Banning words won’t make the world more just • Hacker News Board

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#451

Post by wonderwonder » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:50 AM UTC

lynx23 wrote: post #363

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the community started to fumble around with "visually challenged", and all the nonsense variations of that in m…

I see it as unintentional discrimination. It's treating the people they are relabeling as children that need the kind progressives to step in and save them. It's so condescending. Minorities don't need white Knights to save them, neither do the disabled. If an individual wants me to not refer to them as x because they find it offensive, no problem. But a group of academics should not be able to sit around and decide that a group as a whole needs saving. It very much forces otherness on people and to your point furthers the divide. it forces us to see them as different.

Side note, and this is completely off topic and I really mean this in the most positive way but you typing here has completely altered my perception of the need for following web standards for accessibility. I don't know any blind people in real life so really just assumed that accessibility standards really weren't worth the effort as they wouldn't make a difference. But here you are reading and responding in a manner that's probably better than I do. I am 100% on board now. You opened my mind today, thanks for that.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#452

Post by DubiousPusher » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:51 AM UTC

ShredKazoo wrote: post #386

DubiousPusher wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would ask you to consider where the mass of everyday people get their information. Consider the edifices from which actual powers spring. Now read that list again and see if it seems important.

Fair point, but on the other hand, if language policing leads the American Medical Association to make decisions which decrease the quality of medical care, I'm not enthusiastic about that. The relative importance of the opinions of everyday people vs these associations is not obvious. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35006303 Re: "the edifices from which actual powers spring" -- if you want a high-paying job as…

I think the thing much more likely to shorten people's lives than their doctor not being able to speak frankly because of woke vocabulary, is not having a house. I'm not even talking about the homeless here. The Atlantic should be running an article every day extolling the virtues of home building and questioning the morals of a country which fails to shelter even working people. Rather than pouring over the editorial policy of wonkish publications, they should be lambasting every state legislature that so far has done nothing to ensure there are enough houses.

I think that far worse for democracy than woke grammarians ratioing you on Twitter, is the rise of a surveillance state which previously couldn't exist but is now totally enabled because of AI automation. Obama firmly planted mass surveillance into and "acceptable" "legal" framework. We have learned little of what this apparatus can do operationally since the Snowden leaks which were before the deep learning stuff really exploded. The Atlantic should be questioning every day the moral fiber of a supposedly open and democratic society which has a shadow supreme court and an entire secret apparatus.

What I'm willing to bet has a far greater impact on people's ability to control their employment future and therefore their own autonomy far more than the possibility of getting fired for accidentally saying "gimp" during the next inclusivity training? The breakdown of organized labor and growing inequality. The Atlantic should be railing every day about the fact that sub-living wages and make workers desperately dependant upon their employer and less able to exercise their democratic rights.

But if you write for the Atlantic, you have friends in CIA. Your kids go to daycare with the kids of several corporate VPs. You don't know anyone that cleans rooms 10 hours a day and lives in a Super 8 for lack of permanent affordable housing. Writing about those things is actually controversial. It's actually risky. So instead, you turn inward.

This country's elite media appear to me to have totally lost any grip on reality. There is some fantastical disconnect from what actually impacts people. Instead they only see and obsess about what impacts them. They have gazed so far into their own naval that they are instead playing this Alternate Reality Game, chasing phantoms and navigating mind mazes.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#453

Post by ruszki » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:52 AM UTC

The case of swearing discredits this whole article. It’s banned from places, and it’s still used widely. There are people who don’t like it, there are people who use them constantly. Just like the topic of this article.

Another thing is that this topic is a discussion in law in the past 100 years in different forms. Just because the public didn’t care until now it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t discussion. There were a lot.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#454

Post by vixen99 » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:53 AM UTC

rendall wrote: post #306

crazygringo wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there a time when adults referred to each other by Mr. and Mrs. in regular spoken conversation? Like if you were asking a work colleague where another colleague was, it was normal to say "Where is Mr. Smith?" rather than "Where is Mark?" Since in my lifetime I've only known calling everyone by their first name (except, like you say, teachers in childhood), I'm curious when the change occurred and how.

There are older Americans who insist that calling a stranger by their first name is rude. That was never my culture so I was taken aback to hear this.

For some the use of the first name assumes a familiarity which probably does not exist. The universal rule is that appropriate levels of interaction are both accepted and used in common parlance by everyone. Thus it's rare for a speaker at a press conference to be addressed by their first name though the speaker might well respond using a first name if they know the journalist. 'Anthony, how did your chat with Sergey (Lavrov) go?' is not something we're likely to hear. Of course it's down to preferences with ordinary conversations as in 'please call me Joe' or whatever.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#455

Post by herewulf » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:53 AM UTC

> battle and minefield disrespect veterans

Came here to say that as a veteran, I promise you that we're not too stupid to differentiate figurative use of these words from the literal.

The US Army uses the word "battle" so flippantly that it barely has any meaning: battle rhythm, Battle Staff, battle desk, Battle NCO, Battle Captain, Battle Command Systems, battle rattle, and on and on.

Seriously, fuck off.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be crawling across the earth, meticulously probing a buried-explosive-practicum with a plastic stick.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#456

Post by ookblah » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:54 AM UTC

recuter wrote: post #442

ookblah wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it all starts from a good place. Would you rather people just using words "carelessly" without regard to how you might feel? It's questioning the assumption that the word used is fine throughout history. I don't think there is anything nefarious about it, just that "people" always co-opt the motives in the end and make it muddled for their own benefit. Overthinking it I guess. I know it when I see it, but it'…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with... > It's questioning the assumption that the word used is fine throughout history. Bullshit. It forbids questioning of the questioning. That is all it is really about. > "people" always co-opt the motives in the end and make it muddled for their own benefit At least you can concede that point. Which is an enormously important point and more than enough of…

I'm not arguing what is currently happening or the end result, just that from even my own personal perspective I usually want to ask "is this word okay to use around you?" instead of just assuming it as such or automatically making someone else responsible for their feelings around my words. You might ultimately be right, but go down that road enough and these people are usually called "assholes" lol. That phrase isn't an indictment of good intentions, just a warning to be aware.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#457

Post by vasco » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:58 AM UTC

mnsc wrote: post #436

jjav wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short Always reminds me of the George Carlin bit on language euphemisms used to distance us from reality ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc ).

Funny you could argue that "disabled" is language that distances us from reality. Since describing someone not present as just "disabled" doesn't tell you anything whether that person in reality is able to do one specific thing, eg tedious react frontend development in a large organization. "differently abled" doesn't tell you anything more but clearly signals that "more information is needed".

It does tell us many things, you're being obtuse on purpose. If someone is disabled you know they generally suffer from some health issue which is serious enough and probably chronic, to afford them that status by the state.

Among this umbrella you have many common things like, they can probably park closer to doors, if they are disabled. I'm not sure why people just pretend things are not how they are when discussing these subjects. Of course we have more information than less.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#458

Post by prawn » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:59 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #283

rayiner wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love reading this stuff to figure out what new words elite white people have for me. Apparently I’m not a “minority” or a “naturalized citizen” anymore, and my kids aren’t “second generation Americans.”

I'm involved in local politics in Oak Park, IL, also known as the People's Republic of Oak Park, 85.5% Clinton in '16, 72% college educated, median income about $15k higher than Evanston, and I have never heard any of these words in the elite white conversations I am continually dragged into. These guides get published to give The Groups something to do. Very few people in the real world --- yes, even the elite white…

I know you were responding to the "elite white people" bit, but is there an age element at play with this? If there are people that have absorbed the idea that you unquestioningly adjust your speaking/writing to be a perfectly respectful person, I'd guess they were 20-30yo?

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#459

Post by fidgewidge » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:59 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #319

low_tech_love wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an academic issue, ”a solution in search of a problem” as almost all the rest of academia is. As such, it never stops at a reasonable, meaningful equilibrium; it has to be kept pacing, moving forward towards more and more ridiculous extremes. An academic, in order to stay relevant, needs to keep pushing the invisible and mostly inexistent boundaries that they perceive in whatever field they are involved in. I…

It’s important to remember, however annoying they are, their side is losing. Look at Dave Chappelle, who was the attempted target of cancellation and Netflix and people buying tickets to his shows completely ignored it. Or JK Rowling, who has been cancelled over and over again, but the latest video game based on her IP is incredibly popular. Twitter doesn’t reflect the real world.

The fact that you can only name a handful of people who survived full frontal attacks (for now) indicates that this is more than merely annoying. The ranks of the cancelled far outnumber them and we should recognize the disturbing historical parallels too. This type of language editing was a key plot point in 1984 because it is the habit of extremely dangerous far left regimes. I feel like the west is in danger of experiencing a communist revolution at some point.

Now a lot of readers will feel like that's absurd, extreme, maybe even trolling. But it was only a handful of years ago that I was posting here warning people that they should refuse to rename git master branches to main because accepting this for short term convenience or out of ideological sympathy would lead to an endless spiral of power games, used to purge anyone not on the far left. And here we are, not so long after, with lists of banned words so long nobody even bothers enumerating them all, any one of which can be used to build a case for getting rid of you.

There's a clear pattern here in which people are repeatedly not taking wokeness seriously enough. This isn't a game and they spend every waking hour taking over every institution. A communist revolution doesn't require capturing the seat of government permanently, if you can capture every institution that surrounds it and essentially eliminate all ability for a non revolutionary government to operate.

The fix is simple enough though: do a DHH and get rid of all woke people in your organisation. It's quite easy as given a hostile environment they tend to leave en masse and they weren't doing much work for the organisation anyway. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#460

Post by recuter » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 7:59 AM UTC

ookblah wrote: post #456

recuter wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with... > It's questioning the assumption that the word used is fine throughout history. Bullshit. It forbids questioning of the questioning. That is all it is really about. > "people" always co-opt the motives in the end and make it muddled for their own benefit At least you can concede that point. Which is an enormously important point and more than enough of…

I'm not arguing what is currently happening or the end result, just that from even my own personal perspective I usually want to ask "is this word okay to use around you?" instead of just assuming it as such or automatically making someone else responsible for their feelings around my words. You might ultimately be right, but go down that road enough and these people are usually called "assholes" lol. That phrase isn…

> or automatically making someone else responsible for their feelings around my words

If people are not responsible for their own feelings and the onus is on you, you are at their mercy. Some percentage of them are going to abuse you as a result.

Where is the win? All you are enabling is psychos and mentally/emotionally unstable people.