Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative • Hacker News Board

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

#761

Post by Dig1t » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:20 PM UTC

M3L0NM4N wrote: post #542

bloppe wrote: post #397

"Moron" was once considered a technical term for mental disability. Then, kids starting using it, and it became offensive. It was replaced by "mental retardation". We all know how that term evolved in kind. Many people now use "disabled" (including this list's suggestions), but that is now often seen replaced by "differently abled". If I were a betting man, I'd say that in 5 years even "differently abled" will be co-…

I remember joking years ago that "disabled" would become a slur, after "retard" became less and less acceptable. I didn't think it would actually happen, but the endless treadmill is being proven again and again. I would also bet that "differently abled" is absolutely considered offensive by the end of this decade.

Neurodivergent is the next one in line I think.

Another poster pointed out that “non verbal, non vocal” is actually a better burn than the one it’s replacing.

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

#762

Post by trident5000 » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #719

imgabe wrote: post #555

I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Except academia has taken it even further. You don't even need to pretend that you're the one injured. You can make up an imaginary person and pretend they are injur…

My issue with the list is that we're increasing the harm associated with the words in the list. If we perpetuate the story that people are harmed, and introduce new harmful associations that most people don't have, then we're broadening the blast radius ( oh sorry sphere of effect ). The stories we tell ourselves matter, and I don't see why everyone has to tell the most pessimistic, helpless story possible when these…

This whole movement is just about control and power over other people - from people who have no control in their life and desperately want it. If they tell you that you cant say a word, and you abide, it gives them power over you and that stokes their ego. Its the same with pronouns. Its just an avenue to bully people and tell them what to do. At first it was somewhat reasonable, and now its just hijacked by selfish people who are making the whole thing crazier every day.

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

#763

Post by 1970-01-01 » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

Stanford has no authority, power, nor license to modify and shape written language. Stanford is free to do whatever it wants to words and so are we. Let's not become slaves to their forced word choices.

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

#764

Post by bjourne » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #555

I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Except academia has taken it even further. You don't even need to pretend that you're the one injured. You can make up an imaginary person and pretend they are injur…

Almost all words on the list are about replacing ill-defined, context-dependent language with more precise terms. This helps everyone. Especially non-American students for whom those contexts are foreign. In an international scientific environment it certainly is preferable to talk about social hierarchies than about rungs on a totempole, for example.

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

#765

Post by ericmay » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

If language can harm you, I don't see how one can't make the case that advertisements (especially billboards and non-consenual/contractual advertisements) aren't also harm and should be eliminated.

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

#766

Post by forgetfulness » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

Oh wow there was "latinx" there. People from Latin America take a lot of umbrage at having this little exonym pushed on us, believe me. It feels like colonialism.

The term "Hispanic" is already very broad to refer to people from a large collection of polities with several cultural spheres in it, but at least the concept of "hispanoamérica" exists in it, and the word isn't a novel take on the Spanish language coming from the US.

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

#767

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #345

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…

The thing more of us need to understand is this has never been about "safety", it's about power and control. Becoming able to control someone's thoughts is very, very powerful and sought after, and what are thoughts composed of? Language. Define the language and you define how people think. Define people of latin origin should be referred to by "latinx" and nothing else and congratulations: An entire collection of cu…

> people who menstruate

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - Orwell

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

#768

Post by CapmCrackaWaka » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:26 PM UTC

ancapsfascists wrote: post #474

kashunstva wrote: post #465

> OCD Maybe they should ask actual OCD sufferers whether the term offends them when used to mean “detail oriented” because if they had asked me, a bona fide obsessive-compulsive patient, I would have responded with “meh.” My OCD has caused me untold misery, wrecked relationships, and made work difficult, but we all have a subtle sense about when people mean us harm or are just using a term as a shortcut. Almost never…

And your experience is reflective of all folks who have OCD? I can absolutely imagine someone being pretty upset by seeing how casually "oh I'm just OCD" gets tossed around. I'm queer, I would never presume to say that another queer person's challenges or trauma were the same as mine.

> I can absolutely imagine

There's the problem, right there. A lot of these affronts are imagined, without actually getting input from people. A perfect example is the use of Latinx, which many Hispanic people have spoken out against, yet keeps getting tossed around because people _imagine_ that the word "hispanic" is offensive.

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

#769

Post by 2devnull » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

Word lists, ai, free speech, Orwell, NLP, newspeak, the great firewall, FBI in every social media, feds riddled throughout our newsrooms, shadowbanning, content moderation, needing karma to post, brigading by special interest groups, Epstein, social credit rating systemS, no fly lists, warrantless search… I don’t like the future.

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

#770

Post by mindslight » Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

CoastalCoder wrote: post #360

mindslight wrote: post #260

See also: The college administration cancer and cost disease in general. I think to myself "man these people must be fun at parties", then I remember one of their main self-appointed goals is to prevent things like parties. It seems they've been successful enough at it to move on to other forms of humans' interaction. Alternatively, let culture exist and evolve. Call shitheads out as shitheads, including shitheads [0…

> Endeavor to punch up. I'm skeptical of the concept of "punching up" in general. It seems to assume a single sorting criterion. As a counter-example, suppose someone high up in an organization is from a historically disenfranchised ethnicity. Is attacking them "punching up" or "punching down"?

There is obviously no single sorting criterion for people. I do agree there is a huge moral hazard where people in privileged positions (eg college administrators) want to fall back on a less-relevant "identity" to deflect legitimate criticism.

Ultimately, it's not about the person, but rather what you're attacking. Are you attacking their position and policies, or are you attacking their ethnicity? The former is punching up, the latter is punching down.

If you're attacking their ethnicity because you don't like their policies, that's essentially still punching down, and makes for a terribly ineffective criticism of their policies.

If you're attacking their policies because you don't like their ethnicity, you could be trying to punch down while cloaking it in an aura of punching up. But your criticism would still need to be evaluated on its own merits regardless. It's likely that your criticism of the policies won't be that great, and people will see right through them.