10 ms·

It would be great to see this happen in the opposite direction. The next time someone intentionally misinterprets something as offensive when that clearly wasn

by Siddarth1977 4y ago

It would be great to see this happen in the opposite direction. The next time someone intentionally misinterprets something as offensive when that clearly wasn't the intended meaning, or goes searching for ever more obscure terms to deem problematic, or tries to silence and shame people who try to do anything other than fight for social justice, we all just reply with "We don't do that here". Someone starts to lecture you about how referencing "winter" is non-inclusive to Southern Hemisphere readers? "We don't do that here". Someone says you need to rename your firewall "whitelist" of IP addresses? "We don't do that here". It would be glorious. Everyone could treat each other courtesy, grace and assume positive-intent. Instead of walking around on eggshells and always worrying about what the most cynical, negative interpretation of a word or phrase could be, everyone could relax, treat one another as friends and allies and focus on solving real problems. Or, we could continue down our current path of Orwellian new-speak, where a new group of religious extremists deem ever more language as blasphemous and everyone joins the witch-burners for fear of being labelled a witch themselves.

dijit 4y ago
I think that's a good idea. No politics, you come to work to work, as long as you treat your colleagues with respect. Companies shouldn't be changing the political landscape anyway, that would be a scary world. I'm C-Level, so I can hopefully instil this as culture.
- NoraCodes 4y ago
  > Companies shouldn't be changing the political landscape anyway, that would be a scary world. I'm curious as to how you think lobbying works in the present day and the past four decades or so.
  - dijit 4y ago
    I'm not American, lobbying is corruption and that it's fully legal is one of the scariest things when looking towards America. BTW: I'm a big fan of your work. :)
    - karpierz 4y ago
      Where is lobbying illegal?
      - dijit 4y ago
        Well, campaign donations are fully illegal in the UK election process... not that our politics is better. Sweden has not yet decided what to make illegal, but lobbyists are avoiding doing anything that violates rule 0: http://www.aalep.eu/lobbying-landscape-sweden http://www.aalep.eu/lobbying-landscape-sweden Rule 0 is "Don't act in a way that makes me create more rules", in most old online communities.
        phkahler 4y ago
        >> Rule 0 is "Don't act in a way that makes me create more rules" I love that!
      - blamestross 4y ago
        This is a little complicated to answer. "Lobbying" as a word without cultural context just refers to presenting issues to representatives, which is critically important in democracy. In the US it comes alongside "Buying time" via gifts and hosting and political donations which would be considered bribery and corruption anywhere else with a functional democracy. Basically, where it is illegal, they don't call it lobbying.
    - NoraCodes 4y ago
      > lobbying is corruption and that it's fully legal is one of the scariest things when looking towards America. Wow, I guess I need to move to Sweden. That sounds extremely nice. And in that context, I _absolutely_ agree with your statement that corporations shouldn't try to shift the political conversation. > BTW: I'm a big fan of your work. :) Aww, thanks!
    - mcguire 4y ago
      Is taking out an ad for an unrelated candidate legal? Can a person or a business do it simply because they like the candidate's policies?
- iratewizard 4y ago
  It's much appreciated. I try the best that I can to do the same from an EVP level, but the layer above me is intent on imitating the big 4 in every respect.
- cjsaltlake 4y ago
  Companies are entities with political interests like any other. The only way you can curtail their influence politically is through regulation. It is reasonable for entities to pursue their goals through any legal means.
  - dijit 4y ago
    Companies by definition are collections of people with disparate opinions, the only unifying political ideology that can exist in that circumstance is continuance of the company as an entity unto itself and maximise its own profits. it's unethical, then, to allow them to make policy as they're considerably more powerful than the individual, much less empathetic and optimise for extremely self-serving behaviours.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      Seems that a privately held company can hold a political ideology as it is owned by typically a limited number of owners, but a corporation is an organized charter within the society owned by an unknown and ever-shifting population that should discourage or ideally eliminate political ideologies within the scope of its charter, especially the type of issues “wokeness” elevates.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  > No politics, you come to work to work, as long as you treat your colleagues with respect. Does respect include calling them what they prefer to be called? No matter how you answer this question, a large portion of the population will say you're being political.
  - elldoubleyew 4y ago
    I don't think that calling someone what they prefer to be called is a political issue. I personally don't know any right-wingers that wouldn't call you by the name/gender that you request them to. These people probably exist but it is a very small group. Theres a difference between disagreeing with the concept at a societal level vs disrespecting someone on a personal level. Far fewer people do that.
    - nvahalik 4y ago
      > I personally don't know any right-wingers that wouldn't call you by the name/gender that you request them to I've never been faced with this problem personally, but what I can say that is that if you've known someone for any length of time say "Bill" and then one day "Bill" wants to be called "Jill" there is an ask that extends far beyond what is ordinarily reasonable. That's why I think "deadnaming" is totally stupid. That name isn't dead. You just don't like/prefer it. But it was there and people know that name. They know you—and you just changed your mind. That's not their problem—that's yours.
      - ThePadawan 4y ago
        Imagine I read your comment and didn't think of a trans person, but a Ms. Jones who had married a Mr. Smith and was now Mrs. Smith. Is your opinion the same?
        nvahalik 4y ago
        Yes. Marriage is a union where two people make a lifelong commitment to each other: their identity is now united. This is a normal and good thing.
- projectazorian 4y ago
  But someone has to decide which topics are political. That is a political decision. Which means there are still politics, regardless of what your policy says. For example, I might say that calling me by my preferred pronouns isn't political, it's a matter of basic respect. Other people might think this is an act of political coercion, and report me to HR for violating the "no politics" policy. Resolving that dispute is a political act. Moreover companies are political entities granted a charter by the state, and don't hesitate to have positions on political issues that directly affect their business. So "no politics" doesn't mean "no politics" at all, it means (charitably) no discussion of politics beyond things the prevailing political consensus deems as apolitical, or (uncharitably) no discussion of anything that makes the dominant group uncomfortable.
  - dijit 4y ago
    You can always make the argument that everything is everything else, everything can be traced back to religion, or monetary gain or trying to improve social standing; that’s not interesting because it’s extremely easy to make everything relate to everything. So, while I appreciate greatly the attempt to politicise the world and make this topic greyer than it needs to be: it’s a little at odds with reality unless you’ve entirely internalised the notion that everything is political always. This is the same argument as “silence is violence” but even that movement acknowledges the reason they consider it violence is because it supports the status quo. The status quo should not be considered political. In order to be apolitical one must live within the status quo; only excluding the inherently political things like protesting or denouncing/promoting politicians or parties. Similar to how theism doesn’t preclude denouncing other faiths or supporting any: whatever the current climate is with regards to the dominant theism; is what is usually understood to be normal by atheists wherever they are based- with the obvious exclusion of inherently religious things like going to a place of worship or praying.
    - projectazorian 4y ago
      > So, while I appreciate greatly the attempt to politicise the world and make this topic greyer than it needs to be: but it’s a little at odds with reality unless you’ve entirely internalised the notion that everything is political always. No, not everything is political, but many things are, especially when we're talking about how to govern corporations, which are political entities with a charter from the state and often have a great deal of power over their employees and the communities in which they operate. > The status quo should not be considered political. In order to be apolitical one must live within the status quo; only excluding the inherently political things like protesting or denouncing/promoting politicians or parties. And who defines what is "within the status quo"? Doing so is a political act.
kleer001 4y ago
Yup yup yup. "Using a weapon gives your enemy explicit permission to use it against you." ~Me I'd love to live in a world where we speak to the average most reasonable person in the room instead of the most sensitive, easily offended, and brittle person in the room. But that might be my age showing. And that's the tension between the majority and the minority, an ageless tension.
- benlivengood 4y ago
  The average most reasonable person in the room cares about other people's feelings and life condition and tries to not insult or hurt them with what they say.
  - kleer001 4y ago
    Depends on what you means by "cares" Cares, like will bend over backwards to prevent any possible perceived insult? No, that's not reasonable. We don't need to revamp our language. Intent, not language, should be the focus. For example master and slave are perfectly fine terms for the relationship between pieces of hardware or software. No actual slave in this world would care. No actual person descended from slaves should care. If someone is truly insulted by language and not intent they need to grow up. Cares, like makes reasonable accommodations, sure. That's what handicap parking places are about. That's why there's ramps on sidewalks in cities. That's why there's a push for accessibility in software for colour blind people.
    - trs8080 4y ago
      > If someone is truly insulted by language and not intent they need to grow up. Spoken like someone who's never had to hear a slur about them in a joke. "But I was just joking!" - oh, then it's okay? Maybe the person using slurs should grow up? In the article, the author specifically discusses a case when a new hire used a pejorative. Intent doesn't matter. What you say and do matters. "Well I just wanted to get home safe and to bed" isn't a good defense when you get into an accident while drunk driving.
balentio 4y ago
I think a simple "This is against our discrimination policy" would be fine. Of course, it could not be applied just for "gay" people, but potentially anyone--including--gasp--Conservative Christian discrimination.
- NoraCodes 4y ago
  > "gay" people What do the quotes signify here?
  - balentio 4y ago
    What the article referenced.
    - NoraCodes 4y ago
      The article used quotes around gay to signify that it was discussing the adjective "gay" as a noun. You _used_ it as an adjective while surrounding it with quotes. Do you mean "people who are attracted to people of the same gender", or something else?
      - balentio 4y ago
        The article provided two potential definitions of the word. I mean the term to be inclusive of the whole situation the article described as a concept which encapsulates both meaning of the word--hence why I quoted it and referenced discrimination policies which usually address both definitions conceived of in the article in the workplace.
        NoraCodes 4y ago
        That makes sense, thank you for clarifying.
      - camdenlock 4y ago
        Like the article author, you sound like a self-elected cop of sorts. Have you considered channeling your energy elsewhere?
mananaysiempre 4y ago
I’m sure it’s fun to fantasize about turning a conversation-stopper back onto a habitual wielder of such, but like with any other tool whose effectiveness is unconnected to the validity of your point (from universally condemned things like violence to fairly common and unpolarized ones like emotional-appeal PSAs), it seems to be vaguely hypocritical and self-defeating in the long run.
NoraCodes 4y ago
> our current path of Orwellian new-speak, where a new group of religious extremists deem ever more language as blasphemous and everyone joins the witch-burners for fear of being labelled a witch themselves. I think you perhaps do not understand the text of 1984, never mind the subtext. In the novel, Newspeak is a part of intense and total historical revisionism in support of a coherent government agenda enforced by a powerful central authority, not a decentralized and gradual change in the language people use "enforced" only socially. > Someone starts to lecture you about how referencing "winter" is non-inclusive to Southern Hemisphere readers? "We don't do that here". This is a very interesting example. If you're a global company and you make your product, say, snow-themed globally during the Northern winter, it's simply inaccurate for Southern hemisphere users. I don't really see how that's a political correctness or language issue as much as a factual correctness issue.
- RajT88 4y ago
  > I think you perhaps do not understand the text of 1984, never mind the subtext. In the novel, Newspeak is a part of intense and total historical revisionism in support of a coherent government agenda enforced by a powerful central authority, not a decentralized and gradual change in the language people use "enforced" only socially. Misunderstanding 1984 is extremely common. Especially amongst people who haven't read it.
- iratewizard 4y ago
  1984 might not have had the subtlety of what is happening today, but isn't that true of most literary evils? It was written post-communist takeover of Russia. Post-Weimar Germany. It abstracted much of what actually happened and what was being attempted throughout the world as power struggles erupted under instability.
  - NoraCodes 4y ago
    My argument here is that centralized, top-down, authoritarian, and violently enforced changes in language are a different and separate issue from decentralized, gradual, and unenforced (or, at worst, socially enforced) ones, since that's how language has usually changed. > Post-Weimar Germany. Very post. 1984 was written in 1948, notably after the fall of Nazi Germany. It was about the dangers of authoritarianism and how authoritarians can use their control of the academy and the media to increase their control on the rest of society, not the dangers of people asking their coworkers to change the name of a Git branch.
cjsaltlake 4y ago
The only people I hate more than woke people are anti-woke people.
- scrozier 4y ago
  I used to agree. Now I'm not so sure. :-)
- bityard 4y ago
  Best policy is to hate everyone equally, right?
- matthewmacleod 4y ago
  I think in my whole professional career I've experienced a colleague being annoyingly "woke" literally once – and even then, it was someone talking about a view that I thought was silly, rather than any kind of demand. Conversely, the number of times I've sat through people losing their shit about some trivial perceived "wokery" is way higher. YMMV.
smrtinsert 4y ago
Way to misinterpret the post under a cloud of perceived oppression
ineptech 4y ago
> Or, we could continue down our current path of Orwellian new-speak, where a new group of religious extremists deem ever more language as blasphemous and everyone joins the witch-burners for fear of being labelled a witch themselves. We don't do that here. If a belief or position or ideology is bad, you should be able to skewer the actual position rather than an exaggerated strawman of it.
- nvahalik 4y ago
  Who is exaggerating?
  - ineptech 4y ago
    Do you think the people OP was complaining about would say, "Yes, that's a fair summary of what we think"? This is how you turn a useful discussion into a pointless shouting match - you caricature and exaggerate your outgroup's position. "You're a bunch of religious extremists!" "Well you just want to be biased and get away with it!" "Stop trying to be thought police!" "Stop being so racist!"
- concordDance 4y ago
  Do you think prohibitions on "whitelist" etc are a strawman?
  - ineptech 4y ago
    I quoted the part I was referring to. I think it was a reasonable comment until OP had to throw on some kerosene at the end there - that's the thing we (I hope?) don't do here.
    - concordDance 4y ago
      Oh, yeah. While each individual bit is mostly true ("new-speak", a group that shares many religiosity traits deeming more and more parts of language bad and people joining the witch hunters out of fear of being labelled witches (I'm guilty of this)) the extra adjectives and hyperbole are harmful to discourse. Have an upvote.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mitchdoogle 4y ago
The crimes of religious extremists and witch burners are imposing religious law, imprisonment, and murder. And now you want to claim that someone asking you to change "whitelist" to "allowlist" is equivalent? Give me a break. Either you agree that language matters and so we should be considerate about how our language affects our thinking, or you think it doesn't matter, in which case it shouldn't bother you when someone wants to update terms to be more accurate or inclusive.
mcguire 4y ago
dang routinely does so when moderating things here in HN. It's explicitly in the guidelines.

dijit 4y ago

I think that's a good idea. No politics, you come to work to work, as long as you treat your colleagues with respect. Companies shouldn't be changing the political landscape anyway, that would be a scary world. I'm C-Level, so I can hopefully instil this as culture.

NoraCodes 4y ago
> Companies shouldn't be changing the political landscape anyway, that would be a scary world. I'm curious as to how you think lobbying works in the present day and the past four decades or so.
- dijit 4y ago
  I'm not American, lobbying is corruption and that it's fully legal is one of the scariest things when looking towards America. BTW: I'm a big fan of your work. :)
  - karpierz 4y ago
    Where is lobbying illegal?
    - dijit 4y ago
      Well, campaign donations are fully illegal in the UK election process... not that our politics is better. Sweden has not yet decided what to make illegal, but lobbyists are avoiding doing anything that violates rule 0: http://www.aalep.eu/lobbying-landscape-sweden http://www.aalep.eu/lobbying-landscape-sweden Rule 0 is "Don't act in a way that makes me create more rules", in most old online communities.
      - phkahler 4y ago
        >> Rule 0 is "Don't act in a way that makes me create more rules" I love that!
    - blamestross 4y ago
      This is a little complicated to answer. "Lobbying" as a word without cultural context just refers to presenting issues to representatives, which is critically important in democracy. In the US it comes alongside "Buying time" via gifts and hosting and political donations which would be considered bribery and corruption anywhere else with a functional democracy. Basically, where it is illegal, they don't call it lobbying.
  - NoraCodes 4y ago
    > lobbying is corruption and that it's fully legal is one of the scariest things when looking towards America. Wow, I guess I need to move to Sweden. That sounds extremely nice. And in that context, I _absolutely_ agree with your statement that corporations shouldn't try to shift the political conversation. > BTW: I'm a big fan of your work. :) Aww, thanks!
  - mcguire 4y ago
    Is taking out an ad for an unrelated candidate legal? Can a person or a business do it simply because they like the candidate's policies?
iratewizard 4y ago
It's much appreciated. I try the best that I can to do the same from an EVP level, but the layer above me is intent on imitating the big 4 in every respect.
cjsaltlake 4y ago
Companies are entities with political interests like any other. The only way you can curtail their influence politically is through regulation. It is reasonable for entities to pursue their goals through any legal means.
- dijit 4y ago
  Companies by definition are collections of people with disparate opinions, the only unifying political ideology that can exist in that circumstance is continuance of the company as an entity unto itself and maximise its own profits. it's unethical, then, to allow them to make policy as they're considerably more powerful than the individual, much less empathetic and optimise for extremely self-serving behaviours.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    Seems that a privately held company can hold a political ideology as it is owned by typically a limited number of owners, but a corporation is an organized charter within the society owned by an unknown and ever-shifting population that should discourage or ideally eliminate political ideologies within the scope of its charter, especially the type of issues “wokeness” elevates.
bcrosby95 4y ago
> No politics, you come to work to work, as long as you treat your colleagues with respect. Does respect include calling them what they prefer to be called? No matter how you answer this question, a large portion of the population will say you're being political.
- elldoubleyew 4y ago
  I don't think that calling someone what they prefer to be called is a political issue. I personally don't know any right-wingers that wouldn't call you by the name/gender that you request them to. These people probably exist but it is a very small group. Theres a difference between disagreeing with the concept at a societal level vs disrespecting someone on a personal level. Far fewer people do that.
  - nvahalik 4y ago
    > I personally don't know any right-wingers that wouldn't call you by the name/gender that you request them to I've never been faced with this problem personally, but what I can say that is that if you've known someone for any length of time say "Bill" and then one day "Bill" wants to be called "Jill" there is an ask that extends far beyond what is ordinarily reasonable. That's why I think "deadnaming" is totally stupid. That name isn't dead. You just don't like/prefer it. But it was there and people know that name. They know you—and you just changed your mind. That's not their problem—that's yours.
    - ThePadawan 4y ago
      Imagine I read your comment and didn't think of a trans person, but a Ms. Jones who had married a Mr. Smith and was now Mrs. Smith. Is your opinion the same?
      - nvahalik 4y ago
        Yes. Marriage is a union where two people make a lifelong commitment to each other: their identity is now united. This is a normal and good thing.
projectazorian 4y ago
But someone has to decide which topics are political. That is a political decision. Which means there are still politics, regardless of what your policy says. For example, I might say that calling me by my preferred pronouns isn't political, it's a matter of basic respect. Other people might think this is an act of political coercion, and report me to HR for violating the "no politics" policy. Resolving that dispute is a political act. Moreover companies are political entities granted a charter by the state, and don't hesitate to have positions on political issues that directly affect their business. So "no politics" doesn't mean "no politics" at all, it means (charitably) no discussion of politics beyond things the prevailing political consensus deems as apolitical, or (uncharitably) no discussion of anything that makes the dominant group uncomfortable.
- dijit 4y ago
  You can always make the argument that everything is everything else, everything can be traced back to religion, or monetary gain or trying to improve social standing; that’s not interesting because it’s extremely easy to make everything relate to everything. So, while I appreciate greatly the attempt to politicise the world and make this topic greyer than it needs to be: it’s a little at odds with reality unless you’ve entirely internalised the notion that everything is political always. This is the same argument as “silence is violence” but even that movement acknowledges the reason they consider it violence is because it supports the status quo. The status quo should not be considered political. In order to be apolitical one must live within the status quo; only excluding the inherently political things like protesting or denouncing/promoting politicians or parties. Similar to how theism doesn’t preclude denouncing other faiths or supporting any: whatever the current climate is with regards to the dominant theism; is what is usually understood to be normal by atheists wherever they are based- with the obvious exclusion of inherently religious things like going to a place of worship or praying.
  - projectazorian 4y ago
    > So, while I appreciate greatly the attempt to politicise the world and make this topic greyer than it needs to be: but it’s a little at odds with reality unless you’ve entirely internalised the notion that everything is political always. No, not everything is political, but many things are, especially when we're talking about how to govern corporations, which are political entities with a charter from the state and often have a great deal of power over their employees and the communities in which they operate. > The status quo should not be considered political. In order to be apolitical one must live within the status quo; only excluding the inherently political things like protesting or denouncing/promoting politicians or parties. And who defines what is "within the status quo"? Doing so is a political act.

kleer001 4y ago

Yup yup yup. "Using a weapon gives your enemy explicit permission to use it against you." ~Me I'd love to live in a world where we speak to the average most reasonable person in the room instead of the most sensitive, easily offended, and brittle person in the room. But that might be my age showing. And that's the tension between the majority and the minority, an ageless tension.

benlivengood 4y ago
The average most reasonable person in the room cares about other people's feelings and life condition and tries to not insult or hurt them with what they say.
- kleer001 4y ago
  Depends on what you means by "cares" Cares, like will bend over backwards to prevent any possible perceived insult? No, that's not reasonable. We don't need to revamp our language. Intent, not language, should be the focus. For example master and slave are perfectly fine terms for the relationship between pieces of hardware or software. No actual slave in this world would care. No actual person descended from slaves should care. If someone is truly insulted by language and not intent they need to grow up. Cares, like makes reasonable accommodations, sure. That's what handicap parking places are about. That's why there's ramps on sidewalks in cities. That's why there's a push for accessibility in software for colour blind people.
  - trs8080 4y ago
    > If someone is truly insulted by language and not intent they need to grow up. Spoken like someone who's never had to hear a slur about them in a joke. "But I was just joking!" - oh, then it's okay? Maybe the person using slurs should grow up? In the article, the author specifically discusses a case when a new hire used a pejorative. Intent doesn't matter. What you say and do matters. "Well I just wanted to get home safe and to bed" isn't a good defense when you get into an accident while drunk driving.

balentio 4y ago

I think a simple "This is against our discrimination policy" would be fine. Of course, it could not be applied just for "gay" people, but potentially anyone--including--gasp--Conservative Christian discrimination.

NoraCodes 4y ago
> "gay" people What do the quotes signify here?
- balentio 4y ago
  What the article referenced.
  - NoraCodes 4y ago
    The article used quotes around gay to signify that it was discussing the adjective "gay" as a noun. You _used_ it as an adjective while surrounding it with quotes. Do you mean "people who are attracted to people of the same gender", or something else?
    - balentio 4y ago
      The article provided two potential definitions of the word. I mean the term to be inclusive of the whole situation the article described as a concept which encapsulates both meaning of the word--hence why I quoted it and referenced discrimination policies which usually address both definitions conceived of in the article in the workplace.
      - NoraCodes 4y ago
        That makes sense, thank you for clarifying.
    - camdenlock 4y ago
      Like the article author, you sound like a self-elected cop of sorts. Have you considered channeling your energy elsewhere?

mananaysiempre 4y ago

I’m sure it’s fun to fantasize about turning a conversation-stopper back onto a habitual wielder of such, but like with any other tool whose effectiveness is unconnected to the validity of your point (from universally condemned things like violence to fairly common and unpolarized ones like emotional-appeal PSAs), it seems to be vaguely hypocritical and self-defeating in the long run.

NoraCodes 4y ago

> our current path of Orwellian new-speak, where a new group of religious extremists deem ever more language as blasphemous and everyone joins the witch-burners for fear of being labelled a witch themselves. I think you perhaps do not understand the text of 1984, never mind the subtext. In the novel, Newspeak is a part of intense and total historical revisionism in support of a coherent government agenda enforced by a powerful central authority, not a decentralized and gradual change in the language people use "enforced" only socially. > Someone starts to lecture you about how referencing "winter" is non-inclusive to Southern Hemisphere readers? "We don't do that here". This is a very interesting example. If you're a global company and you make your product, say, snow-themed globally during the Northern winter, it's simply inaccurate for Southern hemisphere users. I don't really see how that's a political correctness or language issue as much as a factual correctness issue.

RajT88 4y ago
> I think you perhaps do not understand the text of 1984, never mind the subtext. In the novel, Newspeak is a part of intense and total historical revisionism in support of a coherent government agenda enforced by a powerful central authority, not a decentralized and gradual change in the language people use "enforced" only socially. Misunderstanding 1984 is extremely common. Especially amongst people who haven't read it.
iratewizard 4y ago
1984 might not have had the subtlety of what is happening today, but isn't that true of most literary evils? It was written post-communist takeover of Russia. Post-Weimar Germany. It abstracted much of what actually happened and what was being attempted throughout the world as power struggles erupted under instability.
- NoraCodes 4y ago
  My argument here is that centralized, top-down, authoritarian, and violently enforced changes in language are a different and separate issue from decentralized, gradual, and unenforced (or, at worst, socially enforced) ones, since that's how language has usually changed. > Post-Weimar Germany. Very post. 1984 was written in 1948, notably after the fall of Nazi Germany. It was about the dangers of authoritarianism and how authoritarians can use their control of the academy and the media to increase their control on the rest of society, not the dangers of people asking their coworkers to change the name of a Git branch.

cjsaltlake 4y ago

The only people I hate more than woke people are anti-woke people.

scrozier 4y ago
I used to agree. Now I'm not so sure. :-)
bityard 4y ago
Best policy is to hate everyone equally, right?
matthewmacleod 4y ago
I think in my whole professional career I've experienced a colleague being annoyingly "woke" literally once – and even then, it was someone talking about a view that I thought was silly, rather than any kind of demand. Conversely, the number of times I've sat through people losing their shit about some trivial perceived "wokery" is way higher. YMMV.

smrtinsert 4y ago

Way to misinterpret the post under a cloud of perceived oppression

ineptech 4y ago

> Or, we could continue down our current path of Orwellian new-speak, where a new group of religious extremists deem ever more language as blasphemous and everyone joins the witch-burners for fear of being labelled a witch themselves. We don't do that here. If a belief or position or ideology is bad, you should be able to skewer the actual position rather than an exaggerated strawman of it.

nvahalik 4y ago
Who is exaggerating?
- ineptech 4y ago
  Do you think the people OP was complaining about would say, "Yes, that's a fair summary of what we think"? This is how you turn a useful discussion into a pointless shouting match - you caricature and exaggerate your outgroup's position. "You're a bunch of religious extremists!" "Well you just want to be biased and get away with it!" "Stop trying to be thought police!" "Stop being so racist!"
concordDance 4y ago
Do you think prohibitions on "whitelist" etc are a strawman?
- ineptech 4y ago
  I quoted the part I was referring to. I think it was a reasonable comment until OP had to throw on some kerosene at the end there - that's the thing we (I hope?) don't do here.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Oh, yeah. While each individual bit is mostly true ("new-speak", a group that shares many religiosity traits deeming more and more parts of language bad and people joining the witch hunters out of fear of being labelled witches (I'm guilty of this)) the extra adjectives and hyperbole are harmful to discourse. Have an upvote.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mitchdoogle 4y ago

The crimes of religious extremists and witch burners are imposing religious law, imprisonment, and murder. And now you want to claim that someone asking you to change "whitelist" to "allowlist" is equivalent? Give me a break. Either you agree that language matters and so we should be considerate about how our language affects our thinking, or you think it doesn't matter, in which case it shouldn't bother you when someone wants to update terms to be more accurate or inclusive.

mcguire 4y ago

dang routinely does so when moderating things here in HN. It's explicitly in the guidelines.