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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

#511

Post by coffeeblack »

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…

Correct.

And these people will not only be the leaders of tomorrow but also the ones that control worldwide communications from their offices in Silicon Valley. They will shape the entire world.

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

#513

Post by wtcactus »

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…

I agree with part of what you are saying on the subject of bloat, but looking at what has happened in the recent past, I think it's naive to believe this is not going to be implemented.

It will, like banning "master" repositories, and other examples have already happened.

Quoting Orwell in all irony: "It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

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

#515

Post by cma »

Spivak wrote: post #158
daveslash wrote: post #108

Many of these look like good guidelines for someone, especially one in a position of public communications, to use as guidelines . Or for some sort of social worker, I can see these being some reasonable guidelines to consider. But I would recoil at the idea of these being hard and fast rules considered for everyday speech. And the idea that casual, every day speech must be as equitable as possible doesn't sit right…

Yeah, this thread is nuts to me how many people in this thread are mad. Sure, some of the words are a bit of a stretch but while going through the most I was nodding along being like, “yeah, makes sense.” Like nobody is gonna string you up not following the guidelines but in my own writing I follow these pretty much naturally because, yeah, it’s kinda weird that we describe things with limited or reduced functionalit…

"Nuts"?

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

#517

Post by coffeeblack »

Sniffnoy wrote: post #400
PopePompus wrote: post #378

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".

To be clear, this supposed etymology is absolutely false. Wikipedia has an entire page about this myth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb

Sadly, it’s about feelings, not facts. That’s how indoctrination works.

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

#518

Post by azangru »

jrmg wrote: post #394
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,…

It’s very obviously not intended to imply that all the terms are equally offensive or inaccurate. Why _wouldn’t_ I want to avoid using any but your last category?

> Why _wouldn’t_ I want to avoid using any but your last category?

Thing is, _you_ are free to avoid anything you want for whatever reason you want. It is when someone else (e.g. myself) who doesn't want to have his language policed is faced with a prospect of being told to change his language, that he may become upset. After all, if you recognise that language is part of a person's identity, and that identity is important (as those who champion such linguistic changes almost invariably tend to claim), it is really inconsistent then to be demanding that people change the way they talk.

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

#520

Post by veltas »

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,…

It's my opinion that the best policy is no policy. If you make rules people will break them. And when the rules are so strict it means nobody bothers. If the rules aren't strict some will push it as far as they can. Everything has context. But in general I think people are far too easily offended today, and considering offense a valid issue to fight on has turned out to be a real rabbit hole. Unfortunately, there's no way an institution is going to push back; instead we get this cowardly policy that always caters to the most neurotic minority of social policers (and is probably partly written by said policers). This is policy by mob, and lowest common denominator decision making.

This is the reason why individuals should defend others, even if they disagree with them or think what they said was unnecessary or even malicious. Because there isn't enough time in the day to worry about language this much, and because it's Orwellian... without the literal thought police.

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