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Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

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131–140 of 201 posts

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#131

“Female” is taboo, but “male” is not. Um… yikes. Molly White posted something yesterday: “you have a lot more in common with the ‘other people’ than you have with the people in power.” https://fosstodon.org/@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io/1139421522542...

Molly White is a good egg

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#132

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That hashtags-of-interests thing is a standardish Mastodon style. Used to be somewhat common on Twitter about a decade ago iirc. Mastodon’s original core user base is largely people who left Twitter in 2016, so it preserves a few fossilised old-Twitter things.

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Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#133
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Their reading comprehension is just fine. The whole point of directives like this is the arbitrary nature by which they can be enforced. When everything can be flagged for review by a political commissar... In the last century, neither fascists or stalinists had any issue with banning 'Jewish' science, despite it having absolutely nothing to do with race. Because their goal was getting rid of the enemies of the admin…

[flagged]

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone it sets is that "we don't care about studying anything relating to minorities or people who weren't born with a silver spoon" which I wouldn't call a positive tone.

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"wokesters" ah, that must be the IT standards organization that banned the use of the words "master" and "slave."

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#136
post #71

I remember how "master" and "slave" were banned a few years back in information technology context and people cheered that ban. And surprise surprise, the same mechanism of arbitrary bans can be turned 180 degrees. And it appears that if the only criteria is a superficial offense at the established word unrelated to the imaginary offense, then many different people can use that same mechanism to ban or attack whateve…

That ban is imaginary. It never existed. Many people decided to use other terms at their free will and others didn't. Both terms can be still found in plenty of projects.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#137
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their reading comprehension is just fine. The whole point of directives like this is the arbitrary nature by which they can be enforced. When everything can be flagged for review by a political commissar... In the last century, neither fascists or stalinists had any issue with banning 'Jewish' science, despite it having absolutely nothing to do with race. Because their goal was getting rid of the enemies of the admin…

[flagged]

This is the stupidest thing I have ever read on Hacker News.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#138
post #71

I remember how "master" and "slave" were banned a few years back in information technology context and people cheered that ban. And surprise surprise, the same mechanism of arbitrary bans can be turned 180 degrees. And it appears that if the only criteria is a superficial offense at the established word unrelated to the imaginary offense, then many different people can use that same mechanism to ban or attack whateve…

Can you point me when Biden or Obama issued a word ban around the words master and slave in an IT context? Thank you.

This was DC city government not Obama and Biden.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#139
post #71

I remember how "master" and "slave" were banned a few years back in information technology context and people cheered that ban. And surprise surprise, the same mechanism of arbitrary bans can be turned 180 degrees. And it appears that if the only criteria is a superficial offense at the established word unrelated to the imaginary offense, then many different people can use that same mechanism to ban or attack whateve…

Absolutely correct.

We’re still not allowed to use “whitelist” and “blacklist” because it’s somehow racism.

We have linters which bar us from checking in code with these words and a bot which scolds us publicly in chats.

Now the same people who applauded that policing of speech suddenly are offended when their explicit political speech is being removed.

It’s just simply hypocrisy.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#140
post #71

I remember how "master" and "slave" were banned a few years back in information technology context and people cheered that ban. And surprise surprise, the same mechanism of arbitrary bans can be turned 180 degrees. And it appears that if the only criteria is a superficial offense at the established word unrelated to the imaginary offense, then many different people can use that same mechanism to ban or attack whateve…

There was never a ban like this on the master-slave terminology. A lot of places started moving away from those terms, but plenty of others just kept the old naming. There was no top-down directive from the federal government like there is here - I don't think it's fair to compare them as if they are equivalent situations. This is heavy-handed in a way that makes peer pressure look completely benign in comparison.

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