I think you are making the implicit assumption here that there is a single path towards "inclusive" and "non-inflammatory". But that's not always the case. For example, some people prefer the term GSRM (Gender-Sexual-Romantic Minority [1]) in favor of LGBT because they see it as more inclusive. Others see it as problematic [2]. Should Google Docs push one term over the other? Or just not make a stance? But how do they choose when to make a stance? Because once they do start making a stance, it has massive influence over the public. And that's the real issue; these features allow companies to have greater and greater influence and power over the public discourse.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_minority

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_minority#Controversy

Ideologues deliberately gloss over the fact that the "inclusiveness" has become inflammatory.

Edit: our D&I consultant does not allow us to use words like "analysis", "independent", "lead", "driven", and "competitive" (there is a whole laundry list) in our job postings to foster "inclusiveness" [0]. The implication that these traits, which are virtues in my culture, are undesirable, is offensive, as is this top-down culturally mandated feminization. Google is doing the same thing here. Its a minority imposing their culture onto others. Let's not even get started on the views that we are supposed to have regarding, say, gender.

The same "research" is undoubtedly underpinning Google's "inclusive" suggestions. Is this really benefitting anybody? It's worse than mere coddling, it's antithetical to the equality movement, fosters a toxic workplace for straight men, and we should all be pushing back against it.

0. https://blog.ongig.com/diversity-and-inclusion/list-of-gende...

If you think straight men are the victim of toxic workplaces because of this, imagine how other people feel.

Furthermore, when did the (highly subjective) masculine/feminine coding of a word become more important that its actual definition? What if you do in fact need an "independent" person? Does that mean you need a man? Aren't we just back to stereotyping then?

Like, for example, if I read for a competitive, independent, ownership, whatever buzzword position, I think "wow is this some kinda hostile all-blame culture or something where everyone is out for themselves? I'll pass, thanks".

I would say I'm a fairly independent dev who takes a lot of pride in my craft. But a lot of toxic workplaces in my time excuse their toxicity in saying their employees just aren't tough enough to handle the workplace.

But what if that's an accurate understanding of the company culture? There are surely people who thrive in these sorts of environments, even if you (and I) are not among them. Are you suggesting that these people are mostly men?

Then avoiding the language would effectively be tricking people into applying when they wouldn't actually want to work under those conditions.

You might have three "white guys" and one grew up in poverty in the US south and made his way out of it, one who was born in a tiny town in eastern europe, and one who grew up in a middle class family in the SF bay area. But there are many people, if seeing those three guys in a photo, would make some snarky comment about "tech bros" or "white dudes" and completely discount the fact that they are three unique people that have grown up with completely different backgrounds and come with completely different experiences and approaches to life.

Most, if not all, diversity efforts I have come across, including where I currently work, focus exclusively on externally presenting traits like race and gender, with the explicit goals of reducing the numbers of white men in category.

The actual definition is the meaning ascribed by users of a word as it is understood by their audience. The dictionary is a recording of meaning, not a creator of it.

And more effective in other, measureable, ways. This is very much not settled science. There are many ways to measure effectiveness - idea diversity is only one of them.

Surely you would agree that hiring a white American as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant where only Mandarin is spoken by the kitchen staff (not uncommon) would hinder the effectiveness of the restaurant?

The fellow may bring a new perspective on how to run things, but if the owners are not interested in his perspective (which they are entitled not to be, right?), then all they're left with is the communication difficulties he would face performing his function.

> Plus our society is not homogenous, so from what mechanism does the homogeneity of the team emerge? Is it completely benign and spurious?

Generally the mechanism has been that many people actively seek to associate with people similar to themselves, people they can easily relate to. This generally includes hiring. I think it's perfectly benign and quite natural for people do cluster around cultural similarity. It's why we have things like Chinatown.

Most other behaviour, to me, seems to be in this category: people preferring the (professional) company of those they can relate to. If it's OK for a Chinese restaurant to only hire Chinese people, why is it wrong for an investment bank or programming firm to only hire people similar to the founders? It seems to be the same mechanism at play.

This isn't the position though. This is adding additional hypotheticals like language barriers. It would be more like hiring a white american waiter of a chinese restaurant, where both the white american waiter and the chinese kitchen staff don't have significant language barriers. In that case it might actually be helpful depending on the demographics of people eating at the restaurant.

When I'm speaking to people whom I relate to well (including colleagues), half of it is movie quotes, rude jokes, varyingly subtle digs, etc. I suspect most people are the same. In order to write for a wider audience, I have to add rather a few more layers of thought and consideration to what naturally comes to me - to formalize my language.

This burden of formalization is in fact exactly what Google is trying to help with. It is only required when people don't relate to each other well. Having a homogeneous team eliminates the problem.

As far as I'm aware there is a single contrived study which looked at financial metrics from boards with female representation to come to that conclusion. This is a tenet that activists desperately want to believe but flies in the face of conventional experience and basic reasoning. At the very lease some minimum common culture, like language, is necessary for a functioning team. How do you expect a team to function if half the members believe that traits like "independence" are toxic and words like "analysis" are offensive? That's culture too.

>Plus our society is not homogenous, so from what mechanism does the homogeneity of the team emerge? Is it completely benign and spurious?

Another recently popular fallacy used to justify these toxic policies. That a team is composed primarily of one demographic does not imply sexism. People who share cultural values and personality traits are likely to gravitate toward certain disciplines, it is an entirely emergent phenomenon and does not require invocation of discrimination to explain. For example, regardless of the amount of sexism actually present in the tech workplace, it is absurd to expect gender parity if one acknowledges that women are fundamentally less likely to be interested in programming in the first place, as a consequence of human nature.

These policies all feel great but are ultimately half baked, and the danger here is that for merely questioning them, as any rational person should, we risk our livelihoods. The consequences for society are bleak, as we are now explicitly prioritizing gender and race over competence. This is, ironically, top-down mandated systemic racism/sexism.

Edit: in fact I would go as far as to say that all communication is predicated upon common culture, because words, symbols, gestures, and inferred intentions are all inherently cultural. Even things like correcting mistakes of others and questioning seniors/elders are vary with culture. There is absolutely no reason to believe that diversity is an absolute good and cannot hamper communication and cooperation when certain cultures are mixed. We've gone totally off the rails because the same people pushing for these policies have created a system where their discussion is forbidden.

But if we're at the point of looking around at this world and saying "Ah yes, human nature caused this and certainly nothing else did" then I don't think I have anything to contribute to that project.

You don't think, given the zeitgeist, that these studies might be a little biased? Maybe designed to produce certain acceptable results? What kind of scandalous pushback do you think google would get from activists if they dared to suggest results which went against this forced D&I consensus?

> Williams and O’Reilly (1996) review dozens of studies showing that ethnic diversity has a negative impact on group performance. In the two decades since, more research has reinforced that result. Alesina and La Ferrara (2005) find that increasing ethnic diversity from 0 (only one ethnic group) to 1 (each individual is a different ethnicity) would reduce a country’s annual growth by 2 percent. Multiple studies (La Porta et al., 1999; Alesina et al., 2003; Habyarimana et al., 2007) have shown that ethnic diversity negatively affects public good provision. Stazyk et al. (2012) find that ethnic diversity reduces job satisfaction among government workers. Parrotta et al. (2014a) find that ethnic diversity is significantly and negatively correlated with firm productivity.

> This may seem strange to you. If you’re like me, you probably enjoy diversity. You probably don’t observe the problems of low morale and high marginal costs that researchers have found in ethnically diverse workplaces.

Yes, I know very well what the alleged rationale is for this toxicity. But can you spend more than half a second actually thinking critically about the implications of such policy? Let me put it this way: if a person is so sensitive as to be unable to handle a job posting listing objectively desirable traits and behaviors like "leadership", "competitive", "analysis", "objective", etc, then I would question their ability to function as part of a competent team, or even as an adult. The implication is that women are so fragile that they need to be protected from words otherwise representing totally desirable traits in a team member.

We can't find a female senior python engineer because there are almost none in the pipeline, not because our job postings are "gendered". Of course these D&I grifters would be out of a paycheck if they admitted as much. But the gaslighting and forced discrimination is absolutely infuriating and totally demoralizing.

It's probably the case that a lazy researcher saw a fewer URM applicants for jobs with those words and assumed the causal factor was the word, rather than factors like education requirements or something else.

but if I want to put lead and driven on a job ad for a person, that's because I want someone who feel they can lead and are driven for the job. If prospective applicants don't feel they have those quality (or are ready to apply them for the job offered), why should I care?

Which are the demographics not going to apply if you include "analysis" in job posting? I am genuinely curious.

https://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/static/documents/Gauc...

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with this, but this will help explain it. (I will note that the paper often uses the word "analyze" itself, for what it's worth.)

The feminine/masculine assignment list verges on insulting on its own. Autonomy is masculine? Objective? Logic?? Reads like a 80s cartoon stereotype.

Yeah, that's the point. The words are supposed to be gender stereotypes, and they are in fact taken from literature circa ~90s-00s (not the 80s but we all know the stereotypes were still prevalent then). It's not supposed to be insulting, these are presented in an academic context with extensive references to the prevailing literature.

The paper you linked uses the word "analysis" 10 times and never in a listing of "gendered words".

What is the gendering of the word "analysis"?

This paper doesn't say you can/can't use these words, but rather just categorizes them as "gendered".

For some reason, both of these words are included in patterns ("analy*" and "compet*") in the "Masculine Words" list; however, the methodology for Study 1 indicates that the word "competitive" is agentic and has to do with agency rather than gender.

It then references several papers for where they sourced their lists, but I can only access some of them. In the ones I was able to access, I can't find discussion on why "analysis" or "competitive" are considered masculine words. Many of the ones I can't access are older studies, perhaps not incidentally.

I work with "analysts" many of whom are women and they are expected to perform "analysis" as part of their job. A research study I found[0] indicates as much as 48% of women are in "Analyst" roles.

The study referenced in the paper you linked looked at roles where the largest group of women in a male dominated profession was 26% for computer programmers.

I am sure it is very complicated and I'm missing lots of things in my quick survey, but in this admittedly cherry-picked example I don't understand how "analyst" is considered a masculine word when there is near parity between genders in "analyst" roles.

I wonder if some of these words are coded based on biases from times gone by -- maybe back in the 1970's and 1980's most "analysts" were male and therefore most "analysis" being performed by males, but in 2020's this does not seem to be the case.

[0] https://www.zippia.com/analyst-jobs/demographics/

Let me try to abate some of your confusion: you are approaching this with the assumption that the research and policies originate from a position of good faith. They don't. The motivations are petty jealousy, greed, and insecurity. It's much easier from an emotional perspective to blame "the system" (i.e. white men) than to acknowledge that some groups are more likely to be better suited for certain occupations than others. Racism and sexism are convenient excuses which direct attention away from personal insufficiencies. That's partly why this dogma is so intoxicating - and the other reason is that it's misleadingly presented in a way that implies it can only result in more positive outcomes. Add in the stigma against questioning any of this and the outcome is a rigid orthodoxy which is totally removed from western liberal values of equality of opportunity, which is being deliberately conflated with equality of outcome.

I wonder if each of those words have been rigorously studied on their effect on applicants, or if your D&I consultant is just imposing someone's sexist stereotypes on your listings?

The link strongly suggests that it's the latter.

The thing that hurts the most about many of these inclusiveness pushes is that they are actually endorsing, enabling, and promoting sexist, racist, or otherwise discriminatory stereotypes while pretending to be holier than thou about it.

And crosses became inflammatory when Black people started getting civil rights in the U.S.

I, for one, refuse to cede any influence whatsoever to bigots attempting to control our discourse by throwing temper tantrums about inclusive language.

I've personally made the change because I see no harm in it, and it makes my colleagues happier. Being kind and considerate has low cost and high rewards.

You are not being kind you are belittling and making a real event that hurt many into a silly game. Racism and slavery are real things you and your co-workers can fight against them if you truly care.

Get in touch with the oldest org fighting slavery: https://www.antislavery.org

They could use your money, time and network. The one thing they don't care about is changing master to main in your github repos

Also you said "high rewards". What are rewards in this particular case?

However, there are groups of people at my work who say that “main” is a less controversial term and in fact a better term for a “trunk” of code development (“mainline”). Since I see no harm in using it, I figure, why not?

The rewards for me are having better relationships with my colleagues and less friction, which in turn leads to a more promising long-term career outlook.

I will admit that what makes this easier for me is that I think society is generally moving in the right direction, towards more diversity, more equity, more tolerance, less racism, etc. If I felt things were going in the wrong direction, I would stand up against it. But it's always easier when the river carries you in the direction you want to go.

Sorry I don't have a great answer here, but what I do know from experience is that most of the time, standing solely on principle while the hilltop is crumbling underneath you isn't a very safe place to be. :-)

You seem to be conflating controversial with clearer

We have no obligation to do or say anything other than "What you're telling me to do is unreasonable, you can get stuffed."

http://paulgraham.com/heresy.html

This is useful for speaking on the international scene. It is impossible to be aware of all possibly harmful words.

Take for example "Eskimo". Many people outside Canada would not know that the people who it is used on prefers to be called Inuit or better yet the names of their own language (Inupiaq or Yupik). But to a Canadian, this would be a glaring mistake as many consider "Eskimo" to be insulting.

If I am writing a support text for that demographic and use the wrong word, I will be happy that my text editor adds a little hint that says "Are you sure you want to use this word? It might make people angry."

The alternative is to use the dictionary search feature on every single noun. I can think of a lot of such words. This is heavy and slow, so tech comes to the rescue. This feature already exists on a lot of spellchecker.

"The name Eskimo is considered derogatory because it was given by non-Inuit people and was said to mean 'eater of raw meat."

is a historical and sociological context.

If you are writing about the uses of the word "Eskimo", you click "skip this word" and the word will remain in your text.

If the added context has you believe that using the word in your text might anger the very demographic you are writing a text on, you click "replace word".

If you choose to ignore the context and keep using the word at the risk of angering the community you are writing about, you click "never show this again". But at this point, don't complain if people are angry at your text.

That's it.

I bet you can simply turn off the feature altogether like you can in other software.

It is not universal or unimpeachable context, it carries a certain set of assumptions that may or may not be true:

- "is considered derogatory" suggests that everyone (or nearly everyone) considers this offensive, when in fact some people still call themselves Eskimo. To suggest that "Eskimo" is always or usually derogatory is therefore non-inclusive of people who use the word to describe themselves.

- The theory that Eskimo means "eater of raw meat" has been called into question; an alternative theory is that it derived from the French word esquimaux, meaning one who nets snowshoes. To circulate the arguably more offensive association of the word may itself be reinforcing untrue and possibly offensive connotations of a word that some people prefer.

Any attempt to present one particular interpretation of a word as universal truth, or one framing as the true "context", is often overly reductionist and prescriptive, even non-inclusive.

Another great example of this: indigenous people in the USA generally prefer the term "Indian" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ), and yet polite American society will pressure you to say Native American instead. Something tells me that this feature in Docs will not be suggesting that you change "Native American" to "Indian", despite the fact that the people themselves often prefer it.

It itself is not adding context, and it should be disabled by default if added at all.

If PC nazis want this they can install an extension or enable it.

I don't need Google to give me moral lessons or be the arbiter of truth and feelings.

Dear Google docs team, just stick to spelling and grammar checking in your word processor, thank you.

Maybe next they can add a Clippy with a neckbeard that pops up and says "ackhtually... this is bad, would you like to censor yourself?"

It's not about feelings, it's about conditioning self censorship.

EDIT: @madeofpalk, spelling is not subjective, grammar is but it's a style guide based on structure. PC rules change on a dime based on feelings and politics. But yes you can be a grammar nazi and a PC nazi. Generally the two overlap because it's a certain type of zealot personality.

Look at this app for example: https://hemingwayapp.com/

The added colors that are not present in Google Docs are incredibly helpful.

The fact that you feel threatened by a tooltip that includes text that is present in most dictionnary is irrational.

See for example what Merriam-Webster already has under "Eskimos":

"Eskimo is a word that presents challenges for anyone who is concerned about avoiding the use of offensive language. Its offensiveness stems partly from a now-discredited belief that it was originally a pejorative term meaning "eater of raw flesh," but perhaps more significantly from its being a word imposed on aboriginal peoples by outsiders. It has long been considered a word to be avoided in Canada, where the native people refer to themselves as Inuit, a word that means "people" in their language. But not all the native people who are referred to as Eskimos (such as the Yupik people of southwestern Alaska and eastern Siberia) are Inuit. Eskimo has no exact synonym; it has a general meaning that encompasses a number of indigenous peoples, and it continues for now in widespread use in many parts of the English-speaking world."

Meanwhile Cambridge Dictionary has "Note: Some of these people consider the term Eskimo offensive, and prefer the word Inuit."

Collins has: "These peoples now usually call themselves Inuits or Yupiks, and the term Eskimo could cause offence."

This is not new information pushed by Google. This is simply technology making our lives easier.

If you want or need a PC word checker to not piss off liberals thats's fine (they are the ones getting offended on other's behalf, not the people they are "fighting" for), but most people don't.

I see no reason to have this enabled by default.

EDIT: @Karawebnetwork, I don't see any Inuits proposing this, just liberals who love censorship, love getting offended on other's behalf and redefining words to make themselves feel like they've done something.

There is more than one country in this word. Not everything is about the American political dichotomy.

Professional editors already do the work that is provided by this feature, they simply use dictionaries and their professional experience instead. Now even the writer is able to see and adapt the text as they write, which results in more natural texts.

This is just what those features are, a replacement for an editor. And like of a human editor that sends back a text with lines under words and comments in the margins you can simply ignore it.

Edit:

As per your edit, I would recommend you leave your house, drive north and ask. I can assure you that people want to use the names of their people and not an arbitrary word that has been pushed on them by strangers.

A way to explain it that I have used before is to compare it with people who call Americans "Burgers".

Sure, most people don't mind it. You chuckle, roll you eyes and continue with your day. But if from now on all official texts no longer had "Americans" in it but "Burgers", you can be sure there would be anger.

Especially if when people said "We were called Americans before and never stopped calling ourselves as such" they were answered with "No one actually cares about this, I have called you Burgers for decades. Don't get mad, that's just how we call you over here."

I'm not applying this social pressure to self censor, maybe the people doing so could drive north and ask. Have you?

> Sure, most people don't mind it. You chuckle, roll you eyes and continue with your day. But if from now on all official texts no longer had "Americans" in it but "Burgers", you can be sure there would be anger.

Your hypothetical is nonsensical. A group decides what to call themselves. Americans themselves would need to decide that in your scenario.

What outside communities call you (yankees, etc.) is separate and cannot be controlled.

In general, I'd suggest not getting offended on other people's behalf or looking for things to be offended about. Words don't hurt you unless you let them.

The pressure is on being educated enough to be polite with the people you discourse with.

I do not know how we can meet in the middle ground since you believe that using accurate words to describe people is censor.

Yes, what outside communities call you is outside of your control. However, what you call outside community is within your control.

Since it is within your control and you can choose to use any word you want (as long as you are fine with the repercussions), this is not censor. You can absolutely call anyone by any word you want.

That said, refusing to expand your vocabulary will diminish the range of you thoughts. Keeping with the previous example, calling two different and unassociated tribes by the same name will prevent you from learning about them separately.

Oh I'm well aware of the PC rules, I disagree with them. They have nothing to do with being polite or educated.

> I do not know how we can meet in the middle ground since you believe that using accurate words to describe people is censor.

Most of the time the PC words are not accurate at all. They are confusing to everyone involved, by design.

> Since it is within your control and you can choose to use any word you want (as long as you are fine with the repercussions), this is not censor. You can absolutely call anyone by any word you want.

This is why I said self censor, you're bullying people to conform to your silly rules.

> That said, refusing to expand your vocabulary will diminish the range of you thoughts. Keeping with the previous example, calling two different and unassociated tribes by the same name will prevent you from learning about them separately.

Oh I know your PC words and my thoughts are expansive. I just disagree with the entire premise.

I call Inuits as such, if I've ever referenced them? I don't think I've even used the word Eskimo ever before, as it just doesn't come up.

That's word policing!

If people decide to get angry about a perfectly innocuous word that is not intended in any offensive way, that's their problem.

If you're referring generally to people from that part of the world 99.99% of people would understand Eskimo to mean a person from any one of the many Native American tribes in the far northern part of North America. It's not any different than saying "Middle Eastern" or "Asian" or any other indication of geographic origin and it doesn't carry any derogatory connotation.

Only the 0.01% of people who go out of their way to look for things to get offended about are going to get offended.

Or the people who are.. constantly reminded of the ignorance around them. Consider that people who are actually called Eskimo by others, might hear this more often than someone who doesn't look the part.

Frequency really changes the game here. Everybody who had a little brother will know: someone saying something annoying to you once is easy to shake off, someone who saying the same annoying thing to you constantly, day in and day out can be nervewrecking. Now imagine how much worse it is if the annoying thing comes from whole parts of society and every day. If you talk to people affected by such things (e.g. women by sexist remarks) the main thing that makes the difference is how frequent those things happen and my feeling is that many people can't even imagine.

It is nice to see that many people can not relate to this, because they had it easier, but confusing your own perspective with all shared reality is not an advantage.

Like if you’re a software engineer and someone refers to you as an engineer, you don’t get all annoyed and pedantically explain that you’re not someone who drives trains, because you know that’s not the sense in which the person meant the word.

In my experience, it’s hard not to take offense when the word being used is frequently used by people who are intending offense. Our brains are hardwired to perceive attacks, and if I’ve been attacked by people using similar wording before lower-level functions are assuming anyone using that wording is attacking me.

The example used in this thread, Eskimo, is probably harmless from people who don’t interact much with Inuit people. But to an Inuit person, the people who live near them using the word Eskimo are probably being insulting. Sure they might judge that e.g. a Belgian internet commentator didn’t mean offense, but their brain is jumping to that conclusion and then being talked off that ledge.

Are you trying to suggest that there aren't certain words it's inappropriate to use in certain types of writing?

In many cases they are making a false assertion that a particular word is inappropriate, simply because it's inappropriate for them in their context/culture/morality while it's entirely appropriate for the writer's context/culture/morality; and those false assertions essentially attempt to change the writers' own notion of what's appropriate or not towards what Google considers appropriate - and I don't agree that Google should be allowed to apply such social influence.

A negative connotation amongst those whom subscribe to a very specific religious dogma.

> … god forbid someone who just wants to use language that won’t make someone upset.

Clearly “upsetting people” is not the metric.

It’s only considered a problem if you upset the people privileged under your particular ideology.

I certainly spell my words differently if I get a red squiggly line. Do you not?

Tech rarely "enforces" via direct controls unless a regulation is forcing it. What it does instead are nudges like this, and pretending the nudges don't have notable and similar impact is either naive or in suggested bad faith due to the company one works at.

You always have the option to just not. It's called enFORCEment, not enSUGGESTment. I presume the reason you choose to correct spelling is that you know it will be received better by your audience if the words are spelled according to convention. If you are spelling a word outside of the dictionary and you get a red line under the word, do you then change it to something you know to be not what you wanted? Of course not. If however you could only write words in the dictionary, then that would be enforcement (especially if you couldn't add words to the dictionary).

Presumably you have the same choice here. I really don't see the difference.

It's really striking to me that a number of issues today where everyone is exercising their free will are somehow twisted to be authoritarian overreach. Someone is upthread calling it authoritarian and a new heresy. I mean... come on. The histrionics are getting out of hand. Now a squiggle is "authoritarian".

The first problematic word dictionary that leads to the green (?) squiggly line in this tool came out of a nlp neural network in the past few few years, folks aren't quite sure how it works, and it has some additional best-effort labeling of phrases from the product team.

That's 400+ years of semantic/syntactic development vs. <20, likely <10 years, but let's start shifting the language all the same because we're a FAANG?

If you really don't see the difference, again it is bad faith, or naive. The conceit from teams that build and launch these tools without any consideration for the above is astounding.

Great way to engage with someone. Am I supposed to take your personal attacks against me as demonstration of your good faith attempt to participate in debate? Please refrain from this rhetoric in the future.

Anyway, I'm not sure I understand your point. What does the age of the first dictionary have to do with any of this? I can kind of see a point if I squint, but I'm a bit lost. Your position seems to be couched in the idea that this kind of thing will "shift" language but I don't understand the mechanism by which you feel this will happen. Maybe in your next reply you could expand on this idea (if I'm right about the thrust of your comment), omitting any personal attacks please.

Because the way I see it, if you want to say something you can still say it, and if you disagree with any suggestions Docs gives you, you are free to hold firm to that disagreement and use any language you want. Your idea would only seem to apply if you think that Google has hegemonic dominance over document production... which I don't think is remotely true.

From my earlier post in this same thread:

"I didn't imply GOOG was setting up gulags, but I will refer to my early comment in response - it's either naive or bad faith to say that network effects from dominant players do not lead to enforcement in everything but name, and that the scope of concerns from engineers and the products they build should stop at "well, its just a feature." Algorithmic news feeds on social media was just a feature too.

Enforcements, mandates, suggestions, impacts, governances, features - spitting hairs semantically on the overall issue that tech "features" shape areas that tech and its product owners have no business shaping/influencing/impacting/enforcing but still do anyway, let alone even understand, and the downstream ramifications are significant.

They get away with it partially via enablers like your view which minimize the dynamic to local examples that open up framing the counterpoint as something absurd - yes, Google's gulags aren't built yet.

Edit - to put at least one impact of tech like this another way, it's not Google that puts a user in a gulag. It's the coworker of the user who notices a phrase the coworker also typed, was caught by Google, and the coworker corrected - why didn't that user also change it? All these second order effects were doubtlessly considered by that Google product team, I'm sure? Putting aside my original point that Google doesn't even belong in this space by a mile."

Just because something has an impact doesn't mean it is enforcement.

Trust me when I say Google isn't going to throw you in the gulag for putting a word in whatever design doc you're writing.

Enforcements, mandates, suggestions, impacts, governances, features - spitting hairs semantically on the overall issue that tech "features" shape areas that tech and its product owners have no business shaping/influencing/impacting/enforcing but still do anyway, let alone even understand, and the downstream ramifications are significant.

They get away with it partially via enablers like your view which minimize the dynamic to local examples that open up framing the counterpoint as something absurd - yes, Google's gulags aren't built yet.

Edit - to put at least one impact of tech like this another way, it's not Google that puts a user in a gulag. It's the coworker of the user who notices a phrase the coworker also typed, was caught by Google, and the coworker corrected - why didn't that user also change it? All these second order effects were doubtlessly considered by that Google product team, I'm sure? Putting aside my original point that Google doesn't even belong in this space by a mile.

Evangelicals could resort to extreme measures (violence, unwanted proselytization, bad faith arguments, etc.) If you ask them to shut up, they'll just not do so or leave entirely.

This is just a feature you could turn off. The rest of Docs would still be usable.

Yall are really getting inflamed over nothing. There are better ways to use your energy. You can just turn the feature off or not use the product. Comparing this to evangelicism dilutes the harm actually caused by evangelicals.

Imagine if Google was dominated by religious conservatives and their "inappropriate" language suggestions flagged "gay parents" or "pro-choice" as 'wrong' by default.

We like to think we make informed rational decisions at every point in our life, but we don't; the inputs matter a lot and companies control more of those than we would want to admit.

Tech oligarchies don't have such restrictions. It's almost scarier.

The theory on the federal level is "this judge was appointed by president X-1, so they aren't influenced by president X". So for better or worse (depending on which president that filled the vacancy), they may go against what is popular in administration X. The federal supreme court tries to be shielded away from the immediate politics of worrying about re-election and stuff.

On the state level, well... as usual it's a free for all. Just to list the "hot" states of subject:

- Texas: the people vote for them, 6 year term. no different from voting for a senator/representative. - Florida: More complex, but in short: the governor chooses from a list of candidates handed to them, and the chosen judge serves one term (4 years) before the people decide to keep them or not.

So the people on the state level here have some sway. But then again, the people here are... well, Texas/Florida people.

Makes me sad.

Let's compare. You say things Google doesn't like, a purple squiggly goes under your words that you have the option to turn off. You say things Russia doesn't like, and armed men barge into your home to take you to jail.

How disconnected from reality do you have to be for me to have to make this comparison explicit???

If anything, the actions Putin is taking to control the information landscape make me much more upset about woke clippy. Liberal society should be about a free exchange of ideas. It’s not just another orthodoxy with soft manipulation instead of hard manipulation for thoughtcrime.

If you don’t understand why this seems manipulative and tone deaf to lots of folks, that means you’re confused. Not right.

You are truly blessed if the most worrying thing in your nation right now is Google's attempt to compete with Grammarly.

If there was a war going on, I would not compare getting punched in the face to a war crime.

This would be true if there is no way to disable it. I'd bet you any amount of money it's an optional feature that you can simply turn off.

You're being unnecessarily hyperbolic.

I don't agree that it's authoritarian, because if you don't like it you can turn it off. It's no more authoritarian than opt-in-by-default (aka opt-out) for organ donation that some countries do; i.e. not authoritarian.

(Full disclosure, I'm a former Googler, but that has little to do with this)

By giving you suggestions it's telling you that it thinks you are wrong. There is no way around that. It's a judgement plain and simple and that changes people's behaviour.

> Even the suggestions can be turned off.

Let's be honest. No one changes the defaults.

> Language (like everything) has become politicized,

ANd now my word editor is picking a side...

"Everything is inherently political" is no excuse for making things even more political.

Ironically, this thread is part of the culture wars commenters are claiming to be against.

I think this feature should be opt-in rather than opt-out. If its turned on for everyone, it should only promote non-controversial suggestions, like the spelling of "their"/"there"/"they're".

You would probably balk if google docs made "suggestions" to call the war in Ukraine a military exercise. Or if it suggested removing any criticism of the CCP because some people may take offense.

Scolding me for using the word "landlord" here in Australia (where its a gender neutral term) feels to me like the same sort of unwanted intrusion into my mental life. This feature makes me really angry.

What will Google do when Russia or China ask them to add their own set of locality-specific "suggestions" to google docs?

Why? Is it because it's political?

I also experienced a Google's Photos feature I thought should have been opt-in, as it wasn't working well for me (auto-labeling in its early days) - but it didn't make me angry; I simply turned it off. I genuinely would like to know why this change is triggering to so many people, in case my assumption is off the mark (i.e. Google is entering the culture war fray on the "wrong" side)

Sometimes I journal. The piece of paper becomes an extension of my mind. There's a sanctity of that space. It is deeply private, and free because ... well, because thats the point of journaling. Sometimes you have to say the idea wrong to figure out how to say the idea right.

And by "piece of paper", I mean, I type into my computer.

Into this context, google wants to insert itself with woke political opinions on my writing? Or suggestions on how I'm not using an "active voice" enough? No. That comes across like an out of touch, entitled 20 year old in another country is reading over my shoulder while I'm journaling in order to make asinine, inappropriate suggestions about my writing. Or so it can judge my politics. All this, in the sanctity of my own mental palace.

Would you take political advice from a google docs AI? Would you take its advice on what the word 'landlord' really means, in the context of your own community, in another country? I wouldn't. If you want to convince me of your politics, take a stand and make your argument boldly. I need to be able to hear what you say as an argument then feel free to disagree with you. Don't dress up a political campaign as writing advice.

It makes me angry because it feels manipulative. Like you're trying to trick me into replacing my words with your words, in order to advance your political agenda. All administered via an AI that I conveniently can't debate. I'm angry because I don't want to have to be on guard against political manipulation simply in order to have my own thoughts, in the privacy of my own mind - or the extension of my mind called a computer. If I mostly agree with the political stand its almost worse - because I won't notice the manipulation as easily.

I also can't help but wonder what would happen if that stupid, entitled AI gets uppity and disagrees with any of my politics. If Google already has an AI thats reading and judging the political content of what I write, where does that end? Will there be consequences down the road for me if I say the wrong thing in my own journal? Probably not. But I'm not absolutely certain. Maybe I should self censor my own thoughts preemptively just in case? In my own journal?

No. F off. I'd much rather burn google docs out of my life than worry about any of that. Which is a pity, because its otherwise a good product.

What google is failing to understand here is that my computer needs to be an agent of my will. Not an agent of google's. Violating that principle is a betrayal.

Google Docs had always needed an internet connection to work, why aren't you complaining about that?

To compare a service product to a piece of paper is asinine and deluded.

Unfortunately, corporations in their ruthless efficiency, don't take to the deconstructionist argument. It would appeal to a large part of the market to have streamlined templates for legal documents, marketing pitches, etc. These are all per se "pieces of paper" at the end of the day but that's not very useful to think about when 45% of your users keep using the same templates for the same purposes. I would imagine some significant segment of the userbase are politically centric marketing drones, and would love a feature like this. I think they have no taste, and that corporate centrism is a problem, but separate from actual authoritarianism; and focusing on Google misses an opportunity to focus on the root issue.

What’s the root issue, as you see it?

I can see the evangelicism now, but I think it's dumber than that. I really do think they're just competing with Grammarly or trying to streamline some process. Changing Docs isn't going to solve the issue, changing the culture is. The culture of relabeling problems as quirks, toxic positivity; and more importantly the sincere confidence in the feeling of good/right that all that entails.

What you're articulating is quite a subtle cultural problem. I don't hear many people naming it or talking about it.

Microsoft Outlooks suggestions are more than a mere annoyance on this front. They consistently suggest that "probably" and "perhaps" and "maybe" and "almost certainly" should be removed from my writing precisely because they convey uncertainty. That is why I wrote them in the first place! If I knew a result confidently, I would say so.

Please, let's not have another venue algorithmically pressuring everyone to uniformly remove nuance from communication. There is no one-size-fits-all threshold for "too wordy" or "too passive" or anything else with regard to language. Context is everything.

That just sounds like a poorly implemented feature.

This will encourage people to avoid the word 'landlord'. They will start using 'property owner'. I'm not okay with that. A homeowner is a property owner. A landlord rents out the property they own. The terms shouldn't be conflated like that (as much as many landlords might want them to be).

For example: "landlords should pay more taxes" is very different from "property owners should pay more taxes".

As for landlords perhaps wanting to be treated as equivalent to property owners, I think the previous poster gave a suitable example of why this might be the case. In many places landlords are being targeted politically (rightly or wrongly). It would be to their political advantage if all reference to them was conflated with regular owner occupiers by use of the term 'property owners'.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/many-latinos-say-latin...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/hispanic-voters-lat...

Spanish isn't the jumbled mess that English is. It has a lot of rhyme and reason to it. While not without exceptions, its rules are generally quite reliable.

"inx" is a not a Spanish syllable. You can't pluralize it. You can't rhyme with it. Hell, you can't barely pronounce it.

I get so tired of people popping up to defend the idea as if it's not so bad, invariably citing data collected from bilingual, second-generation US immigrants. Stop. If it's important to you, then at least have the sense to argue for "Latines", which at least kind of makes sense and doesn't sound like something invented by an English speaker who had only ever seen Spanish written, not spoken.

Your argument isn't cogent to me: it's an English word used in an English context. Your line of reasoning could be used to argue that "Anglo-Saxon"[1] is not a legitimate term because the Germanic tribes didn't use the term to refer to themselves.

1. The same goes for "German", "Chinese" or "Belter"

Latino and Latina are Spanish words that American English speakers have adopted in the last ~80 years due to the significant intermingling of Spanish and English speakers. Their use spans a spectrum of Spanish-only speakers, bilingual speakers, and English-only speakers. Not only does the English word "Latino" (my eyes roll typing that) have an etymological relationship with the Spanish word "Latino", their etymologies haven't even diverged. English speakers who took a Spanish class in high school even pronounce Latino in the Spanish way, "lah-TEE-noh" instead of "luh-TEE-no", because they think of it as a Spanish word.

I have friends who self-identify as Latinx, and use the word, I have friends who say Latine, I have friends who say Latino. Language evolves and I don't think your vitriol is warranted.

Generally speaking, when a wide sweeping change is going to take effect, the onus of proof about why it should be done is on those advocating in favor of the change, not on those defending the standard. That is, "How is this change useful?" vs. "Why wouldn't this change be useful?" The latter assumes the change is good and asks for proof which cannot exist yet, while the former focuses the questioning on the underlying value of the change prior to implementation.

This particular change is a complex one. It clearly has w*stern politics crammed into its carcass, which are tedious to read, and doubly so to speak on. For that reason, I'll try and avoid such topic. Besides, I tend to assume your question is asked in good faith, so I would simply ask:

Can you give an example of where it making a "good" suggestion is helpful?

Under optimal circumstances, the ability to "help" the writer would be subjective, right? Under suboptimal conditions, the suggestion would be: unwanted, unneeded, or wrong.

Sure:

Upon writing, "That guy is a loser," a response from the computer: "You're using using emotionally-loaded and ambiguous language. Consider revising to provide constructive criticism."

Ideally, the feedback a computer would provide would be similar in scope and wisdom that feedback from an experienced human editor would provide.

> "You're using using emotionally-loaded and ambiguous language

Whats wrong with emotionally loaded content? Are you afraid of feelings? That statement doesn't seem ambiguous at all to me - but even if it was ambiguous, I believe ambiguity is sometimes appropriate.

I'm partially with you - I don't often utter things like "That guy is a loser" either. But there are still plenty of contexts in which I'd happily write those words. For example:

- When writing dialogue in fiction

- When supporting a friend with an abusive partner, to let them know emotionally that I'm on their side in the conflict

- In conversation like this

But to go deeper, the language I use is an expression of me. There are very few things as intimately tied to our identity and world view as our choice of language. I can't think of many things as dehumanising to an adult as taking away their choice of how they express themselves.

Imagine if the suggestion, when writing about the war in Ukraine was "Using the word 'war' is inflammatory to some audiences. Have you considered 'military exercise' instead?". Or "Using the word 'they' is ambiguous language. Have you considered using he/she instead?". It doesn't feel as good when you don't agree politically with the suggestion.

To this day people cite doublespeak as one of the most chilling aspects of George Orwell's 1984. This whole thing spooks me for the same reason.

But as others have said, writing feedback -- automated or otherwise -- is a resource. Sometimes it's helpful, particularly in the professional context. Other times, it isn't. We still have the freedom to choose when to use it and when not to. And I see no harm in having the tools available to help when needed.

I just think politically controversial writing suggestions should be opt-in. We don't all work at google. And not all documents are corporate memos. Its extremely important to a liberal society that people are free to think and express heretical thoughts without feeling like we're being watched and judged for doing so.

Getting political judgements ("suggestions") from an omnipresent AI looking over my shoulder while I write sounds dystopian. That sort of technology skeeves me out. I don't trust the sort of people who think this should be turned on by default with access to my private notes. And you shouldn't either.

Saying both is fair. I generally assume there is a primary intended target, but both is workable too. Your assessment is that both parties benefit from the change?

Thankfully HN wasn't around when spell-check was introduced.

That there is such a thing as “proper english grammar” is itself inherently contentious and political. DFW's review of Authority and American Usage unpacks this a bit, if I recall. It's hard to find online because it's still under copyright, but I found this: https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWAuthorityAndAmericanU...

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise

"Ain't" is a perfectly normal construction in some dialects of English, but if you use it in a formal setting, people will notice and will think it's strange.

It could be useful for a product like Google Docs to tell you not to use dialectal grammar like "ain't." If you're writing a formal document, you probably want to avoid that kind of language. However, if Google Docs goes beyond that and starts telling you to replace completely normal words like "blacklist" with woke alternatives like "blocklist," that feels more like an attempt to establish some sort of religious orthodoxy. It gives the same vibes as if Google Docs were to start trying to push Evangelical religious sensibilities on its users. It's not helpful, unless you think your audience is extremely uptight and you want to avoid upsetting them.

It's useful, especially for people who aren't already steeped in cultural norms, to have a reference for "how might I come across if I say this". Words simultaneously communicate meaning and connotation, and it's helpful to understand both the meaning and the connotation. People aren't going to misunderstand the author of a text that says "blacklist"; they're going to understand just fine, perhaps including ways that the author would prefer not to have been perceived, or perhaps in ways the author intends to be perceived.

Tooling like this won't change the minds of people who are determined to be offensive (with or without the added assertions that they don't think it should be considered offensive). The point is to inform people how they may come across. It would be incorrect to say "this word is universally considered offensive", just as it would be incorrect to not label the word at all; it'd be more correct to say "this word's status is [disputed/transitional], with [an increased trend towards being considered non-inclusive], and consequent [doubling down by conservative language users]; consider avoiding due to any or all of offense, controversy, or politics".

Until just two years ago, "whitelist/blacklist" was completely normal language with no racial connotations, and I would wager that it's still viewed as completely normal by the vast majority of people. However, in just the last two years, people of a certain political persuasion in the US have decided to make these phrases into an issue.

If it is critical for you to communicate and come off well to a relatively small subsection of upper-middle-class liberal Americans, then these suggestions might be helpful. If it is critical for you to communicate with fundamentalist Evangelical christians, then a different set of suggestions might be helpful. I view the two situations in exactly the same way. However, if you're just writing for a generic audience, then these suggestions come across as unwelcome proselytizing.

It wasn't ever not politicized.

The problem is, by doing that in a platform of Google's size, they have effectively declared themselves the arbiters of what is inappropriate.

I suppose all copy editing features do the same, but being the arbiter of spelling is easier, since spelling isn't morally charged and you can just go with Merriam-Webster for US English.

And I suppose if they were to use that power to flag old slurs, including those people might not know, especially for non-native speakers, great, they might catch some embarrassing errors.

Instead they decided "landlord" is bad word, for some reason, and now I will make fun of them.

And there are so many.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_pejorative_terms_for_...

"Using gendered language avoids not gendering people, and even though there are people who are offended by being gendered this seems like a great trade off."

But other than the old “he/she” (annoying) repeated thing or perhaps “they”, some other constructs feel pretty forced. I feel that without starting a conversation where both sides partake, no consensus will ever happen. Or, probably the foremost should be the actual targeted demographic be consulted, because in plenty of cases these are not coming from them and they don’t even approve of these changes, making it the old feel-good changes for the sake of it.

You mistakenly wrote "people" when you meant to write "Google and those who ascribe to the same ridiculous cultural mores as Google".

Honestly, never noticing that is even strange.

EDIT: I did assume English, and it is fair that other languages treat genders differently. I was wrong here! That being said, I think the likely answers are, in order, 1/ mass-sent emails 2/ just not being worth offending someone.

No, they just don't want to get fired

If you think people are only being inclusive and non-inflammatory to not get fired, I think maybe you simply just don't understand that some people are genuinely caring and empathetic.

It's bizarre to me that strong sapir-wharf seems to be the dominant thought in 2022.

You probably generally care but if you didn't it would be foolish and perhaps costly to not play the game. Your situation re-enforces the need to.

It's a class thing. Which is why it sounds forced when a CEO who doesn't have a preexisting american accent of some sort says it.

As a Texan it sounds jarring and wrong when said by a non-Southerner. A bit like a lily white person suddenly dropping into AAVE. It's just cringe-inducing and I would like people who do it as an affectation (rather than something they grew up saying) to not do it.

I don't think "folx" is going to be one of the recommendations, it isn't synonymous with folks anyway, so the replacement would be rarely make sense unless you were explicitly talking about particular queer or marginalized communities.

This is virtue signaling - a no cost action meant to make you feel like you are helping people without actually helping people.

No, it's simply a hint that your message might be better received if you change your word usage to something which is more current, more inclusive, or less triggering. For example, in the U.S. the word "master" might be triggering, given that black people were enslaved, tortured, and murdered for hundreds of years in this country. I'm OK to avoid it. If you want to use it, you can ignore the squiggle, but none of this has anything to do with "virtue signaling".

Before a few years ago, I seriously doubt that innocuous uses of the word "master" were triggering to anyone beyond a very small group of political activists. It's a common word that is used in many contexts completely unrelated to slavery. Nobody with their head soundly on their shoulders was triggered when they heard phrases like "master chef," "master bedroom" or "master's degree."

There's a difference between avoiding language that actually does have strongly negative or prejudicial associations and actively seeking out reasons to be upset about completely innocuous common phrases. There are words that really do become polluted (like "Führer" in German, which used to be a normal word for "leader," but which now is strongly associated with a certain someone), but there are also words that are completely harmless that people work to try to make an issue out of for ideological reasons (e.g., "whitelist").

There's a certain strain of politics in the US which does actively seek out and attempt to remove "problematic" language. You may agree with that politics. But a lot of people (myself included) don't think that "problematizing" innocuous phrases like "master chef" is actually helping anyone, and rather see it as a form of bullying.

Call me suspicious, but I’m not convinced that the arguments extending the debate to all use of the word master are entirely made in good faith. In fact, it seems a lot like controversy for controversies sake and I can’t help but wonder if some troll isn’t out there fanning the flames.

Maybe you could use friendlier words like "not free" or "hurt"?

If a word like "landlord" can be "triggering" then we can't even discuss actual historical events like slavery or torture, etc (one would at least presume torture to be more triggering than landlord).

Hold up, what's wrong with "brown bag" now?

I told said boss exactly how many times the complainant should be fired but needless to say, their identity was protected and nothing happened. If you believe that can't happen you're not really aware of how these people think. The next step is an admin/site-level setting that allows "uninclusive" language to force-disable sharing. You wait and see.

If this was implicit in your presentation, then I think I can see why you were reported to HR.

But, look, maybe you didn't deserve to be reported. Anyone can report anything to HR.

Obviously, if you're teaching people how to eliminate bias in an interview process then people who believe that absence of pro-female bias is "sexism" will consider it implicitly sexist, regardless of intent. But that's a nonsensical inversion of basic English and morality. People who report others to HR for that would be fired in any competent company (this one wasn't).

I mean, how many times has this happened to anyone, let alone the individual in question?

I don't call Japanese customers Japs even though that used to be a valid English term because it is now widely considered offensive. These are terms that some groups find offensive and more may find offensive in the future. It makes sense to stay ahead of the game and not cause offense if it costs me nothing to do it, and it makes sense for Google to help people who are trying not to offend people do so easily.

This is exactly right.

You need to follow your logic one or two steps farther to understand the incentives at work.

I don't think you have really answered the question about the logical incoherence put to you in another comment [1], which was replying to this comment by you (now flagged, sadly):

> If a bunch of people are saying "this thing hurts me" and your stance is "well you shouldn't be hurt so shut-up". > Yeah, you're an asshole.

Honestly, genuinely: my feelings are hurt by reading your comments here - I find it a bit chilling, it makes me uncomfortable. I'm a free speech advocate, and I perceive (rightly or wrongly) a frightening swing away from free speech values in the last few years, and your comment triggered uncomfortable feelings. Perhaps I'm wrong about this, perhaps my view is biased somehow. We could debate it, and maybe you'd point out something I hadn't considered, and maybe I'd change my view. But until then, the fact is, my feelings are hurt by your comments. And I'm definitely not the only one - there's more than a "bunch" of free speech advocates in the world who find this line of argument chilling.

As a free speech advocate, I believe you should have the right to say what you want, and that my hurt feelings should not prevent you from doing so. But don't you see the logical incoherence in your position? How can you argue that you are not an asshole under your own logic? (To be clear, I am not calling you an asshole, just pointing out that your own logic would seem to conclude that you are an example of one, while also containing the statement that you are not one.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31088745

I'm a free speech absolutist. I'm not saying any word, phrase or idea should be illegal, no matter how repulsive I, or anyone else, find it.

There's no logical inconsistency here.

The notion that personally choosing to use inclusive language is "chilling to free speech" is ludicrous.

Plenty of users are making similar points to yours in thoughtful ways that are within in intended spirit of the site. If you'd please do that instead, or else refrain from posting, we'd appreciate it.

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

Anyway,

You're twisting words to try to pretend that "woke scolding" exclusively means "asking people to stop one-sidedly hurting others for no real reason".

So I'll ask again in a narrower form that is harder to deliberately misinterpret:

Telling me I'm privileged (especially as a rationale for excluding me from certain groups at work or school) hurts me. It makes me angry and/or sad. What's your response?

I personally dislike the conversation around "privilege" since the word invokes an objective response, instead of the subjective one that's intended.

Worse, the whole concept of privilege is meant to be academic and thoughtful. Instead, it gets used as a weapon to dismiss opinions and belittle a speaker.

If a completely new word had been invented to describe the concept, I doubt the concept would illicit the reaction it does. But given the reactions people do have, I avoid it.

You are saying that a person saying "this hurts me" means that they are actually being harmed. I don't agree.

People frequently lie, usually with a motive.

And if you think words can cause harm, than perhaps you can see that the words "this hurts me" can be used to get what you want, your motive, and that can cause harm.

Yesterday, I accidentally scrolled onto my discover page and saw that google has added a new distinct information section to it. I don't feel like having these headlines clamouring for my attention whenever I scroll. Now I will have to learn how to turn that off.

These "auto-opt in" features have a psychological attrition effect on the user as the toggle moves, and people's time and attention is distracted elsewhere, and also by the features themselves as they are added and cannot be customized. You should update your model of this comment section's subject matter to account for this fact.

If they want to offer it as an opt-in, fine, but this is intrusive.

~~~~~~~~

This word insinuates that a tyrant can only be of male gender. Plenty of women have broken the glass ceiling on this one. Please consider using the word "overperson".