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Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

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Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#171

Post by wizzwizz4 »

Yizahi wrote: post #75
whatshisface wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since what we're looking for is a peace that eliminates collateral damage, perhaps the best course would be to reassure both sides that they can have security without having control.

In my opinion government focus should be on the education of young people, and not on trying to force and bend adults to behave in the narrow "correct" way. Again, with some exceptions. If we want more female representation in STEM - focus on education. If we want people not to use some slur or derogatory term - teach people in the school. And so on. The problem is that across the world education is a third tier acti…

> If we want more female representation in STEM - focus on education.

You also have to introduce rules for hiring – unless you want your interventions to have an 80-year delay on them. (Or we could make unqualified 18-year-olds responsible for hiring decisions, I suppose.) If you're training children up for careers they're going to be kept out of, you're doing everyone a disservice.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#172

Post by burkaman »

belorn wrote: post #161
philipov wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of people like to focus very exclusive on the aspect if its top-down, with the implied message being that censorship is acceptable as long its done by companies or community leaders rather than government. Yes, it is worse when it is done by governments. But no, it doesn't make censorship acceptable. So much debate happens because some people view all censorship as bad, that is rules intended to inhibit speech…

Voluntarily choosing not to say something is preference, not self-censorship. For example, some people choose not to swear because they don't like swears. That is just a preference, self-censorship is when you want to swear but don't because of external pressure.

Nobody was forced to stop using master/slave, some companies just chose not to because that was their preference. They didn't want to use the word slave anymore. It's reasonable to call it pointless or performative, but I don't think any of the decision-makers at these companies were forced into it. Most companies did not change anything, and they faced absolutely no consequences.

I'm sure there were some (for example) GitHub employees who didn't agree with the decision and maybe felt censored, but basically every company on the planet has standards for language in the workplace, so in that sense every company is guilty of censorship. GitHub did not force any of its users to do anything, you could still use whatever language you want, and you can search "slave" right now to see how common it still is.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#173

Post by JeremyNT »

Yizahi wrote: 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…

Nothing was banned, culture changed.

This happens as you age. The world and customs you grew up with, despite how they may feel too you, are not the natural state of the world.

Accept that new customs may replace them.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#175

Post by belorn »

philipov wrote: post #163
belorn wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people like to focus very exclusive on the aspect if its top-down, with the implied message being that censorship is acceptable as long its done by companies or community leaders rather than government. Yes, it is worse when it is done by governments. But no, it doesn't make censorship acceptable. So much debate happens because some people view all censorship as bad, that is rules intended to inhibit speech…

Then you agree that what's going on now is wrong, and there's no need to bring up lesser wrongs to distract us from that.

> Then you agree that what's going on now is wrong

Obviously yes. Censorship is not something we can pick and choose from.

> and there's no need to bring up lesser wrongs to distract us from that.

There would not be a need for that if people agreed that censorship is wrong. As long people see some censorship as good, rather than a lesser wrongs, the trend of ever more censorship will just continue and this kind of events will continue to occur and at larger scope. Censorship is a kind of political violence that once accepted only expands until the social rules totally breaks apart. It can't exit as just a rule for the government, it must be something that people inherently support as a concept.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#176

Post by Dig1t »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #155
Dig1t wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Way to 'what about' speech policing. Yay to normalizing less freedoms because 'someone else did something too'.

I’m not trying to what about anything, I’m actually a fairly extreme free speech absolutist.

I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy, the people complaining the loudest are the same people who exuberantly censor people they disagree with.

These type of people have lost moral authority.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#177

Post by yibg »

Dig1t wrote: post #139
Yizahi wrote: 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.

That's ridiculous. I use whitelist and blacklist just fine and have for the last decade plus. No one in the government told me it wasn't allowed.

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#178

Post by aaron695 »

elashri wrote: post #14

In particle physics we usually use these terms which will be at any proposal. This is an interesting textbook definition of false positives when you have list that is using too common words. - Minimum "Biased" data - "Discrimination" or "Discriminatory" variables - Phase space "excluded" - "Inclusion" of data/variable/anything - "inequality" -> wow bell's inequality and all this theory work about inequalities will be…

[dead]

Re: Words flagged in search of current NSF awards

#179

Post by [deleted] »

philipov wrote: post #159
Yizahi wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same issue as with some other terms in 21st century. For example monopoly by the 19th century definition would be almost impossible today, because "look, that company has a whopping 0.1% of the market, hence we with 99.9% are not a monopoly". So yeah, it wasn't banned everywhere, but that reached momentum wide enough for me to consider it essentially a ban. And as a I said below, even if call it not a ban but idk…

It's different because it's the federal government. You can't compare it to a bunch of companies deciding to do the same thing because of popular opinion. While both processes have their own mechanism for driving conformity, one is essentially democratic, while the other is strongly autocratic.

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