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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

#751

Post by TeMPOraL »

senko wrote: post #721
imgabe wrote: post #555

I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Except academia has taken it even further. You don't even need to pretend that you're the one injured. You can make up an imaginary person and pretend they are injur…

> you can search for infractions and more expeditiously accuse and eject your rivals This is straight out of totalitarian regimes' playbook. It's not only taking social justice too far, I'd say it's a betrayal of the ideal of a just, inclusive and safe society.

> It's not only taking social justice too far, I'd say it's a betrayal of the ideal of a just, inclusive and safe society.

This has been quite obvious for at least a decade now; that's when the term "social justice" started to gain pejorative associations, and it did so for a reason.

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

#752

Post by [deleted] »

photochemsyn wrote: post #349
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It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want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,…

I can think of a few more! "register" - might indicate that someone has to register as a second-class citizen, enemy alien, etc. "bit" - might imply that someone is only a 'bit player', leading to feelings of inferiority. "tool" - an obviously offensive word meaning that someone is only fit to be used by others. "terminal" - we need to be sensitive about words that bring up the concept of death, to avoid triggering e…

[deleted]

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

#753

Post by rpdillon »

antihero wrote: post #628
imgabe wrote: post #555

I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Except academia has taken it even further. You don't even need to pretend that you're the one injured. You can make up an imaginary person and pretend they are injur…

Some of them are deliberate slurs but most of them are just colourful language. This list is 95% absolutely ridiculous and I’m what you’d probably consider a proponent of social justice. It’s deeply funny, but also tragic because while there should be an attempt to make language inclusive, lists like this make the movement look like a joke.

The list is truly absurd.

That aside, it's also wrong in some cases. For example, under "Gender" they have the phrase "balls to the wall", explaining that it's not to be used because "Attributes personality traits to anatomy." That's just incorrect; I haven't been able to find even one source suggesting it's anything other than a term pilots used. Wiktionary reflects this:

> Perhaps coined by pilots whose throttle levers had round, ball-like tops, and for whom putting the "balls to the wall" (the firewall of the aircraft) meant making the aircraft fly as quickly as possible.

On the other hand, I feel like some terms really do originate in mistreatment of folks, and no one seems to care. So we end up banning terms like "blacklist" (which has little or nothing to do with race as far as I can tell) and keep around terms like "grandfathered-in", which really do have roots in oppression:

> Originally referred to a clause added to the constitutions of some Southern US states that exempted people with relatives that had voted before 1867 from strict new voting requirements, in effect disproportionately limiting the ability of African Americans to vote.

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

#754

Post by titzer »

tsimionescu wrote: post #494
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…

You say this, and yet much of the tech industry has taken to removing words like blacklist and whitelist already, even though they have no racial undertones whatsoever. Similarly, the master branch of many projects has been renamed to main, even though it had nothing to do with slavery, and master remains an extremely common term.

I always think of "master branch" in the same way as "master copy", and never associated it with "slave branches" or whatever. Renaming all the branches seems like needless busywork and frankly, people who would be offended by any use of the term "master", including ones like this, will need to understand the context and motivation of the use of a term as part of growing up and participating in a society with lots of other people. If everyone's right to not be offended were taken to a logical extreme, you end up with this minefield where literally no one is free to speak their mind and has to defend against every possible offended take. You can't even use a word that has a specific meaning if it also has some other meaning. It's just blasting holes in language and thinking and conversations.

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

#755

Post by outside1234 »

antegamisou wrote: post #689
outside1234 wrote: post #331

Can we talk about Latinx? This is entirely something that English speakers have made up for Spanish speakers. My wife, who works in healthcare for the state, and largely with farm workers, regales me constantly with stories that essentially have the punchline “Que es Latinx?” in which she has to explain to them that this means them and that it was made up (perhaps at Stanford) out of some crazy attempt to remove -a a…

English speakers from the US that is, btw.

Yes - good point.

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

#756

Post by soheil »

- Brave: none/do not use

Even Orwell couldn't picture the animals as the timid cowards that they truly were.

First they came for freedom of speech, and I did not speak out. Then they came for freedom of thought, and I did not speak out. Then they came for all, and there was nothing left to speak for.

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

#757

Post by wazoox »

andrepd wrote: post #725
imgabe wrote: post #555

I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Except academia has taken it even further. You don't even need to pretend that you're the one injured. You can make up an imaginary person and pretend they are injur…

It's virtue signalling. Talk to actual people from indigenous communities, they're probably more concerned about actual problems affecting communities than whether someone says "bury the hatchet". Talk to a blind activist association, they're more likely concerned about the unwalkability of public spaces than the usage of the phrase "blind review". It's mostly white, mostly affluent people, competing in the political…

Yup, I think it's pretty well-known by now that only white, affluent, powerful people doing virtue signalling use "Latinx" for instance, and that this very word is rejected as meaningless, stupid and/or offensive and condescending by the vast majority of "Latinx" people.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/many-latinos-say-latin...

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

#758

Post by kergonath »

patcon wrote: post #389
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,…

> - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") If you've known someone with mobility issues (e.g., a limp from birth) long enough for them to be honest with you, then the term "lame" (as a slang term meaning "something shitty") that might still be a sore spot. EDIT: you don't have to do anything. But it does mean something to some…

> But it does mean something to some ppl, and some of these ppl do notice it being said or avoided

Yes, but that is very context-dependent. The rule of thumb is “don’t be stupid” and “don’t be a dick” (yes, offensive to eunuchs and people who think this excludes women; in which case replace with “twat”). The words you need to avoid to that effect depend on who you’re talking to and in which circumstances. Blanket bans based on lists of words someone is crusading against are counter-productive.

> And after hearing that from someone you care about

The first time can just be a mistake; people you care about do not have the exact same mindset you have. In that case, a short explanation should suffice, without implying malice. If it is a pattern, then the people you care about don’t care as much about you.

OTOH, it is unreasonable to expect a random stranger on the Internet to be aware of your sensitivities.

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

#759

Post by omginternets »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #733
imgabe wrote: post #555

I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Except academia has taken it even further. You don't even need to pretend that you're the one injured. You can make up an imaginary person and pretend they are injur…

> I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". If you don't feel uncomfortable for any of these words or phrases, then consider yourself fortunate; it does not apply to you. But don't dismiss it because you're not offended for any of the words, just be fortunate it's not a problem you have.

If the mere mention of a non-insult is enough to provoke notable discomfort, that is an issue to be examined in therapy. It is not something to be resolved by the judicial system or some grotesque approximation thereof.

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

#760

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #733
imgabe wrote: post #555

I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Except academia has taken it even further. You don't even need to pretend that you're the one injured. You can make up an imaginary person and pretend they are injur…

> I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". If you don't feel uncomfortable for any of these words or phrases, then consider yourself fortunate; it does not apply to you. But don't dismiss it because you're not offended for any of the words, just be fortunate it's not a problem you have.

They're just words. They are incapable of causing discomfort absent some context in which they are used.
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