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You may have missed Spanish flu being used a few times in this thread. Please also fight racism against Spanish people. You are doing important work. Gracias!

notacoward 7y ago
"Spanish flu" was coined and popularized literally over a century ago, and it's a bit late to affect what it's called. COVID-19 is still fairly new, and we can use what we've learned in the last hundred years to avoid the mistakes - linguistic and otherwise - of the past.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
  Ebola is from the river it originated. Zika, West Nile, etc. It's not racist to name a virus based on its origin.
  - notacoward 7y ago
    It's not racist, but it's stigmatizing and that facilitates racists. Let's stop doing that.
    - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
      No it's not stigmatizing, it's a location, you are mind reading the entire population. There is precedent (I listed them above) for how viruses are colloquially named based on their location. Let's stop trying to find racial issues where they don't exist.
      - notacoward 7y ago
        > There is precedent Appeal to tradition (i.e. a well known fallacy). Denied. > Let's stop trying to find racial issues where they don't exist. Translation: "Let's turn a blind eye to racism-enabling behaviors where they do exist."
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        CodiePetersen 7y ago
        > Appeal to tradition. Denied. That's rich coming from the guy who just said we can call it Spanish Flu because it's old.
        notacoward 7y ago
        That's an exceptionally non-constructive comment. There's nothing hypocritical or inconsistent about suggesting that we change what we can and not what we can't. We can't change the "Spanish flu" moniker. It's too late, it having been written into textbooks for generations. If we could erase those references, I'd say we should, but we can't. The best we can do is refer to it by a different name - "1918 flu" seems common - when discussing it now. The appeal to tradition here is the idea that we should continue that practice even when we know better and have an opportunity to do better. I reject that. Is "cling to tradition regardless of effect" really the hill you feel you must die on? An odd attitude for anyone in tech, I must say.
  - ajross 7y ago
    Maybe not, but this disease is not named "Wuhan", it's named COVID-19. Insisting that we call a virus by a different name to try to blame a specific region when the rest of the world has decided to call it something else... I dunno, that smells off to me.
    - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr... > Because the strain was first discovered in Wuhan, China, it is sometimes referred to informally as the Wuhan coronavirus I would suggestion you to look at the sources linked after that statement in the Wikipedia article. Colloquial names are not designated, they form naturally by people. The location of the origin of the virus is a natural place to start. Yes they now have an official name for the virus, as they do other famous viruses that don't go by their official name by the general public.
- CodiePetersen 7y ago
  "We've been using it forever so there is no point." Is a really bad argument if you truly believe it is racist. As others have pointed out, naming a virus from it's origin or discoverer is a common practice. I just looked up "Wuhan Virus Racist" to see if it was a trend or not in the media because I was a bit taken back by your comment about it and it being on HN, so I figured there was something more to it. Which it does seem to be a thing being discussed a bit. Regardless though, I don't recall anyone complaining when MERS, NDH-1, and Hanta virus were prevalent and in the news. I can see why the Chinese government wouldn't want it called Wuhan Virus as an attempt to do some PR cleaning especially since the city has been in lock down for like 2 months now and the citizens are understandably getting frustrated with it. As for the racism accusations, my grandma is part Chinese, so there is that. But more importantly, the Chinese government may be able to censor their own people, but I won't be a partner to their attempt to clean up their PR through social censoring as they tried to do with Hong Kong and pressuring companies. It's not racist, doesn't even have anything to do with race, as there were Americans and Europeans who contracted it and brought it back here, and it was the government's fault for covering up the virus and censoring the info coming out in the first place, not the Chinese people, just like it will be the government's fault here in the States if they keep on continuing to mislead the people about numbers and their capacity to handle it. No doubt, there will be racists, so I understand that. Racists will always pick something up to use and be vocally racist about, that's who they are. But as I have said, I won't be party to the censoring efforts because we used a location for a name and they don't like the fact that its a location under their authority and responsibility. If you believed it was racist to use those locations as names for viruses, then the use of Spanish flu, Hanta virus, MERS, West Niles, Lyme, NDH-1, etc would all be just as disturbing regardless of how old the term is or not. Now obviously, you can use whatever term you want, saying "COVID-19" wont dissuade racists from being racist to Chinese individuals and blaming them for it, but it will assist the Communist Party in controlling the narrative and shifting the responsibility. So, like I said, its 100% perfectly okay to call it COVID-19 I see people calling the quarantines "cordon sanataire" instead because they like it better or whatever reason, but there is nothing racist in my comment or otherwise about Wuhan Virus or any of the others mentioned. I'm not going to call you a racist because "its too late and confusing to not use Spanish Flu" don't insinuate I am one because I use the term it was first called in the news and the convention of naming it after the place it was discovered.

notacoward 7y ago

"Spanish flu" was coined and popularized literally over a century ago, and it's a bit late to affect what it's called. COVID-19 is still fairly new, and we can use what we've learned in the last hundred years to avoid the mistakes - linguistic and otherwise - of the past.

s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
Ebola is from the river it originated. Zika, West Nile, etc. It's not racist to name a virus based on its origin.
- notacoward 7y ago
  It's not racist, but it's stigmatizing and that facilitates racists. Let's stop doing that.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
    No it's not stigmatizing, it's a location, you are mind reading the entire population. There is precedent (I listed them above) for how viruses are colloquially named based on their location. Let's stop trying to find racial issues where they don't exist.
    - notacoward 7y ago
      > There is precedent Appeal to tradition (i.e. a well known fallacy). Denied. > Let's stop trying to find racial issues where they don't exist. Translation: "Let's turn a blind eye to racism-enabling behaviors where they do exist."
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - CodiePetersen 7y ago
        > Appeal to tradition. Denied. That's rich coming from the guy who just said we can call it Spanish Flu because it's old.
        notacoward 7y ago
        That's an exceptionally non-constructive comment. There's nothing hypocritical or inconsistent about suggesting that we change what we can and not what we can't. We can't change the "Spanish flu" moniker. It's too late, it having been written into textbooks for generations. If we could erase those references, I'd say we should, but we can't. The best we can do is refer to it by a different name - "1918 flu" seems common - when discussing it now. The appeal to tradition here is the idea that we should continue that practice even when we know better and have an opportunity to do better. I reject that. Is "cling to tradition regardless of effect" really the hill you feel you must die on? An odd attitude for anyone in tech, I must say.
- ajross 7y ago
  Maybe not, but this disease is not named "Wuhan", it's named COVID-19. Insisting that we call a virus by a different name to try to blame a specific region when the rest of the world has decided to call it something else... I dunno, that smells off to me.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr... > Because the strain was first discovered in Wuhan, China, it is sometimes referred to informally as the Wuhan coronavirus I would suggestion you to look at the sources linked after that statement in the Wikipedia article. Colloquial names are not designated, they form naturally by people. The location of the origin of the virus is a natural place to start. Yes they now have an official name for the virus, as they do other famous viruses that don't go by their official name by the general public.
CodiePetersen 7y ago
"We've been using it forever so there is no point." Is a really bad argument if you truly believe it is racist. As others have pointed out, naming a virus from it's origin or discoverer is a common practice. I just looked up "Wuhan Virus Racist" to see if it was a trend or not in the media because I was a bit taken back by your comment about it and it being on HN, so I figured there was something more to it. Which it does seem to be a thing being discussed a bit. Regardless though, I don't recall anyone complaining when MERS, NDH-1, and Hanta virus were prevalent and in the news. I can see why the Chinese government wouldn't want it called Wuhan Virus as an attempt to do some PR cleaning especially since the city has been in lock down for like 2 months now and the citizens are understandably getting frustrated with it. As for the racism accusations, my grandma is part Chinese, so there is that. But more importantly, the Chinese government may be able to censor their own people, but I won't be a partner to their attempt to clean up their PR through social censoring as they tried to do with Hong Kong and pressuring companies. It's not racist, doesn't even have anything to do with race, as there were Americans and Europeans who contracted it and brought it back here, and it was the government's fault for covering up the virus and censoring the info coming out in the first place, not the Chinese people, just like it will be the government's fault here in the States if they keep on continuing to mislead the people about numbers and their capacity to handle it. No doubt, there will be racists, so I understand that. Racists will always pick something up to use and be vocally racist about, that's who they are. But as I have said, I won't be party to the censoring efforts because we used a location for a name and they don't like the fact that its a location under their authority and responsibility. If you believed it was racist to use those locations as names for viruses, then the use of Spanish flu, Hanta virus, MERS, West Niles, Lyme, NDH-1, etc would all be just as disturbing regardless of how old the term is or not. Now obviously, you can use whatever term you want, saying "COVID-19" wont dissuade racists from being racist to Chinese individuals and blaming them for it, but it will assist the Communist Party in controlling the narrative and shifting the responsibility. So, like I said, its 100% perfectly okay to call it COVID-19 I see people calling the quarantines "cordon sanataire" instead because they like it better or whatever reason, but there is nothing racist in my comment or otherwise about Wuhan Virus or any of the others mentioned. I'm not going to call you a racist because "its too late and confusing to not use Spanish Flu" don't insinuate I am one because I use the term it was first called in the news and the convention of naming it after the place it was discovered.