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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 know

by imgabe 4y ago

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 injured, i.e. "maybe somone will hear the word tarball and think of tarbaby and then they'll feel bad" despite the fact that this has never once happened in recorded history. This way you can search for infractions and more expeditiously accuse and eject your rivals (people whose work is better than yours).

makeitdouble 4y ago
You're basically positing that words have no possible effect and anyone actually hurt by words is just pretending. Sure, we're not expecting every single word on these lists to have any random person go cry in the corner, but those are pretty long lists and I could totally see specific people getting hit at the right angle and be affected enough to warrant consideration.
- imgabe 4y ago
  Words have an effect, but you can choose how to react to them. You cannot be harmed by them unless you choose to allow yourself to feel that way. Your internal mental state is under your control. If someone hits me with a bat with sufficient force, I have no control over whether my bones break or not. If someone says a mean thing, or something that could theoretically be interpreted as mean if you completely ignore their intent and context, I 100% have control over how I feel about that.
  - dekken_ 4y ago
    > I 100% have control over how I feel about that. You do, that's great, sincerely, I mostly agree with you, but I feel it lacks a bit of nuance. Adults should have control over how they interpret reality, but not everyone does, and some people want to use perceived offense (Oppression Olympics) as a means for some sort of change, even if it's just padding their wallet. Some folks are immature, some folks have PTSD or some other condition and/or problem which makes it harder for them to have the discipline you have. Can we acknowledge both that words are interpreted by the listener, and that the listener might not be able to handle them? I try to not be affected by things, why should I respect someone who's trying to insult me, and if I don't respect them why should I care at all about what they are saying? It boils down to self preservation ultimately I think. Ostracism might not be the death sentence it used to be, but it still can be seriously deleterious.
    - imgabe 4y ago
      For the vast majority of words on this list, they would not be used to try to insult anyone. You would have to deliberately misinterpret them to find an insult. Why would anyone do that? They wouldn't, and they don't. The insult is purely imagined by people who write these lists.
      - dekken_ 4y ago
        Your comment I responded too seemed more general, which is how I was responding to it, the article can eat my ass tbh
  - bawolff 4y ago
    > If someone hits me with a bat with sufficient force, I have no control over whether my bones break or not. If we follow your argument, you do have control over whether you let the pain affect you. Pain is just a mental state after all. And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away? I obviously think this is a bit silly and could be used to justify just about anything.
    - imgabe 4y ago
      > And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away? Even if you could ignore the pain, you wouldn't physically be able to move your arm well if the bone is broken, which would be an inconvenience for most people that they would care quite a bit about.
      - bawolff 4y ago
        > which would be an inconvenience for most people that they would care quite a bit about. Well i suppose that really depends on their mental fortitude, how much they let it affect them.
        wholinator2 4y ago
        Listen, I don't agree with the "words will never hurt me" thing but trying to argue that by denying the utility difference of a broken arm is a lost cause for them. Someone who's decided that the mental and physical pains and debilitations are wholly separate, especially here, will probably want cited studies and actual scientific evidence that the psychological community no longer believes that. Until that is presented no amount of semantics is gonna work.
        lostmsu 4y ago
        It does, but very little. No amount of fortitude can lift a broken arm to put food into someone's mouth.
  - oblio 4y ago
    > Words have an effect, but you can choose how to react to them. You cannot be harmed by them unless you choose to allow yourself to feel that way. Your internal mental state is under your control. Up to a point. You can't control your genes or your upbringing completely, merely suppress it. Otherwise we wouldn't have trigger words. For sure you have one, too.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > Otherwise we wouldn't have trigger words. For sure you have one, too. Sure, everyone has some. I probably have some too - I don't keep track of them, but I know mocking some of the things that I hold dear will definitely unsettle me. That said, one of the core part of growing up, of becoming an adult, is learning not to get triggered, and in the rare cases you still are, learning to calm yourself down. It's a prerequisite for participating in and contributing to a healthy society. Nobody could possibly keep track of the list of trigger words for everyone they could come into contact with. The list itself would cover so many phrases across so many topics as to prevent communication. Even if we could keep track of all of this (scary thought: for the first time in history, this may become possible, thanks to computers), erring on the side of avoiding any and all trigger words would be a security vulnerability, easily abused by people trying to gain power over others (arguably, the very list we're discussing is an example of this). The point is, we can make some concessions for words or phrases that are intended to harm or known to negatively affect a lot of people - which is what cultures have been doing throughout the recorded history. Beyond those few concessions, it's up to individual to handle their own triggers, in a way that doesn't disturb everyone else's ability to communicate effectively.
  - claudiawerner 4y ago
    >You cannot be harmed by them unless you choose to allow yourself to feel that way. Your internal mental state is under your control. This is incorrect, and flies in the face of the current literature in psychology and neuroscience. A cursory glance at some very rational people who are quick to anger and how we cry after losing a loved one should rid you of this notion.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > A cursory glance at some very rational people who are quick to anger and how we cry after losing a loved one should rid you of this notion. In neither case are the words the cause of distress, but rather some event, belief or threat that's communicated or implied through those words. The way humans communicate, individual words are only loosely correlated with the message they're employed to carry.
- torben-friis 4y ago
  I am in favor of inclusion, but if someone is being affected by the word 'user' in IT context, or 'white space' talking about text, the problem is not the language.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    I agree with you in that context and use matter. Just as I disagree with blanket banning words, I also disagree with the "words don't matter" reaction. Neither approach make sense to me.
  - starbugs 4y ago
    > I am in favor of inclusion How have we arrived at a point where we have to make such defensive statements when no offense was ever intended? Isn't it upon those wanting to change the language to defend their arguments and bring forward thorough evidence that the intended changes will justify the costs (along with an analysis of what the real costs are)? And do we believe that we can create a language that can still work for meaningful communication while simultaneously ensuring that no one can possibly ever be offended?
    - donkeyd 4y ago
      > Isn't it upon those wanting to change... No. It isn't anymore. Because the loud minority now has the means to globally and publicly destroy you if you say something they dislike. You might lose your job or even your personal safety because of a statement that can be interpreted in some way that someone doesn't like.
      - alexilliamson 4y ago
        Be realistic, not a single person will suffer consequences for continuing to say "white space".
        tsimionescu 4y ago
        Perhaps not whitespace, but I think people insisting on using blacklist or master-slave terminology in computing will actually see direct consequences. Plenty of big tech companies have made their engineers scrub such words from their internal codebase, even going so far as to rename the master branch of Git to main. I am pretty sure that an employee insisting not to abide by this mandate would be reprimanded and even fired if they don't stop.
- selfmodruntime 4y ago
  Sorry, but I believe that nobody is actively harmed by using master slave terminology in computer science. If you are, that‘s a „you“ problem.
- Zvez 4y ago
  > I could totally see specific people getting hit at the right angle and be affected enough to warrant consideration The question is, will they be affected by word itself or the composition of words? Because I can probably make an offensive sentence using most of the words in this list (except tarball, I'm not that creative). But I can also do the same avoiding words from the list and still hurt specific people. So having this list doesn't solve the problem, but it can be used to harm people. You don't like some argument, lets check if we can find a harmful word in it and use that!
bawolff 4y ago
Although a lot of this list seems silly, it also has slurs like "retard" and "jewed" on it, which i think are very reasonably considered offensive. I think the tarball thing is rediculous, but the opposite extreme of no words can be hurtful is also rediculous.
- imgabe 4y ago
  It oddly doesn't have a lot of other slurs, like the n-word, etc. Does that mean they are acceptable? I don't think most people need to be told that "jewed" or "retard" are not appropriate professional words. Certainly not anyone who works at Stanford, just like nobody needed to be told not to say any of the other slurs that aren't on the list.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    I dont disagree, but you literally wrote "I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm"." Those were words on this list, so i disagree with that statement. I also don't think anyone is arguing that the authors of this list intended it to be exhaustive.
    - imgabe 4y ago
      Yeah I still don’t think that’s harm. Feeling offended is not harm. It’s just information about the world. Learning that someone has prejudices or is rude or just careless about their speech does not harm you.
      - makeitdouble 4y ago
        That rhetoric is incredibly similar to bullies in school arguing that they were just playing and nobody is harmed by their little jokes. You can’t be the one deciding if people are hurt or not, it’s their call. Wether them being hurt justify such and such action is another issue.
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
An old tactic to discredit an opponent and suppress norms of free speech. It goes like this: "Thing that is not violence is violence." Voilà. You wouldn't want to endorse violence, would you?
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  Except many people would contend that words can be used violently. For instance the crime of 'assault' requires no physical contact -- you can assault someone by making them fear that you will batter them by using words. I would think of a better argument.
  - mbg721 4y ago
    The politicians who want to ban specific words for being violent are the same people who want to ban guns for being violent, and it doesn't effectively address the problem in either case.
  - iinnPP 4y ago
    People who are good at hurting you with words do not use words like the ones in the list. Also, the assault example may be valid in your jurisdiction, but in mine it isn't assault but threats of violence. additionally, the threat must be made in a way that is threatening. Your example, using my local laws, doesn't make sense.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      I never said anything about the list, I said your argument could be better. I really wish people would address the content of a discussion instead of what they want to be discussing. I don't know what laws you are talking about because do not define them, nor your locality. Regardless, there is a 'for instance' in my reply, and you addressed that specific notion instead of the core.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    your argument make me fear that you will batter me with words. please stop using it.
narrator 4y ago
The reason these kinds of rules are showing up everywhere is to get control of organizations by inventing grievances that can be deployed at any time to remove inconvenient people and quickly take over the organizations they've built. A variant of this is the WEF's Stakeholder Capitalism where outside groups can infiltrate corporations and then use invented grievances to quickly take control of these organizations.
- clcaev 4y ago
  I see this initiative differently, as a way to educate people how their choice of words can affect those around them. I don't see any hard "rules" here, so much as describing phrases that could be harmful, in context. I just now learned quite a bit from just reading words from the Abelist category. I suppose this resource could be used to more effectively sanction individuals who consistently demonstrate behavior harmful to those around them. It could be referenced early and often, so that repeat offenses more quickly lead to dismissal. Even so, I don't see this as good or bad. At least the word list and rationale is explicit. A wrongful dismissal can challenged, or even litigated, no? Cannot this reference be used to better defend someone who uses a poor choice of words as their sole offense? There are so many words and phrases enumerated, it aptly demonstrates just how challenging and context dependent things are. That quadriplegic, for example, is listed tends to undermine the validity of listing actually offensive phrases. Conversely, the explanation of "basket case" and "spaz" were quite informative to me; I don't use these words, but, it's useful to better understand why they could be offensive. Addendum: I think this particular document is inappropriately broad, including phrases that have no business being here. That said, the same text with a conservative scope seems it could be helpful, at least for educating authors who may not be aware of the nuances some of these phrases have. For example, "going off the reservation" is quite offensive once you understand the history of this phrase. People may use phrases like this without knowing its ugly reference, when a better fitting phrase could be used.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > Cannot this reference be used to better defend someone who uses a poor choice of words as their sole offense? There are so many words and phrases enumerated, it aptly demonstrates just how challenging and context dependent things are. Have you ever seen this argument work? The whole point of "arson, murder, jaywalking", of "motte and bailey" argument style, of mixing obvious cases together with the things you want to make otherwise indefensible claims about, is because it makes the argument work only in one direction. The only valid counter is to fight the inclusion of "jaywalking" on the same list as "arson" and "murder", but once it's your company's HR department quoting a Stanford-published list of "bad words", it's too late.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Does this apply to those with abnormalities and defects like ADHD and autism? Are they just faking being crazy in order to get an advantage? Like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Or are they secretly trying to oppress us by forcing us normal people to live by their stupid, made up and malicious rules? Like in that Harrison Bergerson story. Why would they do something so evil, so corrupting to society? Is sociopathy a common symptom of these mental disorders? Is that why they're all potential school shooters? Or are most of them harmless freaks but the accomodations put in place for the rare genuine basket case are being exploited by a whole bunch of sociopaths that aren't even defective just lazy and they're playing the system to disavantage normal people who are just literally better at basic tasks than they are? Where will it end. "Oh look at me, I can't concentrate in an open office because someone might make smalltalk or eye contact with me. I'm so triggered we all have to work from home and have less meetings". What are they plotting to do once they have reduced as all down to their pathetic level?
- antihero 4y ago
  What in the hell are you talking about? A society that does reasonable things to difficulties that some people have through no fault of their own is a healthy one. It’s all a question of balance and one could argue that colleges have got that balance very wrong, but they’ve always been places with more intense politics than the rest of society. People leave university and get more life experience and hopefully mature a bit, thankfully. This is how it’s always been. If you want to know where I, a mental cunt with ADHD strikes the balance, regarding this list, some of the words make sense as their current meaning is pejorative and derogatory e.g. “cripple”, however some are simply a statement of fact and thus ridiculous e.g. “addict”. Personally I think I have thicker skin than most and whilst it would be great if everyone was at that stage we have to extend some level of compassion, not just out of altruism but also because how using certain language affects how we ourselves are portrayed and received when trying to achieve a goal with our words.
  - akimball 4y ago
    Interesting phrase, 'no fault of their own'. I have a mole. It is a fault in my skin. Is it my own fault? Is my flesh my own? If I had a limp resulting from a car crash, would this be a fault of my own? If I were driving? If I struck another car from behind? If I drove off a bridge? If my name were Thelma? 'Just asking questions' as they say on TV.
xg15 4y ago
> This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Nitpick, there are two kinds of "flopping" in sports, which you can both observe e.g. in soccer. One is to simulate a made-up foul as you say, basically trying to mislead the referee into giving an unjustified penalty. This is clearly illegal and constitutes a foul itself. However, often players flop to highlight fouls that actually happened but were so subtle or hard to see that the referee missed them. The results are still ridiculous - Ronaldo rolling in pain on the grass because the other player had briefly pulled his jersey - but the greater strategy here is valid: If small, subtle fouls went unpunished, they'd be an easy way to gain an unfair advantage for your team. So the game would very quickly turn into a contest of how to hide fouls best from the referee. By highlighting fouls to a ridiculous degree, players are counteracting this.
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  >> If small, subtle fouls went unpunished, they'd be an easy way to gain an unfair advantage for your team. So the game would very quickly turn into a contest of how to hide fouls best from the referee. Only in soccer, and even then only with particular types of players... I don't know how to describe them without using any of these words...
  - jocaal 4y ago
    A world where small and subtle fouls are continuously punished sounds pretty scary to me.
bartread 4y ago
Here's one of many such egregious examples: > committed suicide > died by suicide > Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions. I had a friend commit suicide, and one of my mum's colleagues - also an acquiantance of mine, who I'd chat with in the pub semi-regularly - also committed suicide many years ago. I've suffered with depression for much of my life since my teenage years (undiagnosed until I was well into my twenties), and I have a close family member who's spent maybe a quarter of their life over the last 20 years institutionalised, with much of the rest of the time in close contact with mental health authorities. I've had many friends and colleagues over the years who've suffered with mental health issues. But apparently "committed suicide" is "ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions." No. It isn't. It is a brutal term that aptly captures the daily visceral struggle of both those with mental health issues who are battling suicidal thoughts, and those who are left behind after a friend or relative does commit suicide. It very well captures the trauma and impact of such an event. It also avoids the final indignity of stripping the unwell person of their agency, and therefore their humanity. It is 100% certified appropriate (were such a certification to exist). The only thing harmful about this list is that it exists and that somebody, or some group, got paid actual money (presumably as part of their day job) to compile it. In 200 years time, if somebody authors a book called, "The hideous and shameful annals of bullshit jobs in the early 21st Century" I have no doubt at all that this will rank very highly. Let's call this list what it is: thought policing. Whoever is behind it sits somewhere on the same spectrum as the real world Morality Police of Iran, or the fictional Thought Police (and the Ministry of Truth, who control language - and in particular are replacing it with Newspeak) in George Orwell's 1984. The word toxic has become heavily overused, but this list is an absolute examplar of it: it is a product of deeply warped and corrupted thinking. Some terms on the list (which I don't think need repeating here - racial slurs, and the like) are considered pretty universally offensive but that does not justify the presence of the rest. Overall what we have is a pretty transparent and unsophisticated attempt to control people by those too stupid to understand the negative impacts of their actions on wider society. I would have hoped for a lot better from an institution such as Stanford with a rich history of valuable contributions (including to hacker culture).
- smodo 4y ago
antihero 4y ago
Some of them are deliberate slurs but most of them are just colourful language. This list is 95% absolutely ridiculous and I’m what you’d probably consider a proponent of social justice. It’s deeply funny, but also tragic because while there should be an attempt to make language inclusive, lists like this make the movement look like a joke.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    No no, I think the majority getting mad, or at the very least myself, see two things: (1) the vast majority of the words on this list do not have the claimed negative connotations in the slightest, and should be liberally used in Stanford materials, and (2) if the geniuses who compiled this list are allowed to make it a standard of speech for Stanford materials, it will sooner or later be adopted by many other places looking for a list of "safe words". The whole thing has to be ridiculed from top to bottom, both for what it's direct stated goals are, but also for fear that it will make its way into more places if it's not nipped in the bud. Note: some words on the list, such as a several obvious slurs they chose to include, of course must be avoided. Black hat (hacker) or black box or blind review or commited suicide or user (!!!!) or calling a spade a spade or man-in-the-middle or [...] are not among those.
    - ModernMech 4y ago
      > the vast majority of the words on this list do not have the claimed negative connotations in the slightest Sure I see a lot of hand waving here about that, but this community is notably not necessarily the most diverse (edit: by diverse I mean has notable blindspots and well-known biases). For example a lot of people here on HN have no problem using terms like “master” and “slave” in a technological context, but other people have told me those terms make them uncomfortable. I don’t want my students to feel that way so I don’t use those words in a classroom context, even if every single person on HN is okay using them. Maybe we can all appreciate that perhaps the people who wrote this list are in fact expressing a genuine concern about language that is held by others, even if you do not personally see the concern? > it will sooner or later be adopted by many other places looking for a list of "safe words". First, I appreciate the slippery slope, but at this point it’s behind a Stanford login, and is really only addressed to Stanford IT. Then again it says it’s in line with peer institutions so perhaps the slope has already slipped. But even if more people want to do this, so what? It’s their choice. These documents are about others policing their own language, not them policing yours. Your comments about “ridiculing” and “nipping it in the bud” are closer to policing the speech of others than this list is.
amelius 4y ago
> I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". It's not from reading such words once. But if you hear them many many times, they can cause harm because they create subtle biases, prejudices, change one's self-image, etc.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  no
  - amelius 4y ago
    yes
jvanderbot 4y ago
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 words come up by believing that harm is inevitable for each word on this (or any) list. If we really need to police (sorry, regulate) language this much an alternative narrative would be that "these words are embarrassing for the speaker because they may appear old fashioned or niche".
- colpabar 4y ago
  This is the biggest issue with this list in my opinion. We are teaching kids to be offended by things they wouldn't think twice about.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    And this does two kinds of damage. Some kids will end up actually becoming vulnerable to things they otherwise wouldn't - this is just needlessly increasing the sum total of suffering in the world. But some other kids will figure out the same thing people pushing for and enforcing such lists have: that this gives them power over others.
    - colpabar 4y ago
      And it'll just get worse when these kids grow up and become academics and make these lists even more overbearing. This is a stretch but I really don't have a hard time imagining a world where professors have to have a minimum amount of political pins/patches/posters/etc ("flair" a la "Office Space") to keep their jobs. Because as we all know, silence is violence. The more of this we normalize for children, the worse it'll get as they grow up and do the same.
      - TeMPOraL 4y ago
senko 4y ago
> you can search for infractions and more expeditiously accuse and eject your rivals This is straight out of totalitarian regimes' playbook. It's not only taking social justice too far, I'd say it's a betrayal of the ideal of a just, inclusive and safe society.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > It's not only taking social justice too far, I'd say it's a betrayal of the ideal of a just, inclusive and safe society. <insert "Always Has Been" meme here> This has been quite obvious for at least a decade now; that's when the term "social justice" started to gain pejorative associations, and it did so for a reason.
  - gitfan86 4y ago
    What seems unique here is that it is that it an unorganized mob. The democrats certainly try to get the wokes support, but there is no woke party. Obama even called them out as keyboard warriors. And this is why I disagree with Elon, I don't think the wokes are any more dangerous than any other performative religion or subculture. They are annoying but have no real goals other than winning the virtue signaling game.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > What seems unique here is that it is that it an unorganized mob. The democrats certainly try to get the wokes support, but there is no woke party. Obama even called them out as keyboard warriors. I remember back in ~2010-2012 when this was seen as an exciting, new, positive development. That was back when we were talking about 4chan trolling Scientology <insert "Oh Fuck The Internet Is Here" meme here>, and the Arab Spring (back before it became apparent it wasn't just Twitter vs. authoritarian governments, and that people didn't come out of it better off). I remember cheering to a TED talk that talked up decentralized activism, comparing it to "murmurations", complete with video of starlings flying to "Pachelbel - Canon In D Major". A decade later, I don't find it inspiring or exciting anymore. I find it utterly terrifying. Yes, even back then, I had the thought on the back of my mind, that this "unorganized mob" could be abused (something the TV show Continuum later reminded me of), and is capable of pushing for both the right and wrong thing. But there was this sense of optimism that it'll "arc towards justice". Oh how very wrong we were back then. > And this is why I disagree with Elon, I don't think the wokes are any more dangerous than any other performative religion or subculture. They are annoying but have no real goals other than winning the virtue signaling game. I don't know what Elon Musk has to say about this, but I disagree with what you wrote here, for two reasons. 1. They've already proven to be much more dangerous than "other performative religion or subculture". Other religions and subcultures didn't manage to make people afraid of speaking their mind on the Internet. Other religions and subcultures didn't manage to change hiring policies, standardize all kinds of weird trainings in corporations, or make a well-known university publish an absurd list of "bad words". 2. If anything I was taught about late 19th and early 20th century was accurate, socialism and communism started with decentralized, organic movements popping up all around the world. Those movements were then quickly co-opted by competing political upstarts, who first started to fight another - until, after a lot of bloodshed, one group emerged victorious, took power from the incumbents, and became a defining force of 20th century history. My point being, decentralized, distributed mobs with no real goals but lots of pent up energy are a resource to political schemers. They are thus dangerous in the same way spilled gasoline is: on its own it just smells bad, but it creates an environment where a single spark can lead to a lot of devastation.
andrepd 4y ago
It's virtue signalling. Talk to actual people from indigenous communities, they're probably more concerned about actual problems affecting communities than whether someone says "bury the hatchet". Talk to a blind activist association, they're more likely concerned about the unwalkability of public spaces than the usage of the phrase "blind review". It's mostly white, mostly affluent people, competing in the political sensitivity olympics, probably without even realising they're harming the very causes they claim to fight for.
- wazoox 4y ago
  Yup, I think it's pretty well-known by now that only white, affluent, powerful people doing virtue signalling use "Latinx" for instance, and that this very word is rejected as meaningless, stupid and/or offensive and condescending by the vast majority of "Latinx" people. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/many-latinos-say-latinx-offends-or-bothers-them-here-s-ncna1285916 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/many-latinos-say-latin...
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
> I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". If you don't feel uncomfortable for any of these words or phrases, then consider yourself fortunate; it does not apply to you. But don't dismiss it because you're not offended for any of the words, just be fortunate it's not a problem you have.
- coeneedell 4y ago
  Are you personally offended by any of these words (except the ones that are obvious slurs, I mean)? I would love to hear a first person account, since they seem to be absent from this discussion.
- iinnPP 4y ago
  I had a bottom 0.01%(probably lower) childhood (don't ask.) This list is in itself offensive. Multiple entries try to force words into negative territory. This includes words previously used to be inclusive and presumably words from this list of "alternatives" will be in a future list. People, all people, need to stop being offended on "my behalf." Especially people with a job that entitles them to work on something full of self-realizable hypocrisies like: "Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person." For those curious: I have worked all my life to see my "off-center brain chemistry" in a positive light. I do not under any circumstances want some person telling me OCD is offensive. Take half your paycheck and save some lives. Have a reason to actually feel good about yourself.
- omginternets 4y ago
  If the mere mention of a non-insult is enough to provoke notable discomfort, that is an issue to be examined in therapy. It is not something to be resolved by the judicial system or some grotesque approximation thereof.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  They're just words. They are incapable of causing discomfort absent some context in which they are used.
- 4y ago
bjourne 4y ago
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.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
It's a complex subject. But I happen to be from Bosnia and even when I first immigrated to Canada in the late 90s, I was amused at my Canadian friends constantly getting offended on my behalf. A joke or reference that somebody would make that I would find funny or agree with, would send my friends in a whirl and a twirl. I focused on intent - these particular people in these particular circumstances neither wanted nor did offend the relevant party. I fear if we treat words themselves as "offensive", making lists with no consideration of intent, circumstance, relationship, and actual impact, it's at best a pointless and at worst a divisive and Orwellian exercise. Edit : some suggestions are genuinely useful and thoughtful, and I think conversation rather than lists is where we should focus, as even the very second line on the list - "replace addicted with hooked" - isn't it obvious that next iteration of the list will include "hooked"??
- Kye 4y ago
  An accessible and entertaining treatment of this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtj7LDYaufM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtj7LDYaufM The gist is that anyone can joke about anything, but jokes from outside an experience tend to be quite boring. Like the American reactionary love of The One Joke[0]. Calling them offensive gives the jokes way too much credit. Nothing they come up with holds a candle to what an actual trans or nonbinary person can think up. Some people think making "offensive" jokes prevents them from being a hack. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/onejoke/ https://www.reddit.com/r/onejoke/
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    Thx I'll check out out. Fwiw I made myself watch David Chapelle latest special and to your point somewhat,felt it's greatest sin was that it was unfunny - flat jokes,poor timing and delivery,and felt more like his discussion with critics than attempt to entertain.
absolutelymild 4y ago
> I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is an absolutely absurd take. The initiative is to remove words from official websites, not about making sure people never hear them. If you see negative language about your race/gender on your school website, you don’t think that’s gonna cause some anxiety? You don’t think that’s gonna make you wonder if you belong there? You don’t think that doubt will impair your ability to fully participate in that institution? > This way you can search for infractions and more expeditiously accuse and eject your rivals (people whose work is better than yours). How are you gonna play bully and victim in the same post? Pick a lane!
PeterStuer 4y ago
It is like intentionally inducing mental allergies.
arwhatever 4y ago
We need a better standard of evidence for harmful language than someone's claim at offense. I have no doubt that you could find an actual victim/target/member of a marginalized group to claim to be bothered by any of these phrases in the first person. But I'm also certain that members of such groups enjoy telling other people what to do just as much (on average) as all of humankind at large, which is to say a lot, and so a better standard of evidence is needed. I've struggled to envision what such evidence would look like, but I think it will have to be someone who is better at devising experiments than me.

by imgabe 4y ago

makeitdouble 4y ago

You're basically positing that words have no possible effect and anyone actually hurt by words is just pretending. Sure, we're not expecting every single word on these lists to have any random person go cry in the corner, but those are pretty long lists and I could totally see specific people getting hit at the right angle and be affected enough to warrant consideration.

imgabe 4y ago
Words have an effect, but you can choose how to react to them. You cannot be harmed by them unless you choose to allow yourself to feel that way. Your internal mental state is under your control. If someone hits me with a bat with sufficient force, I have no control over whether my bones break or not. If someone says a mean thing, or something that could theoretically be interpreted as mean if you completely ignore their intent and context, I 100% have control over how I feel about that.
- dekken_ 4y ago
  > I 100% have control over how I feel about that. You do, that's great, sincerely, I mostly agree with you, but I feel it lacks a bit of nuance. Adults should have control over how they interpret reality, but not everyone does, and some people want to use perceived offense (Oppression Olympics) as a means for some sort of change, even if it's just padding their wallet. Some folks are immature, some folks have PTSD or some other condition and/or problem which makes it harder for them to have the discipline you have. Can we acknowledge both that words are interpreted by the listener, and that the listener might not be able to handle them? I try to not be affected by things, why should I respect someone who's trying to insult me, and if I don't respect them why should I care at all about what they are saying? It boils down to self preservation ultimately I think. Ostracism might not be the death sentence it used to be, but it still can be seriously deleterious.
  - imgabe 4y ago
    For the vast majority of words on this list, they would not be used to try to insult anyone. You would have to deliberately misinterpret them to find an insult. Why would anyone do that? They wouldn't, and they don't. The insult is purely imagined by people who write these lists.
    - dekken_ 4y ago
      Your comment I responded too seemed more general, which is how I was responding to it, the article can eat my ass tbh
- bawolff 4y ago
  > If someone hits me with a bat with sufficient force, I have no control over whether my bones break or not. If we follow your argument, you do have control over whether you let the pain affect you. Pain is just a mental state after all. And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away? I obviously think this is a bit silly and could be used to justify just about anything.
  - imgabe 4y ago
    > And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away? Even if you could ignore the pain, you wouldn't physically be able to move your arm well if the bone is broken, which would be an inconvenience for most people that they would care quite a bit about.
    - bawolff 4y ago
      > which would be an inconvenience for most people that they would care quite a bit about. Well i suppose that really depends on their mental fortitude, how much they let it affect them.
      - wholinator2 4y ago
        Listen, I don't agree with the "words will never hurt me" thing but trying to argue that by denying the utility difference of a broken arm is a lost cause for them. Someone who's decided that the mental and physical pains and debilitations are wholly separate, especially here, will probably want cited studies and actual scientific evidence that the psychological community no longer believes that. Until that is presented no amount of semantics is gonna work.
      - lostmsu 4y ago
        It does, but very little. No amount of fortitude can lift a broken arm to put food into someone's mouth.
- oblio 4y ago
  > Words have an effect, but you can choose how to react to them. You cannot be harmed by them unless you choose to allow yourself to feel that way. Your internal mental state is under your control. Up to a point. You can't control your genes or your upbringing completely, merely suppress it. Otherwise we wouldn't have trigger words. For sure you have one, too.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > Otherwise we wouldn't have trigger words. For sure you have one, too. Sure, everyone has some. I probably have some too - I don't keep track of them, but I know mocking some of the things that I hold dear will definitely unsettle me. That said, one of the core part of growing up, of becoming an adult, is learning not to get triggered, and in the rare cases you still are, learning to calm yourself down. It's a prerequisite for participating in and contributing to a healthy society. Nobody could possibly keep track of the list of trigger words for everyone they could come into contact with. The list itself would cover so many phrases across so many topics as to prevent communication. Even if we could keep track of all of this (scary thought: for the first time in history, this may become possible, thanks to computers), erring on the side of avoiding any and all trigger words would be a security vulnerability, easily abused by people trying to gain power over others (arguably, the very list we're discussing is an example of this). The point is, we can make some concessions for words or phrases that are intended to harm or known to negatively affect a lot of people - which is what cultures have been doing throughout the recorded history. Beyond those few concessions, it's up to individual to handle their own triggers, in a way that doesn't disturb everyone else's ability to communicate effectively.
- claudiawerner 4y ago
  >You cannot be harmed by them unless you choose to allow yourself to feel that way. Your internal mental state is under your control. This is incorrect, and flies in the face of the current literature in psychology and neuroscience. A cursory glance at some very rational people who are quick to anger and how we cry after losing a loved one should rid you of this notion.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > A cursory glance at some very rational people who are quick to anger and how we cry after losing a loved one should rid you of this notion. In neither case are the words the cause of distress, but rather some event, belief or threat that's communicated or implied through those words. The way humans communicate, individual words are only loosely correlated with the message they're employed to carry.
torben-friis 4y ago
I am in favor of inclusion, but if someone is being affected by the word 'user' in IT context, or 'white space' talking about text, the problem is not the language.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  I agree with you in that context and use matter. Just as I disagree with blanket banning words, I also disagree with the "words don't matter" reaction. Neither approach make sense to me.
- starbugs 4y ago
  > I am in favor of inclusion How have we arrived at a point where we have to make such defensive statements when no offense was ever intended? Isn't it upon those wanting to change the language to defend their arguments and bring forward thorough evidence that the intended changes will justify the costs (along with an analysis of what the real costs are)? And do we believe that we can create a language that can still work for meaningful communication while simultaneously ensuring that no one can possibly ever be offended?
  - donkeyd 4y ago
    > Isn't it upon those wanting to change... No. It isn't anymore. Because the loud minority now has the means to globally and publicly destroy you if you say something they dislike. You might lose your job or even your personal safety because of a statement that can be interpreted in some way that someone doesn't like.
    - alexilliamson 4y ago
      Be realistic, not a single person will suffer consequences for continuing to say "white space".
      - tsimionescu 4y ago
        Perhaps not whitespace, but I think people insisting on using blacklist or master-slave terminology in computing will actually see direct consequences. Plenty of big tech companies have made their engineers scrub such words from their internal codebase, even going so far as to rename the master branch of Git to main. I am pretty sure that an employee insisting not to abide by this mandate would be reprimanded and even fired if they don't stop.
selfmodruntime 4y ago
Sorry, but I believe that nobody is actively harmed by using master slave terminology in computer science. If you are, that‘s a „you“ problem.
Zvez 4y ago
> I could totally see specific people getting hit at the right angle and be affected enough to warrant consideration The question is, will they be affected by word itself or the composition of words? Because I can probably make an offensive sentence using most of the words in this list (except tarball, I'm not that creative). But I can also do the same avoiding words from the list and still hurt specific people. So having this list doesn't solve the problem, but it can be used to harm people. You don't like some argument, lets check if we can find a harmful word in it and use that!

bawolff 4y ago

Although a lot of this list seems silly, it also has slurs like "retard" and "jewed" on it, which i think are very reasonably considered offensive. I think the tarball thing is rediculous, but the opposite extreme of no words can be hurtful is also rediculous.

imgabe 4y ago
It oddly doesn't have a lot of other slurs, like the n-word, etc. Does that mean they are acceptable? I don't think most people need to be told that "jewed" or "retard" are not appropriate professional words. Certainly not anyone who works at Stanford, just like nobody needed to be told not to say any of the other slurs that aren't on the list.
- bawolff 4y ago
  I dont disagree, but you literally wrote "I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm"." Those were words on this list, so i disagree with that statement. I also don't think anyone is arguing that the authors of this list intended it to be exhaustive.
  - imgabe 4y ago
    Yeah I still don’t think that’s harm. Feeling offended is not harm. It’s just information about the world. Learning that someone has prejudices or is rude or just careless about their speech does not harm you.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      That rhetoric is incredibly similar to bullies in school arguing that they were just playing and nobody is harmed by their little jokes. You can’t be the one deciding if people are hurt or not, it’s their call. Wether them being hurt justify such and such action is another issue.

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

An old tactic to discredit an opponent and suppress norms of free speech. It goes like this: "Thing that is not violence is violence." Voilà. You wouldn't want to endorse violence, would you?

Eisenstein 4y ago
Except many people would contend that words can be used violently. For instance the crime of 'assault' requires no physical contact -- you can assault someone by making them fear that you will batter them by using words. I would think of a better argument.
- mbg721 4y ago
  The politicians who want to ban specific words for being violent are the same people who want to ban guns for being violent, and it doesn't effectively address the problem in either case.
- iinnPP 4y ago
  People who are good at hurting you with words do not use words like the ones in the list. Also, the assault example may be valid in your jurisdiction, but in mine it isn't assault but threats of violence. additionally, the threat must be made in a way that is threatening. Your example, using my local laws, doesn't make sense.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    I never said anything about the list, I said your argument could be better. I really wish people would address the content of a discussion instead of what they want to be discussing. I don't know what laws you are talking about because do not define them, nor your locality. Regardless, there is a 'for instance' in my reply, and you addressed that specific notion instead of the core.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  your argument make me fear that you will batter me with words. please stop using it.

narrator 4y ago

The reason these kinds of rules are showing up everywhere is to get control of organizations by inventing grievances that can be deployed at any time to remove inconvenient people and quickly take over the organizations they've built. A variant of this is the WEF's Stakeholder Capitalism where outside groups can infiltrate corporations and then use invented grievances to quickly take control of these organizations.

clcaev 4y ago
I see this initiative differently, as a way to educate people how their choice of words can affect those around them. I don't see any hard "rules" here, so much as describing phrases that could be harmful, in context. I just now learned quite a bit from just reading words from the Abelist category. I suppose this resource could be used to more effectively sanction individuals who consistently demonstrate behavior harmful to those around them. It could be referenced early and often, so that repeat offenses more quickly lead to dismissal. Even so, I don't see this as good or bad. At least the word list and rationale is explicit. A wrongful dismissal can challenged, or even litigated, no? Cannot this reference be used to better defend someone who uses a poor choice of words as their sole offense? There are so many words and phrases enumerated, it aptly demonstrates just how challenging and context dependent things are. That quadriplegic, for example, is listed tends to undermine the validity of listing actually offensive phrases. Conversely, the explanation of "basket case" and "spaz" were quite informative to me; I don't use these words, but, it's useful to better understand why they could be offensive. Addendum: I think this particular document is inappropriately broad, including phrases that have no business being here. That said, the same text with a conservative scope seems it could be helpful, at least for educating authors who may not be aware of the nuances some of these phrases have. For example, "going off the reservation" is quite offensive once you understand the history of this phrase. People may use phrases like this without knowing its ugly reference, when a better fitting phrase could be used.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > Cannot this reference be used to better defend someone who uses a poor choice of words as their sole offense? There are so many words and phrases enumerated, it aptly demonstrates just how challenging and context dependent things are. Have you ever seen this argument work? The whole point of "arson, murder, jaywalking", of "motte and bailey" argument style, of mixing obvious cases together with the things you want to make otherwise indefensible claims about, is because it makes the argument work only in one direction. The only valid counter is to fight the inclusion of "jaywalking" on the same list as "arson" and "murder", but once it's your company's HR department quoting a Stanford-published list of "bad words", it's too late.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Does this apply to those with abnormalities and defects like ADHD and autism? Are they just faking being crazy in order to get an advantage? Like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Or are they secretly trying to oppress us by forcing us normal people to live by their stupid, made up and malicious rules? Like in that Harrison Bergerson story. Why would they do something so evil, so corrupting to society? Is sociopathy a common symptom of these mental disorders? Is that why they're all potential school shooters? Or are most of them harmless freaks but the accomodations put in place for the rare genuine basket case are being exploited by a whole bunch of sociopaths that aren't even defective just lazy and they're playing the system to disavantage normal people who are just literally better at basic tasks than they are? Where will it end. "Oh look at me, I can't concentrate in an open office because someone might make smalltalk or eye contact with me. I'm so triggered we all have to work from home and have less meetings". What are they plotting to do once they have reduced as all down to their pathetic level?

antihero 4y ago
What in the hell are you talking about? A society that does reasonable things to difficulties that some people have through no fault of their own is a healthy one. It’s all a question of balance and one could argue that colleges have got that balance very wrong, but they’ve always been places with more intense politics than the rest of society. People leave university and get more life experience and hopefully mature a bit, thankfully. This is how it’s always been. If you want to know where I, a mental cunt with ADHD strikes the balance, regarding this list, some of the words make sense as their current meaning is pejorative and derogatory e.g. “cripple”, however some are simply a statement of fact and thus ridiculous e.g. “addict”. Personally I think I have thicker skin than most and whilst it would be great if everyone was at that stage we have to extend some level of compassion, not just out of altruism but also because how using certain language affects how we ourselves are portrayed and received when trying to achieve a goal with our words.
- akimball 4y ago
  Interesting phrase, 'no fault of their own'. I have a mole. It is a fault in my skin. Is it my own fault? Is my flesh my own? If I had a limp resulting from a car crash, would this be a fault of my own? If I were driving? If I struck another car from behind? If I drove off a bridge? If my name were Thelma? 'Just asking questions' as they say on TV.

xg15 4y ago

> This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Nitpick, there are two kinds of "flopping" in sports, which you can both observe e.g. in soccer. One is to simulate a made-up foul as you say, basically trying to mislead the referee into giving an unjustified penalty. This is clearly illegal and constitutes a foul itself. However, often players flop to highlight fouls that actually happened but were so subtle or hard to see that the referee missed them. The results are still ridiculous - Ronaldo rolling in pain on the grass because the other player had briefly pulled his jersey - but the greater strategy here is valid: If small, subtle fouls went unpunished, they'd be an easy way to gain an unfair advantage for your team. So the game would very quickly turn into a contest of how to hide fouls best from the referee. By highlighting fouls to a ridiculous degree, players are counteracting this.

skeeter2020 4y ago
>> If small, subtle fouls went unpunished, they'd be an easy way to gain an unfair advantage for your team. So the game would very quickly turn into a contest of how to hide fouls best from the referee. Only in soccer, and even then only with particular types of players... I don't know how to describe them without using any of these words...
- jocaal 4y ago
  A world where small and subtle fouls are continuously punished sounds pretty scary to me.

bartread 4y ago

Here's one of many such egregious examples: > committed suicide > died by suicide > Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions. I had a friend commit suicide, and one of my mum's colleagues - also an acquiantance of mine, who I'd chat with in the pub semi-regularly - also committed suicide many years ago. I've suffered with depression for much of my life since my teenage years (undiagnosed until I was well into my twenties), and I have a close family member who's spent maybe a quarter of their life over the last 20 years institutionalised, with much of the rest of the time in close contact with mental health authorities. I've had many friends and colleagues over the years who've suffered with mental health issues. But apparently "committed suicide" is "ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions." No. It isn't. It is a brutal term that aptly captures the daily visceral struggle of both those with mental health issues who are battling suicidal thoughts, and those who are left behind after a friend or relative does commit suicide. It very well captures the trauma and impact of such an event. It also avoids the final indignity of stripping the unwell person of their agency, and therefore their humanity. It is 100% certified appropriate (were such a certification to exist). The only thing harmful about this list is that it exists and that somebody, or some group, got paid actual money (presumably as part of their day job) to compile it. In 200 years time, if somebody authors a book called, "The hideous and shameful annals of bullshit jobs in the early 21st Century" I have no doubt at all that this will rank very highly. Let's call this list what it is: thought policing. Whoever is behind it sits somewhere on the same spectrum as the real world Morality Police of Iran, or the fictional Thought Police (and the Ministry of Truth, who control language - and in particular are replacing it with Newspeak) in George Orwell's 1984. The word toxic has become heavily overused, but this list is an absolute examplar of it: it is a product of deeply warped and corrupted thinking. Some terms on the list (which I don't think need repeating here - racial slurs, and the like) are considered pretty universally offensive but that does not justify the presence of the rest. Overall what we have is a pretty transparent and unsophisticated attempt to control people by those too stupid to understand the negative impacts of their actions on wider society. I would have hoped for a lot better from an institution such as Stanford with a rich history of valuable contributions (including to hacker culture).

smodo 4y ago

antihero 4y ago

Some of them are deliberate slurs but most of them are just colourful language. This list is 95% absolutely ridiculous and I’m what you’d probably consider a proponent of social justice. It’s deeply funny, but also tragic because while there should be an attempt to make language inclusive, lists like this make the movement look like a joke.

ModernMech 4y ago
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  No no, I think the majority getting mad, or at the very least myself, see two things: (1) the vast majority of the words on this list do not have the claimed negative connotations in the slightest, and should be liberally used in Stanford materials, and (2) if the geniuses who compiled this list are allowed to make it a standard of speech for Stanford materials, it will sooner or later be adopted by many other places looking for a list of "safe words". The whole thing has to be ridiculed from top to bottom, both for what it's direct stated goals are, but also for fear that it will make its way into more places if it's not nipped in the bud. Note: some words on the list, such as a several obvious slurs they chose to include, of course must be avoided. Black hat (hacker) or black box or blind review or commited suicide or user (!!!!) or calling a spade a spade or man-in-the-middle or [...] are not among those.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    > the vast majority of the words on this list do not have the claimed negative connotations in the slightest Sure I see a lot of hand waving here about that, but this community is notably not necessarily the most diverse (edit: by diverse I mean has notable blindspots and well-known biases). For example a lot of people here on HN have no problem using terms like “master” and “slave” in a technological context, but other people have told me those terms make them uncomfortable. I don’t want my students to feel that way so I don’t use those words in a classroom context, even if every single person on HN is okay using them. Maybe we can all appreciate that perhaps the people who wrote this list are in fact expressing a genuine concern about language that is held by others, even if you do not personally see the concern? > it will sooner or later be adopted by many other places looking for a list of "safe words". First, I appreciate the slippery slope, but at this point it’s behind a Stanford login, and is really only addressed to Stanford IT. Then again it says it’s in line with peer institutions so perhaps the slope has already slipped. But even if more people want to do this, so what? It’s their choice. These documents are about others policing their own language, not them policing yours. Your comments about “ridiculing” and “nipping it in the bud” are closer to policing the speech of others than this list is.

amelius 4y ago

> I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". It's not from reading such words once. But if you hear them many many times, they can cause harm because they create subtle biases, prejudices, change one's self-image, etc.

LegitShady 4y ago
no
- amelius 4y ago
  yes

jvanderbot 4y ago

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 words come up by believing that harm is inevitable for each word on this (or any) list. If we really need to police (sorry, regulate) language this much an alternative narrative would be that "these words are embarrassing for the speaker because they may appear old fashioned or niche".

colpabar 4y ago
This is the biggest issue with this list in my opinion. We are teaching kids to be offended by things they wouldn't think twice about.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  And this does two kinds of damage. Some kids will end up actually becoming vulnerable to things they otherwise wouldn't - this is just needlessly increasing the sum total of suffering in the world. But some other kids will figure out the same thing people pushing for and enforcing such lists have: that this gives them power over others.
  - colpabar 4y ago
    And it'll just get worse when these kids grow up and become academics and make these lists even more overbearing. This is a stretch but I really don't have a hard time imagining a world where professors have to have a minimum amount of political pins/patches/posters/etc ("flair" a la "Office Space") to keep their jobs. Because as we all know, silence is violence. The more of this we normalize for children, the worse it'll get as they grow up and do the same.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago

senko 4y ago

> you can search for infractions and more expeditiously accuse and eject your rivals This is straight out of totalitarian regimes' playbook. It's not only taking social justice too far, I'd say it's a betrayal of the ideal of a just, inclusive and safe society.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
> It's not only taking social justice too far, I'd say it's a betrayal of the ideal of a just, inclusive and safe society. <insert "Always Has Been" meme here> This has been quite obvious for at least a decade now; that's when the term "social justice" started to gain pejorative associations, and it did so for a reason.
- gitfan86 4y ago
  What seems unique here is that it is that it an unorganized mob. The democrats certainly try to get the wokes support, but there is no woke party. Obama even called them out as keyboard warriors. And this is why I disagree with Elon, I don't think the wokes are any more dangerous than any other performative religion or subculture. They are annoying but have no real goals other than winning the virtue signaling game.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > What seems unique here is that it is that it an unorganized mob. The democrats certainly try to get the wokes support, but there is no woke party. Obama even called them out as keyboard warriors. I remember back in ~2010-2012 when this was seen as an exciting, new, positive development. That was back when we were talking about 4chan trolling Scientology <insert "Oh Fuck The Internet Is Here" meme here>, and the Arab Spring (back before it became apparent it wasn't just Twitter vs. authoritarian governments, and that people didn't come out of it better off). I remember cheering to a TED talk that talked up decentralized activism, comparing it to "murmurations", complete with video of starlings flying to "Pachelbel - Canon In D Major". A decade later, I don't find it inspiring or exciting anymore. I find it utterly terrifying. Yes, even back then, I had the thought on the back of my mind, that this "unorganized mob" could be abused (something the TV show Continuum later reminded me of), and is capable of pushing for both the right and wrong thing. But there was this sense of optimism that it'll "arc towards justice". Oh how very wrong we were back then. > And this is why I disagree with Elon, I don't think the wokes are any more dangerous than any other performative religion or subculture. They are annoying but have no real goals other than winning the virtue signaling game. I don't know what Elon Musk has to say about this, but I disagree with what you wrote here, for two reasons. 1. They've already proven to be much more dangerous than "other performative religion or subculture". Other religions and subcultures didn't manage to make people afraid of speaking their mind on the Internet. Other religions and subcultures didn't manage to change hiring policies, standardize all kinds of weird trainings in corporations, or make a well-known university publish an absurd list of "bad words". 2. If anything I was taught about late 19th and early 20th century was accurate, socialism and communism started with decentralized, organic movements popping up all around the world. Those movements were then quickly co-opted by competing political upstarts, who first started to fight another - until, after a lot of bloodshed, one group emerged victorious, took power from the incumbents, and became a defining force of 20th century history. My point being, decentralized, distributed mobs with no real goals but lots of pent up energy are a resource to political schemers. They are thus dangerous in the same way spilled gasoline is: on its own it just smells bad, but it creates an environment where a single spark can lead to a lot of devastation.

andrepd 4y ago

It's virtue signalling. Talk to actual people from indigenous communities, they're probably more concerned about actual problems affecting communities than whether someone says "bury the hatchet". Talk to a blind activist association, they're more likely concerned about the unwalkability of public spaces than the usage of the phrase "blind review". It's mostly white, mostly affluent people, competing in the political sensitivity olympics, probably without even realising they're harming the very causes they claim to fight for.

wazoox 4y ago
Yup, I think it's pretty well-known by now that only white, affluent, powerful people doing virtue signalling use "Latinx" for instance, and that this very word is rejected as meaningless, stupid and/or offensive and condescending by the vast majority of "Latinx" people. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/many-latinos-say-latinx-offends-or-bothers-them-here-s-ncna1285916 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/many-latinos-say-latin...

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

> I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". If you don't feel uncomfortable for any of these words or phrases, then consider yourself fortunate; it does not apply to you. But don't dismiss it because you're not offended for any of the words, just be fortunate it's not a problem you have.

coeneedell 4y ago
Are you personally offended by any of these words (except the ones that are obvious slurs, I mean)? I would love to hear a first person account, since they seem to be absent from this discussion.
iinnPP 4y ago
I had a bottom 0.01%(probably lower) childhood (don't ask.) This list is in itself offensive. Multiple entries try to force words into negative territory. This includes words previously used to be inclusive and presumably words from this list of "alternatives" will be in a future list. People, all people, need to stop being offended on "my behalf." Especially people with a job that entitles them to work on something full of self-realizable hypocrisies like: "Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person." For those curious: I have worked all my life to see my "off-center brain chemistry" in a positive light. I do not under any circumstances want some person telling me OCD is offensive. Take half your paycheck and save some lives. Have a reason to actually feel good about yourself.
omginternets 4y ago
If the mere mention of a non-insult is enough to provoke notable discomfort, that is an issue to be examined in therapy. It is not something to be resolved by the judicial system or some grotesque approximation thereof.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
They're just words. They are incapable of causing discomfort absent some context in which they are used.
4y ago

bjourne 4y ago

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.

NikolaNovak 4y ago

It's a complex subject. But I happen to be from Bosnia and even when I first immigrated to Canada in the late 90s, I was amused at my Canadian friends constantly getting offended on my behalf. A joke or reference that somebody would make that I would find funny or agree with, would send my friends in a whirl and a twirl. I focused on intent - these particular people in these particular circumstances neither wanted nor did offend the relevant party. I fear if we treat words themselves as "offensive", making lists with no consideration of intent, circumstance, relationship, and actual impact, it's at best a pointless and at worst a divisive and Orwellian exercise. Edit : some suggestions are genuinely useful and thoughtful, and I think conversation rather than lists is where we should focus, as even the very second line on the list - "replace addicted with hooked" - isn't it obvious that next iteration of the list will include "hooked"??

Kye 4y ago
An accessible and entertaining treatment of this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtj7LDYaufM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtj7LDYaufM The gist is that anyone can joke about anything, but jokes from outside an experience tend to be quite boring. Like the American reactionary love of The One Joke[0]. Calling them offensive gives the jokes way too much credit. Nothing they come up with holds a candle to what an actual trans or nonbinary person can think up. Some people think making "offensive" jokes prevents them from being a hack. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/onejoke/ https://www.reddit.com/r/onejoke/
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  Thx I'll check out out. Fwiw I made myself watch David Chapelle latest special and to your point somewhat,felt it's greatest sin was that it was unfunny - flat jokes,poor timing and delivery,and felt more like his discussion with critics than attempt to entertain.

absolutelymild 4y ago

> I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is an absolutely absurd take. The initiative is to remove words from official websites, not about making sure people never hear them. If you see negative language about your race/gender on your school website, you don’t think that’s gonna cause some anxiety? You don’t think that’s gonna make you wonder if you belong there? You don’t think that doubt will impair your ability to fully participate in that institution? > This way you can search for infractions and more expeditiously accuse and eject your rivals (people whose work is better than yours). How are you gonna play bully and victim in the same post? Pick a lane!

PeterStuer 4y ago

It is like intentionally inducing mental allergies.

arwhatever 4y ago

We need a better standard of evidence for harmful language than someone's claim at offense. I have no doubt that you could find an actual victim/target/member of a marginalized group to claim to be bothered by any of these phrases in the first person. But I'm also certain that members of such groups enjoy telling other people what to do just as much (on average) as all of humankind at large, which is to say a lot, and so a better standard of evidence is needed. I've struggled to envision what such evidence would look like, but I think it will have to be someone who is better at devising experiments than me.