I think you perhaps do not understand the text of 1984, never mind the subtext. In the novel, Newspeak is a part of intense and total historical revisionism in support of a coherent government agenda enforced by a powerful central authority, not a decentralized and gradual change in the language people use "enforced" only socially.

> Someone starts to lecture you about how referencing "winter" is non-inclusive to Southern Hemisphere readers? "We don't do that here".

This is a very interesting example. If you're a global company and you make your product, say, snow-themed globally during the Northern winter, it's simply inaccurate for Southern hemisphere users. I don't really see how that's a political correctness or language issue as much as a factual correctness issue.

Misunderstanding 1984 is extremely common. Especially amongst people who haven't read it.

If you're a global company then you should already be used to localizing products for various cultures and/or regions. Political correctness would be criticizing the North American branch for selling winter-themed products in the North American Winter months - and variations of that criticism do happen. People doing X in X country where X is normal get criticized because it is not normal in Y country despite taking place in X country where it is normal.

A small, loud, and extremely obnoxious group has mistaken speaking alongside minority groups to help advocate for them and make sure they are heard as speaking for minority groups even if it means speaking over them. They take the far extremes of everything and pretend that's the norm. It's been especially common for people without dyslexia to speak on behalf of those with dyslexia about a particular "puzzle" (Enter the Nth Word of the Nth Sentence of the Nth Paragraph to prove you've read this.) And as someone with dyslexia phrased so well: "I'm dyslexic. Not illiterate and unable to count. I don't think you realize that you come off as patronizing and condescending wanting to "dumb down" the puzzle for me. More likely I think it is because you failed to read and now feel stupid. Please don't speak for me or people like me in the future."

For some context - the "puzzle" occurs when you fail to follow directions on how to continue setup. If you read the instructions - it tells you to hold CTRL while clicking the "continue" button. If you fail to hold "CTRL" while you click it will give you a 2 minute timeout, remove the "continue" button, and provide you a message to please read all of the instructions in order to proceed or you will need to solve an obnoxious and time consuming puzzle. Failure to do so will result in the obnoxious puzzle where you must enter three randomly selected words from the setup instructions to make the "continue" button visible again. Failing to follow instructions will repeat the puzzle over-and-over until instructions are read and followed. There have been no complaints from any dyslexic users about this puzzle in the support Discord - but several complaints from people who do not have dyslexia speaking on behalf of those who do who "might" struggle with the puzzle that would never be encountered in the first place if people followed the setup instructions.

I agree completely with this, but I really do not think that this is what most "anti-woke" people are criticizing, including GP.

Newspeak is actually a very similar approach to what’s going on currently because it removes words that allows communicating ideologically problematic concepts. What’s going on with the entire blacklist/whitelist issues is based on the assumption that removing a word that describes a perceived injustice will remove that injustice from the world. It is an approach that is completely blind to the real meaning a word has taken, and tries to folk etymologically hack a different interpretation. This is why the real insulting words are never these that debated.

Both Newspeak and "rightspeak" think that language creates reality rather than the other way around

Snitching on your neighbors to the state secret police because they criticized the state is not a bottom-up movement. It is possible only when there is a coherent, centralized state agenda.

There are no woke police. There is no woke Stalin. The analogy is utterly inapplicable here.

> the real insulting words are never these that debated.

I'm curious about this, do you have some examples?

about the examples, if you would take extreme slurs against minorities, these are not used in a professional environment already so they are never these that are discussed

The words that are discussed are such that are established for a different connotation. that connotation is completely metaphorical and does not carry any real insult, yet some insist on literalizing those, or finding hidden meanings

I mean, it's also inaccurate for people in Florida, or when it's brown out etc.

> Post-Weimar Germany.

Very post. 1984 was written in 1948, notably after the fall of Nazi Germany. It was about the dangers of authoritarianism and how authoritarians can use their control of the academy and the media to increase their control on the rest of society, not the dangers of people asking their coworkers to change the name of a Git branch.

Because if I am, I'd say that you're building tools for your enemy to use. There's no reason the alt-right can't use the same tactics on LGBT teens as you'd want to use on alt-right nutjobs. There's no inherent reason why these tools can only be used on the guilty. That's why fairness in discourse is important (to me at least). Think of it as a social Geneva convention. Once you start thinking "the ends justify the means" and using saran gas you're giving the hated enemy permission to do the same.

Take a look at the playbook of the trump subreddit before they got banned as an example.. They learned most of those plays they used to dominate the front page and silence outsiders from leftists, often even using automated moderation tools that were initially created explicitly for leftist subreddits.

"We don't do that here", if it becomes a normalized part of the discourse, will be used by the hated enemy once they're powerful enough to do so effectively.

Enlightenment and free speech are the Geneva convention of discourse. I really don't think it's in anybody's best interest to erode those protection, but I suppose time will tell. Still, it feels like the left is building the social infrastructure for fascism that the right will inevitably figure out how to co-opt...

What I'm saying is that it's _not the same toolkit_ because it doesn't include state power or historical revisionism.

The problems LGBT people have (speaking about the US right now because that's where I am) are with the application of state and state-aligned media power against us, not the application of social power.

Social power is important, but it is much less likely to be deadly without state power at least tacitly supporting it.

Orwell's thoughts on Hitler don't line up with your convenient framing of his book.

We don't do that here. If a belief or position or ideology is bad, you should be able to skewer the actual position rather than an exaggerated strawman of it.

This is how you turn a useful discussion into a pointless shouting match - you caricature and exaggerate your outgroup's position. "You're a bunch of religious extremists!" "Well you just want to be biased and get away with it!" "Stop trying to be thought police!" "Stop being so racist!"

While each individual bit is mostly true ("new-speak", a group that shares many religiosity traits deeming more and more parts of language bad and people joining the witch hunters out of fear of being labelled witches (I'm guilty of this)) the extra adjectives and hyperbole are harmful to discourse.

Have an upvote.

"Using a weapon gives your enemy explicit permission to use it against you." ~Me

I'd love to live in a world where we speak to the average most reasonable person in the room instead of the most sensitive, easily offended, and brittle person in the room. But that might be my age showing.

And that's the tension between the majority and the minority, an ageless tension.

This person proposes the OPPOSITE of a weapon. A constructive tool to disarm potential issues in the workplace to redirect focus to the task at hand is not a weapon. That you view it as such might be a flag for yourself to look at how you view workplace discussions.

You want it to be ok to STEAL the effectiveness/contributions of MARJINALIZED people from the company for irrelevant purposes. These people were not placed ( placed, these are not your friends who can choose to hear your funny quips, these are co-workers just trying to do their job) to work with you to give you opportunity to offend, they were placed there for a business purpose. Why do you want to STEAL potential contributions from the place you work while at the same time reducing quality/effectiveness instead of just being, you know, professional?

Your first paragraphs seem fine. Your second reiterates my last sentence. Your last paragraph seems unhinged. There's no need to yell or put plans in my mouth, that's just poor arguing.

Most tools never stay in their original places of use, they drift.

All the I see here is you complaining about shifting social mores. Toughen up.

Maybe if you weren't so "sensitive, easily offended, and brittle" then the notion of a window of acceptable social behavior, that changes over time, wouldn't be so radical and hurtful to you.

I had nothing to respond to, hence the lack of meaning.

Cares, like will bend over backwards to prevent any possible perceived insult? No, that's not reasonable. We don't need to revamp our language. Intent, not language, should be the focus. For example master and slave are perfectly fine terms for the relationship between pieces of hardware or software. No actual slave in this world would care. No actual person descended from slaves should care. If someone is truly insulted by language and not intent they need to grow up.

Cares, like makes reasonable accommodations, sure. That's what handicap parking places are about. That's why there's ramps on sidewalks in cities. That's why there's a push for accessibility in software for colour blind people.

Spoken like someone who's never had to hear a slur about them in a joke. "But I was just joking!" - oh, then it's okay?

Maybe the person using slurs should grow up? In the article, the author specifically discusses a case when a new hire used a pejorative.

Intent doesn't matter. What you say and do matters. "Well I just wanted to get home safe and to bed" isn't a good defense when you get into an accident while drunk driving.

"Personal argumentation on the internet is the bastion of the shallow." ~ Me

I cannot prove over this medium if I had experienced that or not. You cannot verify either way. Your use of this argument saddens me. You could have just left it out and strengthened your apparent position.

> Intent doesn't matter.

Mens Rea doesn't matter? There's more than a few hundred years and dozens of generations of judges and lawyers from around the world that would like to have a word with you.

If you believed what you're saying above, then why respond? Also, you don't need to quote yourself; you can just write the sentence.

> I cannot prove over this medium if I had experienced that or not. You cannot verify either way. Your use of this argument saddens me. You could have just left it out and strengthened your apparent position.

It was rhetorical. Someone who's actually experienced this doesn't take the attitude you're taking.

> Mens Rea doesn't matter? There's more than a few hundred years and dozens of generations of judges and lawyers from around the world that would like to have a word with you.

I'm talking about racist jokes and being a decent human being, not legal precedent.

Changing the language with good intentions isn't a problem if intent should be the focus instead of language.

What is not ok is demanding that people be mind-readers and pull the "good intent" out of the people's heads who use harmful language widely identified as unacceptable. Language changes over time, except for dead languages.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

> harmful language

No such thing.

The trick is always eschewing pareidolia.

No politics, you come to work to work, as long as you treat your colleagues with respect.

Companies shouldn't be changing the political landscape anyway, that would be a scary world.

I'm C-Level, so I can hopefully instil this as culture.

I'm curious as to how you think lobbying works in the present day and the past four decades or so.

BTW: I'm a big fan of your work. :)

Wow, I guess I need to move to Sweden. That sounds extremely nice. And in that context, I _absolutely_ agree with your statement that corporations shouldn't try to shift the political conversation.

> BTW: I'm a big fan of your work. :)

Aww, thanks!

Sweden has not yet decided what to make illegal, but lobbyists are avoiding doing anything that violates rule 0: http://www.aalep.eu/lobbying-landscape-sweden

Rule 0 is "Don't act in a way that makes me create more rules", in most old online communities.

I love that!

Basically, where it is illegal, they don't call it lobbying.

Does respect include calling them what they prefer to be called? No matter how you answer this question, a large portion of the population will say you're being political.

At the end of the day, I wouldn't want someone making what is probably a tough situation more difficult and hassling me about a name change if I were in that position. I have a really long name, and I'd be annoyed after a while if someone kept addressing me by that name, rather than the shorter name I choose to go by as an adult.

None of this is political, it's just being a polite southerner. You treat folks how you want to be treated.

Whatever your employment contract says is what goes into the employee directory, and should be consistent with the tax office.

If you’re referring to pronouns then I don’t have a good answer honestly. I have a personal opinion that pronouns are not important. If you want to call me mister or miss or Mzzz then that’s not going to cause pain, unless you do it with malicious intent.

The point of respect is that your personal opinions are not important; the opinions of the person on the other end of your communications are.

That we’ve managed to conduct our society so far without using alternative pronouns such as “xi/xir” is a strong indication that it’s a neo-political construct and, while I might be sympathetic to the person who prefers to be called by those terms, I will not go out of my way to force everyone in the company to - they’re also usually referential (without the person present) and I will get them wrong myself too.

I personally don't know any right-wingers that wouldn't call you by the name/gender that you request them to. These people probably exist but it is a very small group.

Theres a difference between disagreeing with the concept at a societal level vs disrespecting someone on a personal level. Far fewer people do that.

Even to cis people.

That's... a new one for me. Ah, they're all over Etsy—if anyone else was thrown by that, they're exactly what your first guess would be based on the name: a big round pin with your preferred pronouns printed on it. Interesting.

Well, yes, obviously? They have a pronoun pin. That's not a matter of disrespecting that person (as you note, we do it to everyone); it's a matter of disrespecting pronoun pins on principle.

Pardon me, but what? You expect the persons wearing the pin to not feel disrespected? Or that the pin will be emotionally damaged by the disrespect?

"Well, pronoun pins are dumb"

Pick one.

While I'll readily admit I don't like a lot of the political environment here, there are also a _lot_ of amazing people and places.

Doesn't happen all the time or everywhere, but I've seen people brag about doing this.

I find it personally helpful to get points of data like this.

Living in Switzerland, the cultural standards are sometimes astonishingly different between countries (e.g. I still regularly see job application forms that require both a headshot of the candidate and a date of birth).

The answers generally are:

- "We've always done it this way" - Well sorry to hear that, but that's not a reason

- "Everybody does it this way" - Well, I'm a candidate and I can tell you that no, only 10% of companies are doing it this way

- "We want to get a first impression of the person before we invest time to look at them closer" - The first step in your application process is a 15min call with an HR person. Do you really need a step before that to reject someone based on age or ethnicity or gender?

So far, no one has reacted with any kind of understanding.

I've never been faced with this problem personally, but what I can say that is that if you've known someone for any length of time say "Bill" and then one day "Bill" wants to be called "Jill" there is an ask that extends far beyond what is ordinarily reasonable.

That's why I think "deadnaming" is totally stupid. That name isn't dead. You just don't like/prefer it. But it was there and people know that name. They know you—and you just changed your mind. That's not their problem—that's yours.

Is your opinion the same?

Marriage is a union where two people make a lifelong commitment to each other: their identity is now united. This is a normal and good thing.

Someone wants a nick-name? Sure. No problem.

Someone who was a guy/gal and now claims to be something else? Especially if he/she is actively known in a space as something before and _then_ changes? That's a HUGE demand that honestly shouldn't be something anyone is comfortable asking others to do.

Edit: Guess I should put a /s. Is there a tag for highly passive aggresive /s?

For example, I might say that calling me by my preferred pronouns isn't political, it's a matter of basic respect. Other people might think this is an act of political coercion, and report me to HR for violating the "no politics" policy. Resolving that dispute is a political act.

Moreover companies are political entities granted a charter by the state, and don't hesitate to have positions on political issues that directly affect their business.

So "no politics" doesn't mean "no politics" at all, it means (charitably) no discussion of politics beyond things the prevailing political consensus deems as apolitical, or (uncharitably) no discussion of anything that makes the dominant group uncomfortable.

So, while I appreciate greatly the attempt to politicise the world and make this topic greyer than it needs to be: it’s a little at odds with reality unless you’ve entirely internalised the notion that everything is political always.

This is the same argument as “silence is violence” but even that movement acknowledges the reason they consider it violence is because it supports the status quo.

The status quo should not be considered political. In order to be apolitical one must live within the status quo; only excluding the inherently political things like protesting or denouncing/promoting politicians or parties.

Similar to how theism doesn’t preclude denouncing other faiths or supporting any: whatever the current climate is with regards to the dominant theism; is what is usually understood to be normal by atheists wherever they are based- with the obvious exclusion of inherently religious things like going to a place of worship or praying.

Politics is simply the way people in groups come up with decisions. How you and your friends decide where to go for dinner? Politics, whether it's voting or someone's birthday preference, or because your one friend Ayn really has to be the one to decide or else she throws a fit.

The status quo? Well, yeah, it's not political, in roughly the same way that a paper mill is not political. But like you say yourself, it becomes political when someone wants to change something. If someone wants to build a paper mill in the middle of your neighborhood, you'd best get your political hat on and start doing the political boogie because you don't want to live near the smell and chemicals. If someone wants to change the status quo, say because they think the current treatment of Xs by Ys is unacceptable, then you can bet that both supporting and opposing the status quo will become political.

No, not everything is political, but many things are, especially when we're talking about how to govern corporations, which are political entities with a charter from the state and often have a great deal of power over their employees and the communities in which they operate.

> The status quo should not be considered political. In order to be apolitical one must live within the status quo; only excluding the inherently political things like protesting or denouncing/promoting politicians or parties.

And who defines what is "within the status quo"? Doing so is a political act.

it's unethical, then, to allow them to make policy as they're considerably more powerful than the individual, much less empathetic and optimise for extremely self-serving behaviours.

Conversely, the number of times I've sat through people losing their shit about some trivial perceived "wokery" is way higher. YMMV.

While this is true, that means that you can't discriminate against someone for how they believe. If they act in an unacceptable manner - for whatever value of unacceptable is used for am environment- then putting a stop to that is not discrimination.

So now you've lied to the speaker. Or you have to write that discrimination policy yourself, pushing it through HR and C-level.

And as the author says, that's what they would prefer, if they had all the time and energy in the world - and the sentence "We don't do that here" serves to say "Please don't make me have to write down a rule that says we don't do that here.".

It's like seeing a sign "Please don't pee in the washbasins in the 3rd floor mens' room". There's a reason someone had to put down that rule in writing.

What do the quotes signify here?

Either you agree that language matters and so we should be considerate about how our language affects our thinking, or you think it doesn't matter, in which case it shouldn't bother you when someone wants to update terms to be more accurate or inclusive.