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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

#881

Post by stephen_g »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #329

> master (v) > become adept in > Historically, masters enslaved people, didn't consider them human and didn't allow them to express free will, so this term should generally be avoided. I assume Stanford now hands out an Adept Degree at the end of grad school.

The master one still makes me mad when the git project was being silly about it. From its page on Etymonline, the noun comes from Latin ‘magister’ (n.) "chief, head, director, teacher", with “master’s degree” (which originally qualified somebody to be able to teach) being attested back to the 14th century. As an adjective it was used as far back as the 12th century, coming into words like “master key”, “master craftsman”, “master recording” etc. and “master branch” makes complete sense in this context, especially when git doesn’t have anything named with anything like ‘slave’ branch or anything similar.

Being familiar with the various meanings of the word, it completely baffled me that anybody would ever try to link “master branch” to slavery. It makes absolutely no sense…

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

#882

Post by jdthedisciple »

TexanFeller wrote: post #646

> Unintentionally perpetuates that disability is somehow abnormal or negative, furthering an ableist culture. I have a physical disability and several mental conditions that are considered disabling and I'm here to tell you they're all both abnormal and negative!

Thank you. Sad how increasingly the obvious must be stated for being disputed.

Also, all the best from my heart in dealing with your conditions.

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

#883

Post by divan »

laserdancepony wrote: post #774
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…

I feel violated by your embracement of thought policing. This is not a "change in culture" or describing people voluntarily changing their views. This is fascism in new clothes - "Kauft nicht bei Juden!". The reason for authoring documents like the discussed is not to better yourself, it's to ostracise those who do not abide. Get them fired from their jobs, burn down their homes and cars, slander them so they may nev…

> burn down their homes and cars, slander them

Do you suggest that people read recommendations from Stanford and start burning your home, because you disagree with those? Stanford really has that level of control over people minds? Impressive if yes.

> This is getting completely out of hand

Whose hand?

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

#884

Post by jdthedisciple »

ldh0011 wrote: post #690

> whitespace > Assigns value connotations based on color (white = good), an act which is subconsciously racialized. lmao what? I am 100% sure I've never met anyone who has a positive or negative opinion of whitespace. Maybe of whether or not it should be syntactically important but most people seem to think it shouldn't be anyways.

Seriously, how deranged must one be to think that?

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

#885

Post by AnimalMuppet »

fleddr wrote: post #861
crackercrews wrote: post #424

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…

Combine your two conclusions and sex (material reality) ceases to exist yet non-binary (an identity, not a sex) is to be respected as if it is a hard biological fact. After all, you don't decide to be non-binary, you just are. Yet this does not apply to sex. It's almost as if reality, facts, logic, consistency don't matter. Which is postmodernism. A power struggle.

You are exactly right to say that this is postmodernism. Postmodernism says that all speech is not about truth, but about power. These people believe that.

And they act the way they think. Their speech is all about power, not about truth. That's why their claims are so absurd and nonsensical - because it's not about the truth of the claims. It's about them asserting power over you.

The only reasonable response, then, is to not accept their assertion of power. No. Just no. (Or "no" with as many profane modifiers as you feel is appropriate.) No, we don't agree. No, you're ridiculous. No, we aren't going to get in a debate with your ridiculousness. And most of all, no, we aren't going to follow your stupid rules. No. Get lost. Go away.

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

#886

Post by jdthedisciple »

_fat_santa wrote: post #93

When it comes to technical writing, many of these replacements just wont work. Take "user" for example which they want you to replace with "client", so "system user" will turn into "system client" which would not work because "clients" are something else entirely in programming. Another one is "man-in-the-middle" which is often used to describe MITM attacks. Sure "person in the middle attack" might de-gender the phra…

Tells you all you need to know about the actual technical background of the person writing this.

My guess is all they have is an arts degree in gender studies.

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

#887

Post by onetimeusename »

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…

What if what you are calling bloat is actually a highly effective revolutionary machine? The way the US is structured, elite schools like Stanford are the gateway to the most powerful positions in the country. Jobs like scientists, judges, lawyers, bureaucrats, federal agents, politicians, and academic staff are gated behind having an elite degree. So I actually see this as being extremely ominous and not just bullshit.

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

#888

Post by jdthedisciple »

circlefavshape wrote: post #844

Oh man. "whitespace" and "empty space" are not synonyms

Exactly, C# literally has two distinct extension methods on the string class named `isNullOrWhitespace()` and `isNullOrEmpty()`.

This garbage was obviously not written by a person with any significant technical background. How else would they come up with equating `user` and `client`?

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

#889

Post by mananaysiempre »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #720
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,…

Surely “American” is the most absurd. Literally no one is offended that people in the United States of America are referred to as American, even if there are 42 other countries in the Americas. The technical fact is it’s correct - anyone in the americas could be called an American correctly. But only one has “America” in the country name. But by including this it sparks a patriotic and nationalist response in most Am…

I wouldn’t be so sure. I (a European) have occasionally used “American” in that sense when speaking English in a group of foreign students in Europe that included one from Latin America, and he somewhat pointedly substituted “from the States” etc. in his replies. He never went as far as correcting me, and I never explicitly asked if that phrasing annoyed him, but it seemed like it did.

Of course, there’s a substantial difference between annoying and offending, but it seems like there are, in fact, reasonable people who object to that usage.

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

#890

Post by crypot »

stableandrom wrote: post #807
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".

Opposable thumbs are what separate my species from others, therefore it's a huge part of my identity. If someone resists there phrase "rule of thumb", they're attacking me personally.

Check your privilege. Not everyone has opposable thumbs.
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