Among themselves? Why wouldn't they? No one is obligated to participate.

To every smoothbrain that responded thusly, if you only use a word in private amongst certain other people, then it feels a lot like we both know that’s a word you shouldn’t use.

Like scientists, doctors, and programmers who only use certain words in the company of their fellow practitioners? Or say any number of fan bases (think Anime, or personality-driven youtube channels) that have their own lingo?

Hilarious to call people "smoothbrain" while decrying "retard" Clearly it doesn't bother you when someone's intellect is questioned, so what's the issue?

"edgelord" "smoothbrained" haha I have to agree here, this is a strange argument.

Please don't take HN threads further into tedious flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What else is language dictated by if not the people who use it?

It appears they’ve already done exactly that within their community

Bad news is that they do and are.

I mean it's basically the same kind of people that turned a word that simply meant 'delayed' into a slur.

No, any euphemism people invent to talk about things that are negative will inevitably end up as slurs, because people view these things as negative. It's inevitable. Even when they invent inscrutable acronyms like DAMP or ADHD, people will use them as slurs when they denote things that are undesirable.

This is not an example of that though, since "retarded" is not a slur in WSB, it's the opposite.

Actually, they do dictate how language is used amongst themselves. It’s pretty much tautological.

Lol what is an edgelord?