291–300 of 429 posts
I'm in the UK and have recently started hearing the euphemism "passed" instead of "died". I find it confusing, at least for a moment, as I track back in the conversation to identify a thing the person could have passed by. Then I realise, and start pondering how there is an implication added by the euphemism , that there is an afterlife someone has passed into.
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Something I was rather ignorant to for the longest time was how fascism can exist at both ends of the spectrum. My last day on Mastodon was the day a few people ganged up on me quite aggressively for not putting Alt text in an image. Tolerance isn’t acceptance. It’s letting things you don’t like exist without making a big fuss over it. You can dislike certain speech patterns without having to go on a crusade against…
It turns out you can put whatever text you want in the alt text field and it won't get clocked by the scolds because they don't actually care enough to check. It's enough that it appears compliant in a surface-level audit. However, there is an issue suggesting adding an automated scold in the Mastodon client (and Megalodon already has such a scold, plus a (!) of shame on images without alt text) https://github.com/ma…
Another one is "adulting" which is literally just taking responsibility for one's own life/actions post-adolescence.
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> a coordinated agenda ... of making me have empathy with sentient beings suffering? Joke's on them, I already had that.
Or selling you products Impossible burgers Tofu. It's like a coordinated agenda to stigmatize the internal combustion engine and promote renewable energy sources like solar and wind. You might just be in the prime demographics for both but a majority of the population isn't.
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Thanks this is pretty interesting! Re: “car crash”, crash is the correct “real language”. The use of “accident” implies a lack of responsibility and that car crashes cannot be prevented or reduced. That isn’t true. Many studies show that crashes can be reduced via better engineering, road design, etc. Calling it an accident definitely seems like softening the language. https://dmv.vermont.gov/enforcement-and-safety/l…
They’re called some variant of “accident” in many languages. It’s the English speakers that use “crash” that are the unusual ones.
Here in NZ car accident is much more natural to say than car crash.
Although even that has subtleties.
"I got in to a car accident" would be the normal turn of phrase, but if remove the "car" and the "I" then crash becomes more likely: "There was a crash on State Highway 1".
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They’re called some variant of “accident” in many languages. It’s the English speakers that use “crash” that are the unusual ones.
English speakers? Or American English speakers? Here in NZ car accident is much more natural to say than car crash. Although even that has subtleties. "I got in to a car accident" would be the normal turn of phrase, but if remove the "car" and the "I" then crash becomes more likely: "There was a crash on State Highway 1".
Just went on a rant about "impostor syndrome" the other day and how it's just cope-language for people who know deep down that they don't actually provide any value (and aren't terribly interested in learning how to do that). Another one is "adulting" which is literally just taking responsibility for one's own life/actions post-adolescence.
Yes, we have a responsibility to do those things. But there's no harm IMO in acknowledging that they feel like drudgery and bullshit a lot of the time.
Just for fun, from the first example: * Toilet paper -> bathroom tissue --- sure, a softening of the language. * Sneakers -> running shoes --- not a softening; sneakers aren't the same as running shoes, and "sneaker" was a regionalism (it's "gym shoe" where I grew up). * False teeth -> dental appliance --- a softening, though a welcome one in this case. * Medicine -> medication --- a softening (a nominalization of a…
And then "tiny home"
Just went on a rant about "impostor syndrome" the other day and how it's just cope-language for people who know deep down that they don't actually provide any value (and aren't terribly interested in learning how to do that). Another one is "adulting" which is literally just taking responsibility for one's own life/actions post-adolescence.
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A great recent example is everyone changing whitelist/blacklist to allowlist/blocklist because Americans are so fucking obsessed with race politics that they see it absolutely everywhere
It’s that Americans are more concerned with cultural brawling. Race politics, like all identity politics, are simply a proxy for it. The pastime is finding people who don’t agree with your orthodoxy and ganging up on them. It can be race, ability, political affiliation, whatever. America is a country that demands conformance. pg touches on this in his famous What You Can’t Say essay. http://www.paulgraham.com/say.htm…
Ensuring that people think that some "other" body of people are against them (right, left, woke, trumpists etc) is a strong tactic to keep people putting there energy into fighting each other and not making a big deal about the people in control of things like the media or government- which we're all too tired to fight and sort of quietly accept.
It sounds like a conspiracy theory, except it's basically well known and nobody really cares it seems, we're too easily baited. (including myself here).
I saw it really obviously recently when the overtone window shifted in the UK and the majority of people became pretty poor pretty quickly; and how the media started going crazy trying to stoke a culture war where people were simply too poor and too tired to put blame anywhere else than the ruling political party.
Which lead to the ruling political party trying to stoke the culture war and a milquetoast response from the audience. Here's the reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQsGRwNzs-o