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This might come as a shock to you, but a large majority dislike political correctness no matter what group they belong to. They just go through the motions beca

This might come as a shock to you, but a large majority dislike political correctness no matter what group they belong to. They just go through the motions because they are attacked if they don't. > While 83 percent of respondents who make less than $50,000 dislike political correctness, just 70 percent of those who make more than $100,000 are skeptical about it. And while 87 percent who have never attended college think that political correctness has grown to be a problem, only 66 percent of those with a postgraduate degree share that sentiment. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majo...

chillwaves 6y ago
Can you explain to me what constitutes "political correctness"? From where I stand, it just means treating people equally and not being an asshole. ETA: In considering all the worries of modern living, I have never once been concerned with using the wrong words for a group of people. Am I really the exception? It seems easy to call people by the terms they prefer. Not sure about which terms to use? Then I just ask. I am struggling to see the burden of being "PC".
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  The poll didn't define it, so not all respondents necessarily understood it the same way, but in my experience it's generally used to refer to speech codes requiring people to take great care in how they speak and write to avoid accidentally giving offense. The recent controversy about the USC professor who said 那个 in class, for example, would be a typical example.
  - chillwaves 6y ago
    I have no idea what your example means. As far as speech codes, they seem very mild. I would not even call it an inconvenience. Are people mad that certain phrases are now considered slurs and not welcome in polite society? Ex. it is no longer appropriate to call someone a "retard," even in jest. Is this a problem? I'm still not understanding the meat of the objection to "PC".
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      When people say they're concerned about political correctness, they're generally disputing your assessment that modern speech codes are very mild. Many people feel that modern speech codes are quite intense - that it requires significant study to identify all the terms and phrases that currently aren't welcome in polite society, and that complying with the list once you've studied it severely restricts the ideas you can express.
      - chillwaves 6y ago
        Would you like to provide an example that's in english?
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Sure. One example would be that many companies (including my own) are now instructing engineers to avoid any public usages of the terms "whitelist" and "blacklist". Obviously this isn't the most important thing in the world, but it requires pretty significant mental effort on my part, since the terms had no racial connotations at all until a couple months ago.
        chillwaves 6y ago
        It's telling that the only concrete example in english, though only from two of you, is the same one. It seems like there aren't a lot of examples to choose from. I have personally never heard of this concern, and as you mention it doesn't seem particularly taxing. I would like to understand better the consequence of misusing (or using) blacklist/whitelist. I very much doubt the fallout would be severe.
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        It's the most recent and thus the most salient one for a lot of people in software. There are many other examples of neutral terminology that's become politically charged: "all lives matter", "color-blind", the OK hand gesture... I completely agree that none of these rules are individually taxing and that the consequences of breaking them are unlikely to be severe. But when taking everything in aggregate - the sum of all the rules I know about, the concern that there could be new rules I don't know about, the tiny but not unprecedented chance that I could face severe fallout - the net effect is stifling. Again, not the most important problem in the world or even the most important problem I personally face, but still a problem.
  - Talanes 6y ago
    Which makes all of the claims you and the others have made as to what that data actually means basically useless. All we know is that a lot of people think some definition of political correctness is some definition of problem. That's barely information.
- camdenlock 6y ago
  It means conforming your speech to current political trends.
  - chillwaves 6y ago
    Can I have an example?
    - aleister_777 6y ago
      Whitelisting/Blacklisting. Change of innocuous and unrelated terminology in source code and documentation without any technical justification. No shortage of those examples throughout the industry and open source.
      - chillwaves 6y ago
        So you are saying people have a problem with the term "blacklisting" ? I guess I live a sheltered life then. Nothing like this has remotely ever come up and I live in a major metro.
        saagarjha 6y ago
        Many codebases are moving away from that term. Here's two large efforts that I am familiar with: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/styleguide/inclusive_code.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/styl... https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=1o9zxsxl https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=1o9zxsxl
        ev1 6y ago
        Yes. You can find PR's on Github and if the maintainer rejects it, accusations of racism and hate crimes. The acceptable term is something like allowlist/denylist/blocklist.
        tdeck 6y ago
        I've seen the discussion come up about changing these terms and whether it was worth doing. Not once have I seen it turn into an "accusation" of racism against a person, much less hate crimes, so I don't think that paints an accurate picture.
tdeck 6y ago
That's because "political correctness" is a somewhat vague term with intensely negative connotations. It's like asking if people are in favor of "government overreach" - people may have very different ideas about what that specifically constitutes but saying you oppose it is an easy nonspecific way to connect.

chillwaves 6y ago

Can you explain to me what constitutes "political correctness"? From where I stand, it just means treating people equally and not being an asshole. ETA: In considering all the worries of modern living, I have never once been concerned with using the wrong words for a group of people. Am I really the exception? It seems easy to call people by the terms they prefer. Not sure about which terms to use? Then I just ask. I am struggling to see the burden of being "PC".

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
The poll didn't define it, so not all respondents necessarily understood it the same way, but in my experience it's generally used to refer to speech codes requiring people to take great care in how they speak and write to avoid accidentally giving offense. The recent controversy about the USC professor who said 那个 in class, for example, would be a typical example.
- chillwaves 6y ago
  I have no idea what your example means. As far as speech codes, they seem very mild. I would not even call it an inconvenience. Are people mad that certain phrases are now considered slurs and not welcome in polite society? Ex. it is no longer appropriate to call someone a "retard," even in jest. Is this a problem? I'm still not understanding the meat of the objection to "PC".
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    When people say they're concerned about political correctness, they're generally disputing your assessment that modern speech codes are very mild. Many people feel that modern speech codes are quite intense - that it requires significant study to identify all the terms and phrases that currently aren't welcome in polite society, and that complying with the list once you've studied it severely restricts the ideas you can express.
    - chillwaves 6y ago
      Would you like to provide an example that's in english?
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Sure. One example would be that many companies (including my own) are now instructing engineers to avoid any public usages of the terms "whitelist" and "blacklist". Obviously this isn't the most important thing in the world, but it requires pretty significant mental effort on my part, since the terms had no racial connotations at all until a couple months ago.
        chillwaves 6y ago
        It's telling that the only concrete example in english, though only from two of you, is the same one. It seems like there aren't a lot of examples to choose from. I have personally never heard of this concern, and as you mention it doesn't seem particularly taxing. I would like to understand better the consequence of misusing (or using) blacklist/whitelist. I very much doubt the fallout would be severe.
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        It's the most recent and thus the most salient one for a lot of people in software. There are many other examples of neutral terminology that's become politically charged: "all lives matter", "color-blind", the OK hand gesture... I completely agree that none of these rules are individually taxing and that the consequences of breaking them are unlikely to be severe. But when taking everything in aggregate - the sum of all the rules I know about, the concern that there could be new rules I don't know about, the tiny but not unprecedented chance that I could face severe fallout - the net effect is stifling. Again, not the most important problem in the world or even the most important problem I personally face, but still a problem.
- Talanes 6y ago
  Which makes all of the claims you and the others have made as to what that data actually means basically useless. All we know is that a lot of people think some definition of political correctness is some definition of problem. That's barely information.
camdenlock 6y ago
It means conforming your speech to current political trends.
- chillwaves 6y ago
  Can I have an example?
  - aleister_777 6y ago
    Whitelisting/Blacklisting. Change of innocuous and unrelated terminology in source code and documentation without any technical justification. No shortage of those examples throughout the industry and open source.
    - chillwaves 6y ago
      So you are saying people have a problem with the term "blacklisting" ? I guess I live a sheltered life then. Nothing like this has remotely ever come up and I live in a major metro.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        Many codebases are moving away from that term. Here's two large efforts that I am familiar with: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/styleguide/inclusive_code.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/styl... https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=1o9zxsxl https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=1o9zxsxl
      - ev1 6y ago
        Yes. You can find PR's on Github and if the maintainer rejects it, accusations of racism and hate crimes. The acceptable term is something like allowlist/denylist/blocklist.
        tdeck 6y ago
        I've seen the discussion come up about changing these terms and whether it was worth doing. Not once have I seen it turn into an "accusation" of racism against a person, much less hate crimes, so I don't think that paints an accurate picture.

tdeck 6y ago

That's because "political correctness" is a somewhat vague term with intensely negative connotations. It's like asking if people are in favor of "government overreach" - people may have very different ideas about what that specifically constitutes but saying you oppose it is an easy nonspecific way to connect.