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> If you don't think language is an important topic, This doesn't follow from anything I've said. > it's important to argue against this kind of bot. But is
by tomlockwood 5y ago
> If you don't think language is an important topic,
This doesn't follow from anything I've said.
> it's important to argue against this kind of bot.
But is it? What's the magnitude of this problem?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoThe effect of the problem is that, if the inclusive language bots win (which I'm confident they will absent some kind of counterargument), I'll have to communicate in a form of English I consider awkward and stilted and I'll have to implicitly endorse a couple of political stances about the concept of gender neutrality I don't agree with. I don't know how to quantify that into a "magnitude", but I don't think that's a precondition for discussing the issues of the day.
- tomlockwood 5y ago> if the inclusive language bots win I've worked in SF and this is the first one I've seen. > I don't know how to quantify that into a "magnitude", but I don't think that's a precondition for discussing the issues of the day. Sure! You go ahead and prioritize your brainspace the way you want - but I'm frustrated that I keep having to see culture war crap because people dug up the one twitter user or github user with a bad take. And I'm frustrated that otherwise reasonable people turn into moralizing frenzy-bots as arbitrary and poorly conceived as a bot that changes "man page" into "person page", when they see that tiny sliver of takes.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoI don't mean this as a gotcha, but you don't have to see culture war crap! It's a lesson I personally learned this lesson much later in life than I should have. If "Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub" doesn't sound like a topic you want to talk about, it's 100% okay to not click into the comments section. (It's not even on the front page anymore - these kinds of posts tend not to last long there.) As above, if it did sound like a topic you want to talk about, I think you should reflect on why that is and why people who aren't "moralizing frenzy-bots" might nevertheless want to talk about how they don't like it. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I've seen a lot of people say "I can't believe we're arguing about this nonsense" with the strong expectation that the result shouldn't be no conversation but a conversation where everyone agrees.
- tomlockwood 5y ago> I don't mean this as a gotcha, but you don't have to see culture war crap! This article was, albeit briefly, number one on hackernews. > I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I've seen a lot of people say "I can't believe we're arguing about this nonsense" with the strong expectation that the result shouldn't be no conversation but a conversation where everyone agrees. Except, what you're effectively saying is you want a conversation where everyone agrees, because you don't want the people that think this is vacuous nonsense, to engage.