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

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

#901

Post by akomtu » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #710

An excellent illustration of the beginnings of an SJW dystopia. Not just the list itself, but the general feeling of fear they want you to feel while speaking. One can draw a link between any word and a possible harm - something that a few comments have hilariously shown with some examples. So if the goal was protecting anyone from every possible harmful word, the list fails. But this demonstrates real evil that hide…

Here is a movie plot. Priests of the dark temple, the so called "brothers of shadow", worship their deity Ktulhu that feeds off fear. The priests know that fear physically radiates away your energy in a low frequency spectrum, and their demon can collect this energy. The demon rests deep under the ocean in a particular place that acts as a natural parabolic anthenna for the fear waves. Since the dawn of the mankind, the only mission of the priests has been invoking fear in the masses. The movie ends with the rise of the demon, who promptly sucks all the life from anyone who can fear, those priests including, and then starves to death. However, as it turns out, a tiny group of people weren't suspectible to fear, as they didn't hate, so they survive and begin the new golden age, free of hate and fear, at least in the beginning. The final scene in the movie shows the demon, hibernating deep in the ocean.

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

#902

Post by yunwal » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

onetimeusename wrote: post #887

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 bullsh…

I do believe that woke language functions as a cultural signifier that keeps the elite safe and guarantees them success. This particular list is just too egregiously dumb to function correctly. I would be willing to bet that 99% of these replacements simply don't happen outside of Stanford domains, and the ones that do happen won't be due to this list.

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

#903

Post by kirab » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

lostNFound wrote: post #263

lost953 wrote: post #253

committed suicide -> died by suicide: even in death we are removing their agency.

Agreed, I actually found this one the most interesting of the list. What is the reasoning for this one? What is avoided by this change? I was surprised by the fact I actually agreed with much more of the list than I thought I would. Maybe a bit over half. The worst of the list (as in, the one I agree the most and which irks me the most) is OCD. Probably because I have slight OCD but it’s still the extremely specific…

It's interesting to see that you agree the most with the one term you are actually personally afflicted with.

Maybe it's the same for so many other terms when the people are actually affected?

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

#904

Post by 908B64B197 » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #876

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…

> Absolutely no one will take this seriously In Canada, the professional regulators who control whether you're allowed to to call yourself an engineer and whether your company is allowed to do engineering, are also making this kind of thing mandatory. They are considering it a part of workplace safety, akin to preventing oil spills and lethal accidents: an engineer's top priority, lest they lose their license.

Is that a joke?

Then again, the country has taxpayer funded university positions reserved for minority candidates (because apparently that's legal over there?).

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

#905

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #813

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…

There used to be a social market for nice little infographics that could readily illustrate inconvenient truths. I've wondered why we haven't seen the same for college topics. A simple infographic could show the amount of spending on diversity initiatives that could instead have gone to reducing tuition expenses. Between salaries and actual program costs, the number must be embarrassing for universities (not as embar…

It could include the fact that Stanford has 17000 students and 15000 administrative staff.

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

#906

Post by yunwal » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #447

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…

It is quite a risky tactic to confront a bureaucracy with an "absolutely no one will take this seriously" attitude. Particularly stuff like this, they are demarcating an in-group and an out group. The primary reason people come up with this sort of silly list of magic words is to start discriminating against the out-group.

I definitely see your point and believe this happens often. In this particular instance, I believe adherence to this list will end up being a mark of shame even in academic circles. Using some of these terms is so brainless that people can tell who mindlessly follows bullshit like this.

It's not that I'm dismissing the possibility of sinister cultural signifiers. It's just this one attempt to establish them inorganically seems to me like it will obviously fail.

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

#907

Post by PopePompus » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

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…

How 'bout "gold standard", "golden rule", etc. After all, black people were forced to work in gold mines during South Africa's aparthied era. Maybe the name of the element gold needs to be changed too.

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

#908

Post by naravara » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

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…

This list doesn't really seem all that concerned with historical or etymological facts to be honest. Take a look at the entry for brownbag, for example.

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

#909

Post by cwkoss » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

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…

Singular they for when you aren't sure of gender actually seems to simplify language quite a bit in my experience. There are lots of non-non-binary situations that its helpful and you can avoid those awkward "he or she" "his or her" type phrases. Plus, everyone knows how to use they already, never had anyone get confused by it.

"Bob went to the store and they bought some beer" is completely parsable by everyone - nobody is getting confused unless they are trying to be.

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

#910

Post by CapmCrackaWaka » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #710

An excellent illustration of the beginnings of an SJW dystopia. Not just the list itself, but the general feeling of fear they want you to feel while speaking. One can draw a link between any word and a possible harm - something that a few comments have hilariously shown with some examples. So if the goal was protecting anyone from every possible harmful word, the list fails. But this demonstrates real evil that hide…

This list is incredibly stupid. However, I don’t think this “Statement of Solidarity and Commitment to Action, which was published by the Stanford CIO Council (CIOC) and People of Color in Technology (POC-IT) affinity group” (using the words off their own website) is some mastermind plot to eventually subvert freethinking in America.

Instead, I think it’s just a group of busywork, incompetent administrators who have been hired to “come up with ideas”. The number of administrators in academia has absolutely exploded in the past few decades, and this is the kind of dumb stuff they do.