Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative • Hacker News Board

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#371

Post by yunwal » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:02 AM UTC

Probably what you should take away from this is not “wokism gone crazy” (err, sorry “wild”). The more important lesson here is that the bloat in academic institutions has gotten so outrageous that people start bullshit time-consuming initiatives to justify their positions and the positions of their reports.

Absolutely no one will take this seriously including the person who wrote it but they will be able to put it on their performance review that they removed exclusive language from Stanford web pages.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#372

Post by DiggyJohnson » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:03 AM UTC

russdill wrote: post #336

than3 wrote: post #281

This kind of initiative lacks a core understanding of the requirements for thinking and intelligence in general, and by its nature of compulsion is subversive. In order to think, you must risk being offensive, in order to learn you must risk being offended. In either case, you must have the freedom to do either, and compulsion is evil. By compelling speech like that, you are indoctrinating future generations, and doi…

Quoted post unavailable.

This is an egregious example of assuming the worst about those you disagree with, combined with a failure to recognize nuance.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#373

Post by crystalmeph » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:04 AM UTC

hbrn wrote: post #320

Absolutely disgusting. I can't even imagine how corrupted the minds of those who come up with such lists. Having thick skin is a good thing. Actively showing off your fragility isn't. Treating people charitably is a good thing. Actively looking for gotchas isn't.

At some point, weakness became a virtue.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#374

Post by erichocean » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:05 AM UTC

sleazy_b wrote: post #71

rendall wrote: post #47

I heard a theory that woke is actually a class marker of manners, indicating that someone has the time and privilege to track the constantly shifting, baroque signals of what is and is not acceptable to say during any given season. If someone were to make that case, this could be evidence in favor.

Catherine Liu's short book Virtue Hoarders has this thesis, arguing that the class that this language is a marker of is the professional managerial class (PMC), a social class originally posited by the John and Barbara Ehrenreich in the 70s. I can't recommend the book too highly but I think it was correct in most of its observations.

> a social class originally posited by the John and Barbara Ehrenreich in the 70s

The professional managerial class was also identified and studied quite a bit earlier. James Burnham wrote about it extensively in 1941 in The Managerial Revolution, and that was based (in part) on ideas from Vilfredo Pareto in the early 1900s about "elite theory."

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#375

Post by yunwal » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:05 AM UTC

zzo38computer wrote: post #235

superb-owl wrote: post #63

I'm going to take the minority position here (no pun intended), and say that I think these initiatives are in fact helpful and important. I recently joined an engineering team where there's a cultural norm of not using the word "guys" to address a group. When I first heard this, I kinda rolled my eyes but got on board. It took a tremendous amount of mental effort to weed that word out of my vocabulary, but it's had a…

> I'm going to take the minority position here (no pun intended), and say that I think these initiatives are in fact helpful and important. I partially agree. Some of the suggestions for changes are good in some contexts, but there are also many problems with this list, too. (There are also some things I would suggest to change to be improved even though the existing words are not "racist", but they tend to ignore su…

Initiatives like this can be a signal of change and spur a new culture if they are accompanied by action and done thoughtfully.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#376

Post by CoastalCoder » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:07 AM UTC

FrontierPsych wrote: post #216

I hate it when people use the word "slave." It comes from the people in Eastern European countries, the Slavs, or Slavic people. It was used because other people thought Slavic people were the ideal slaves and Europeans enslaved the Slavs. So because everyone thought Slavs were the best slaves, they just morphed to slave. It is highly offensive to me that people use the word "slave" because this means that they are a…

> It is highly offensive to me that people use the word "slave" because this means that they are automatically saying that I am naturally fit to be a slave and not a human being.

I fail to see how someone unfamiliar with that history could be conveying that meaning.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#377

Post by HideousKojima » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:07 AM UTC

sometimeshuman wrote: post #282

This got dark quick: "basket case" Originally referred to one who has lost all four limbs and therefore needed to be carried around in a basket. I've only heard of basket case from the context of barely ridable motorcycle in a constant state of repair with its random parts in a basket. I wish it was my job to make this sort of document. I'd make up all sorts of crazy backstories for slang no one has ever heard of.

I only know it thanks to the Green Day song of the same name.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#378

Post by PopePompus » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:09 AM UTC

I got yelled at by a female graduate student for using the term "rule of thumb". The Standford page says: "Although no written record exists today, this phrase is attributed to an old British law that allowed men to beat their wives with sticks no wider than their thumb.", which I translate as "this is bullshit, but some people have decided to be offended by it".

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#379

Post by JetAlone » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:12 AM UTC

sverona wrote: post #203

kepler1 wrote: post #8

I mean, if you ever wanted to get on the bandwagon of why we have so many college administrators responsible for raising the cost of college and creating work for themselves by stoking culture wars, just read through the list on that page. ------- "> Instead of: Philippine Islands > Consider using: Philippines or the Republic of the Philippines > Context: The term is politically incorrect and denotes colonialism. Som…

Hi. I'm nonbinary. I do, in fact, honestly and genuinely think that Newspeaking the rest of you into believing that I'm not someone with some kind of horrible mental illness or whatever it is you want to believe these days is a Good Thing. And it's fewer words. So please stop saying "preferred pronouns." I've also heard people say "PGPs," meaning "preferred gender pronouns," which is silly and makes me think you're t…

No post body was provided.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#380

Post by hedora » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:13 AM UTC

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #294

School-Cotton wrote: post #60

“You guys” is the plural form of “you” for most speakers of colloquial American English, and is completely ungendered, in an empirical sense: if you observe native speakers speaking naturally and colloquially, you will find that everyone who uses it (regardless of gender) uses it consistently to address groups of multiple people (regardless of gender). It’s derived from the noun “guy”, which is indeed often gendered.…

Out of all of these, y’all rolls most readily off the tongue.

Yes, but if you use "y'all" it either means that you don't think southerners are idiots, or that you are ironically acting like you don't think they are idiots.

Even the wokest wokes have their limits.