Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

itcommunity.stanford.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 1001 posts

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

#441

Post by [deleted] »

hbrn wrote: post #396
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It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want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,…

Basically anything that can make anybody[1] offended. If a term doesn't seem offensive right away, see if you can make it offensive through mental gymnastics. [1] This, of course, excludes people like me, who are offended by the very existence of such lists.

[deleted]

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

#442

Post by cm2187 »

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…

You seem to assume that this is applied against the will of the academic staff. It seems to me that most of the professors are fully on board with this program.

In the end it will be all self correcting. Those woke universities reputation is melting like ice cream in the sun. I remember Brian Armstrong mentioning in an interview that he starts to see companies adding basic skill tests in their recrutment as they don't really trust those universities selection process anymore. I certainly lost any respect for those universities, and I graduated from one of those.

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

#444

Post by pjio »

Macha wrote: post #431
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…

This one seems fair to be honest, it's not just about those with non standard pronouns, but also women.

there is the same recommendation for "she".

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

#445

Post by onetimeusename »

testfoobar wrote: post #258

They apparently spider and scan their own websites for "harmful" language: I just find this wild. How and when did language itself become so dangerous to this degree? Along with most adults in my social circle, I care and think about my health, my family, my friends, my work, my dog, my environment, my community, etc. I could not give a flying fuck about language policing. Language isn't going to protect me on my bik…

> How do we close this Pandora's box?

I don't see an end to this, I think it's getting worse. It looks like a revolution picking up speed. The places that stopped revolutions did it with very heavy measures. If there is a way to stop this that is not that, I don't know what it is.

I don't think this guide is meant to prevent harm. It almost seems like this kind of language policing is like a shibboleth to identify the in from the out group. It forces you to join the in group or suffer the immediate consequences of being in the out group. So like instant career suicide if you disobey the rules. If you don't comply, you are now in the same camp as the most evil people on the planet. No one wants that association so they comply. It's extremely effective. So I don't see it going away.

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

#446

Post by hedora »

plandis wrote: post #297

> American How exactly is this confusing? What other country uses American as a demonym?

Spanish has separate words for "North American", "United States citizen", and "from North, Central or South America". The latter is "Americano" and hardly ever used to describe people. ("Eurasian" is similarly useless in English)

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

#447

Post by roenxi »

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.

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

#448

Post by crackercrews »

4AoZqrH2fsk5UB wrote: post #229

Looking at it from a different angle, I don’t like the more wordy suggestions. > convict…person who is/was incarcerated > senile…person suffering from senility Before I hit send I try to make my writing clear, concise, and full of meaning. I do it in the hope that the folks on the other end read and understand me. Swapping one term for a slightly longer one won’t be a breaking point, but sentences like: > I went to v…

The verbose alternative also draws more attention to the condition being described. Since most of these are negative conditions, you could argue that you're emphasizing the negative by dedicating so many words to it.

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

#450

Post by chrisandchris »

basch wrote: post #412
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,…

User is a prime example of one I appreciate being on this list. Lists like this do a good job of making people think, and causing discussion. Some of that discussion might be posts like yours. So to discuss user. User is quite often used in a slightly pejorative way, by power user, sys admin, programmer, support crowds. You can almost always replace it with the word person or someone. I take it more as a challenge, w…

By your logic, no computer can be a user of your service. Then you'll use consumer, but the user also consumes...
Post reply on HN