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Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

itcommunity.stanford.edu

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

#421

Post by friend_and_foe »

divan wrote: post #411

I'm actually glad someone puts it into one list. I grew up in a society that used words like "disabled" left and right, as an insult. As a child I never saw ramps for the wheelchairs, and seldom saw people on a wheelchair (only in hospitals). That was part of the culture of ostracising "different people" and making sure "normal" people don't see them. It's still the case for mental issues though, and I have friends w…

These changes don't reflect changes in society. The vast majority of us do not have any involvement in instituting these changes. These are thought up by the deranged and unintelligent and socially enforced by instilling fear of ostracism. The rest of us are simply expected to go along with it and I, for one, refuse to participate. You ninnies can have fun.

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

#422

Post by dmitriid »

thomasahle wrote: post #408
cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

> Indian summer | late summer | This term infers that Indigenous people are chronically late. While it may be innocently used to describe a beautiful time of year, it could have an unintended negative impact on those who hear it. This one was surprising to me. I always assumed Indian summer was about summer in India lasting longer. Apparently it really is about an American phenomenon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I…

In Russian this is called "women's summer"

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

#423

Post by bsimpson »

yunwal wrote: post #371

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…

Oh but they will.

Words like whitelist and blacklist have been banned by woke theater fiat at the bigco I work at, although I have seen no evidence they actually have anything to do with racism. I suspect our banned words list has a lot of overlap with Stanford's.

Rabblerousers like to rabblerouse, and nobody wants to be the voice of reason when the people who decide your paycheck make stupid political decisions.

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

#424

Post by crackercrews »

It is hard to choose which of these is silliest, but my vote goes to the replacement of "he" with [name] or "they", until you know the person's preferred pronouns. [1]

The vast, vast majority of people who present as male wish to be referred to as "he". Many of them would be offended or confused if you used "they" as a term of reference. Many listeners would also be confused if you referred to a person who appears to be a typical male as a "they".

If 99% of men go by "he", why should we use "they" as a term of reference by default? This is the tail wagging the dog, to say the least.

1: the list also says we are not to refer to "preferred pronouns" anymore. They are just "pronouns" now.

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

#425

Post by hayst4ck »

I consider myself deeply liberal. I try to "police my language." I agree with the underlying premise of the article, that language encodes implicit power structures and it is a worthy endeavor to not implicitly "dominate" or denigrate those around you.

When I was younger I used the word retard disparagingly, and someone who was the father of someone who was suffered from a disability was visibly hurt. The world doesn't need that.

I agree with the reasoning behind capitalizing the b in Black but not the w in White when referring to people.

But holy cow, this article is nuts. There is some serious group think going on in these academic groups, and despite a desire to do the right thing, this article is going to have the opposite effect. The fact this was published shows a serious lack of critical review, a lack of academic rigor, and an extreme rejection of pragmatism in the face of idealism which is exactly how liberalism fails.

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

#426

Post by erosenbe0 »

kgwgk wrote: post #69

I don’t think I had seen those before: tarball [use instead: tar archive] While the term refers to an archive that has been created with the tar command, it can be negatively associated with the pejorative term tarbaby. whitespace [use instead: empty space] Assigns value connotations based on color (white = good), an act which is subconsciously racialized. Some of the “solutions” are funny: Hispanic [use instead: Lat…

Latino/Latinx is not a direct substitute for Hispanic. To recommend that as a find/replace is highly irresponsible. People in Spain or from Spain are often or usually considered Hispanic but respectfully do not appropriate Latin-American/Latino identity.

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

#427

Post by bsimpson »

Dalewyn wrote: post #345
testfoobar wrote: post #258

They apparently spider and scan their own websites for "harmful" language: I just find this wild. How and when did language itself become so dangerous to this degree? Along with most adults in my social circle, I care and think about my health, my family, my friends, my work, my dog, my environment, my community, etc. I could not give a flying fuck about language policing. Language isn't going to protect me on my bik…

The thing more of us need to understand is this has never been about "safety", it's about power and control. Becoming able to control someone's thoughts is very, very powerful and sought after, and what are thoughts composed of? Language. Define the language and you define how people think. Define people of latin origin should be referred to by "latinx" and nothing else and congratulations: An entire collection of cu…

> all this “believe experts” dogma is legit indistinguishable from the rhetoric of evangelical christians. ffs please just go to church and leave science to the skeptical assholes.

- https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1381237434512502784

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

#429

Post by bsimpson »

bloppe wrote: post #397

"Moron" was once considered a technical term for mental disability. Then, kids starting using it, and it became offensive. It was replaced by "mental retardation". We all know how that term evolved in kind. Many people now use "disabled" (including this list's suggestions), but that is now often seen replaced by "differently abled". If I were a betting man, I'd say that in 5 years even "differently abled" will be co-…

A euphemism treadmill, in fact

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill

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

#430

Post by cipheredStones »

basch wrote: post #412
cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

User is a prime example of one I appreciate being on this list. Lists like this do a good job of making people think, and causing discussion. Some of that discussion might be posts like yours. So to discuss user. User is quite often used in a slightly pejorative way, by power user, sys admin, programmer, support crowds. You can almost always replace it with the word person or someone. I take it more as a challenge, w…

Well, first, their explanation for why "user" might be problematic has nothing to do with that pejorative use. It's

> While often associated with one who uses (software, systems, services), it can also negatively be associated with those who suffer from substance abuse issues or those who exploit others for their own gain.

which seems to bizarrely ignore the fact that common words have many different meanings that are distinguished by context.

Second, I would actually argue that the techie pejorative usage of "user" is a good example of the shortcomings of this "words to watch out for" approach. "User" has an extremely common neutral meaning, and also some people who design or operate systems use it contemptuously - without even really changing what it means, just with the implication that most users aren't very smart! The problem there is not with the word at all, it's the attitude with which it's used.

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