Re:Google Docs will “warn you away from inappropriate words”
by josephg on Wednesday April 20, 2022 @11:17PM
(#31105709)
> I think 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?
Re:Google Docs will “warn you away from inappropriate words”
by mxkopy on Thursday April 21, 2022 @06:10AM
(#31107651)
Docs is incredibly pervasive and changing its defaults would alter how a good number of people think. But that's not even a bad thing, it becomes quite bad when you consider that these changes are being lead more by taste than by ethics. Our social elite have confounded the two - that's the problem. Nobody knows when a word is ethical or not, but the influential certainly know when they are put off by a word. By nature of their influence, many are willing to accept at face value that their "positive" and "inclusive" attitudes are a good thing.
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.
Re:Google Docs will “warn you away from inappropriate words”
by josephg on Thursday April 21, 2022 @09:55AM
(#31109447)
Thanks for responding like this. I think I agree with what you're saying; though I'd still appreciate it if google docs wasn't walking down this road.
What you're articulating is quite a subtle cultural problem. I don't hear many people naming it or talking about it.
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.