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> The danger of these rules was not just that they created land mines for the unwary In real life, these "land mines" don't usually explode unless people think

> The danger of these rules was not just that they created land mines for the unwary In real life, these "land mines" don't usually explode unless people think you're stepping on it intentionally. For instance, every time I've accidentally used the wrong pronoun for someone, I've gotten a polite correction, I make a mental note, and everyone moves on. It's just not a big deal. With a large enough audience, there will always be someone who assumes you've acted with ill intent. But if you know you've done it innocently, then you can just ignore them and move on. Intent matters. Those performative things communicate your intent to make others feel welcome and included. So if you fly off the handle at a reasonable request that would make a group of people feel more included, you've communicated your intent accordingly. Occasionally, there are some purely performative things that don't actually make anyone feel more included. Personally, I think it's reasonable to ask that question if you're genuinely interested in finding the answer. However, purely performative things tend to disappear in time; so sometimes the most pragmatic response is to just go with the flow and see where things land.

JFingleton 2y ago
[flagged]
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  If you go to work and deliberately call "Bob" by the wrong name "Joe" all the time, and it upsets them and they ask you to stop, you'll get fired eventually if you continue.
  - JFingleton 2y ago
    ...but he really looks like a "Joe"! :D I did say "within reason"... which I realise is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  If someone is named Jimmy and you keep referring to him as Jimbo despite them politely asking you not to, what do you think will happen?
  - pronounnoun 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - fzeroracer 2y ago
      It's not a huge ask or heavy lift.
      - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
        Like stepping on an icon, no big deal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumi-e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumi-e
    - ColonelPhantom 2y ago
      Calling a person by the wrong pronoun is insulting, simple as that. The social convention is: "I say 'he' if and only if the person in question is male". Thus, calling for instance a transgender woman 'he' or a cisgender man 'she', is saying you don't see them as a man/woman, thus denying a part of their identity, just like when you call them by the wrong name. I'm sure you would agree that a man with long hair or whatever should be called 'he', so I also don't see why that doesn't extend to transgender men for example.
      - pronounnoun 2y ago
        I have no problem flipping 'he' and 'she'. I find some of the asks around 'they' to be too much; it works easily in some cases but not all. The demands around 'zir' and all the other pronounisms people have come up with seem excessive to me.
        rsanheim 2y ago
        It is really not hard, and it demonstrates a baseline level respect for other humans. I know plenty of people who go by alternate pronouns or have changed their pronouns over the time I've known them, and even in cases where I've slipped up _repeatedly_ and used the wrong pronoun, I apologize and make a mental note to change my behavior. Humans have been able to handle this sort of thing long before 'woke' was ever a thing: name changes due to marriage, or social pressure or immigration, or title changes like Miss/Ms. becoming Mrs. It may be helpful to remember that the "ask" of you is a minuscule amount of effort compared to the person making the ask, who has probably agonized and struggled with their identity, their relationships, and what sort of repercussions they may face when they ask others to change how they refer to them.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  I think people may disagree on what "within reason" means. There are some red lines established by Title VII that cause "just asking questions" to cross into "hostile work environment." Is it reasonable to keep asking those questions? Reasonable people can disagree on that question, but the law will protect a company that fires an individual for crossing that line while the rest of society is arguing over where the line should be. That's just how law works in general.
- diggan 2y ago
  > Isn't that the issue though? I healthy society should be able to challenge, object and argue (within reason), without losing jobs or being exiled? When you're in parliamentary/house sessions (or whatever your democracy/society/state has), sure, argue and object to everything. There you have what Americans are so crazy about, "Freedom of Speech" and all that. But outside of that, in private life, most people would find you very cumbersome to deal with if you challenge, object or argue with things that people state about themselves. If I say I'm 32 years old and you try to argue against me, I'll eventually just ignore and shun you, because who has the time to deal with such inconsequential stuff?
justanotheratom 2y ago
[flagged]
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  https://x.com/dril/status/473265809079693312 https://x.com/dril/status/473265809079693312
zer8k 2y ago
[flagged]
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  > This type of policing is another iteration of doublespeak that we were warned about in 1984. Policing the language polices thoughts. It harms communication effectiveness. It makes it harder. Jesus, it's really not that hard. I work full remote and I just ask people what they prefer. I'm not in office and a lot of people aren't on camera and it's a bad idea to generally assume shit based on their name anyways. If I forget I apologize and we move on. I have literally never encountered any issues in my long career of working with people because I don't feel a need to fill my head with hot air and make a big deal about it.
- int_19h 2y ago
  The weirdest thing that I've run into wrt pronouns is when people object to the use of gender-neutral pronouns as "misgendering" - e.g. a person insists that you must not use "they" to refer to them but rather their preferred gendered pronoun, and if you don't, then that is "erasing their identity". The argument that's usually made for this is that if someone's referred to as "they" while other people around them are "he" or "she", this makes them feel excluded etc. But if so, then using "they" uniformly would have been acceptable, and yet the same people insist that it is not.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    Doug Hofstader in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamagical_Themas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamagical_Themas has a good essay on non-sexist language crica 1980 and how there was a very good case that English needed a gender-indeterminant pronoun for routine use where you did not know (or care) what the gender of a person who, say, was subject to a contract, was. Even though there was a precisionist case for it, people interested in language reform thought it was a complete non-starter and instead focused on other sorts of reforms. Then 10 years ago thoughtless people who thought it was OK to mislabel people with terms like "latinx" and "cisgender" suddenly thought they could engineer language (which we share) without anyone's consent and in a culture of bad faith of course you get some jackass like Musk say his pronouns are "prosecute/Fauci" because it is all in bad faith.
throw101010qwe 2y ago
Easier said than done. Intent does not matter. The vocal minority will instantly peg you a racist and those whispers will continue to persist. I have personally been through it. Unfortunately we exist in a world now where the vocal left and right pollute the airwaves.
Jensson 2y ago
> But if you know you've done it innocently, then you can just ignore them and move on. For sensitive people that isn't really an option, it just causes endless stress.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
boplicity 2y ago
I think what PGs article misses, pretty much completely, is a more accurate definition of the work woke, which is: >A word used to label another's political beliefs and activism as incorrect and foolish, particularly if that person is seen as "left leaning" or "progressive." In other words, it's common usage has devolved to mean "you're an idiot." This is a travesty, really, because its use erases any chance to have an honest dialogue about the topics and behaviors being labelled as "woke." For example, people could instead say: "I disagree with X behavior, and here's why." Instead, people say: "look at that woke idiot." (And really, this is not an exaggeration.) The normal behavior you describe, of people pointing things out, with others' responding in kind, has little to do with the common usage of the word "woke," which has simply become a form of name-calling. And it is unfortunate, because there is much to criticize about activists on the left, but name calling is in no way helpful, and instead, drives further reductive discourse.
- tines 2y ago
  > In other words, it's common usage has devolved to mean "you're an idiot." So liberals call conservative idiots "woke"? I think people have lost the plot here in trying to define this word.
- dynamite-ready 2y ago
  This is it. Well organised and destructive conservatives across much of the western world, have conspired successfully to nullify the positive effect of a word once used to elide wide ranging ideas and discussions on the subject of social justice. This is social media at it's most galling. Though alongside that, we now have a wider appreciation of a long list historical crimes, and the longstanding effect of those transgressions. In that sense, we have all become 'woke'.
  - dynamite-ready 2y ago
    > Whenever anyone tries to ban saying something that we'd previously been able to say, our initial assumption should be that they're wrong. Only our initial assumption of course. If they can prove we should stop say For example, is a discussion about the defacement of the Black Hills a 'priggish' waste of time, or a valuable lesson about the real history of the United States?
charlieyu1 2y ago
The land mines do explode. Edinson Cavani got three match suspension after saying “Gracias Negrito” on social media to a teammate who just had a good game. And Spanish was his mother language. The teammate was not offended in any way, but some authorities higher up apparently were.

JFingleton 2y ago

[flagged]

ceejayoz 2y ago
If you go to work and deliberately call "Bob" by the wrong name "Joe" all the time, and it upsets them and they ask you to stop, you'll get fired eventually if you continue.
- JFingleton 2y ago
  ...but he really looks like a "Joe"! :D I did say "within reason"... which I realise is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
fzeroracer 2y ago
If someone is named Jimmy and you keep referring to him as Jimbo despite them politely asking you not to, what do you think will happen?
- pronounnoun 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - fzeroracer 2y ago
    It's not a huge ask or heavy lift.
    - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
      Like stepping on an icon, no big deal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumi-e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumi-e
  - ColonelPhantom 2y ago
    Calling a person by the wrong pronoun is insulting, simple as that. The social convention is: "I say 'he' if and only if the person in question is male". Thus, calling for instance a transgender woman 'he' or a cisgender man 'she', is saying you don't see them as a man/woman, thus denying a part of their identity, just like when you call them by the wrong name. I'm sure you would agree that a man with long hair or whatever should be called 'he', so I also don't see why that doesn't extend to transgender men for example.
    - pronounnoun 2y ago
      I have no problem flipping 'he' and 'she'. I find some of the asks around 'they' to be too much; it works easily in some cases but not all. The demands around 'zir' and all the other pronounisms people have come up with seem excessive to me.
      - rsanheim 2y ago
        It is really not hard, and it demonstrates a baseline level respect for other humans. I know plenty of people who go by alternate pronouns or have changed their pronouns over the time I've known them, and even in cases where I've slipped up _repeatedly_ and used the wrong pronoun, I apologize and make a mental note to change my behavior. Humans have been able to handle this sort of thing long before 'woke' was ever a thing: name changes due to marriage, or social pressure or immigration, or title changes like Miss/Ms. becoming Mrs. It may be helpful to remember that the "ask" of you is a minuscule amount of effort compared to the person making the ask, who has probably agonized and struggled with their identity, their relationships, and what sort of repercussions they may face when they ask others to change how they refer to them.
shadowgovt 2y ago
I think people may disagree on what "within reason" means. There are some red lines established by Title VII that cause "just asking questions" to cross into "hostile work environment." Is it reasonable to keep asking those questions? Reasonable people can disagree on that question, but the law will protect a company that fires an individual for crossing that line while the rest of society is arguing over where the line should be. That's just how law works in general.
diggan 2y ago
> Isn't that the issue though? I healthy society should be able to challenge, object and argue (within reason), without losing jobs or being exiled? When you're in parliamentary/house sessions (or whatever your democracy/society/state has), sure, argue and object to everything. There you have what Americans are so crazy about, "Freedom of Speech" and all that. But outside of that, in private life, most people would find you very cumbersome to deal with if you challenge, object or argue with things that people state about themselves. If I say I'm 32 years old and you try to argue against me, I'll eventually just ignore and shun you, because who has the time to deal with such inconsequential stuff?

justanotheratom 2y ago

[flagged]

ceejayoz 2y ago
https://x.com/dril/status/473265809079693312 https://x.com/dril/status/473265809079693312

zer8k 2y ago

[flagged]

fzeroracer 2y ago
> This type of policing is another iteration of doublespeak that we were warned about in 1984. Policing the language polices thoughts. It harms communication effectiveness. It makes it harder. Jesus, it's really not that hard. I work full remote and I just ask people what they prefer. I'm not in office and a lot of people aren't on camera and it's a bad idea to generally assume shit based on their name anyways. If I forget I apologize and we move on. I have literally never encountered any issues in my long career of working with people because I don't feel a need to fill my head with hot air and make a big deal about it.
int_19h 2y ago
The weirdest thing that I've run into wrt pronouns is when people object to the use of gender-neutral pronouns as "misgendering" - e.g. a person insists that you must not use "they" to refer to them but rather their preferred gendered pronoun, and if you don't, then that is "erasing their identity". The argument that's usually made for this is that if someone's referred to as "they" while other people around them are "he" or "she", this makes them feel excluded etc. But if so, then using "they" uniformly would have been acceptable, and yet the same people insist that it is not.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  Doug Hofstader in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamagical_Themas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamagical_Themas has a good essay on non-sexist language crica 1980 and how there was a very good case that English needed a gender-indeterminant pronoun for routine use where you did not know (or care) what the gender of a person who, say, was subject to a contract, was. Even though there was a precisionist case for it, people interested in language reform thought it was a complete non-starter and instead focused on other sorts of reforms. Then 10 years ago thoughtless people who thought it was OK to mislabel people with terms like "latinx" and "cisgender" suddenly thought they could engineer language (which we share) without anyone's consent and in a culture of bad faith of course you get some jackass like Musk say his pronouns are "prosecute/Fauci" because it is all in bad faith.

throw101010qwe 2y ago

Easier said than done. Intent does not matter. The vocal minority will instantly peg you a racist and those whispers will continue to persist. I have personally been through it. Unfortunately we exist in a world now where the vocal left and right pollute the airwaves.

Jensson 2y ago

> But if you know you've done it innocently, then you can just ignore them and move on. For sensitive people that isn't really an option, it just causes endless stress.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

boplicity 2y ago

I think what PGs article misses, pretty much completely, is a more accurate definition of the work woke, which is: >A word used to label another's political beliefs and activism as incorrect and foolish, particularly if that person is seen as "left leaning" or "progressive." In other words, it's common usage has devolved to mean "you're an idiot." This is a travesty, really, because its use erases any chance to have an honest dialogue about the topics and behaviors being labelled as "woke." For example, people could instead say: "I disagree with X behavior, and here's why." Instead, people say: "look at that woke idiot." (And really, this is not an exaggeration.) The normal behavior you describe, of people pointing things out, with others' responding in kind, has little to do with the common usage of the word "woke," which has simply become a form of name-calling. And it is unfortunate, because there is much to criticize about activists on the left, but name calling is in no way helpful, and instead, drives further reductive discourse.

tines 2y ago
> In other words, it's common usage has devolved to mean "you're an idiot." So liberals call conservative idiots "woke"? I think people have lost the plot here in trying to define this word.
dynamite-ready 2y ago
This is it. Well organised and destructive conservatives across much of the western world, have conspired successfully to nullify the positive effect of a word once used to elide wide ranging ideas and discussions on the subject of social justice. This is social media at it's most galling. Though alongside that, we now have a wider appreciation of a long list historical crimes, and the longstanding effect of those transgressions. In that sense, we have all become 'woke'.
- dynamite-ready 2y ago
  > Whenever anyone tries to ban saying something that we'd previously been able to say, our initial assumption should be that they're wrong. Only our initial assumption of course. If they can prove we should stop say For example, is a discussion about the defacement of the Black Hills a 'priggish' waste of time, or a valuable lesson about the real history of the United States?

charlieyu1 2y ago

The land mines do explode. Edinson Cavani got three match suspension after saying “Gracias Negrito” on social media to a teammate who just had a good game. And Spanish was his mother language. The teammate was not offended in any way, but some authorities higher up apparently were.