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Moving the needle towards compelled speech strikes me as a real problem. Ideologically driven language manipulation under the guise of "inclusiveness" is a rea

Moving the needle towards compelled speech strikes me as a real problem. Ideologically driven language manipulation under the guise of "inclusiveness" is a real problem too. It's like the folks read Orwell and took it as an instruction manual rather than a warning.

082349872349872 4y ago
The warning of 1984 is that bullies don't bully because they have to, they do so because they wish to, and can. (The Inner Party is secure, so why the boot?) If doing X instead of Y costs me nothing, yet doing Y causes someone else to suffer, why should I continue to do Y? > But deeper than this lies the original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led to the seizure of power and brought DOUBLETHINK, the Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary paraphernalia into existence afterwards. This motive really consists... That motive is not explicitly stated in 1984, but it is in (the posthumous) Such, Such Were the Joys. https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part49 https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part49 Is this not the origin of Big Brother? of O'Brien saying it is not enough for Winston to accept; he must love? > Flip and Sambo had chosen to befriend me, and their friendship included canings, reproaches and humiliations, which were good for me and saved me from an office stool. That was their version, and I believed in it. It was therefore clear that I owed them a vast debt of gratitude. But I was not grateful, as I very well knew. On the contrary, I hated both of them. I could not control my subjective feelings, and I could not conceal them from myself. But it is wicked, is it not, to hate your benefactors? So I was taught, and so I believed. A child accepts the codes of behaviour that are presented to it, even when it breaks them.
- eggy 4y ago
  <<If doing X instead of Y costs me nothing, yet doing Y causes someone else to suffer, why should I continue to do Y?>> This an oversimplification of something more complex and critical. Because the more you keep trying to avoid hurting or offending others as your first thought or action, you interrupt flow of thought and living. It becomes increasingly harder if the offending word list grows each day. What was X is now Y. Too much effort to pre-filter everything all the time. If someone is offended I try to adjust my word or action choices, but only after, prophylactically, not pro-actively, which can lead to overthinking day-to-day living. That is not to say that I haven't put my foot in my mouth as the words left my mouth, but slips happen.
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    It should be no surprise that I take the same approach, and have not met anyone offended by a sincere restatement. (for that matter, my reading of the original FA was that it also was compatible with this forgiveness-over-permission strategy) That said, unless one lives one's life with elbows permanently out, there are really not so many Y's as to be intellectually taxing. Even Gen. Robert E. Lee, whom I suppose very few would accuse of being woke, recommended that gentlemen avoid Y. > What was X is now Y. When in Rome, tempora mutantur.
    - eggy 4y ago
      Somewhat. It's ironic you quote tempora mutantur, which is classical and mores and ways changed much more slowly then. The issue now is that a loud minority of people are demanding for the majority to comply. The Minority Rule, where a very small minority by being loud and inflexible, can win and have the flexible majority bend to their demands. This is evident in how far right and far left minorities have achieved more sway than more moderates of each party, or more innocuous, why almost all milk has the U or UD symbol to signify it is a kosher dairy product. I am flexible, but not complacent in accepting all changes especially in today's culture. Drinking Kosher milk is not forbidden, and poses me no harm or inconvenience. My company asking me to choose pronouns for my email seems a bit out of place, and I miss nuts on my flights even though people with nut allergies are the minority.
      - 082349872349872 4y ago
        I am not sure choosing pronouns can be ascribed to "minority" rule; consider that back in 2019, 52% of surveyed Americans indicated they were somewhat or very comfortable using a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to someone if asked to do so: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/05/gender-neutral-pronouns/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/05/gender-neut... (I miss the days when one could, without ID, walk out of the gate, across the tarmac, and up the ramp into a plane like it was a more expensive bus. But I'm not going to fool myself that times haven't changed, or waste mental bandwidth trying to bring those times back.)

082349872349872 4y ago

The warning of 1984 is that bullies don't bully because they have to, they do so because they wish to, and can. (The Inner Party is secure, so why the boot?) If doing X instead of Y costs me nothing, yet doing Y causes someone else to suffer, why should I continue to do Y? > But deeper than this lies the original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led to the seizure of power and brought DOUBLETHINK, the Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary paraphernalia into existence afterwards. This motive really consists... That motive is not explicitly stated in 1984, but it is in (the posthumous) Such, Such Were the Joys. https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part49 https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part49 Is this not the origin of Big Brother? of O'Brien saying it is not enough for Winston to accept; he must love? > Flip and Sambo had chosen to befriend me, and their friendship included canings, reproaches and humiliations, which were good for me and saved me from an office stool. That was their version, and I believed in it. It was therefore clear that I owed them a vast debt of gratitude. But I was not grateful, as I very well knew. On the contrary, I hated both of them. I could not control my subjective feelings, and I could not conceal them from myself. But it is wicked, is it not, to hate your benefactors? So I was taught, and so I believed. A child accepts the codes of behaviour that are presented to it, even when it breaks them.

eggy 4y ago
<<If doing X instead of Y costs me nothing, yet doing Y causes someone else to suffer, why should I continue to do Y?>> This an oversimplification of something more complex and critical. Because the more you keep trying to avoid hurting or offending others as your first thought or action, you interrupt flow of thought and living. It becomes increasingly harder if the offending word list grows each day. What was X is now Y. Too much effort to pre-filter everything all the time. If someone is offended I try to adjust my word or action choices, but only after, prophylactically, not pro-actively, which can lead to overthinking day-to-day living. That is not to say that I haven't put my foot in my mouth as the words left my mouth, but slips happen.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  It should be no surprise that I take the same approach, and have not met anyone offended by a sincere restatement. (for that matter, my reading of the original FA was that it also was compatible with this forgiveness-over-permission strategy) That said, unless one lives one's life with elbows permanently out, there are really not so many Y's as to be intellectually taxing. Even Gen. Robert E. Lee, whom I suppose very few would accuse of being woke, recommended that gentlemen avoid Y. > What was X is now Y. When in Rome, tempora mutantur.
  - eggy 4y ago
    Somewhat. It's ironic you quote tempora mutantur, which is classical and mores and ways changed much more slowly then. The issue now is that a loud minority of people are demanding for the majority to comply. The Minority Rule, where a very small minority by being loud and inflexible, can win and have the flexible majority bend to their demands. This is evident in how far right and far left minorities have achieved more sway than more moderates of each party, or more innocuous, why almost all milk has the U or UD symbol to signify it is a kosher dairy product. I am flexible, but not complacent in accepting all changes especially in today's culture. Drinking Kosher milk is not forbidden, and poses me no harm or inconvenience. My company asking me to choose pronouns for my email seems a bit out of place, and I miss nuts on my flights even though people with nut allergies are the minority.
    - 082349872349872 4y ago
      I am not sure choosing pronouns can be ascribed to "minority" rule; consider that back in 2019, 52% of surveyed Americans indicated they were somewhat or very comfortable using a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to someone if asked to do so: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/05/gender-neutral-pronouns/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/05/gender-neut... (I miss the days when one could, without ID, walk out of the gate, across the tarmac, and up the ramp into a plane like it was a more expensive bus. But I'm not going to fool myself that times haven't changed, or waste mental bandwidth trying to bring those times back.)