| extreme) woke culture has put the entire burden of
| communication on the speakers rather than the listeners. Is not
| enough that you intend to offend, or that you say something
| that offends someone, is whether something that you say could
| possibly offend someone, even if you didn't have the slightest
| intentions. On the other say the listeners are free to
| interpret the message in the most uncharitable way possible,
| and blame you for it.
| prawn wrote:
| I describe these scenarios to my young children as concentric
| circles. One person can be acting reasonably (small circle
| around them) or very badly (larger circle). A person nearby
| can be very resilient (small circle) or fragile (larger
| circle). Where the circles overlap, is when there is tension
| and there are fights, tears or anything else that requires me
| to intervene.
|
| Obviously very bad behaviour (large circle) is going to
| overlap with a nearby resilient child. Or a very tired and
| fractious child is going to sulk by their sibling doing just
| about anything. But the more resilient and better behaved the
| combinations, the better.
|
| If the children are fighting, I've taken to just calling out
| "Circles!"
|
| Unfortunately, a polarised society and social media seem to
| make everyone treat interaction as war, which is pretty
| tedious.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Love that explanation. And gives motivation to reduce your
| circles.
| nullc wrote:
| Pediatric Postel Principle.
| fsckboy wrote:
| Pedantic Prosaic Pediatric Postel Principle
| strangattractor wrote:
| I personally believe that 2 things have greatly affected P2P
| communications. Anonymity and attempting to hold meaningful
| conversation strictly through text. When we communicate with
| text we cut off non-verbal communications that are a major
| source of interpreting the intent of the speaker and the
| receptiveness of the listener. In-person conversations are
| constantly adjusting what and how things are said depending
| on non-verbal cues. This becomes impossible in text only
| communications so the words have to convey everything and
| word choice the dominant replacement for non-verbal cues. The
| fact that we are communicating primarily via text these days
| has spilled over into in person communication. IMHO
| zirgs wrote:
| Not even anonymity. I've seen people posting insane shit on
| social networks using their real names.
| nine_k wrote:
| But interpreting someone's words in the most uncharitable way
| possible is an ancient sport, intended to slight and annoy
| the opponent, when finding reasonable, material objections
| fails. It's just an ancient hold of wresting in the (verbal)
| mud. It sort of gives the party who successfully pulled it an
| upper hand.
|
| Now that these wrestlers found out that they can persuade the
| public that the most uncharitable interpretation is actually
| harmful to some third party (nobody from the audience usually
| says that they personally are offended), this approach became
| immensely popular.
|
| Since simple reason would usually dispel much of the effect,
| leaving only the small and easily correctable issue, it is
| common to excite a large amount of reason-eclipsing emotions
| over such issues, preferably the righteous rage.
|
| But it may feel _fun_ to express a strong and righteous
| emotion, especially in a crowd of other people doing the
| same. It does not take thinking, it does not take making a
| difficult decision (because everybody around can 't be
| wrong), so it feels good. A big echo chamber like a popular
| Twitter thread make it feel epic in scale.
|
| This makes that kind of righteous rage a very convenient tool
| of manipulation, for fun, profit, and any other purposes.
| kenjackson wrote:
| And to be clear, these uncharitable interpretations go far
| beyond word policing.
|
| The one that actually annoys me the most is "analogy
| policing". If I say "would you be ok if i stole your bike".
| And then your response is "now you're equating me to a bike
| thief!" Or " you're trivializing This to bike theft?!"
|
| We can't have discussions because every phrase is taken as
| a way to win an argument. IMO this is far worse than
| language policing as there is not even the intention of
| trying to protect a disadvantaged group.
| nine_k wrote:
| It's almost as if the goal of winning an argument might
| contradict the goal of coming closer to truth, or to an
| agreement.
|
| Much like bringing a knife to a gunfight, attempting to
| seek truth during a status-assertion contest is not very
| efficient.
| yibg wrote:
| It's also a losing battle and constantly moving target.
| Pretty much anything said can be interpreted badly.
| josephg wrote:
| Yep. There's an old saying I love - "Prepare the child for
| the road, not the road for the child".
| Spivak wrote:
| Eh, that's just internet discourse in general. Once you put
| down Twitter this stops being an issue. I would love for
| someone to deconstruct what about social media, regardless of
| leaning of the platform, the people, or the subject being
| discussed causes these bad faith takes.
| Aloha wrote:
| The issue is when you didn't say it on twitter, or even
| intend it for public consumption and it's posted as
| receipts on twitter as examples of your _badness_ - often
| out of context. Then there are some knock on second and
| third order effects on your life.
|
| It's one thing if communities on twitter would like to
| define their own use of the language - it's another when
| it's imposed on others without their consent.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Until the Twitter people are running your HR department or
| university or media outlet or government.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > For example, it seems like we can't say "mother" anymore in
| medical settings.
|
| Well, that's entirely up to you and me isn't it?
|
| I think what bothers me is not so much the word police (ignore
| them) but everyone else that allow them to set the agenda.
|
| I talk the way I've talked my entire life and I don't care what
| people think about it.
| webdood90 wrote:
| [flagged]
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I'm well aware of dumb shit that I've done in my life and I
| try to learn from it and improve.
|
| The difference I suppose is that I don't think that words I
| use are _dumb shit_.
|
| Someone wants to be the moral authoritarian over the
| language you use? Only if you let them. And why would you
| do that?
| goatlover wrote:
| Dumb shit as defined by whom, though? People one doesn't
| agree with? Why should one stop doing it, then?
| tastysandwich wrote:
| > For my partner's entire pregnancy, our providers only
| referred to "birthing people"
|
| Calling my wife a "birthing person" just made her feel like
| some gross vessel for having a baby. We purposefully chose
| providers that didn't use that language.
|
| "Chestfeeding" is another one that's cropping up and makes zero
| sense. Men have breasts, so breastfeeding is already gender-
| neutral. But it's seen as female-centric so out the door it
| goes.
|
| There seems to be this weird erasure of women taking place at
| the moment. To the extent that it's now controversial to ask
| "what is a woman?"
| zarzavat wrote:
| It's ironic because the entire concept of _online_ language
| policing was invented by arch rivals the radical feminists in
| the 2010s (anyone remember donglegate?), but the pendulum has
| swung so far back in the other direction that now the very
| concept of women is being erased. Geez!
|
| Of course _offline_ language policing is as old as time, but
| until the late 20th century it was the domain of religions or
| regimes - those with actual power.
|
| It was only in the ~90s that people realised that you don't
| need a power structure backing your language policing, you
| can just apply it anyway, taking advantage of existing
| status-structured organisations such as universities. In any
| sizeable population there's enough authoritarians who will
| gleefully police your linguistic regulations, simply to have
| power over others.
|
| However, without a serious religious movement backing any of
| this, the elites will eventually tire of the current
| linguistic fashion and move onto another cause celebre.
| WalterBright wrote:
| "Mail carrier" instead of postman started in the 70's. Same
| with "flight attendant" instead of stewardess. This has
| been going on a long time.
| kube-system wrote:
| Gender suffixes have always had a gender connotation,
| because it is plainly what they mean.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _Gender suffixes have always had a gender connotation,
| because it is plainly what they mean._
|
| no, it isn't what they mean. you might say it's "equally"
| sexist, but "man" meant "mankind", it meant "person", and
| woman comes from "wifeman", person who is a wife. So
| mailman is "person who delivers mail". A good way to
| think of it is that language is actually neutral.
| Cultures have ideas and values, and those ideas and
| values suffuse communication, but the language is just a
| transport mechanism and will be bent and altered to
| communicate what people are thinking. But the language,
| always neutral.
|
| it's similar to the names of native american tribes.
| There are so many examples of "the Sioux didn't call
| themselves the Sioux, they called themselves Lakota,
| their enemies called them the Sioux." What did Lakota
| mean in Lakotan? It means "the people". Everybody else?
| they weren't even people. Every native american tribe did
| that, and probably our own hunter gatherer ancestors did
| that too.
|
| None of this is cause for concern, it's actually really
| interesting.
| eru wrote:
| Have a look at the many names people around the world
| have for Germany and the Germans.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| Username checks out.
|
| I think that one of my favorite jokes, "linguists like
| ambiguity more than most people." applies to your use of
| "language" here. The ambiguity is that some people say
| "language" to refer to the intended meaning of groups of
| words rather than the composition of words each with
| individual meanings. One can be neutral and the other can
| be highly biased. Furthermore, overall meaning is more
| than what is denoted, it is derived from culture and
| experience far more than it is from distant roots. eg:
| ask most people where "deadlines" come from and they will
| probably say "their boss."
| kube-system wrote:
| "-ess" has always meant woman.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| The utterly hilarious defense by the left for a movement that
| - above all others - is deeply patriarchal in its attempt to
| overwhelm and wipe out the very concept of "woman".
| JenrHywy wrote:
| > There seems to be this weird erasure of women taking place
| at the moment.
|
| This is the crazy thing. After a century of legitimate
| struggle for equality, women are having the language of
| feminism turned on them to deny the existence of femininity.
| Honestly, I thought the lines would have been drawn with
| sport, but that fact that it's leaking into medicine is pure
| insanity.
|
| I've been somewhat worried about there not being much of
| place in the world for my sons when they grow up. Now I'm
| imagining needing to explain to my daughter that there's no
| point having any sporting aspirations unless they are in a
| sport where biological women have an advantage.
|
| Edit: on reflection, perhaps it was completely foreseeable.
| Modern feminism spent a lot of time dismantling masculinity;
| it makes some sense that femininity would be next against the
| wall.
| theossuary wrote:
| You do realize that the terminology is meant for transmen
| right? It's weird you're complaining about terminology used
| for transmen, and then linking it to transwomen in sports.
| JenrHywy wrote:
| Why it is weird? In both cases, as the GP said, the
| concept of womanhood is being erased.
| [deleted]
| belorn wrote:
| Sporting aspirations at the elite level is generally an
| illusion unless the parents are also at elite level. Last
| time I looked at studies, the average sport is around
| 75-99% determined by genetics when it comes to the top
| elite in those sports. World champions has to first win the
| genetic lottery, and then do the hard work to even have a
| chance to win. This is why its fairly common to see top
| elite sport players having parents, siblings or children
| that is also at similar elite level.
|
| The big difference with gender is that we can easily those
| genetics. It is much harder to look at two women or two men
| and measure their blood oxygen maximums. It is generally
| trivial to get an idea of blood oxygen maximum if one
| person is a man and the other is a woman.
| naasking wrote:
| Feminism has always been about eradicating gender roles,
| and that's usually fine because the gender stereotypes that
| existed were almost all factually incorrect. It's
| definitely going in directions people never expected
| though.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I sometimes feel this is some nefarious plan to reconstruct
| a new masculinity. It won't be as "toxic" as the old
| version, but we'll be back on top.
|
| I've heard "menstruators", "birthing persons", "chest
| feeding", "vulva havers". I've heard lots of debate about
| letting trans women compete. Debate about allowing trans
| women into women's toilets. Or arguing the sincerity of men
| who claim to identify as women as they are about to be
| sentenced to jail time.
|
| But men are largely still men. I've never heard "penis
| havers", or "vertical urinators". Perhaps I would if I hung
| about in certain circles. No one is worried in the
| slightest about letting trans men compete in men's sport.
| Or letting trans men into men's toilets or spaces ...
| eru wrote:
| > No one is worried in the slightest about letting trans
| men compete in men's sport.
|
| By and large for most disciplines, there's no separate
| men's leagues or men's competitions. So women and trans-
| men and everyone else is mostly already allowed to
| compete in men's sports.
|
| See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r
|
| > Traditionally, chess had been a male-dominated
| activity, and women were often seen as weaker players,
| thus advancing the idea of a Women's World Champion.[16]
| However, from the beginning, Laszlo was against the idea
| that his daughters had to participate in female-only
| events. "Women are able to achieve results similar, in
| fields of intellectual activities, to that of men," he
| wrote. "Chess is a form of intellectual activity, so this
| applies to chess. Accordingly, we reject any kind of
| discrimination in this respect."[17] This put the Polgars
| in conflict with the Hungarian Chess Federation of the
| day, whose policy was for women to play in women-only
| tournaments. Polgar's older sister, Susan, first fought
| the bureaucracy by playing in men's tournaments and
| refusing to play in women's tournaments. In 1985, when
| she was a 15-year-old International Master, Susan said
| that it was due to this conflict that she had not been
| awarded the Grandmaster title despite having made the
| norm eleven times.[18]
|
| > Or letting trans men into men's toilets or spaces ...
|
| That one is interesting, because women's toilets are
| usually all cubicles, and men's toilets is the only place
| where you could actually see anything.. Btw, it's not
| just trans-men that get a free pass here, but cis-women
| also often go to men's toilets when the queue for the
| women's toilets is too long, and nobody bats an eyelid.
| zarzavat wrote:
| There's just very few sports in which the male body is
| not at an intrinsic mechanical advantage.
|
| When you come from the extreme tail of the bell curve
| that elite sportspeople come from, that small advantage
| becomes a large advantage. When you move the mean a
| little, the tails move a lot.
|
| This doesn't just affect trans women but also intersex
| women. There's a definite tension in sport insofar as we
| expect elite sportspeople to be abnormal humans far from
| the mean. For males this is unproblematic: an abnormally
| strong male like Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt is still
| clearly a male.
|
| But for females nature does not provide for us a clear
| line but rather a smooth gradient between female and
| male. The difference between an abnormally strong female
| and an abnormally weak male is not a line that nature
| always provides for us, it's a line that has to be drawn
| artificially and is therefore open to debate and
| challenge.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| Regarding toilets, it is because women's toilets have
| also traditionally served as a 'safe space' (i.e. without
| men). It is somewhere they can go without being subject
| to (for example) what is colloquially termed the 'male
| gaze'. Hence the disquiet over trans-women using such
| spaces, and the lack of disquiet over the reverse.
|
| Of course in a fully enlightened society arguably women
| should not need such safe spaces, but I'm not sure we are
| quite there yet.
| [deleted]
| asmor wrote:
| That's a lot of moral panic about a very small group of
| people that don't _generally_ win more often (and even your
| typical examples like Lia Thomas also regularly get beaten
| by cis women, so the advantage could not be that
| extradordinary) and mostly compete in college-level sports.
| No trans person has ever taken an olympic medal home,
| despite their policy allowing for trans competitors after a
| year of HRT.
|
| Some states that introduced trans sports bans couldn't even
| cite a single person the bill would affect. Tenesee
| introduced their bill to ban a _single_ person. Who wasn 't
| even close to the top of her discipline. It's all political
| posturing.
|
| Maybe you shouldn't be listening to organizations like ADF,
| who's primary stated purpose is to be anti-LGBT and not pro
| women's sports. It seems like they'd have a huge interest
| on blowing this problem out of proportion.
| naasking wrote:
| > That's a lot of moral panic about a very small group of
| people that don't generally win more often (and even your
| typical examples like Lia Thomas also regularly get
| beaten by cis women, so the advantage could not be that
| extradordinary) and mostly compete in college-level
| sports.
|
| I'm not sure why you think permission to compete should
| be the default position over denial until we have more
| robust studies for competitive advantage. We already know
| testosterone and male puberty conveys inherent advantage,
| so the default should be to prove no advantage exists
| before permitting competition.
|
| Only recently has it become clear that about 2 years of
| HRT eliminates competitive advantage for endurance
| sports, but that no amount of HRT seems to erase the
| competitive advantage in power sports of trans women who
| have gone through male puberty (MMA, power lifting,
| etc.).
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > I'm not sure why you think permission to compete should
| be the default position over denial until we have more
| robust studies for competitive advantage. We already know
| testosterone and male puberty conveys inherent advantage,
| so the default should be to prove no advantage exists
| before permitting competition.
|
| There are a lot of genetic factors that convey an
| inherent advantage. Do we control for all of them or is
| this one special? I think this video does a good job of
| highlighting the contradictions inherent in framing this
| as an issue of fairness:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9YAFYIBOU
| naasking wrote:
| > There are a lot of genetic factors that convey an
| inherent advantage. Do we control for all of them or is
| this one special?
|
| Yes, testosterone is special because it's a huge
| advantage. Like, the next closest factor doesn't even
| come close across most sports. Some women who were born
| female have naturally high testosterone levels and are
| barred from competing in women's categories.
|
| > I think this video does a good job of highlighting the
| contradictions inherent in framing this as an issue of
| fairness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9YAFYIBOU
|
| Yes, I've seen it, and it does do a good job. Notice the
| argument being made:
|
| 1. Sports is entertainment.
|
| 2. Sports is entertaining to the extent that the outcome
| is unpredictable.
|
| 3. We keep it unpredictable by establishing fairness so
| no one has privileged knowledge of the outcome.
|
| The extreme examples she cites of unfairness were not
| entertaining exactly because the outcome was predictable.
| Given sports is to be entertaining due to
| unpredictability, _preserving fairness is critical_.
| istinetz wrote:
| If these laws do absolutely nothing, why are you so
| opposed to them?
|
| >the advantage could not be that extradordinary
|
| Look up the world records or current ranking for male and
| female athletes for _any_ sport
| asmor wrote:
| I am still opposed to them because they're driving a
| moral panic that hurts trans people in other ways,
| because it's part of a wider drive / overton window shift
| to making life as a trans person impossible in these
| states (including declaring our existence as "sexual",
| banning us from most public places children could be),
| because there are still some trans people affected (or
| their ambitions are quelled) and, here's a reason you,
| who has given me no indication of asking in good faith,
| should care about: Because cis girls that anyone suspects
| of being trans are subjected to actual, and i can't
| believe i'm writing these words, genital inspections.
| What a stupid question to ask.
|
| And please, stop pretending like trans women and cis men
| are a 1:1 comparison. We have trans athletes. Use them -
| in aggregate and not with an anecdote - to make your
| comparisons and you'll see it's pretty much a normal
| distribution of performance. In fact, you're making my
| point for me, because even the most salient of examples
| still get beaten by cis women. That wouldn't happen if we
| had this immense disparity.
| tastysandwich wrote:
| It's not just muscle mass. Men have thicker bones and in
| general are obviously larger. Lia Thomas is 6'1".
|
| Laurel Hubbard (MtF) was on New Zealand's Olympic
| weightlifting team. An Indigenous Maori girl missed out
| because of that.
|
| There's countless examples of athletes who were totally
| uncompetitive as males, suddenly becoming elite-level
| after transitioning. If that doesn't say male advantage I
| don't know what does.
|
| But it's not just the competitive aspect. It may be
| offensive to say, I know, but some women actually feel
| uncomfortable in a change room with large 6'1" men and
| their penises.
| varnaud wrote:
| >But it's not just the competitive aspect. It may be
| offensive to say, I know, but some women actually feel
| uncomfortable in a change room with large 6'1" men and
| their penises.
|
| Ah yes, the penises and their unashamed wielders, large
| 6'1" men, exposing their meat to the elements. It reminds
| me of homophobes being uncomfortable sharing the looker
| room with an openly gay person. Should we also concern
| ourselves with the women still uncomfortable sharing a
| changing room with "colored" people?
| asmor wrote:
| If there are so many countless examples, why don't you
| name a single one of them. Or even better, anything
| that's not an anecdote.
|
| (You named two, but you forgot to mention Lia is still
| very regularly beaten and Laurel placed last in her group
| at those Olympics, in a weight class that had most
| countries not even send a competitor.)
| michtzik wrote:
| All three medalists in the 800m race at the 2016 Olympics
| (who also hold the "world's best" for the 600m and the
| world record for the 2000m) have Y chromosomes. https://e
| n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_2016_Summer_O...
|
| The silver medalist in the 200m race at the 2020 Olympics
| (who also holds the U20 WR for the 200m) has a Y
| chomosome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Mboma
|
| (These participants are "intersex", rather than "trans".)
| asmor wrote:
| These people have higher than baseline testosterone in
| their system. Trans women usually have close to none.
| This is not comparing the same, or even similar
| situations.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Indeed this seems like a refutation of the whole thesis
| that trans athletes are somehow cheating. Intersex
| conditions are natural (as in no surgery of hormone
| treatments are involved), yet they confer a competitive
| advantage - just like genes for bigger lungs or longer
| limbs confer an advantage to some athletes - so why
| should a trans person be treated as uniquely advantaged?
| michtzik wrote:
| The claim isn't that trans athletes are cheating. The
| claim is they should not be allowed to participate in
| women's sports.
|
| The intersex athletes support this claim because,
| although their condition is "natural" in your sense, they
| are in fact being banned from participation in women's
| sports. For example, the various individuals mentioned
| above are restricted from participating in distances from
| 400m to a mile, including in particular 800m! (Thus they
| have switched to other distances, but the bans are likely
| to extend there too.)
| asmor wrote:
| >The claim isn't that trans athletes are cheating.
|
| Let's be honest, that's what most of these bills are
| marketing themselves on.
| michtzik wrote:
| The series of claims is very simple:
|
| The single biggest genetic difference among humans is the
| presence of a Y chromosome.
|
| This single casual factor, not "testosterone levels" nor
| "height" nor "bone density" nor "muscle mass", is the
| best factor to split on.
|
| Accordingly, the women's division at the Olympics should
| be based on this factor.
|
| (There are potentially still edge cases, but neither
| trans people nor even the "46X,Y DSD" individuals
| mentioned above are the edge cases.)
| asmor wrote:
| >The single biggest genetic difference among humans is
| the presence of a Y chromosome.
|
| That is actually incorrect. You can be born with a Y
| chromosome and zero functional testosterone[1]. There are
| a lot of moving parts in between having a Y chromosome
| and getting testosterone expression. The later of which
| is a much better discriminator.
|
| And also, these deviations aren't rare. Though they are
| usually unknown, when they don't cause obvious
| developmental deviation (and thus labeled DSDs). They
| also are more common in some populations.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_androgen_inse
| nsitivit...
| causi wrote:
| _That 's a lot of moral panic about a very small group of
| people that don't generally win more often_
|
| Do you have numbers on that? Specifically, that the
| average transwoman athlete moves neither up nor down in
| her rankings compared to when she was a man? My personal
| exposure is purely anecdotal, but I have never heard of
| someone performing worse against women than they did
| against men unless they also changed their preferred
| sport at the same time.
| asmor wrote:
| Even if you had this data point, transitioning usually
| comes with higher functioning. I'm not sure how you'd
| quantify this data.
|
| What I will say is that I know some trans athletes who
| are extremely average in their fields, and the focus on a
| few high performers is mostly driven by those that can
| gain political capital from it.
| causi wrote:
| _I know some trans athletes who are extremely average in
| their fields, and the focus on a few high performers_
|
| If we can look at the data and say that transitioning and
| playing against women doesn't result in a relative
| performance increase vs the average athlete in the field,
| that's a strong argument that it's not unfair to let
| trans athletes compete against women. If we look at the
| data and see that "men who perform at the 60th percentile
| level among men perform after their transition at the
| 80th percentile among women" that's an indicator there
| remains an unfair advantage and our medical technology
| for transition needs to improve before trans athletes can
| fairly compete against women.
| asmor wrote:
| I disagree, because I do not consider being trans a
| factor that is usually malleable and the relative
| increase in performance would not displace anyone with a
| shot at winning.
|
| You wouldn't make this point about most other unchanging
| factors (i.e. genetics) that affect performance either.
| "Fairness" in high end sports is extremely subjective,
| and hard work is only a small part of how successful you
| can be, with time (which usually equals to wealth; poor
| people can't afford to not work) and genetics being the
| most important. It's simply not a meritocracy in the
| first place.
| causi wrote:
| _It 's simply not a meritocracy in the first place._
|
| "It's already unfair so there's no reason to care about
| it being unfair" is not a good argument.
|
| _the relative increase in performance would not displace
| anyone with a shot at winning._
|
| Without data we have no way of knowing that. If that's
| true, we can prove it and put to rest the controversy.
| asmor wrote:
| There is no reason to _selectively_ care about it being
| unfair. The controversy only exists in the first place
| because it is a great way for republicans and right wing
| figureheads to have queer people turned into an
| existential threat to rally support and perhaps distract
| from issues more materially relevant to voters. Voters
| that would never care about fairness in women 's sports
| if it didn't involve queer people to hate. You simply
| have to acknowledge this. Even if you were not the
| intended audience and now have an interest in the
| theoretical question through proximity, the number of
| people that are actually personally impacted by this is
| near zero and all the attention originates in anti-LGBTQ
| rhetoric.
|
| I refuse to acknowledge this as controvercy that requires
| this kind of addressing.
| parineum wrote:
| >Some states that introduced trans sports bans couldn't
| even cite a single person the bill would affect. Tenesee
| introduced their bill to ban a single person. Who wasn't
| even close to the top of her discipline. It's all
| political posturing.
|
| This argument works in reverse as well though. People
| don't want to throw out the idea of gender to appease a
| select few.
|
| There is a multitude of things that are simply unfair
| accidents of birth and there isn't a solid line where
| it's obvious something should be done. With gender issues
| there seems to be a lot of people with no dog in the
| fight who have extremely strong opinions but
| accomodations aren't always made on stuff like this
| because a few people are experiencing something unfair
| which they have no control over. It's not "hate", as many
| people would say, to want to have a conversation about
| it.
| asmor wrote:
| "Throw out the idea is gender" sounds like you have a
| very specific view of trans people as gender
| abolitionists. That's misreading gender as social
| construction. Social construction doesn't automatically
| advocate for abolishment, it merely points out that these
| things are not universal constants. Money is such a
| construct too, and I don't even have to be anticapitalist
| to point that out.
|
| Also, I get your argument, but the entire premise of
| trans women stealing college sports trophies is false.
| It's a bit dependent on specific discipline and how well
| you manage to retain muscle (it's much harder, and once
| you lost it, it's gone for good), but generally HRT
| levels the playing field enough that the olympic
| comittee, who I trust much more on this than the local
| republican, does not object to participation.
|
| Also, I'd like to point out that the major parts in high
| end athlete performance are already down to "unfair
| accidents of birth", even if you don't introduce gender
| to the issue. A tall person will always have an edge
| playing basketball.
|
| I find it entirely unconvincing that a trans person would
| solely transition to cheat at sports. The GDR tried
| something comparable to this hypothetical and the female
| athletes unknowingly exposed to androgens seemed pretty
| unhappy about the outcome. So I don't see why you don't
| see any theoretical advantage on the same spectrum of
| "unfair accidents of birth". These supposed advantages
| certainly aren't severe enough that trans women beat cis
| women consistently.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| Trans people are out to abolish biology. Gender is little
| more than personality.
| parineum wrote:
| >"Throw out the idea is gender" sounds like you have a
| very specific view of trans people as gender
| abolitionists.
|
| I am not describing myself. I just understand the
| position of people that feel that way and don't like to
| just dismiss them as bigots as most seem to.
|
| These people are definitely making a slippery slope
| argument but they also feel like they're already halfway
| down the slope. They aren't out there seeing an A and
| concerned about B, they see it as A, B, C, D, E then F
| and wonder when G will come.
|
| The trans sports thing is F. They're more worried about
| G, H and I.
|
| >Also, I'd like to point out that the major parts in high
| end athlete performance are already down to "unfair
| accidents of birth", even if you don't introduce gender
| to the issue. A tall person will always have an edge
| playing basketball.
|
| That's my point. If all I ever wanted to do was play
| basketball but I can't because of [accident of birth],
| which accidents require accomodations?
| asmor wrote:
| You're talking about making exclusion an intervention,
| not a result of circumstances. Not disallowing trans
| people to compete is not an accomodation, it's the
| opposite. These are not actions of equal value.
|
| It would be like banning everyone over 2m from basketball
| so more people down the height distribution curve can
| compete at the higher levels. That would be, with the
| same logic as the exclusion of trans people, equitable.
| But we kind of instinctively know it's wrong.
| parineum wrote:
| > You're talking about making exclusion an intervention,
| not a result of circumstances.
|
| That's a matter of perspective, a perspective that is the
| core of this issue. Everything you've said after that is
| all true if you agree with your priors but people aren't
| asking you to defend that part, they're asking you to
| defend your priors, that gender identity is what's
| important in the segregation of sports and not biological
| sex.
|
| An enormous part of this discussion has to do with Title
| IX, generally considered a positive thing among women's
| rights advocates. It's language deals with sex, the
| biological term, of male and female (as do many laws).
|
| > No person in the United States shall, on the basis of
| sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the
| benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any
| education program or activity receiving Federal financial
| assistance.
|
| Behind all the people on both sides of this argument
| about what's a man and what's a woman there's the legal
| issue that it likely (I'm being generous is not saying
| definitely) violates Title IX to allow males into female
| sports (in the areas where T9 has authority).
|
| > It would be like banning everyone over 2m from
| basketball...
|
| This is another framing situation. I'd argue that the
| better analogy would be weight classes in wrestling.
| Classes work really well in individual sports to sort
| people into competitive groups and it works because it's
| an objective measure.
|
| Unfortunately, team sports like basketball don't have
| enough players to form a different team for every "height
| class" so biological females, who tend to be shorter for
| the majority of the distribution curve, are basically
| guaranteed excluded by accident of birth. So team sports
| are segregated by biology because almost an entire sex,
| 50% of the population, is excluded by the distribution
| curves of their biology so we now have "sex classes" in
| most sports to serve the two major distribution curves of
| humans. Getting rid of sex segregation in basketball and
| doing so by height instead would make a lot of sense if
| height was the only factor but there's an equivalent set
| of distribution curves for things like strength, weight,
| speed, et al. that it's much simpler to take the thing
| that those curves have in common, sex, and segregate by
| them. And back to the previous paragraph, that's why
| wrestling is still also sex segregated.
|
| I understand that argument and, I think, the sex
| segregation is a logical solution to the sexual
| dimorphism of humanity.
|
| I also understand the argument that the social issue of a
| male/female sexes not being neatly segregated into gender
| identities, that people generally (also not always) want
| to segregate themselves, socially, with those people who
| share a common identity and that includes sports,
| especially lower levels, that are generally much more
| social functions than athletic. What I don't see coming
| from this side of the argument is a defined set of rules
| that can replace the language of Title IX. Which is
| totally understandable because gender is exponentially
| more complicated and diverse than sex. I'm onboard with
| doing something about this but I've yet to see an
| understandable replacement for something like Title IX
| that uses gender over sex.
|
| I have a bit of curiosity about the idea of "identity"
| being something worthy of segregation considering that
| gender identity isn't the only type of identity
| categorization.
| Shaanie wrote:
| The reason we have women's sports in the first place is
| essentially a different form of "you have to be below 2m"
| in order to promote diversity in sports, so disallowing
| trans people doesn't seem like a much bigger step than
| disallowing 50% of the population.
|
| Personally I don't have a strong opinion on this,
| especially since trans women taking over women's sports
| is not a problem yet anyway.
| asmor wrote:
| I was kind of with you, birthing person does sound pretty
| obstruse. But then you threw in the (self-described!)
| theocratic fascist dogwhistle.
|
| There are some uses radfems get super upset about that I find
| useful, though. Like "people with cervixes" if you are asking
| for cervical cancer screenings. Because increasingly, that
| affects people who do not feel spoken to if you use the word
| woman and this adds clarity to who the audience is.
| mdpye wrote:
| It absolutely does not add clarity. Enough people do not
| even know what a cervix is, or whether they have one, that
| it's an obfuscation. One which harms women
| disproportionately, like most other things radfems get
| upset about.
|
| Go measure the prevalence of "people with prostates" and
| compare. The word "man" is, strangely, not subject to this
| erasure.
| asmor wrote:
| But... that's absolutely a thing? Is this the same
| selective perception that brings radfems to proclaim that
| trans lesbians don't date each other?
|
| (That being said, the likelyhood of getting prostate
| cancer on HRT is pretty low. Not quite the level of cis
| men getting breast cancer, but it's down there. It's a
| very androgen dependent cancer.)
| [deleted]
| josephg wrote:
| > But then you threw in the (self-described!) theocratic
| fascist dogwhistle.
|
| Huh? What fascist dog whistle? Sounds like the person was
| just describing their opinion and experience. The whole
| idea of dogwhistling sounds like a weird conspiracy theory.
| I'm sure it's happened more than 0 times, but thinking
| dogwhistling is everywhere sounds just as unhinged to me as
| any of the wacky right wing conspiracies.
| asmor wrote:
| "What is a woman" is the rhetorical work of Matt Walsh,
| who describes himself as a "theocratic fascist".
|
| The beginning of this essay explains the phrase pretty
| well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAMM3l156Oo
| parineum wrote:
| And since nobody has asked that question before that well
| known rhetorical work we know everyone who mentions the
| same question is just dog whistling a reference to it.
|
| You left that part out.
| asmor wrote:
| The throughline of
|
| >it's now controversial to ask "what is a woman?"
|
| to Matt Walsh is pretty clear. The entire documentenary
| is based on the premise that it's now controversial to
| ask this, because the answer must inevitably be "adult
| human female". It's treated as if these are magic words
| that dispel gender ideology instantly. Meanwhile in
| reality, nobody finds this question controversial, only
| that Matt Walsh puports to know the one and only,
| extremely obvious answer. That many people disagree with.
| bilvar wrote:
| What do you mean that nobody finds the question
| controversial? I remember it being a huge controversy
| when the US congress asked it during Kentanji Brown
| Jackson's interview.
| asmor wrote:
| You got the order of events wrong. That was after it
| became a dogwhistle for bioessentialism. As a consequence
| of Matt Walsh.
|
| I guess if you want to be exact, I will correct to
| "nobody found this question controversial before it
| became a dogwhistle". But the question itself is still
| not controversial, it's all context.
| [deleted]
| bilvar wrote:
| So how can someone phrase the exact same question in a
| different way that is not a dogwhistle?
| asmor wrote:
| If you explain to me the purpose of the question - that
| not being invoking the dogwhistle - I'll let you know.
| Otherwise I'm not interested in playing this game with a
| bad faith actor.
| bilvar wrote:
| The purpose is that in the law we have clearly determined
| concepts such as Women's Rights. Thus, the justice system
| needs to be able to determine who is or not a woman in
| order to do its job properly. For instance, in the UK
| wolf-whistling can be considered a hate-crime if and only
| if the receiver is a woman.
| undersuit wrote:
| Why not just make wolf-whistling a hate crime regardless
| of the receiver's identity? From the responses I've
| gotten around here a woman is an adult. Now we're legally
| OK with young girls being wolf-whistled at?
| bilvar wrote:
| Aside that we are in agreement that laws should not be
| gendered if we want equality (not examining whether wolf-
| whistling should be a hate-crime - imho it's ridiculous
| it is in any context) since we live in reality and there
| ARE gendered laws I'll reply to the second part of your
| comment.
|
| It does exactly make the point, you are somehow trying to
| define what a woman is, and asking if the definition only
| encompasses adult human females or underage as well.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| It's amazing that some are seemingly convinced a
| conservative man came up with a problem that feminists
| (so-called "radfems") have highlighted for years. Goes to
| show how little attention many pay to women's issues.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| "What is a woman" is a perfectly reasonable question to
| ask a legislator who refuses to acknowledge that women
| exist. I certainly would never vote for someone who
| believes that women are defined as "whatever I feel right
| now." I'm disappointed you think it's the people
| demanding acknowledgement which should be labelled
| "theocratic fascists" rather than the misogynists
| refusing to acknowledge women exist.
| asmor wrote:
| I didn't label anyone a theocratic fascist. That's just
| Matt Walsh's twitter bio. Though radfems seem not too
| uncomfortable with Walsh, considering JKR praised the man
| for his "documentary" and received little backlash from
| her loyal following.
| undersuit wrote:
| Which legislator refused to acknowledge that women exist?
| nbardy wrote:
| If it only takes a simple sentence to set you off. You
| should be careful how much you're reading into peoples
| language. The worlds not filled with facists in disguise.
| Look at people that way and you'll see it everywhere. It
| will drive you mad.
| undersuit wrote:
| >To the extent that it's now controversial to ask "what is a
| woman?"
|
| It's controversial because there is no simple definition if
| you want to define man and woman.
| suddenclarity wrote:
| Isn't that mostly a result of how much you want to focus on
| the outliers? XX male syndrome is estimated to exists in
| 1:20000 - 1:30000 people. It's so rare that we have a name
| for it. Somewhat like rebutting to what a car is by arguing
| that a handful of cars through history actually had two
| wheels. And yes, I'm aware that XX syndrome isn't the only
| outlier but the point still stands.
| undersuit wrote:
| >Isn't that mostly a result of how much you want to focus
| on the outliers?
|
| I don't want to focus on the outliers. I want to focus on
| the fact that we're enforcing a binary distinction when
| there are outliers.
| [deleted]
| suddenclarity wrote:
| Eventually you'll realise that all labels have
| exceptions. Unless you come to terms with that, every
| definition will just be diluted to the extend that it
| loses all meaning.
| undersuit wrote:
| Who cares? Why does this dilution matter?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| If there are outliers you don't get to change the
| definition of the established binary and force the
| outliers into them. The outliers are just that, outliers,
| a 3rd, 4th, etc option.
|
| If you argument is that there are more than 2 genders,
| that's fine, Man, Woman and whatever else.
|
| They are outliers that have their own names.
|
| Certain things are constant though Man: Adult Human with
| XY sex Chromosomes
|
| Woman: Adult Human with XX sex Chromosomes
|
| Everything else and I mean no disrespect with this term,
| are mutations that fall outside of the norm.
|
| Surgery and hormones though do not change your sex
| chromosomes. You are still sex you were born as. You can
| be a trans woman, but sex wise you are still a man and
| vice versa for trans men.
|
| I wish trans people all the happiness in the world but if
| you paint stripes on a horse its still a horse, not a
| zebra.
| undersuit wrote:
| >If there are outliers you don't get to change the
| definition of the established binary and force the
| outliers into them.
|
| Why not? Why can't the outliers try and fit into the
| binary definition we enforce on society?
| yibg wrote:
| How many arms do humans have? Is saying 2 some how bad
| because there are outliers and it's not inclusive?
| undersuit wrote:
| OK so the definition is that a human has 2 arms. What
| happens when they don't have two arms? Are they a new
| thing? Or are they still a human that we should treat
| with the same respect we grant to everyone?
| yibg wrote:
| They are still human, just missing (or have extra) arms.
| We should treat them with the same respect and dignity as
| anyone else that have 2 arms. What we don't say is we
| don't know how many arms humans have just because some
| people have more or less than 2.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Man: Adult Human with XY sex Chromosomes
|
| Woman: Adult Human with XX sex Chromosomes
| undersuit wrote:
| So individuals with Swyer syndrome who overwhemingly
| identify as women... are men.
|
| And anyone that falls outside this binary definition...
| is neither man nor woman?
| catiopatio wrote:
| Of course there is. Adult human female.
| undersuit wrote:
| What is an adult human female?
| catiopatio wrote:
| An adult is a fully mature organism.
|
| An adult human is a fully mature member of the species
| Homo sapien.
|
| An adult human female is a fully mature member of the
| species Homo sapien who belongs to the reproductive class
| that produces large, immobile gametes. The reproductive
| system of an individual may be actual, potential,
| historic or broken.
|
| How do _you_ define "woman"?
| cassonmars wrote:
| I'll play ball here. What do you classify intersex people
| as? Especially those born with either completely mixed
| gonadal representation or genitalia? Are they neither
| male nor female? These things are bimodal in
| distribution, but they are not perfectly binary.
| catiopatio wrote:
| There are only two types of gametes, and two reproductive
| classes capable of producing them. Everyone -- even rare
| intersex individuals -- can only belong to one
| reproduction class or the other. There is no documented
| case of a true hermaphrodite capable of reproducing as
| both male and female.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Everyone -- even rare intersex individuals -- can only
| belong to one reproduction class or the other.
|
| In principle, this is not necessarily true in
| Ovotesticular DSD (formerly "True Hermaphroditism"),
| which is generally a symptom of tetragametic chimerism,
| though for both health and gender reasons it is
| apparently not uncommon for people who naturally have
| both functional ovarian and testicular tissue to have
| hormone therapy and/or surgery to align more with the sex
| traits stereotypical of a single preferred gender.
| catiopatio wrote:
| That taxonomy was developed approximately 140 years ago,
| before the development of modern genetics and
| endocrinology, is based on the existence of mere gonad
| tissue, is scientifically specious, and has fallen out of
| favor.
|
| So-called "true hermaphrodites" do not have functional
| male and female reproductive systems.
| cassonmars wrote:
| Can confirm, am one of those people.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Correct. They are intersex. They are the exception that
| proves the rule.
| cassonmars wrote:
| But what do you classify an intersex person as when you
| see them, assuming you don't know this detail? Our social
| lens is focused to a binary, even if there isn't a
| definitive binary.
| [deleted]
| hn_go_brrrrr wrote:
| This is rapidly getting into "justified true belief"
| territory.
|
| Let's say you have concrete definitions of man and woman
| (and as many additional categories as you please). You
| see a person and believe they fall into one category. As
| it turns out, you are wrong, and they are actually in
| another category.
|
| That you miscategorized someone has no bearing on the
| validity (or lack thereof) of your definitions.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > They are the exception that proves the rule.
|
| "Proves" in that saying means "tests", not "establishes
| the validity of".
| naniwaduni wrote:
| People keep trotting out this etymology, but it's always
| been entirely speculative and there's no attested
| premodern usage of anything resembling the phrase with
| that meaning. What there _is_ attested usage of is a
| Cicero argument of the form "if there's an exception
| that makes it illegal, then the general rule must be that
| it's legal outside of the exception".
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Its been a while but I seem to remember that its adoption
| as a maxim _outside_ of law is itself fairly modern, and
| coincides with that usage, but, in any case, even if that
| were not the traditional meaning outside of law, the
| maxim is (outside of its use as a maxim of _legal
| analysis_ ) simply _false_ and _illogical_ in any other
| sense. Exceptions _disprove_ rules, they don't prove
| them.
|
| The _legal_ maxim only makes sense in its domain because
| it rests on the idea that law is written by people, and
| that calling out a specific case for one treatment
| reveals a pre-existing understanding that _outside_ of
| that case, that treatment would not apply.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Please refrain from inserting your own misinformation
| into my words.
| [deleted]
| undersuit wrote:
| I don't have a need to define 'woman'. Can I have an
| example where I would need to make a binary distinction
| where things aren't binary?
|
| What is a reproductive class?
| rayiner wrote:
| It can't be that complex if virtually every human society
| came up with two distinct words to express the concepts.
|
| It's only complicated if you start from the premise that
| language must accord the same importance to the experience
| of small minorities as to the experience of the
| overwhelming majority.
| undersuit wrote:
| [flagged]
| slackdog wrote:
| Most of us did.
| undersuit wrote:
| lady dame girl gal mama matron missus mistress babe broad
| doll hag crone vixen slattern
| slackdog wrote:
| All those words seem to describe one of the two sexes.
| I'm sure you realize that.
|
| Do the words "dude" and "guy" demonstrate that males are
| actually more than one 'gender'? This is silly.
| undersuit wrote:
| The person I was replying to said "every human society
| came up with two distinct words to express the concepts".
| I of expressed doubt about such a statement.
|
| Then you popped into with a completely different reason.
| I'm still working on the original argument. We came up
| with more than two words to express the concept.
| slackdog wrote:
| The claim you made: _" there is no simple definition if
| you want to define man and woman."_
|
| Rayiner's response: _" It can't be that complex if
| virtually every human society came up with two distinct
| words to express the concepts."_
|
| "Two distinct words" plainly refers to the two sexes.
| Virtually every human society _( "most of us")_ hit upon
| classifying humans into these two categories, with very
| rare exceptions that I'm sure you're itching to point out
| right now. You have tried to perform a sleigh-of-hand
| "gotcha" by pointing out that there are many words for
| women and many words for men, but you're barking up the
| wrong tree if you think you can gaslight a dog like me
| into believing that is a rebuttal of Rayiner's point.
| undersuit wrote:
| Woman isn't a sex, it's a gender. Female and Male are
| sexes. OH MY. We have Male, Female, Man, and Woman? I
| though virtually every human society came up with two
| distinct words to express the concepts, not 4.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| And therein lies our folly
| jimbokun wrote:
| It's perfectly simple, until you lose track of the
| distinction between sex and gender.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| The distinction between sex and gender wasn't really made
| until the 1940s and 1950s in parts of academia. The idea
| of them as separate ideas is sort of a modern invention.
| jimbokun wrote:
| When did terms like "tomboy" come into vogue?
|
| The idea of a person of one sex displaying common gender
| characteristics of the other sex is very old.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Maybe in a general sense, but not in the way we use the
| word "gender" today. This distinction was made by
| academics studying this in the 1940s and 1950s, really
| becoming widespread in academia in the 1960s.
| undersuit wrote:
| [flagged]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Define woman simply_
|
| Define love. Define consciousness.
|
| These words are fractals, simultaneously simple and
| complex. It's alarming that we're unable, as a matter of
| discourse, to accept this useful ambiguity anymore.
|
| At its simplest, a woman is a person who identifies as
| such. At among its most complex, it's an empowered
| expression of femininity. That there isn't a single
| definition doesn't make the word bad, it makes it human.
| undersuit wrote:
| This isn't a simple definition!
|
| But I'm OK with this. One of the original people
| demanding "define a woman" was a law maker. If we're
| making laws that use the word woman we need to have a
| stringent definition.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _we 're making laws that use the word woman we need to
| have a stringent definition_
|
| Not _ex ante_. That's the strength of common law. If you
| have a problem with this, consider why we need laws which
| define womanhood. (Yes, I am an ERA proponent.)
| undersuit wrote:
| I don't know why we need laws that define woman or
| womanhood. Would you offer an example?
|
| An ERA proponent is in reference to an Equal Rights
| Amendment?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _don 't know why we need laws that define woman or
| womanhood_
|
| I don't. And I'm struggling to play devil's advocate,
| which is uncommon.
|
| > _ERA proponent is in reference to an Equal Rights
| Amendment_
|
| Yes.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > One of the original people demanding "define a woman"
| was a law maker. If we're making laws that use the word
| woman we need to have a stringent definition.
|
| We don't (and, contrary to a sibling comment, this is not
| particular to common law, it applies in civil law
| jurisdictions as well, though it may be _more_ true in
| the common law). If every word in law needed a "stringent
| definition", the law would be so full of definitions
| you'd never be able to find the rules that actually apply
| them to the real world. Laws _sometimes_ need stringent
| definitions, and they _sometimes_ need disambiguation
| between plausible alternatives that don't actually
| require a stringent definition, and sometimes they get by
| just fine with no definition at all.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Um, court cases very often hinge on how to define the
| words used in writing laws.
| yibg wrote:
| It's a useless definition. A woman is someone who
| identifies as a woman. Circular definition much? Makes
| the word pretty much meaningless.
| undersuit wrote:
| Good. I don't see a need for an outside authority to
| define whether I'm a man or a woman. I am my own person
| and I can make my own decisions.
|
| Is my gender identity invalid if I'm not someone who fits
| into the gender norms? Am I a woman if Customer Support
| thinks my voice is feminine?
| sorokod wrote:
| _a woman is a person who identifies as such_
|
| This is circular an so, not a deninition. Not a problem
| as long as this is part of an internal personal model. It
| is a problem when reasoning about social structures.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _is circular an so, not a deninition_
|
| It's Cartesian, not circular. There's a difference. We
| don't need it rigorously defined for it to have meaning--
| that's the point. (This does make it a word incompatible
| with precise endeavours like lawmaking.)
| sorokod wrote:
| You did not define, rigorously or otherwise. As to needs,
| when we turn to conversations on how to structure a
| society, subjective meaning is not sufficent -
| definitions are required.
| jimbokun wrote:
| The most basic rule of making a usable definition of a
| word, is that it cannot be self referential.
| tomp wrote:
| Human female.
|
| And if you're looking for a scientific definition of
| _female_ , it's
|
| _"an organism that in sexual maturity produces ova
| (large gametes (reproductive cells))"_
|
| (Therefore, _sex is binary_. Also, there is no sensible,
| consistent definition of _gender_ , making it nonsense.)
| undersuit wrote:
| The previous definition was Adult Human Female, dropping
| the adult is weird because you wouldn't consider an 11
| year old experiencing their menarche to be a woman right?
| I think the tropey phrase would be "becoming a woman".
|
| But okay you would like to define a woman as a human
| female, "an organism that in sexual maturity produces ova
| (large gametes (reproductive cells))", if a prepubescent
| takes hormone blockers for their entire life does that
| interrupt your definition of woman? What about if an XY
| Swyer Syndrone individual has a functional uterus and
| ovaries? What if a female with hypogonadism takes hormone
| therapy to prevent infertility?
|
| Sex is not binary, gender is.
| tomp wrote:
| Well, the word _" woman"_ can mean both _" human adult
| female"_ and _" human female"_, but I think anyone
| accepting one of these definitions would accept both, so
| that's not controversial IMO.
|
| Probably we should look at _potential_ over one 's life,
| likely at (or even before) birth, otherwise the same
| could be argued for "what if a child dies before they're
| fertile"?
| undersuit wrote:
| I think they will accept it because female and woman are
| synonymous in their minds. But human female isn't a
| simple definition either.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| XX instead of XY. The fact that 1 in a million people is
| neither a man or a women has no bearing on this fact.
| undersuit wrote:
| So now we need to perform tests? What happens when the
| person is a chimera?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46,XX/46,XY
| vianneychevalie wrote:
| We call them a chimera?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Sex essentialists exploding the gender binary is...a new
| one.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| For those who have trouble translating the insane new
| lexicon, "sex essentialist" means "one who believes in
| biology and objective reality".
| dragonwriter wrote:
| No, it means "one who believes that some simple subset of
| biological sex traits should be the immutable basis of
| socially-and particularly legally-ascribed gender
| categories, rather than, for instance, ascribed gender
| conforming to gender identity".
| catiopatio wrote:
| Can you define what you mean by the word "gender"? What
| is a gender? What is not a gender?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Like a "race", a "gender" is a social grouping of either
| identity or ascribed membership that is distinguished by
| being viewed as being exclusive with (though, in some
| models, admitting mixtures as their own unique
| possibilities), others in the same named group.
| catiopatio wrote:
| By that definition, isn't "emo" -- or literally any other
| social category -- a gender?
|
| Do you believe that segregated services -- sports,
| bathrooms, locker rooms, etc -- were intended to be
| segregated by gender, as opposed to sex?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > By that definition, isn't "emo" -- or literally any
| other social category -- a gender
|
| No, "emo" is a social category that is _not_ exclusive
| with genders, its in a different bucket.
|
| But, yes, the distinction of social categories into
| groups like "gender", "race", etc., is, like the
| categories themselves, fundamentally an arbitrary social
| construct.
|
| > Do you believe that segregated services -- sports,
| bathrooms, locker rooms, etc -- were intended to be
| segregated by gender, as opposed to sex?
|
| Binary "sex" is just ascribed gender on the basis of a
| subset of sex traits. To the extent there is a valid
| basis for segregating services, it varies from service to
| service. Similarly, the _motivations_ vary from service
| to service (and, generally differ from the legitimate
| justifications, if any.)
| defrost wrote:
| As a _strict_ definition that 's fine in a context.
|
| However:
|
| > The fact that 1 in a million people is neither a man or
| a women
|
| the number you are looking for here (ie _only_ ..
| conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with
| phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not
| classifiable as either male or female
|
| ) is 180 in a million, or some 4,625 or so in a country
| such as Australia - which does have some real bearing on
| things such as national passports and why Australia has a
| three value gender field there ( M | F | X ).
|
| Less strictly, the prevalence of "nondimorphic sexual
| development" might be as high as 1.7% or 17,000 in a
| million.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > XX instead of XY. The fact that 1 in a million people
| is neither a man or a women has no bearing on this fact.
|
| Using the typical assignment of "sex" (really, a kind of
| gender ascribed based on a subset of sex traits at
| birth):
|
| 1 in 25,000 men is XX (approximately universally
| infertile, though chimerism might affect this, I guess)
|
| 1 in 15,000 women is XY (potentially fertile with HRT,
| and in at least one documented case, due to chimerism,
| without.)
| lumb63 wrote:
| This is the idea behind TERFs, right? How can women have
| equal rights if "women" don't even exist? I'm honestly
| surprised more feminists don't have strong anti-transgender
| sentiment.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| I would be pissed if anyone referred to my wife as some kind
| of breeding vessel. These DEI bureaucrats have lost their
| minds, and companies have lost their minds for allowing this
| layer to grow so large.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Wait, so you're saying words matter and you want to
| language police them?
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Our entire group of animals is named after tits:
|
| Mammals.
|
| How can referring to the fact people have what our entire
| branch of the tree of life is named after be offensive?
| slackdog wrote:
| Incidentally not all mammals have nipples. Male kangaroos
| don't.
| kgwgk wrote:
| Time for some class-affirming surgery then.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Good thing tits are global but have have different names in
| other languages, Meisen in the case of my primary-guardian
| language.
| ertian wrote:
| ...Probably better not to point that out, or next thing you
| know we're gonna have to rewrite damn near every
| textbook...
| kergonath wrote:
| Isn't this ongoing already?
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| Yeah, it's like a competition between the worst of two
| groups of people as to who can change them more and skew
| the language, or lack of it, in their ideological
| direction.
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| >For example, it seems like we can't say "mother" anymore in
| medical settings. For my partner's entire pregnancy, our
| providers only referred to "birthing people" because of some
| tiny number of trans men that exist and also want to give
| birth.
|
| The troll argument here is: now that we're saying "birthing
| people" instead of "women", it's time to acknowledge that
| abortion is not actually a "women's issue".
| kergonath wrote:
| > now that we're saying "birthing people" instead of "women",
| it's time to acknowledge that abortion is not actually a
| "women's issue".
|
| Which is partly right, to be fair. It's a fundamental human
| right issue about who can force things on your body. The
| consequences also affect whole families, not all men are
| arseholes who vanish when their girlfriend gets pregnant.
| Framing this as _only_ women's issue is part of a dangerous
| tribal war.
|
| It is also part of a pattern of subjugation of a social group
| on religious grounds, and as such part of a broader attack on
| secular, liberal societies.
| bandie91 wrote:
| 1. the embryo/fetus inside the mother's body is not the
| mother's body.
|
| 2. it is not the mother's body, but it's completely
| dependent on it to live.
|
| 3. parents have and have to have natural responsibility
| over their offspring.
|
| 4. the society establishment (both secular and religious)
| are there to protect society's norm.
|
| 5. not killing innocent humans is a social norm.
|
| 6. the embryo/fetus is a human.
|
| 7. saying that someones on "religious grounds" want to
| subjugate "secular, liberal societies" by opposing to
| killing innocent humans is no more that projecting USA's
| domestic radicated bipolar politics to the global level.
|
| 8. "religious grounds" are nothing mystical, nothing like
| "things which only unreasonalbe superstitious are afraid
| of", but a core attribute of the human nature: just >>don't
| kill humans who are annoying to you even if they don't have
| social security ID yet, even if they don't pay taxes yet,
| even if they are your own children<<
|
| 9. "abortion rights" group also stands on religious
| grounds, except it worships Moloch.
|
| 10. "abortion rights" people often comes from the pre-
| assumption that they are entitled to enjoy sex without
| consequences and without any responsibility. gain without
| pain.
|
| 11. "abortion rights" is an other level of
| productionalization of people. our life is already mostly a
| product of soulless companies. now they are turning babies
| into commodity which you can return if you changed your
| mind or not satisfied with it. wondering how much does it
| differ from the menacing "slavery".
| bigbluedots wrote:
| I'm unsure if you're joking, so I'll bite: if 6 is true
| (a fetus is a human), then is a zygote a human? Can a
| human be a single cell? Of course not.
| bandie91 wrote:
| most of the times they don't argue about killing single
| cells, but an undisputedly multicellular fetus with human
| DNA. the conceived egg cell is already a new member of
| the given species. why? has it to be of a species? if
| yes, which one other than human? if no, when this
| "growing clump of cells" become an organization separate
| from its host? i don't know other event of a pregnancy
| which more clearly shows that here is something new which
| was not there before. "Can a human be a single cell?" can
| it be 2? or 3? ...
| bigbluedots wrote:
| > the conceived egg cell is already a new member of the
| given species. why? has it to be of a species? if yes,
| which one other than human?
|
| A cell being of a species does not make it an instance of
| that species, in the same way that a skin cell is a human
| cell but is not itself a human.
|
| > "Can a human be a single cell?" can it be 2? or 3? ...
|
| If a single cell is not an instance of a human, it
| follows that there is some point during pregnancy where
| an instance of a human exists where one did not
| previously. Mostly the disagreement is about where this
| line is.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| So is a miscarriage manslaughter? If not, why not? Based
| on your premises, it's the unintentional taking of a
| human life.
| eru wrote:
| I'd say 9 is more fun to pick apart. Looks like there's
| only two kinds of religions in the world, those that
| worship the Right Deity and those that worship Moloch.
| bandie91 wrote:
| needless to go on theology grounds to argue against
| unborn killing. you don't need to accept any particular
| theology to come to the conclusion.
|
| btw it is sorted in a list not because of any
| argumentation structure.
|
| i don't think (and don't see what indicated it to you)
| that there are only these 2 options in terms of worship
| targets. but phrasing the other option the "only" "right"
| one, paints me an intolerant blind-faithed, which i
| reject.
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| This angle works in the other direction as well: Is a
| newborn a human? If yes, is a baby in the process of
| being born a human? If yes, is a baby who will be born in
| a week a human?
|
| My understanding is that opinion polls show most people
| have a moderate opinion on abortion, which seems pretty
| reasonable given that "becoming human" is something that
| happens in a continuous manner over a 9-month period.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| If human's mind was erased to embryo stage, does it
| constitute killing?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| [dead]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves")
|
| "enslaved people" is not people/person-first language.
|
| "People who are enslaved" is people-first language.
|
| "enslaved people" is "situation first" (more commonly "identity
| first" or "disability first", but neither strictly applies to
| "being enslaved") language, just as "slaves" is. (In the
| disability context, "the disabled" and "disabled people" are
| textbook examples of "disability first" language, to which
| "people first" or "person first" language is contrasted.)
|
| EDIT: Yes, I realize that this is an example of "people-first"
| language given near the opening of this opinion piece. It says
| something that in this rant about "equity language", the
| _example_ given of the application of a particular form (
| "people-first language") of equity language is basically a
| textbook example of what that form seeks to _avoid_ rather than
| what it prescribes.
|
| > For example, it seems like we can't say "mother" anymore in
| medical settings.
|
| You can absolutely use "mother" to describe a specific person
| who, in fact, is a mother in medical settings. Because people
| of non-feminine gender identity can give birth, it is sub-
| optimal and exclusionary as a _generic_ term for a person
| giving, or who has given, birth.
|
| > I support trans people living however they want, but my
| mother was a mother
|
| Literally no one has a problem with your mother being described
| as a mother.
|
| > At work, a "women in engineering" group got renamed to
| something bland like "gender minorities in tech".
|
| Presumably, it got renamed that because whoever made decisions
| for it decided the mission was _broader_ than women. "Gender
| minorities" isn't a bland alternative to "women", it has a
| broader scope.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Close to a disability, I don't give a shit, and reading that
| I don't even understand til now what is better, for what
| reason... disability first, person first, what first, wtf??
| Can we just communicate?
|
| > can give birth, it is sub-optimal and exclusionary as a
| generic term for a person giving, or who has given, birth
|
| Realize that smartassing someone with that excourse is
| alienating andor insulting andor exclusionary to other people
| the same, for whatever reason, may it be a different level of
| education or just disagreement.
|
| > the mission was broader
|
| It is good that you call it like that what it is, a mission
| for the new missionaries, almost just a religion of a strange
| minority that usually even is not affected at all. Please
| also try to understand a little the other side.
| kergonath wrote:
| > For my partner's entire pregnancy, our providers only
| referred to "birthing people" because of some tiny number of
| trans men that exist and also want to give birth.
|
| I completely understand the "gender is social and not
| biological" concept, and I believe it is true to a large
| degree. But this is not the case: if you are able to bear a
| child, then by definition you are female and a woman in the
| biological sense.
| jamilton wrote:
| Why does it become purely biological and not social in this
| case? Applying this definition strictly means woman who
| aren't able to bear children are not women.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| No. What GP is saying is merely that being capable of
| childbearing obviously requires female biological sex. But
| the implication doesn't have to go in the opposite
| direction for it to be true.
|
| Another example: the only vertebrates that can fly are
| birds(ignoring squirrels and weird fish). That's _not_
| equivalent to saying that the ostrich is not a bird.
|
| Flying vertebrate => bird
|
| Bird =/> flying vertebrate
| wadd1e wrote:
| > Applying this definition strictly means woman who aren't
| able to bear children are not women.
|
| Not quite sure what the commentor you are replying to means
| by the social part but they didn't state that giving birth
| => woman is a 2 way implication.
| oboes wrote:
| > Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be
| understood without deep diving on etymology to discover the
| racist origins.
|
| That one in particular, I was almost offended when I learnt
| during a DEI training that it could be construed as
| insensitive/racist of me to use that idiom.
|
| English is not my native language, and is not an official
| language of my country. I work for a local branch of a large US
| tech company, and the working language is English, which I'm
| perfectly fine with. But when we get subjected to DEI training
| material which was very obviously made for an American
| audience, even though nobody in this office is a native English
| speaker, I think it goes too far and ironically becomes
| slightly insensitive in its own way.
| eru wrote:
| I briefly worked for Facebook in Singapore. I felt a similar
| disconnect with their concern about African-Americans. (I
| think it might have been 'black history month' or perhaps the
| 'black lives matter' riots were ongoing. I can't remember.)
|
| Singapore has its own problems and groups of people that
| aren't doing so well. A focus on African-Americans felt
| extremely tone-deaf to me. Almost like it was designed to
| mock the whole DEI enterprise.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| This is an academic issue, "a solution in search of a problem"
| as almost all the rest of academia is. As such, it never stops
| at a reasonable, meaningful equilibrium; it has to be kept
| pacing, moving forward towards more and more ridiculous
| extremes.
|
| An academic, in order to stay relevant, needs to keep pushing
| the invisible and mostly inexistent boundaries that they
| perceive in whatever field they are involved in. If they're
| faced with a set vocabulary today, then tomorrow they'll have
| to come up with an "aha! Found a new offensive word" to
| position themselves as a relevant, meaningful part of this
| strange, ethereal movement. It'll never end, because the
| movement itself needs its members to keep also pacing forward
| and motivated in order for itself to remain existing.
|
| The exact same could be said of any academic movement; the
| difference is that, in most cases, it mostly does not spill
| into reality. Other than a bit of research funding money,
| meaningless academic ideas don't hurt society much. In this
| case, however, the academic movement is dead set on spilling
| all over everything, using the most aggressive possible
| strategies of shaming and reputation murder in order to push
| down its opposition.
| jimbokun wrote:
| It's important to remember, however annoying they are, their
| side is losing.
|
| Look at Dave Chappelle, who was the attempted target of
| cancellation and Netflix and people buying tickets to his
| shows completely ignored it.
|
| Or JK Rowling, who has been cancelled over and over again,
| but the latest video game based on her IP is incredibly
| popular.
|
| Twitter doesn't reflect the real world.
| fidgewidge wrote:
| The fact that you can only name a handful of people who
| survived full frontal attacks (for now) indicates that this
| is more than merely annoying. The ranks of the cancelled
| far outnumber them and we should recognize the disturbing
| historical parallels too. This type of language editing was
| a key plot point in 1984 because it is the habit of
| extremely dangerous far left regimes. I feel like the west
| is in danger of experiencing a communist revolution at some
| point.
|
| Now a lot of readers will feel like that's absurd, extreme,
| maybe even trolling. But it was only a handful of years ago
| that I was posting here warning people that they should
| refuse to rename git master branches to main because
| accepting this for short term convenience or out of
| ideological sympathy would lead to an endless spiral of
| power games, used to purge anyone not on the far left. And
| here we are, not so long after, with lists of banned words
| so long nobody even bothers enumerating them all, any one
| of which can be used to build a case for getting rid of
| you.
|
| There's a clear pattern here in which people are repeatedly
| not taking wokeness seriously enough. This isn't a game and
| they spend every waking hour taking over every institution.
| A communist revolution doesn't require capturing the seat
| of government permanently, if you can capture every
| institution that surrounds it and essentially eliminate all
| ability for a non revolutionary government to operate.
|
| The fix is simple enough though: do a DHH and get rid of
| all woke people in your organisation. It's quite easy as
| given a hostile environment they tend to leave en masse and
| they weren't doing much work for the organisation anyway.
| What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| Policing language and beliefs is a lot older than
| communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
| fidgewidge wrote:
| Beliefs, yes. But which part of the Inquisition was
| specifically about banning long lists of specific words,
| replacing them with semantically identical equivalents?
| Perhaps they did it, my history isn't that good, but the
| wiki page doesn't seem to discuss it much if so.
| josephg wrote:
| There's a cute story I read the other day about an
| "Offensiveness consultant" who teaches companies how to
| be just offensive enough on Twitter to make sure woke
| people don't want to work at your company. The story is
| written for comedy - but the more I think about it, the
| more I wonder might be something people actively do, for
| all the reasons you're talking about.
|
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/even-more-bay-area-
| hou...
| fidgewidge wrote:
| You don't even have to be offensive. Just give an all
| hands where the leadership publicly commits to merit-
| based promotion/hiring, tell people the org is now
| "mission focussed", stick a few rugs around the place
| that say "Meritocracy" on them and then get rid of anyone
| who complains. No offense will be taken by anyone who you
| don't want to be offended.
| LooseMarmoset wrote:
| That story is really great - I can honestly imagine a
| Silicon Valley startup party going exactly like the story
| describes.
| Macha wrote:
| > Or JK Rowling, who has been cancelled over and over
| again, but the latest video game based on her IP is
| incredibly popular.
|
| I think to some extent this is largely because Rowling was
| kept at arm's length. If Rowling was the mouthpiece for the
| game's story, showing up in interviews, etc., then I think
| more of the backlash against Rowling's personal actions
| would be impacting the game.
|
| See also how Disney happily sells Pirates of the Carribean
| while maintaining they will never work with Johnny Depp
| again.
| [deleted]
| low_tech_love wrote:
| I certainly agree with you, and I do believe this is a very
| active fight where both sides are going strong. I'm not
| sure yet that they are losing, but it does feel like it's a
| worth fight. Of course, whoever is fighting against must
| also be sharply aware of not letting the fight itself get
| completely derailed by the opportunist bigots on the other
| side.
| hn_go_brrrrr wrote:
| On the other hand, I can't write "sanity check" without
| getting on HR's naughty list.
| causi wrote:
| Don't forget that Rowling wasn't invited to the filming of
| the giant Harry Potter reunion special.
| rippercushions wrote:
| This phenomenon is known as a purity spiral, and here's a
| great story about one tearing an online knitting community to
| shreds.
|
| _In game theory terms, objecting to something was now always
| a dominant strategy, and rejecting an allegation of racism
| was always a losing strategy. Inevitably, a ratchet effect
| took hold in which those with the most strident vision of
| what 'diversity' meant were effectively handed the keys to
| the castle. That is -- until someone with a more strident
| vision turned up behind them..._
|
| https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-
| into-a...
| low_tech_love wrote:
| Nice, thanks for the link. "Moral outbidding" is also a
| great term, very clear and expressive.
| techdragon wrote:
| I'm going to start using this terminology. It's good to
| have simple phrases for this. It's so much easier to say
| "I'm not going to engage in perpetuating a purity spiral"
| or "your not helping anyone by continuing the purity spiral
| long past the point of helping anyone who was genuinely
| affected by this"
|
| It's short and pithy, and it can sort of cover the core
| concept without needing deep academic understanding of the
| social dynamics involved.
| Teever wrote:
| It's also very googleable which means when you casually
| drop it into conversation they can just look it up
| without you having to explain it.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > As such, it never stops at a reasonable, meaningful
| equilibrium; it has to be kept pacing, moving for
|
| In fact, proponents can't even define this equilibrium,
| despite stating that it is the end goal. This proves that the
| goal is a lie.
|
| It's pure power seeking, and that shouldn't be a surprise,
| because that is precisely what they assert determines truth
| and shapew society. Not some natural order, but people who
| held power over others. They complain about it but if you
| watch, it's exactly what they're doing themselves. Pure
| projection.
| bnralt wrote:
| I came to realize that this is the case with advocacy groups.
| These groups will never want to say, "Hey, things aren't that
| bad anymore. We're working on some small problems, but
| honestly, we solved most of the stuff we were concerned
| about." Everything always needs to be in perpetual crisis.
| Wikipedia always needs to be in danger of shutting down.
| Political enemies are always supposed to be one step away
| from destroying the country forever. That's what drives the
| donations and prestige that keeps these groups going.
|
| As groups become more successful, they're more likely to
| shift from reasonable goals to extreme goals.
| worrycue wrote:
| Organizations tend to be self-perpetuating. People whose
| power is derived from the organization and people who make
| money from the organization will want to keep the racket
| going.
| fidgewidge wrote:
| Yeah. Over time this has killed my interest in charitable
| organizations, sad to say. I just don't trust them anymore
| because I think if I donate to an apparently well defined
| cause it'll actually just be embezzled and put to use
| hiring hard left activists who spend all their time
| harassing normal people in pursuit of their deranged
| ideology. The prevalence of dumb language purity guides
| amongst these organizations just reinforces that feeling.
| Nowadays I'm much now likely to donate to crowdfunders for
| the victims legal fees.
| kergonath wrote:
| There is much wrong in this comment.
|
| > This is an academic issue, "a solution in search of a
| problem" as almost all the rest of academia is. As such, it
| never stops at a reasonable, meaningful equilibrium; it has
| to be kept pacing, moving forward towards more and more
| ridiculous extremes.
|
| Not at all. Academia is about the pursuit of knowledge and
| enlightenment. What you are describing is happening in
| academia, but that is not its purpose or its main role.
| Academia is as much about the mating habits of the spotted
| fizzbuzz up in the Andes or the design of advanced composite
| materials or developing vaccines for malaria than the
| understanding of how humans behave in society.
|
| The ridiculous extremes are not confined to academia, this is
| just an anti-intellectual talking point. Nobody is running
| around panicking that the purpose of elections is to produce
| fascists.
|
| > An academic, in order to stay relevant, needs to keep
| pushing the invisible and mostly inexistent boundaries that
| they perceive in whatever field they are involved in. If
| they're faced with a set vocabulary today, then tomorrow
| they'll have to come up with an "aha! Found a new offensive
| word" to position themselves as a relevant, meaningful part
| of this strange, ethereal movement.
|
| Again this weird focus on academia. Journalists, politicians,
| and random blokes on the internet do it. Most of academics
| don't. The problem is humans in general, your scapegoat is
| meaningless. By ascribing your issues to an immaterial Other
| entity out to get you, you absolve the rest of society, which
| is really where the problem lies.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| I will concede to you that I was too general in my comment.
| As an academic myself (with nearly a decade on the senior
| circles of higher education in a highly developed country),
| I absolutely agree with you that the main goal of academic
| work is the pursuit of knowledge. To be honest, I wanted to
| use the term "academic issue" more as a way to express that
| the issue is disconnected from the more practical issues of
| the real world, rather than to mean only the formal,
| academic world. I was inaccurate in that. You can pursue
| academic interests and discuss academic issues outside of
| the university; I think of it as an interchangeable term
| with "philosophical", for example.
|
| I also agree with you that these issues happen outside of
| academia. It just so happens that I perceive this specific
| problem as being academic. The fact that I argue that this
| is an academic problem does not imply that this only
| happens in academia (one example does not necessarily
| generalize to the whole).
|
| And yes, obviously, running towards extremes is not
| confined to academia; however, my point was that it is
| more-or-less ok to do it in academic work as long as you do
| not try to force your extreme views back down to the rest
| of society (which most academics don't, or if they do,
| fail). Actually, I'd argue that there is no better way to
| do it. Research often means pushing things to extreme, and
| most of its results die gracefully and are replaced with
| something else that is more reasonable for the current
| times (or simply gets forgotten). Don't take this wrong, as
| if I believe that research is useless. In the same way that
| a startup dies (and must die) if it cannot offer a
| feasible, interesting, useful product, research also dies
| (and must die) if its results make sense but are not
| applicable. No problem there.
|
| The problem begins when the academic issues (whether they
| are discussed in the university or not) which are being
| pushed to the extreme in order to test the waters are then
| being pushed down society's throat aggressively like this,
| without regards to whoever they trample over on the way.
| These academic issues are being forcefully, steadily
| introduced into public and private institutions that have a
| very real, concrete power over how many people act, behave,
| work, and communicate. These are (in one way or another)
| governing agencies that, while they are not the police so
| to speak, still have under their belt lots of different
| means and tools to enforce certain things over large groups
| of people. This is extremely irresponsible of those who
| think of themselves as drivers in this movement.
| 78124781 wrote:
| It's not just academia, it's the modern "meritocracy" more
| broadly. When getting into a campus club at a top college
| requires four rounds of interviews, you look for easy ways to
| signal your eliteness and being hip to the new verbal trends
| is a great way for the well-heeled to extend their advantage
| over the less-enlightened.
|
| This also applies to jobs whose occupants need to justify
| their own existence, which they can do so be seeking to
| remake language in an organization and launch a few fun
| purges to boot. These new terms are basically a new form of
| arcane knowledge that allows those who chant these magical
| new incantations social and professional prestige in the
| modern meritocracy rat race.
| syntheweave wrote:
| All social structures survive through their self-
| perpetuation...it's a general critique with a lot of
| explanatory power that I've had on my mind.
|
| Any kind of senseless decorum or self-defeating policy
| comes down to the intersection of self-perpetuating
| framings of reality with actors who either promote it out
| of self-interest, or take it upon themselves to become
| footsoldiers on faithful behalf of that idea, extending it
| to unreasonable, totalizing lengths in the process of
| protecting it like a child.
|
| And that can manifest as "my way is right behavior and that
| is wrong behavior", or "we are good because they are bad",
| or any number of other illogical defenses. It's just
| automatic once you decide some thought has to be defended,
| and when it forms a really persistent, robust structure you
| end up with a religion, national mythos, economic norm etc.
| The structure is looking out for itself first, and the
| current elites hold the most gravity in deciding whether to
| further perpetuate or not. But elites aren't immune to
| being true believers either - they have to be able to let
| go and examine what they want to accomplish, and if the
| belief they have is too firmly tied to their immediate
| self-interest, they can't do it.
|
| My reading here is derived somewhat from Heather Marsh's
| writings, but with different focus and phrasing.
| sirmarksalot wrote:
| I take any equity language guides with a grain of salt, but how
| people respond to them speaks volumes about who they are.
| Obviously there are problems with it. It's largely
| performative, it can distract from bigger advocacy work, and
| it's often a lazy attempt by a large organization or
| corporation to avoid having to make meaningful changes. The
| thing is, when you add terms like "victimhood culture" to your
| response, it makes it extremely clear that you're not taking
| issue with awkward terminology, but with the entire concept of
| equity itself.
| remarkEon wrote:
| >but with the entire concept of equity itself.
|
| A lot of people do take issue with the concept of equity
| itself. Because it's unattainable, a fantasy to keep the
| "movement" going. No amount of language puritanism will ever
| be enough for the kinds of people that write these guides,
| because no human society will ever exist - or has ever
| existed - where everyone is some sterile, "equitable" copy of
| each other.
| goatlover wrote:
| > but how people respond to them speaks volumes about who
| they are
|
| Does that mean they are bad, immoral people? I think equity
| is faulty concept. Seems like an attempt to create equality
| of outcome by policing language. But I'll defer to arguments
| made by the likes of Sam Harris, Julia Galef and Coleman
| Hughes. Or the Atlantic author of this article.
| simple-thoughts wrote:
| It's an exercise of power by a wealthy ($30k/yr is rich in
| most world), western, educated, native English speaking elite
| over the unprivileged. Someone who studied English in high
| school in rural India does not have access to the latest
| equity terminology nor the western cultural context to
| understand it.
|
| Changing language is a great tool to privilege the non
| working academic class with access and time to study the
| latest fad over the global working class who build the
| consumer products these elites type their screeds on.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Hell, most of it originates in the US, where we practice
| our cultural imperialism and force everyone else to bow to
| our ever evolving norms and sensibilities based upon our
| own country's fucked up history.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Hard to miss the similarities with Orwell's Newspeak.
|
| The attempt to make certain thoughts unthinkable by removing
| the words that denote those ideas.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| The "justice-involved person" one is especially gross and
| disingenuous depending on context: Through repetition it
| strengthens the assertion that a conviction _is_ justice, and
| it erases the power imbalance between convict and court
| employees /cops. Plus, it's a transparent euphemism - Nobody
| will refer to a judge as a JAP for example
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Absolutely:
|
| > Once you acquire the vocabulary, it's actually easier to
| say _people with limited financial resources_ than the
| _poor_. The first rolls off your tongue without interruption,
| leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion.
|
| Compare with Orwell's "Politics and the English Language":
|
| > Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things
| without calling up mental pictures of them. [...] A mass of
| Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the
| outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of
| clear language is insincerity.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Further: Literally everyone has limited financial
| resources.
|
| If you want to specifically talk about a problem relating
| to being _actually poor_ , it's probably better to use
| language that communicates that than language that spans
| being poor, being in the top 5% of US households, and
| having to sell $TSLA stock and borrow money to buy Twitter.
| [deleted]
| HyperSane wrote:
| A pregnant person is a woman.
| homieg33 wrote:
| Name checks out.
| 8note wrote:
| At least, the person that birthed you is your mother.
|
| I'd question the association between mother and woman, rather
| than mother and birth
| jimbokun wrote:
| Part of the reason rule based language processing failed,
| is because language does not fall into hard and fast
| categories with no exceptions.
|
| Normal people instinctively understand this, and "woman"
| and "mother" are completely understandable and useful
| terms, even if there are a handful of exceptions out of
| millions are exceptions to the strict definition.
| Spivak wrote:
| Thank you, I swear half the time I can't figure out if
| people are genuinely confused by inclusive language or if
| they confuse it on purpose just to get riled up.
|
| It's the same with people who menstruate -- not only for
| trans men but for post menopausal women, women who've had
| hysterectomies, or are otherwise have amenorrhea.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| No -- people are just aware that humans are sexually
| dimorphic and don't appreciate people demanding they not
| use language that accurately describes the peaks of a
| bimodal distribution because there's a small percentage
| of outliers. Mammals in general are sexually dimorphic.
|
| Particularly when that language control is transparently
| used for power seeking.
|
| We don't need to shape every utterance around outliers --
| that's pathological and stifles discussion.
| Spivak wrote:
| Girl you gotta get off the internet. No one is demanding
| you use this language. It's actually the opposite where
| people have a visceral reaction to someone voluntarily
| choosing to use inclusive language. Style guides like
| these are for awareness, everyone has had the moment
| where they discover a word they picked up is actually
| offensive. One that happened for me was "gypped." A lot
| of the guides do contain silly substitutions but that's
| because they're wrong about the history of the words and
| their usage not because the idea or intent is bad.
| jimbokun wrote:
| I am almost certain the person who told you that was
| offensive was not someone from the group allegedly being
| offended, but by some person from a highly educated
| privileged background deciding to be offended on that
| group's behalf.
| Spivak wrote:
| "Hey by the way that word is offensive" isn't really the
| same as being offended. It was a 5 second interaction
| where they were like "that word is like jewed or welshed
| but for the Roma" and I was like, "my bad didn't know
| that." That was it. Despite what the internet told me I
| wasn't immediately canceled. Like what is the point
| you're trying to make, that it's not offensive or that
| someone who isn't Roma isn't allowed to recognize that
| using an ethnicity's name as a verb in a disparaging way
| is offensive?
| hedora wrote:
| Many adopted people would disagree. "Biological mother" is
| closer, but surrogate pregnancy is a thing, so that doesn't
| work reliably.
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| Nobody seems to be able to define woman anymore. How can we
| be sure?
| hedora wrote:
| Probably not for long. Male monkeys have brought kids to
| term.
|
| Anyway, "fetal nutrient pod" avoids a few other bad issues
| with "pregnant person". For instance, corporations and
| perhaps buildings and geographic features are legally people,
| but humans that have no rights are not:
|
| https://academic.oup.com/book/35026?login=false
| roarcher wrote:
| > Male monkeys have brought kids to term.
|
| Is there an article or paper about this somewhere? I
| searched for it and can't find anything.
| hinkley wrote:
| Just call them the host.
| throwawayacc5 wrote:
| >Male monkeys have brought kids to term.
|
| That is fake news from a convicted fraudster. It was
| claimed but never supported by evidence [0].
|
| "Fertility clinician Cecil Jacobson claimed to have
| transplanted a fertilized egg from a female baboon to the
| omentum in the abdominal cavity of a male baboon in the
| mid-1960s, which then carried the fetus for four months;
| however, Jacobson did not publish his claims in a
| scientific journal, and was subsequently convicted on
| several unrelated counts of fraud for ethical misconduct."
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_pregnancy
| Nicksil wrote:
| [flagged]
| throwawayacc5 wrote:
| Is this a bot?
| Nicksil wrote:
| Probably not
| throwawayacc5 wrote:
| Why just repost my sourced link?
| Nicksil wrote:
| >Why just repost my sourced link?
|
| I didn't.
|
| As Cyphase said [0], I posted the non-mobile link which
| many people -- including myself -- appreciate.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35007189
| Cyphase wrote:
| It's not the same link. It removes the "m." so it doesn't
| bring up the mobile interface.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| What you're basically saying is:
|
| 1. "I don't believe being trans is a thing"
|
| 2. "Consequently, I'll reject statements predicated upon
| transness being a real thing"
|
| 3. "Consequently, I believe 'gender' and 'sex' are the same
| thing"
|
| Otherwise, your statement is incorrect because trans men
| exist and they can get pregnant.
|
| Trans men are female and have a uterus and ovaries and a
| vagina.
|
| If they get surgery to remove those things or even get on
| hormone therapy, it's unlikely for a trans man to get
| pregnant, but otherwise a trans man can get pregnant. One
| would say "that's a pregnant man", with "man" being a
| superset of {"cis man", "trans man"}, as it would be a
| superset of {"white man", "black man"}. In fact, you could
| refer to a "pregnant man" as "a man" since "man" is a
| superset of {"cis man", "trans man", "white man", "black
| man", "pregnant man", ...}.
|
| But I wish people would get to the heart of the argument ("I
| don't believe being trans is a thing") than hint at it with
| proxy slogans like this to score rhetorical points. If
| nothing else, it's more easily falsifiable; for example, most
| psychologists would disagree with the statement "being trans
| is not a real thing".
| visarga wrote:
| > otherwise a trans man can get pregnant
|
| Should everyone take care to account for the most
| improbable interpretations, even unintended ones? Thanks
| for providing a good sample of equity language. Feels like
| being dictated by an elite to the masses.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _your statement is incorrect because trans men exist and
| they can get pregnant_
|
| So that's an edge case. They can call themselves a mother
| or father or birthing person or pink elephant. That
| shouldn't mean someone else can't identify as a mother or
| father or whatnot.
|
| This isn't even a novel delineation; adoption and surrogacy
| have long dealt with the separation of parenting and
| reproductive roles. Besides, history's foremost feminists
| would cringe at womanhood and motherhood being reduced to a
| biological function.
| throwaway618052 wrote:
| The person you replied to (shrimp_emoji) was responding
| to the statement "a pregnant person is a woman".
|
| "A pregnant person is a woman" doesn't say anything about
| what people are allowed to call themselves, but rather
| makes an absolute statement that _all_ pregnant people
| can be called "women". It doesn't take into account the
| edge cases you mentioned, and that's what shrimp_emoji
| took offense to.
| flangola7 wrote:
| There are transmen who get pregnant, so that's really not
| accurate. One of my friends was part of the process to get
| those guys included in Unicode.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I think that highlight my main gripe about what I'd call
| excessive inclusion. Sure there are some people who
| identify as male, who will go on to become pregnant, but
| they have to understand that they are not representative of
| anything. The number of trans-men who also become pregnant
| is so tiny that it's beyond an edge case, it's not
| something that needs to be accounted for everywhere. That's
| not to say that they shouldn't have the same rights as
| everyone else, or that we should tolerate actions taken
| against them. It's just that some groups are so tiny that
| having special language or accommodation for them makes
| little sense.
|
| If they are successful in have a pregnant trans-woman in
| Unicode, you just know that, depending on the depiction, it
| will be used as "The fat guy"-icon.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| No matter what you say and how you say it there can be people
| who might want to feel offended.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > equity language censors took this way way too far.
|
| In fact, they took it so far that it is now in the realm of fan
| fiction.
|
| Language cannot be legislated, and meaningful change requires
| more than a new _literay style of expression_.
|
| Social progress in real, measurable ways is possible and
| important. Workers' rights, pay equity, access to education,
| public health-care, affordable living, good care for our
| elderly... These are good things that measurably grow happiness
| in community.
|
| Hurt-Feelings Fan Fiction is a section of the book store that I
| will never visit.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| I'm probably be downvoted to death for that but, while I have
| nothing against transgenderism - do whatever you want people, I
| don't care - it baffles me that the subject takes so much space
| in the political discourse. It's like 1.6% of the population by
| applying the broadest critieria available.
|
| Sometimes I wonder if some interests are not all too happy to
| see people fight about who they might have to share a public
| bathroom one day in their entire life rather than issues
| actually affecting them.
| justbored123 wrote:
| [dead]
| herewulf wrote:
| > battle and minefield disrespect veterans
|
| Came here to say that as a veteran, I promise you that we're not
| too stupid to differentiate figurative use of these words from
| the literal.
|
| The US Army uses the word "battle" so flippantly that it barely
| has any meaning: battle rhythm, Battle Staff, battle desk, Battle
| NCO, Battle Captain, Battle Command Systems, battle rattle, and
| on and on.
|
| Seriously, fuck off.
|
| Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be crawling across the earth,
| meticulously probing a buried-explosive-practicum with a plastic
| stick.
| fourseventy wrote:
| I refuse to rename my git master branch to 'main'.
| 0xbadc0de5 wrote:
| Those whose focus is on controlling language are not primarily
| concerned about controlling your words. They're primarily
| interested in controlling _you_.
|
| I'm old enough to remember when the word 'retard' was the
| politically correct term before it became "mentally handicapped"
| then "challenged" and so on. Same goes for 'cripple' which also
| accurately and concisely describes a particular class of physical
| impairment. Then it became "handicapped" and "mobility impaired".
| These are all euphemisms that do nothing but infantalise those
| affected while allowing those intent on using them to feel
| morally superior in doing so.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| I agree with you that the purpose is to control the person, not
| the language--the language here being just a tool or means of
| control. This was made very popular in 1984 (I feel stupid just
| mentioning this reference but it seems impossible not to).
|
| However, one problem here is that, when faced with this
| affirmative-that these people are trying to control you-I think
| many well-meaning persons will say "you're exaggerating".
| That's because I think that most of the time, the people who
| propose these rules (and the more passive ones who agree with
| them blindly) actually really believe they are doing a good
| thing-they strongly believe that _they know better than you
| what you should say_. I have to assume this because, if not, if
| I assume they are only just trying to control me, period, I'll
| feel like I am wearing the same aluminum foil hat that they are
| using.
|
| As such, it is important to understand that yes, they are
| trying to control you, and no, maybe they don't realize this,
| because their moral superiority complex is just too deeply
| rooted. By understanding this you can be more broadly aware
| that these attempts of control will come from other directions
| than language (artistic taste, sexual preferences, behavior in
| general, political beliefs, etc.)
|
| What really screws up the entire thing is that, their belief is
| so deeply rooted that, the next step of their logic then
| becomes: if they were so nice to inform you and educate you
| about the right way to behave, then why is it that now that you
| know the truth you still insist on not practicing it? The only
| conclusion is that you must be ill-intentioned on purpose.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| They think truth is subject to power. Look at how they describe
| hierarchies. And as no surprise, they power hungry
| authoritarians. By their own description, that's just how the
| world works.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| the production of knowledge is subject to power, Bill Gates
| has fundamentally altered medical research since his
| priorities decide where the funding goes. Universities
| require funding, academics need to eat, researchers outside
| of these institutions generally work for corporate-backed
| labs or thinktanks.
| scoutt wrote:
| > Those whose focus is on controlling language ... They're
| primarily interested in controlling you.
|
| I don't know who are "those", but I think they're primarily
| interested in controlling backlash and preventing conflicts.
| They don't want lawsuits or twitter outrage.
| jsemrau wrote:
| A word doesn't change the fact it describes.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| English words rarely describe absolute facts: adjectives and
| adverbs especially. They are often ambiguous if not regionally-
| and personally-tinted with a history of meanings that vary
| between people by background and culture.
| dandare wrote:
| I am glad to see that toxic masculinity, male gaze, patriarchy,
| mansplaining, man flu and manspreading are still safe to use! /s
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Language controls thought. Those who want to control the language
| want to control how people think.
| glonq wrote:
| Besides the fact that equity language makes your writing "mushy",
| my biggest problem is that it alienates part of your audience,
| including potential allies.
|
| In the mid 2010's America tried to become "too woke, too fast"
| and the backlash inflicted trump and proud boys and a whole lot
| of socio-political conflict upon the country.
|
| Equity language has the same polarizing effect. There are good
| smart decent honest people who are immediately turned off when
| they get bombarded with these semantic shenanigans.
| seydor wrote:
| These may sound funny white north american people's problems, but
| imagine when your AI app is is trying to explain european history
| to your children without referencing slavery racism or war.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| Let's just not create any new words / neologisms for "social
| justice" purposes. To be clear, no newspeak. Let's remain using
| the OED from circa 2006.
| feoren wrote:
| Yes, language should never change. All used languages have been
| continually changing for their entire hundreds- or thousands-
| of-years' lifespan, but they should STOP changing, right around
| the year I was in college. Music, too! What's with all this new
| awful music! In the entire history of all humanity, music was
| best right around when I was in college! I used to be with it,
| and I can still be with it, as long as they just stop trying to
| change everything! Everything has gone downhill since the exact
| specific year that exactly specifically _I_ was in college!
| Change has been a constant for two hundred thousand years of
| human history, but I DEMAND it stop as of 2006!!
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| TFA is about "equity language". Let's stay on topic.
| feoren wrote:
| The topic is your comment, and my reply is quite on topic.
|
| > Let's remain using the OED from circa 2006
|
| You literally said the English language, which has been
| evolving for over a thousand years, should stop changing as
| of 2006. That's what you said. You don't like these new
| words because you don't want the world to change from how
| it was in your own personal golden years. It's fine, it
| happens to everyone; I'm just pointing out that that's the
| person you've become now. You're happy with all the "social
| justice movements" that happened from 100,000 BCE up to
| 2006 because those were either history, or your
| generation's causes. Now you're unhappy with "social
| justice" (your scare quotes) because it's all those
| _liberal youths_ who are doing it. Since that covers the
| large majority of all backlash against "wokeism", I'd say
| it's quite on topic.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| You didn't read the article.
| [deleted]
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