Sure, we're not expecting every single word on these lists to have any random person go cry in the corner, but those are pretty long lists and I could totally see specific people getting hit at the right angle and be affected enough to warrant consideration.

If someone hits me with a bat with sufficient force, I have no control over whether my bones break or not. If someone says a mean thing, or something that could theoretically be interpreted as mean if you completely ignore their intent and context, I 100% have control over how I feel about that.

You do, that's great, sincerely, I mostly agree with you, but I feel it lacks a bit of nuance. Adults should have control over how they interpret reality, but not everyone does, and some people want to use perceived offense (Oppression Olympics) as a means for some sort of change, even if it's just padding their wallet.

Some folks are immature, some folks have PTSD or some other condition and/or problem which makes it harder for them to have the discipline you have. Can we acknowledge both that words are interpreted by the listener, and that the listener might not be able to handle them?

I try to not be affected by things, why should I respect someone who's trying to insult me, and if I don't respect them why should I care at all about what they are saying? It boils down to self preservation ultimately I think. Ostracism might not be the death sentence it used to be, but it still can be seriously deleterious.

They wouldn't, and they don't. The insult is purely imagined by people who write these lists.

If we follow your argument, you do have control over whether you let the pain affect you. Pain is just a mental state after all. And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away?

I obviously think this is a bit silly and could be used to justify just about anything.

Even if you could ignore the pain, you wouldn't physically be able to move your arm well if the bone is broken, which would be an inconvenience for most people that they would care quite a bit about.

Well i suppose that really depends on their mental fortitude, how much they let it affect them.

Someone who's decided that the mental and physical pains and debilitations are wholly separate, especially here, will probably want cited studies and actual scientific evidence that the psychological community no longer believes that. Until that is presented no amount of semantics is gonna work.

Up to a point. You can't control your genes or your upbringing completely, merely suppress it.

Otherwise we wouldn't have trigger words. For sure you have one, too.

Sure, everyone has some. I probably have some too - I don't keep track of them, but I know mocking some of the things that I hold dear will definitely unsettle me.

That said, one of the core part of growing up, of becoming an adult, is learning not to get triggered, and in the rare cases you still are, learning to calm yourself down. It's a prerequisite for participating in and contributing to a healthy society.

Nobody could possibly keep track of the list of trigger words for everyone they could come into contact with. The list itself would cover so many phrases across so many topics as to prevent communication. Even if we could keep track of all of this (scary thought: for the first time in history, this may become possible, thanks to computers), erring on the side of avoiding any and all trigger words would be a security vulnerability, easily abused by people trying to gain power over others (arguably, the very list we're discussing is an example of this).

The point is, we can make some concessions for words or phrases that are intended to harm or known to negatively affect a lot of people - which is what cultures have been doing throughout the recorded history. Beyond those few concessions, it's up to individual to handle their own triggers, in a way that doesn't disturb everyone else's ability to communicate effectively.

This is incorrect, and flies in the face of the current literature in psychology and neuroscience. A cursory glance at some very rational people who are quick to anger and how we cry after losing a loved one should rid you of this notion.

In neither case are the words the cause of distress, but rather some event, belief or threat that's communicated or implied through those words. The way humans communicate, individual words are only loosely correlated with the message they're employed to carry.

How have we arrived at a point where we have to make such defensive statements when no offense was ever intended? Isn't it upon those wanting to change the language to defend their arguments and bring forward thorough evidence that the intended changes will justify the costs (along with an analysis of what the real costs are)? And do we believe that we can create a language that can still work for meaningful communication while simultaneously ensuring that no one can possibly ever be offended?

You don't have to. Just say what you need to and ignore the quetching.

No. It isn't anymore. Because the loud minority now has the means to globally and publicly destroy you if you say something they dislike. You might lose your job or even your personal safety because of a statement that can be interpreted in some way that someone doesn't like.

I am pretty sure that an employee insisting not to abide by this mandate would be reprimanded and even fired if they don't stop.

https://ed.stanford.edu/academics/masters

https://github.com/github/renaming

https://sfconservancy.org/news/2020/jun/23/gitbranchname/

0: https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spirale...

The question is, will they be affected by word itself or the composition of words? Because I can probably make an offensive sentence using most of the words in this list (except tarball, I'm not that creative). But I can also do the same avoiding words from the list and still hurt specific people. So having this list doesn't solve the problem, but it can be used to harm people. You don't like some argument, lets check if we can find a harmful word in it and use that!

I think the tarball thing is rediculous, but the opposite extreme of no words can be hurtful is also rediculous.

I don't think most people need to be told that "jewed" or "retard" are not appropriate professional words. Certainly not anyone who works at Stanford, just like nobody needed to be told not to say any of the other slurs that aren't on the list.

I also don't think anyone is arguing that the authors of this list intended it to be exhaustive.

You can’t be the one deciding if people are hurt or not, it’s their call.

Are you trying to suggest that this is a dichotomy? It seems to me that the common-sense position is (used to be?) that neither the person performing an action nor the person at the receiving end can be considered impartial and trusted to make that call.

Either way, the idea that "being hurt" is a state that the individual has full discretion to declare themselves as being in seems incompatible with our existing widespread moral intuition that A hurting B results in a moral and potentially legal claim to redress from B towards A; otherwise, anyone could trivially claim constantly being hurt by everyone and therefore entitle themselves to an arbitrary amount of restitution. One of the two therefore has to go for society to function: either you don't get to make the call if you are hurt, or it's a priori morally neutral to hurt you.

This would be the part where differ. I understand the argument, but as you point out it would lead us to a dead end.

IMHO someone being hurt doesn’t mean they need reparation. As an example, people mourning are deeply hurt, and they will also be extra sensible to specific words that are mundane but resonate differently to them. We can both recognize they’re hurt, some words hit them differently, and have no redressment to them outside of sympathy perhaps.

That’s an extreme example, but I would see a lot of steps on the spectrum, including for instance my boss hurting my feelings by coldly and factually pointing out how bad of a job I did.

I get to decide if I’m hurt or not, but that doesn’t automatically make me a victim entitled to reparations.

There needs to be some kind of end, some kind of closure to hurt - otherwise we have a positive feedback loop that amplifies suffering and eventually turns violent.

> As an example, people mourning are deeply hurt, and they will also be extra sensible to specific words that are mundane but resonate differently to them.

In this and similar cases (bad breakup, loss of health or future prospects or sentimental property, etc.), other people are making a time-limited concession to let the grieving person process their experience. Beyond that time limit, one should not expect others to keep carefully controlling their language for one's sake. One should especially not count on making those concessions permanent.

> That’s an extreme example, but I would see a lot of steps on the spectrum, including for instance my boss hurting my feelings by coldly and factually pointing out how bad of a job I did.

Happened to me the other day, and while I did suffer internally, not for a second I thought they should've been prohibited from saying what they said, or from saying it the way they did. It's not the words that hurt me, but awareness that I'm seen as less reliable in the eyes of the other (coupled with anxiety/fear related to the prospects of my future employment).

I don't see why the end can't be education on the part of the person saying those words. The reasonable response to someone saying they're impacted negatively by a phrase is to find a way to rephrase it, maybe this isn't always possible, but 90% of the time it is and doing so will result in a more positive outcome for both parties pretty much always.

In specific cases it can, and is, what happens. But in general case it cannot - for the reason '4bpp already phrased well upthread:

> One of the two therefore has to go for society to function: either you don't get to make the call if you are hurt, or it's a priori morally neutral to hurt you.

Or, put another way: you can't both 1) be able to unilaterally declare you're being hurt, and 2) expect any moral or practical response from others to you being hurt. It's either one or the other - because allowing someone to have both means giving them power to easily control and hurt others without consequence.

If they're hurt by words, maybe it's irrational that they're hurt by them, but they still are. Assuming that they're being honest, "you weren't actually hurt by that" is a nonsensical statement - the person saying that has absolutely 0 evidence to make that call, and the hurt person has perfect knowledge.

I think tying it up into legal language of restitution is a mistake, no one is advocating for legal liability or even any real punishment here.

The kid, despite having perfect knowledge, has incorrectly judged the severity of the situation. This happens with kids, because they don't have enough experience or emotional maturity to appropriately gauge their emotional responses, much like the people who write lists like this.

> I think tying it up into legal language of restitution is a mistake, no one is advocating for legal liability or even any real punishment here.

What exactly is a "real punishment"? It seems like there are certainly calls for extrajudicial liability, insofar as there is no shortage of examples where people call for damage to be done to those who "engage in harmful behaviours" (referring to hurtful words) that is in excess of what would be necessary to stop the "harmful behaviours" and more seems to be aimed at causing disutility to someone who is taken to deserve it. I assume that a Stanford employee, in any capacity, who refuses to abide by this guideline and draws any amount of attention in the process would find themselves at the receiving end of the actions of a large number of people who would try to get them fired rather quickly. Is this not a real punishment?

Civilization runs on grace, removing the ability to express yourself freely removes some of that grace, and lessens all of us.

In casual conversation with people you have the context on, it's probably fine.

As a wording for official documents and dispkay that will sit prominently on public/semi-public places it might have wider effects: some people might not want to use it because of the naming, while it was set aside for them. Some people will be more aggressive towards user of this space if they feel they don't deserve it (not visibly handicapped enough) etc.

Signaling disabilities or special conditions is a real minefield to navigate properly. And thing is, you're putting time and effort yo have the widest acceptance possible, so what people think is kinda central.

I'll accept this premise for the sake of discussion. How does replacing the word 'handicapped' fix any of these issues? Lets say we re-print all the signs to say 'accessible parking' and all the hangtags to say 'requires accessible parking'.

People still may potentially get upset that a seemingly able-bodied person used the special parking spot. People who require the special parking spot may still potentially feel bad about it and choose a regular spot.

Playing games with the labels does nothing to help people, and serves only to satisfy the self-righteous people writing the new labels.

The effect to my eyes was that when a car is parked, there was no wheelchair mark in sight, and no prominent “disability” wording (it’s still there, just not the “in your face” type), and people caring enough still had the small prints to explain it’s not just people in wheelchairs.

I agree with you that it won’t stop everyone for getting upset, I mean some people don’t need any excuse to get upset, so will always be edge cases. But I also think urban design has an effect, even on the people using it.

I have elder parents that can barely walk anymore, but they won’t use priority seats in the buses because they don’t want the “disabled” label sticking to them. Instead they skip buses after buses at the stop until normal seats seem available from the outside. It’s stupid, so stupid, but that’s how they think. Changing labeling can feel like a dirty hack, but if 10% more elderly people would use them as a result, I see it as a win.

It’s to me the equivalent of making the “delete” button red on a page, it’s good design taking into account the average user psychology.

I'm just disagreeing with the idea that people who do experience actual negative impacts should put up with it in the name of being "graceful". That puts all the responsibility of societal grace on them.

This is a man-in-the-middle attack on the English language, and my American identity... but oooh... that's offensive too.

To quote General McAuliffe's response to a German call for the surrender of the 101st Airborne troops defending Bastogne

NUTS!

All these new terms are going to be discriminatory in a few years as the bullies learn to use them. Telling someone that they are uncool will have as much sting as retarded, because it will mean exactly the same thing if the word retarded leaves the lexicon.

> You can’t be the one deciding if people are hurt or not, it’s their call.

I've spent a huge amount of time, literal years, learning to think in a flexible way so that I can wind my mind away from taking offence. It takes a lot of practice to develop that sort of engulfing calm. Also very rewarding, I recommend the practice. Good for a comfortable life and all that.

Sure they can make the call that they are offended, but I am conciously making the call that I am not offended. Is it really fair that after all that effort I have to contort my speech to avoid setting people off? I'm already worrying about my own offended-ness and now I'm supposed to be working around theirs as well. What are they going to do to balance all that effort out?

It is better if we all worry about our own emotions and work with what other people say. We all have responsibilities to civil discourse. Those responsibilities include tolerant listening. Getting antsy because someone runs a blind study is a long way from tolerant listening and an academic setting deserves better than that.

On being hurt or not…I think your efforts will mostly benefit you, and not being easily hurt should make it that much easier for you to reach your goals I’d assume.

I’d compare it to physical fitness, being able to avoid people’s punches is an advantage in itself, you wouldn’t feel unfair that the others are getting hit in the face as they haven’t worked as hard.

This is called the euphemism treadmill. Soon, lots of the recommended new phrases in this list will be considered offensive and harmful.

Well that's precisely the problem isn't it? Anyone can get offended over anything, and the solution is not to try and compile a list to make sure no one gets offended ever again.

It’s stated clearly that the initiative applies to “Stanford websites and code.”, so they’re not declaring new rules for the world, they’re telling their very select community to avoid a set of words in writing.

To answer your point, no, I don’t think they’re trying to make sure no one gets offended ever again.

I also kinda see why a company wouldn’t want a “dummy message” popup accidentally appearing in production when someone forgot to remove the debug code before the release.

In all my workplaces, these kind of productivity impacting initiatives had a consulting and consensus taking period to make sure we’d either be on board or at least understanding of the underlying logic and why it’s put in place. If you still feel it’s a dumb move going in the wrong direction, I feel for you for the potential stream of decisions that as you point out, won’t probably go in the direction you wish for.

If you dig a bit deeper it is likely the bully has very low self worth and attacks others to try and have control in their lives which they feel is out of control. Ultimately both the victim and the bully deserve our sympathy because they are both hurting.

Your comment is harming me. It's my call, and I say so. Therefore you should be banned.

    Feeling offended is not harm

If a stranger on the internet uses some controversial word, you can decide it's no big deal.

But now imagine your boss is using terms like "jewed down" or some other thing thing that applies to you, specifically. Are you harmed? It's very possible that you are harmed in a very literal sense; your career path is intertwined with a person that seems to think cheapness and haggling is synonymous with your people.

(It is also worth noting that this list of harmful language is targeted specifically at the "Stanford IT Community" which is a workplace. This is not their attempt to regulate the speech of the world at large.)

Now, having said that, I also understand the flip side of things. Some of the entries such as "tarball" struck me as absurd.

And on a personal note, I'm partially blind and I don't give a rat's ass about terms like "blind studies" and so forth. In fact, the phrase "keep an eye on things" always makes me chuckle since I'm blind in one eye: if you tell me to keep an eye on things, I'm likely to ask you "which one" because you're going to get a very different level of attention depending on which eye we choose. I also don't mind that we as a society have decided that "see" is a synonym for "understand."

You would harmed by the prejudicial actions taken against you, like skipping you for advancement, but not by the use of the word specifically. If anything, letting people use the word makes it easier to gather evidence of any prejudice against you, so making the word taboo makes such prejudice easier to hide.

    You would harmed by the prejudicial actions taken 
    against you, like skipping you for advancement, 
    but not by the use of the word specifically

Words can reinforce attitudes and actions. When your boss uses the term "jewed down" they are also sending the message that it's okay to stereotype people.

I do not support some kind of zero-tolerance approach to language. (After all, "tolerance" is the goal!) However, I do find quite a few of these changes worthwhile.

For example, a recently disabled friend pointed out how it kind of sucks for her to hear words like "lame" used as a synonym for "bad." So I've tried to weed that one out. Is it going to solve all of her problems? Is that even in her top 100 problems in life? No and no. But I mean, like why not try and make a little change like that?

Yes, but the only problem with stereotypes is, again, the actions that result. You can think whatever you want in the privacy of your own mind as long as you don't let it influence your actions in the performance of your duties. Maintain an understanding of the difference between belief and knowledge; stereotypes are clearly only beliefs.

> For example, a recently disabled friend pointed out how it kind of sucks for her to hear words like "lame" used as a synonym for "bad."

Understandable, although I wouldn't say lame is a synonym for "bad" so much as "undesirable". I'm not sure anyone actually desires the restricted movements of disabled limbs, so that doesn't seem like a technically improper use.

> But I mean, like why not try and make a little change like that?

Sure, we make all kinds of allowances for fellow humans, even irrational ones, particularly friends and family. That's etiquette.

Describing words as "harmful language" is an attempt to raise certain rules of etiquette to the level of ethics, which is a much stricter set of norms that we enforce on each other. Violating etiquette might get you called an asshole, but otherwise has no consequences; by contrast, violations of ethical rules have serious consequences.

Like you, I don't think the suggested changes are all bad as a matter of etiquette, but I'm not at all convinced that they've met the bar for enshrining them as ethics.

    Yes, but the only problem with stereotypes is, 
    again, the actions that result.

Is this okay as long as he doesn't actually do any of those things? After all, only actions matter... right?

No. Clearly there is a line across which speech alone is rotten enough that we don't allow it. [1]

If you think that repeatedly equating "Jewishness" to "being a greedy money-grubber" doesn't cross that line, fine.

But don't pretend the line doesn't exist. It's disingenuous at best.

___

[1] Of course, context matters. Suppose your job is music producer, and your coworker sings/raps about heinous things as a part of their art. That's probably okay! Or suppose some "offensive" thing was a slip of the tongue, or an honest mistake made through ignorance. I've been "that guy" more than once.

I've found that various American courses and certifications are very explicit, a lot more than non-American ones, for example European ones.

Then someone told me: they're afraid that if they don't include the absolute basics, someone will complain/sue/whatever about having been presented the basic concept, so that's why their education is incomplete or why they failed their certification exam.

This basically aligns with the same logic, saying this as an outside observer.

The US is <<full>> of defensive behavior, if you look at it as an outsider.

Yeah. Like people getting sued for swimming pools because parents can't be bothered to teach their kids how to swim or to not go on private property unauthorized, or people being forced to file lawsuits against close relatives because they have no other way of recouping healthcare expenses... so many of the horror stories we Europeans read from across the pond leave us with a plain "WTF, are these guys nuts?" feeling.

That's mostly due to decades worth of brainwashing and propaganda ("American Exceptionalism"), as well as a factor of just how big the US actually is. Here in Europe? In like two or three hours worth of driving time from Munich, one can reach half a dozen other countries and see a complete contrast: other languages, other ways of organizing society, other activities, other sports, other varieties of alcohol, other political parties. We actually have competition here.

Real, professional example from the automotive world: 'the knock sensor can retard the ignition timing'

Is that still okay to say?

https://forward.com/culture/522179/jew-you-down-antisemitic-...

Depending on who's mouth they come out of they kind of are acceptable.

Which is kind of a glaring example of why this whole policing words bullshit is in fact bullshit. It's not the words that do harm. It's the context in which they are used.

Imbecile, special needs, oligophrenic, whatever, something associated with intellectual disability will be used instead.

They are not trying to ban "harmful language" from being said or written, they are trying to have you suppress "harmful thoughts", or ideally render you incapable of harbouring them.

Do you want Stanford (or anyone else) to dictate what you can think?

Just laughing can be incredibly offensive.

So an aggressor has infinite words to use and is effectively impossible to censor.

I hesitate to mention SouthPark, but they do an episode where Cartman is especially cruel using laughter as his weapon. It's quite effective and obviously offensive. Unlike the list in the article.

You can see this happening in the Stanford list itself - some of the terms listed, particularly in the "Ableist" section, are clearly second or third iteration through the euphemism treadmill.

In fact, some could be about to complete another one - for example, my self-preservation instinct on the Internet tells me I shouldn't use "disabled" as an adjective, despite it being listed as a proper alternative to "crippled". I fully expect "disabled" to land in the left column of this or similar list in a couple of years.

It's as if a choice of words can change the unfortunate fact that losing a leg sucks.

https://www.betterup.com/blog/differently-abled

I worked for a company that sold medical supplies and we got a phone call about a disabled user message on our website.

And if people still need a list or a class to be taught that e.g. the N word is offensive, they have no place in Stanford.

The only thing more insane would be the expectation that insults of any kind, for any reason, no longer be tolerated (some do suggest this, which is at least consistent).

Does this make sense to you?

I really don't understand this thread or threads like this. Suddenly people are all about using exact lists of acceptable discourse and following Rules and the like.

Nobody has ever been genuinely harmed by hearing the word "retard." It's made up outrage.

Note: being butthurt is not being harmed.

It was used as a slur, the way any term can be used as a slur: by saying it to insult someone. The intend made it a slur, not the term.

In fact, in the case of insulting, it was primarily used against people who don't have that condition (mind developmental problems). "See what you've done? Are you a r...?", etc. For the people actually having such condition, it was just the medical term the literature, and their own doctors used to describe their condition.

Replacing the term doesn't change the mindset. Any new term adopted can equally be used with malice, it's just a BS arms race, focusing on words, when it should have focused on the bullying and attitude. But that would actually make sense - and have an actual effect, so why not take the easier path?

This is sometimes used maliciously though - like how a contraction about being against facism somehow got a bad connotation (antifa), or how being aware of social injustices is bandied about by right-wing outlets (woke).

I think I'm getting the hang of it ...

But you know why it is really a bad thing? The actual loss of this weird focus on controlling language?

It is us. I am about to start a volunteer position with mentoring kids from underprivileged backgrounds and after the interview with the organization, I am genuinely considering dropping despite very clear positive impact this would have on the kids ( which is why I am preparing for it to begin with ). Thing will be virtual ( and recorded ), I was given a speech about white supremacy ( and asked how I feel about it ) and now I am worried that any bad word may result in career sanctions ( in other words, it is a net negative for me ).

This is just one example. It is suddenly possible that I can't pass on any real knowledge for fear of fucking myself and my family over.

<< This is sometimes used maliciously though - like how a contraction about being against facism somehow got a bad connotation (antifa), or how being aware of social injustices is bandied about by right-wing outlets (woke).

Those outlets certainly amplify it, but are you saying there is no objective reason for it happening ( for example, "being against fascism" often is being accompanied by 'punch a nazi' -- is that ok )? It is a real question and I am curious about your answer.

The only thing this list does is give credence to Tucker Carlson and co's complaints about performative wokeism.

~ Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Their primary purpose is for deciding if you want to view material in the first place.

Example from university: One of my media classes was going to show a clip of “Passion of the Christ”. We got a handout explaining the content of the movie and purpose of showing it and were told to opt out if we weren’t conformable. It all handled perfectly reasonably.

This list is not a reasonable way to handle this. It lacks nuance.

It reminds me of NIMBY activists using land acknowledgements while blocking anything that would allow someone who isn’t high caste from actually moving to and living in San Francisco in a proper dwelling.

>You don't call retarded people retards. It's bad taste. You call your friends retards when they're acting retarded.

No one said words can't be hurtful. If you work or attend Stanford you know these words. This document is apparently about harm reduction though, and that harm would be mitigated far more effectively if Stanford admitted more people like the ones these words supposedly trivialize.

It is particularly bad when the given replacement is nowhere near synonymous. The first one that really got my eyes rolling was 'detail-oriented' for OCD: being detail-oriented is an aspect of safety in a number of areas, and this is nothing like OCD, which has a clinical definition.

If one cares about something, don't make it easy to ridicule and dismiss.

(I agree that the document is silly but I don't think it's quite as bad as your interpretation.)

    "Thing that is not violence is violence."

Yes, language is evolving, and dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. But the idea that you can use words in whichever way you want, and any misunderstanding is the listener's problem, is just shitting at the idea of communication, and nothing but a thinly veiled power grab.

The reality is that when you're in power, you can use words in whichever way you want. This is what power means. Only now has is become so obvious that people can't help but notice.

Without strict controls over who is and isn’t allowed in our culture we’re left with a “at your feet or at your throat” predicament. Subversive individuals are death to a culture (the thing Popper was referring to in the paradox of tolerance - you have to draw the line at life or death, not simply because you disagree). Trust is everything.

Popper was an idiot and his "Paradox Of Tolerance" can only lead to tolerance becoming the only permissible value and therefore decline, since tolerance is the absence of values. His university colleagues held him in such disregard that they threatened to quit unless he was cast out. Truly the patron saint of midwits and leftist.

It's a topic very dear to our hairy little monkey hearts.

Note: as a non-native speaker, I have no idea what is problematic about the word "spade". I have only ever seen it to mean either a tool for digging or a type of sword, but I will take them at their word that it does have some other meaning.

Or maybe it's that it's homophonous with 'spayed', language resists easy categorization.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rand-paul-anthony-fauci-sen...

"Up until recently, the NIH website had a section that discussed gain of function research, providing a broad definition of 'a type of research that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent.'

On Oct. 20, the NIH removed that section from its website, replacing it with one that discusses 'enhanced potential pandemic pathogen' research, which it defined as 'research that may be reasonably anticipated to create, transfer or use potential pandemic pathogens resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility and/or virulence in humans.'"

The research funded was forbidden under the old definition, and so they just changed the definition after they did the research.

Also, the assault example may be valid in your jurisdiction, but in mine it isn't assault but threats of violence. additionally, the threat must be made in a way that is threatening.

Your example, using my local laws, doesn't make sense.

I really wish people would address the content of a discussion instead of what they want to be discussing.

I don't know what laws you are talking about because do not define them, nor your locality.

Regardless, there is a 'for instance' in my reply, and you addressed that specific notion instead of the core.

don't hate the player, we're all going to play with the same rules. If you or those DIE people with nothing to do get to declare words violence and subject other people to censorship based on your emotions, other people should be able to do it to you.

It's not a logical framework, its an ideological weapon used to shutdown competing ideas with nonsense like these blacklists. The question is if have the capacity to recognize that about your own reasoning when you get it lobbed back at you, or if you will simply declare it as the specious noise making of the 'anti woke crew' because it invalidates your position without any chance at coming to an agreement, because it immediately classifies any contradictory thinking as violent and evil without having to make a logical argument.

Weird how that works.

If you think that's unreasonable maybe judge you own behaviour - your words can be violence and every time you open your mouth to declare other people' words violence, you open the door for it to happen to you. so I did it, and you had nothing to say except to declare it bad faith, which I agree with, except I think your argument about assault is also in bad faith, and treat you the same.

You talk about plans like I control you or other people. I don't. I can only show you a mirror of yourself and hope you snap yourself out of the anti discourse patterns you exhibit but dislike in others. The plan is only to treat people who decry words as violence the same way they treat others and hope they learn the error of their way by having to contend with their own ideological weapons turned against them.

If words are violence why does anyone need to listen to anyone? I didn't kill discussion - your opinion decries discussion as violence. How can we have reasonable conversation in a framework where one side decries the other side's words as violence? It's not possible. It's not a framework for conversation, its just a tool to shut up people who you disagree with.

You keep going on about how I am doing something to make words into violence yet you have not addressed that I asked you for any example of my doing anything like this. If by bringing up a point in order to highlight potential flaws in someone's argument I am making a bad faith argument, then I can't even come up with a term for what you are doing, but the closest thing I can come up with is 'stonewalling'.

Absolutely fantastic.

the first post of yours I replied to has a false equivalence between assault without violence (basically uttering threats) and words being violence. I referenced it in my last post - how I thought it was an outright argument in bad faith because it ignores the details of what that means.

> I really do hope you have a plan because at the end of this if you and the other extremes have their way we will be stuck on two sides with no way to have any kind of productive talk at all about anything.

I just live in the world I don't dictate it. If you want to argue words are violence and then say I'm the toddler because I treat you like you propose treating others, we're now in the same 'you lack the ability to self reflect' stage we were when this started.

dont declare discourse violence and then act offended when people don't take you as a good faith participant in discourse. You're the one who can't handle other people's words effects on your emotions, so declared words violence. Who is the toddler there?

I responded to "Thing that is not violence is violence." by stating that words can be considered violent in some cases, for instance assault requires no physical contact. You take that to mean whatever you want, but don't accuse me of a false equivalence when what I said was literally true.

> I just live in the world I don't dictate it.

You are in total control of how you respond to things. And you stuck to a bad tactic because you refuse to acknowledge that it doesn't do anything but shut down rational communication, then accuse me of lack of self-awareness. The irony is palpable.

Anyway, I can tell you are the type of person that even if you know you are standing on a bad position you will not back down, so I will go ahead and let you have the last word, which I am sure is going to be some kind of re-affirmation that it is my fault for making you act like this. Good day.

they can be considered assault under very specific circumstances but not violence, which has a meaning.

>but don't accuse me of a false equivalence when what I said was literally true.

your false equivelance is to equate the idea that some specific circumstances speech can be considered assault, therefore we must consider the idea that any words can be violence. it is on its face a false equivalence.

Similarly one can declare that buying illegal goods can be a crime in specific circumstances, therefore a list of which items to not buy in a grocery store might reasonably also stop you from committing crimes, right? So now we can restrict what you can purchase anywhere because we can imagine a tangential and unrelated situation where exchanging money for a good might be illegal.

And that is even a stronger case than one you made, because it at least says that illegal acts are illegal, rather than saying 'falls under the statute of assault in some jurisdictions' rather than actually arguing whether it is violence or not.

It's a ridiculous false equivalence

>Anyway, I can tell you are the type of person that even if you know you are standing on a bad position you will not back down, so I will go ahead and let you have the last word, which I am sure is going to be some kind of re-affirmation that it is my fault for making you act like this. Good day.

I'm not acting like anything. I'm merely using your 'logic' on you. if speech can be violence in any case because it might be assault in a specific case, your speech can be violence, and you might make me a victim with your utterances and false equivalence. In fact your speech itself might not matter - only my feeling of fear from hearing it.

Yes, this resource can be used to more effectively sanction individuals who consistently demonstrate behavior harmful to those around them. It can be referenced early and often, so that repeat offenses more quickly lead to dismissal. Even so, I don't see this as good or bad, a wrongful dismissal can litigated, no? Cannot this reference be used to better defend someone who uses a poor choice of words as their sole offense? There are so many words and phrases enumerated, it aptly demonstrates just how challenging and context dependent things are.

Have you ever seen this argument work?

The whole point of "arson, murder, jaywalking", of "motte and bailey" argument style, of mixing obvious cases together with the things you want to make otherwise indefensible claims about, is because it makes the argument work only in one direction.

The only valid counter is to fight the inclusion of "jaywalking" on the same list as "arson" and "murder", but once it's your company's HR department quoting a Stanford-published list of "bad words", it's too late.

Are they just faking being crazy in order to get an advantage? Like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

Or are they secretly trying to oppress us by forcing us normal people to live by their stupid, made up and malicious rules? Like in that Harrison Bergerson story.

Why would they do something so evil, so corrupting to society? Is sociopathy a common symptom of these mental disorders? Is that why they're all potential school shooters? Or are most of them harmless freaks but the accomodations put in place for the rare genuine basket case are being exploited by a whole bunch of sociopaths that aren't even defective just lazy and they're playing the system to disavantage normal people who are just literally better at basic tasks than they are?

Where will it end. "Oh look at me, I can't concentrate in an open office because someone might make smalltalk or eye contact with me. I'm so triggered we all have to work from home and have less meetings".

What are they plotting to do once they have reduced as all down to their pathetic level?

If you want to know where I, a mental cunt with ADHD strikes the balance, regarding this list, some of the words make sense as their current meaning is pejorative and derogatory e.g. “cripple”, however some are simply a statement of fact and thus ridiculous e.g. “addict”.

Personally I think I have thicker skin than most and whilst it would be great if everyone was at that stage we have to extend some level of compassion, not just out of altruism but also because how using certain language affects how we ourselves are portrayed and received when trying to achieve a goal with our words.

If I had a limp resulting from a car crash, would this be a fault of my own? If I were driving? If I struck another car from behind? If I drove off a bridge? If my name were Thelma?

'Just asking questions' as they say on TV.

>some of the words make sense as their current meaning is pejorative and derogatory e.g. “cripple”, however some are simply a statement of fact and thus ridiculous e.g. “addict”

I disagree with your contention. I also see "cripple" as a statement of fact. Others may see "addict" as pejorative. "Addict" is certainly pejorative when Tucker Carlson uses it. Not pejorative when the leader of the local AA chapter does.

"Idiot" was, supposedly, a medical term at some point. Then, it was probably a heavy slur the way "retarded" is now. Currently, "idiot" is pretty tame. Certainly would generally be considered more acceptable than "retarded."

In other words: language is a slippery beast, something that has no fixed interpretation. Much of meaning is super contextual. Just as one is advised against assuming someone's pronouns, why are we assuming people's intent with lists like this?

We should be able to look at how we are using language and identify that it is problematic without requiring a list of words.

Yup! I think that humans are so heterogeneous that basically everything requires a context to derive the full meaning of a thing. The same language, wielded in two different occasions, can have vastly different meanings.

As a linguistics professor once mentioned:

"Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like an apple, although if the play is bad enough, even fruit flies like an arrow."

If they did, they would know the list is more harmful than good.

Evidence? The content I am replying to.

Nitpick, there are two kinds of "flopping" in sports, which you can both observe e.g. in soccer.

One is to simulate a made-up foul as you say, basically trying to mislead the referee into giving an unjustified penalty. This is clearly illegal and constitutes a foul itself.

However, often players flop to highlight fouls that actually happened but were so subtle or hard to see that the referee missed them.

The results are still ridiculous - Ronaldo rolling in pain on the grass because the other player had briefly pulled his jersey - but the greater strategy here is valid: If small, subtle fouls went unpunished, they'd be an easy way to gain an unfair advantage for your team. So the game would very quickly turn into a contest of how to hide fouls best from the referee. By highlighting fouls to a ridiculous degree, players are counteracting this.

Only in soccer, and even then only with particular types of players... I don't know how to describe them without using any of these words...

> committed suicide > died by suicide > Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions.

I had a friend commit suicide, and one of my mum's colleagues - also an acquiantance of mine, who I'd chat with in the pub semi-regularly - also committed suicide many years ago. I've suffered with depression for much of my life since my teenage years (undiagnosed until I was well into my twenties), and I have a close family member who's spent maybe a quarter of their life over the last 20 years institutionalised, with much of the rest of the time in close contact with mental health authorities. I've had many friends and colleagues over the years who've suffered with mental health issues.

But apparently "committed suicide" is "ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions."

No.

It isn't.

It is a brutal term that aptly captures the daily visceral struggle of both those with mental health issues who are battling suicidal thoughts, and those who are left behind after a friend or relative does commit suicide. It very well captures the trauma and impact of such an event. It also avoids the final indignity of stripping the unwell person of their agency, and therefore their humanity. It is 100% certified appropriate (were such a certification to exist).

The only thing harmful about this list is that it exists and that somebody, or some group, got paid actual money (presumably as part of their day job) to compile it. In 200 years time, if somebody authors a book called, "The hideous and shameful annals of bullshit jobs in the early 21st Century" I have no doubt at all that this will rank very highly.

Let's call this list what it is: thought policing. Whoever is behind it sits somewhere on the same spectrum as the real world Morality Police of Iran, or the fictional Thought Police (and the Ministry of Truth, who control language - and in particular are replacing it with Newspeak) in George Orwell's 1984.

The word toxic has become heavily overused, but this list is an absolute examplar of it: it is a product of deeply warped and corrupted thinking. Some terms on the list (which I don't think need repeating here - racial slurs, and the like) are considered pretty universally offensive but that does not justify the presence of the rest.

Overall what we have is a pretty transparent and unsophisticated attempt to control people by those too stupid to understand the negative impacts of their actions on wider society.

I would have hoped for a lot better from an institution such as Stanford with a rich history of valuable contributions (including to hacker culture).

It begs the question: can we represent this thing (somebody ends their own life) in precisely the right way? No, language is insufficient. All cases are different.

When I went to school and learned about linguistics and cultural analysis etc the appropriate way to deal with this insufficiency of language was to use many descriptions and ambiguities. So that you create a general field of meaning around the inexpressible thing.

Apparently we were all wrong; we just lacked the proper wording.

What I see is the Stanford IT department’s internal guidelines on language that should be avoided on its own internal websites and code.

I feel like the anti-woke pendulum has reached its apex. Musk seems to be infected with the same “mind virus” he decrys, and increasingly the murderous Morality Police are lurking behind the style guides of academic IT departments. Where I could agree that the whole woke movement was getting out of hand, the reaction is going just as hard in the other direction now.

Stanford is a university. One of the most well known. Universities set the general tone in many areas of life (through tuition, scholarship, participation of professors and students in public discourse, and so on), and what they have as "internal guidelines" serve to legimatize and broadcast such guidelines and the need for such guidelines outside of it too.

If not for anything else, for the obvious reason that the very role of a university is to teach and shape the minds of young, impressionable, people.

It's exactly a university that should promote free speech, and be above mass hysteria about words. They can very well have internal guidelines of some terms to be avoided - just not silly ones that show a total giving in to BS.

And of course, we can stick to a narrow reading of this, and see it as an isolated, unrelated to anything, list of internal guidelines, or we can see it as part of a general trend of something seen everywhere, and discuss that.

It's not just people with diagnosed issues and actual pathologies that have huge problems in their life - or that commit suicide. "Able" people commit suicide all the time.

This list is 95% absolutely ridiculous and I’m what you’d probably consider a proponent of social justice.

The point of Stanford making this website was to help its community avoid using words with negative connotations on Stanford materials, not for everyone to avoid all these words in all contexts. I feel like a lot of people posting here are potentially missing this point and getting madder about this than it’s worth.

The whole thing has to be ridiculed from top to bottom, both for what it's direct stated goals are, but also for fear that it will make its way into more places if it's not nipped in the bud.

Note: some words on the list, such as a several obvious slurs they chose to include, of course must be avoided. Black hat (hacker) or black box or blind review or commited suicide or user (!!!!) or calling a spade a spade or man-in-the-middle or [...] are not among those.

Sure I see a lot of hand waving here about that, but this community is notably not necessarily the most diverse.

For example a lot of people here on HN have no problem using terms like “master” and “slave” in a technological context, but other people have told me those terms make them uncomfortable. I don’t want my students to feel that way so I don’t use those words in a classroom context, even if every single person on HN is okay using them.

Maybe we can all appreciate that perhaps the people who wrote this list are in fact expressing a genuine concern about language that is held by others, even if you do not personally see the concern?

> it will sooner or later be adopted by many other places looking for a list of "safe words".

First, I appreciate the slippery slope, but at this point it’s behind a Stanford login, and is really only addressed to Stanford IT. Then again it says it’s in line with peer institutions so perhaps the slope has already slipped.

But even if more people want to do this, so what? It’s their choice. These documents are about others policing their own language, not them policing yours. Your comments about “ridiculing” and “nipping it in the bud” are closer to policing the speech of others than this list is.

HN, like the American tech industry in general, is almost certainly more diverse than the Stanford administration and faculty. Moreover, diversity in HN is organic. Folks on here may happen to be Laotian American (or even Laotian—HN is international). Nobody selected them for inclusion in the community.

By contrast, diversity at Stanford, especially among faculty, is carefully curated by the overwhelmingly white faculty. Your average immigrant from a former colony may not care about eliminating “colonial language.” But the white Stanford faculty wouldn’t hire those immigrants into the cultural studies department of the university. You’re much more likely to get a job at Stanford by writing papers on how colonial terms “cause harm.”

The faculty system and widespread use of race and nationality conscious hiring gives white people at elite universities tremendous power. There’s few other organizations where the white leadership gets to hand pick any minority representation based on its own ideological priors.

Adams is talking about white political elites rather than white academics, but as Elizabeth Warren illustrates, there’s a lot of ideological overlap between the two.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm completely baffled by how you've managed to reach the opposite conclusion to the one I'd expect.

Identity politics is gleefully adopted by the elite institutions, and the base of resistance against it is working class.

To use a concrete example, consider MacKenzie Bezos donating tens of millions of dollars to “AAPI” organizations. Those AAPI organizations don’t answer to recent Chinese or Bangladeshi immigrants in Queens. Their whole incentive structure is oriented around appealing to rich white people like MacKenzie Bezos. Or to use another example, consider BLM. Civil rights issues historically were championed by black churches, who answered to black constituencies. But organizations like BLM are funded mainly by white people. Ibram Kendi is a professor selected by white faculty at a university run by white people.

The fact that those white elites will often support advocacy complaining about “white people” doesn’t change that. When a white Harvard professor complains about “white people” they don’t mean themselves. They mean some racist truck driver in Iowa. They’re in denial of the fact that they’re actually the elites.

The point I was trying to make was that HN has some very real and very wide ideological blindspots. It's true what you say that there are many viewpoints here on HN, but they aren't all uniformly represented. That said, the commentariat here is also self selected, so not necessarily representative of the general population.

> By contrast, diversity at Stanford, especially among faculty, is carefully curated by the overwhelmingly white faculty.

That may be true, but at the same time there are more stakeholders who have input into initiatives like these.

> But the white Stanford faculty wouldn’t hire those immigrants into the cultural studies department of the university. You’re much more likely to get a job at Stanford by writing papers on how colonial terms “cause harm.”

Do you have evidence that such people didn't have input or their input wasn't allowed? Or are you just speculating to make a point? You seem fixated on white Stanford faculty, but it's not clear that the linked list is even a product of the faculty, it seems like it's a product of a committee of the IT department. It seems to me like you just have some ideological things to say about Stanford faculty without really addressing the facts on the ground re: this list.

I'm not accidentally using forbidden words, I'm intentionally using words that are not in fact forbidden, because no one (especially Stanford) has forbidden anyone from saying them. Stanford doesn't police my language, I can use whatever words I want. If someone is offended by my words they can tell me.

But Stanford is not in the same position I am, posting on an internet forum. They are a corporate entity looking to manage their brand. I'm going to keep making this point, because so far no one so far has really engaged with it, but this is no different than Coke having an internal style guide for how their logo can be used and in what contexts.

Where? I’ve read all the replies. How is Stanford deciding what should be used on their sites different from how Coke decides how its logo can be used?

> You just can't seem to understand that this is a domino falling into a field of dominos, not a barren desert.

Right, so at best your argument is that this is a slippery slope. Moving past the fallacious nature of that argument, you still haven’t articulated any conceivable harm to you or society. Even if all of the dominoes you foresee fall, then where are we? Are you restricted by government thought police at that point, and that’s what you’re worried about?

Or are you worried about your employer restricting your speech? If so, I refer you to my Coke argument; you are already subject to a list of words approved by your employer. The only difference is that it’s implicit, but that doesn’t make it any different than what Stanford has here (except less transparent and delivered by capriciously by fiat instead of created by the community with input from across the company).

What does it matter to you if some dominoes are falling elsewhere?

I imagine if you are white you might compensate for that by being more woke to protect your career. This is, after all, still a majority white country in spite of the admissions policies of elite universities and the racial makeup of tv commercials. So that may reflect on staff hired decades ago. Although I believe elite universities will begin to change the racial makeup of their staff and students more aggressively since the status quo is indefensible.

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

That means that you can’t point to diversity in the ranks of elite universities to justify those institutions taking the lead on discussions of issues affecting minorities. The people who get into those positions do so because they appeal to whites, not because they represent their communities.

As they say, you can’t dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools. We shouldn’t be looking to academics hand picked by white elites to figure out how to police minority communities, or what words to use or not use with respect to minorities, etc. Elite universities are inherently bad vehicles for leading the discourse on those issues.

This system has shown to increase diversity in academic departments, and it’s not something the white faculty can conspire to keep under control. The issue is that progress is slow for two reasons: 1) positions open up rarely and 2) the hiring pool is limited. These are issues that are being worked on, but progress is being made.

The fact that Harvard hires some minorities doesn’t change the fact that those minorities were hand picked by white elites and operate within an institution dominated by elite whites.

Now, that doesn’t mean those minorities can’t be great professors, as individuals. But it does mean that their views on minority issues shouldn’t be give any more weight than those of the elite whites that selected them and on whom they depend for their position and status. Leadership on those issues must instead come from people who are put in positions of leadership by minority groups themselves.

But it does change the makeup of who gets to make future decisions. I also feel like you're doing here what you often decry when white liberals do it: infantilizing minorities. You're discounting and minimizing the people who are not white elites, who do have a voice in making such decisions, as if they are completely invisible or beholden to other forces.

For instance, our faculty search committee had 1 white male on it. The first round interviews were done by the committee, final selection of candidates was done by the whole faculty, and the vote on who to hire was unanimous. The chair, who is not a minority transmitted the decision to the dean, who is a minority, and the candidate was hired. This person will be serving on the hiring committee next semester. I'm failing to see the invisible hand of the white elites here, who have somehow masterminded this turn of events.

And even if they did, why should we assume that minorities who are hired by white elites are somehow beholden or deferential to them? These faculty have their own agency and are highly educated in their own right. They can make up their own minds.

This isn't a hypothetical, these kinds of lists are already being applied in industry. Google even tried to apply such a list to a user-facing product earlier this year, to highlight 'inappropriate' words in Google Docs, but the feature was retracted [0].

It's only a matter of time before some well-meaning do-gooder takes a look at an even broader list like this and decides it needs to be applied to their company's code and documentation, or to their product.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31123323

When you can't use words because they share some letters with negative ones, maybe it's gone too far.

Made even more tragic since it turns out they're not particularly effective:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33745267

It's particularly ironic given that this was the whole purpose of this phrase in the first place. A trigger warning isn't just a random content note or metadata - its specifically to give vulnerable people chance to disengage with content that could otherwise cause them distress. If they feel "anxious about what might follow", that means the trigger warning is working, and they should steel themselves or disengage with the content right now.

(And yes, I understand the tension one might feel between a warning and FOMO, but this is not something you can solve by removing the warning.)

Imagine being an employee at Coke, and then getting mad they fired you because your advertisements you wrote contained profanity adjacent to the Coke logo. Woke mind virus gone too far? Personally I say "fuck" all the time in my daily life, I can't see why Coke would get all twisted about it. Sub in "Coke" with "Stanford" and "fuck" with any word on this list. These are the same things.

Stanford doesn't want Stanford using certain words on Stanford websites. This apparently has made a lot of people on the Internet who neither work for Stanford nor have any conceivable association with Stanford to become very angry. Because "what if" they come for you next? Sorry but the wonderful truth is that your words are not being policed by Stanford. Go ahead and say/write all the words on this list, no bad will come to you. There are no woke boogeymen at Stanford out to get you.

The communities deciding those terms as "potentially harmful" are even less diverse: mostly white, mostly of the aspirational classes, mostly of a certain ideological bent and demographic, with the token social climber members that don't represent their communities thrown in for good measure...

>But even if more people want to do this, so what? It’s their choice. These documents are about others policing their own language, not them policing yours.

Hardly

How is 'Latin' offensive?

There is a loud minority within the Latin group who wants the term so they can feel powerful, and of course, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

In the end, all society is accomplishing is rewarding outrage.

We won't be renaming "Latin America" either, so latin/latino is just that, inhabitant of latin america - or from a place "predominantly speaking a latin-derived language". Note that Latinx has the same exact root anyway - and iirc it was never about the concerns above, just a BS misunderstanding of gendered nouns in other languages (because latino being "male" somehow excluded others).

In any case, it should up to the populations to decide if they wanted another term not "white saviours" and a number of privileged activists in a totally different country.

And if the locals themselves wanted to correct a historical injustice, instead of playing with words, they can give rights to indigenous people, stop killing them and taking their land, or they could even move out of Latin America and back into Europe all together...

It’s not a personal choice and I’m sure it will be enforced in short order.

If someone can’t distinguish in context that words mean different things, they need to change, not everyone else.

The question is, is the sum of their discomfort more or less than those who are discomforted by these kinds of lists?

(Maybe also add in the trivial annoyance of those like me who when "cd"ing into a folder now have to remember whether this one uses "main" or "master" instead of just being able to instantly swap)

I am actually sympathetic to avoiding the master/slave dichotomy when naming software systems, exactly because I have heard actual reports of people feeling uncomfortable with these terms, for somewhat obvious reasons.

The same can NOT be said, to any extent, about user, submit, Scrum Master, master branch, Master's degree, webmaster, white space, black box, and the vast majority of other examples on the list.

> These documents are about others policing their own language, not them policing yours. Your comments about “ridiculing” and “nipping it in the bud” are closer to policing the speech of others than this list is.

These documents are about policing the speech of all members of the organization, not self-censoring by the authors of this ridiculous list. And no, my seeking to ridicule this list is not in itself an attempt at policing speech - as in the old tradition of intolerance against the intolerant. That is, they are a small group seeking to use their position of authority to police the speech of many many others, and I am seeking to defend myself pre-emptively by seeking to stop them from propagating the concept - not the speech itself.

They're welcome to maintain and publish their silly little list, they're not welcome to actually impose it on anyone - including the Stanford organization.

And I should note I am just some atheist gay programmer in a Eastern European nation. Not exactly a member of the American cultural hegemony seeking to avoid thinking about their past crimes.

The reasons honestly aren't obvious to me. Doesn't everyone knows slavery existed? I don't really get it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Master branch is exactly the term that was in question. I did some research and found that it was related to "master recordings" in the audio production industry, which itself is a direct reference to a master/slave dichotomy and used as such in the recording industry. Changing the name of the "master" repository to "main" is no cost to me, doesn't impact the lesson plans at all, and makes my students more comfortable. Why wouldn't I make that change?

> These documents are about policing the speech of all members of the organization, not self-censoring by the authors of this ridiculous list.

At the end of the day author of the list is a department of Stanford University, so Stanford is policing itself, as all organizations do (don't tell me your organization doesn't have a brand style guide).

> And no, my seeking to ridicule this list is not in itself an attempt at policing speech - as in the old tradition of intolerance against the intolerant.

So you are policing speech, just speech which you deem to be policing you.

> That is, they are a small group seeking to use their position of authority to police the speech of many many others, and I am seeking to defend myself pre-emptively by seeking to stop them from propagating the concept - not the speech itself.

How are they seeking this? They say it's about their communications. They say the words only have only "potential" harms depending on the context. They say they are not looking to address informal uses of language. So how exactly are they "seeking" to abuse their authority? Because all they've done here is post a list to a website. Is that what you consider to be abusive? Or is it because employees are expected to abide by certain style guides? Because if that's the abuse, all corporations are equally abusive toward their employees free speech rights.

Them: "Here's a list of words we don't want to use ourselves."

You: "You shouldn't tell us the list of words you don't want to use, because then in the future someone might prevent me from saying those words."

Tell me where I'm getting this wrong. How is what you're saying not policing someone else's words, whereas what they're saying is?

A master recording is one that copies are made from. It is much more likely to be related to the same sense of master used in a master's degree, related to teaching and learning (from the original Latin meaning of magister, teacher). Please show me references suggesting that anyone calls copies of the master recording slaves, or thinks of them as subservient to the master recording - or any similar uses for a master branch in git.

So, instead of avoiding a very common word in several industries, you could actually teach students the proper etimology. Either way, many of the students who would complain about the master branch will probably think about getting a Master's degree, or mastering their discipline, so they will inevitably have to come to terms with the fact the word master has very very common meanings that don't have anything to do with slave owning.

> At the end of the day author of the list is a department of Stanford University, so Stanford is policing itself, as all organizations do (don't tell me your organization doesn't have a brand style guide).

> Tell me where I'm getting this wrong. How is what you're saying not policing someone else's words, whereas what they're saying is?

This is what you are getting wrong. You are viewing this list as if it's a list that the Stanford University as a whole came up with, and organically adopted. Instead, this is a list created by some small committee who was given the power to impose this on the rest of the Stanford University organization.

If the HR department at my company adopts a similar list and forces everyone in the company to use it, that's not an example of "the organization self-policing", it is an example of "some idiots in one department trying to police the speech of the whole organization".

As I said, those that came up with this absurd list full of mistakes and false notions have every right to publish and maintain it (well, they should correct some of the more obvious falsehoods at least). I also have every right to let as many people as I can know that it is ridiculous and makes false assertions.

I am particularly doing so in the hope that as many organizations as possible will see how absurd it is and will not accept their own speech being policed by its silly standard - at least the organization I work for.

The student in question was a fan of Pharrell Williams, and started to understand the master/slave terminology in the recording industry through him. He was very distressed to find the field he wanted to get into, CS, was doing the same thing. Here's a comment I made about some of the research I did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26497027

From that comment:

> "The word master has two meanings: 1. The original recording made in the studio is called a master, because it is the master (meaning controlling entity) from which all copies are made (the machines making the copies are called slaves—master/slave; get it?). ... 2. The word master also means a recording of one particular song. Thus, you might say an album has “ten masters” (meaning ten selections) on it. These individual recordings are also called cuts, because of the historical fact that each selection was “cut” into vinyl."

So it refers to control (master/slave) rather than expertise (master's degree).

> So, instead of avoiding a very common word in several industries, you could actually teach students the proper etimology.

But I teach CS and not linguistics, so etymology doesn't fit the curriculum. Curious what would you say given the research in my comment history.

> Instead, this is a list created by some small committee who was given the power to impose this on the rest of the Stanford University organization.

Look at the committee governing the IT department at Stanford: there's representation from across the University. Committees only have power through the rest of the organization. Are you saying this is a rogue committee? Are you saying they also have enforcement power over this list? Are you saying that no other committee's regulations override this list? Sorry, but I don't see any world where a small committee in the IT department holds sway over the entire org. What's more likely is that they've been given a specific remit by a larger committee with actual power, and this list is a work product of that committee. It only has as much power over you as you're willing to give it.

> As I said, those that came up with this absurd list full of mistakes and false notions have every right to publish and maintain it (well, they should correct some of the more obvious falsehoods at least). I also have every right to let as many people as I can know that it is ridiculous and makes false assertions.

Great, agreed. Stanford is exercising their free speech, you are exercising your free speech. As it should be.

Even if they cannot enforce this list, it will be cited as an authority by others. Given Stanford's stature, this list will be given weight by many in academia and industry.

> Stanford is exercising their free speech, you are exercising your free speech. As it should be.

Stanford is exercising its free speech to tell other people not to speak freely. Imagine what you would say if Harvard were telling students not to talk about abortions because it could trigger listeners who had siblings that were aborted. Or saying that the words "clingers" or "deplorables" or "basket" are inappropriate because of what a politician said one time. Would you be such a big advocate for their free speech?

Okay, but I'm still missing the actual harm. You're talking about other people deciding what words they want to use for themselves, but who is asking you to not use particular words? Is it that you're worried one day your employer will ask you to change a word that you used on your company's website? What is the harm to you?

> Imagine what you would say if Harvard were telling students not to talk about abortions because...

As a practical matter these kinds of issues are decided by the community. Administrators will usually make a restriction, the student body will react and make noise, and then things will settle. Either the students get their way or they don't and transfer or suck it up and graduate. The school's reputation will take a hit depending on if the choice was popular or not.

As paying customers, students tend to get their way, but if they don't they can transfer. This is the best way to do things in a free market with free speech.

> As paying customers, students tend to get their way, but if they don't they can transfer.

And as you can see from the comments, many people will be looking elsewhere for their children. That doesn't mean it's good that Stanford is publishing a list like this. This reaction shows how severely Stanford's action transgresses deeply held values.

You're exaggerating the situation again. The Stanford list in question is itself not even rigid, nor about policing. I could make anything sound evil and nefarious by completely misrepresenting it as well. Others are calling this list evidence of authoritarianism. I feel like the response here is really off the charts, when the list itself hardly takes itself that seriously. Alternatives are "suggested". Words on the list are acknowledged to be "potentially" harmful, making room for nuance. They even admit that their title "eliminate" is overselling the effort here. Their main stated goal is to "educate", not to "police".

> Would you not be concerned if words like "abortion" could not be spoken?

Again, no one is banning anyone from speaking any words. If my school instituted a policy that they didn't want to mention abortion in any of their websites, I would be fine with that. I bet your company, wherever you work, would be against you posting about abortion on the company website too (unless it's directly related to abortion healthcare). But my school isn't banning me to say or write abortion (or any other words), and neither is Stanford.

> This reaction shows how severely Stanford's action transgresses deeply held values.

I'm very leery about deeply held beliefs relating to "freedom of speech" these days. It seems to me in many cases those particular values are deeply held just until the moment someone transgresses the belief holder. And I'm not even referencing current events here.

But it seems like you live in a very different world, where you don't have to worry about such things. I hope you enjoy it while it lasts! It sounds quite lovely.

You can literally report anyone for anything to HR since forever. Consider them the original bias response team. The important difference is that in academia, bias response teams don’t have the power to fire or discipline anyone.

> This list would be used as proof that a particular word is harmful.

This list is only evidence of potentially harmful language, as that’s all it purports to be. That a word is on this list is not proof that it is defacto harmful.

> Sorry, but I don't see any world where a small committee in the IT department holds sway over the entire org.

In my experience from how corporations work, it is quite typical to have some small group in some centralized department (typically HR for internal language decisions, but it can be Marketing/PR or IT as well) make sweeping decisions for the entire organization, only sometimes needing additional buy-in from 1-2 C-level execs. I don't know how different the dynamics are in Stanford, but given my understanding that private universities are more and more being run like corporations, I assume it's not outside the realm of possibility.

At the very least, I quite doubt that all of the faculty were consulted and a democratic vote was held to agree on the need for a list such as this, let alone on its actual contents.

No, I do not believe that anyone is genuinely offended by "master" and "slave" in the technical sense. I believe that's a bad faith argument that should be ridiculed.

I will use this term to my grave and yet I’ve never committed violence to animals. Not do I promote it.

It’s a figure of speech.

Please self-censor in the future, or the Stanford Brain Police will be forced to take appropriate measures.

/s

And "daemon processes", being just generally scary

Apparently Stanford is not teaching their students the definition of words like figure-of-speech and cliche.

Do you eat them?

And who are you to judge that? Are you in any way subject to descriptors they offer alternatives to?

I'll have to admit my bias though, I presume everyone here who rails against this list is themselves a financially, physically and mentally healthy heterosexual white male aged 20-40. You're not going to be offended by any of these terms, that's fine, it's not for your benefit.

Regardless, I'm a speaker of English, and I have read up on the origin of most of those words, and understand how connotations work - apparently better than whoever put together this list, who seems to think "whitespace" is using white in a way which implies white=good, or "black box" somehow implies that black=bad.

Also note, words are rarely a real problem. People can use perfectly normal good words to belittle you, even unintentionally (my father was asked a few times "do you have Google there?", for a country that's been a member of the EU for well over 10 years). The attitudes people have don't particularly change with the language they use.

Reminds me of a segment John Stewart once did, where a state senator from some US state took the word and started complaining that "African-American kids just don't learn as well as white kids, they just lack the mental ability [...]". As John joked at the time - if you're going to be that unabashedly racist, just call them the n-word, it won't make things worse.

The point Stanford was making was to cover it's ass, and do a token virue signalling gesture, by participating in and endosing the mass hysteria that is this neo-victorian puritanism

But hot damn some are terrible. I'd even go as far to say that some are worse insult as original, calling someone "non-vocal, non-verbal" instead of just "dumb" sounds like a better burn than original.

"This proposition was clearly written by someone neither vocal nor verbal"

If your intent is to describe someone as non-vocal, you can use inoffensive language; you'll sound more cleverer, too.

Btw it looks like Stanford has thrown up a login wall on the site, which is … amusing.

Welcome to the basket of deplorables!

Some of them are just simple language.

>> user

>> While often associated with one who uses (software, systems, services), it can also negatively be associated with those who suffer from substance abuse issues or those who exploit others for their own gain.

Seriously?

> It’s deeply funny, but also tragic because while there should be an attempt to make language inclusive, lists like this make the movement look like a joke.

Unfortunately, they can't notice because they lack a sense of humor.

Context matters in that case. I don't believe its intent is to remove the word "user" from vocabulary, but only when referencing people who peruse substances.

What this list does include is the word "user". Are you really suggesting that thinking this list is silly is the same as wanting to use the n word?

It’s become a game of “is this person saying the N word part of a demographic allowed to say the N word?”

I'm going to assume you are white - try telling a black guy he can't use that word because it's offensive.

That aside, it's also wrong in some cases. For example, under "Gender" they have the phrase "balls to the wall", explaining that it's not to be used because "Attributes personality traits to anatomy." That's just incorrect; I haven't been able to find even one source suggesting it's anything other than a term pilots used. Wiktionary reflects this:

> Perhaps coined by pilots whose throttle levers had round, ball-like tops, and for whom putting the "balls to the wall" (the firewall of the aircraft) meant making the aircraft fly as quickly as possible.

On the other hand, I feel like some terms really do originate in mistreatment of folks, and no one seems to care. So we end up banning terms like "blacklist" (which has little or nothing to do with race as far as I can tell) and keep around terms like "grandfathered-in", which really do have roots in oppression:

> Originally referred to a clause added to the constitutions of some Southern US states that exempted people with relatives that had voted before 1867 from strict new voting requirements, in effect disproportionately limiting the ability of African Americans to vote.

FWIW, they included that one on the list.

I’m trying to imagine how this could be used when referring to male anatomy, but I’m drawing a blank. Why would you ever put you balls to the wall? Much less in a hurry.

Nonetheless the entire idea of censoring speech in this manner is absurd.

These "purity" movements will eventually come for everybody.

I don't think it is even fair to call what these "far left" people are doing "far left" because they're not actually pushing any new position and if anything are drifting to the right on a number of economic issues that were previously center stage. They are just employing extremist tactics on already broadly accepted positions, and looking for opportunities to edge lord.

You just have to ride the wave, take stock, take a break and then someday keep fighting the good fight once your mental health recovers.

And be thankful nobody has guns.

Institutional efforts at managing the internal environment and PR by notable right-wing institution Stanford University (home of the Hoover Institution) are not being done by people that are, claim to be, or are assumed by anyone else to be “far left”.

Well that is my point.

> ...claim to be, or are assumed by anyone else

Gotta disagree there, in 2021 the self-identified breakdown was:

60.6% Democrat, 21.6% Independent, 9.1% Socialist, 4.9% Republican, 3.8% Other

(https://drive.google.com/file/d/16r96A47pFcXQF2Z2Ei7ZvoXyBe8...)

It's not from reading such words once. But if you hear them many many times, they can cause harm because they create subtle biases, prejudices, change one's self-image, etc.

The stories we tell ourselves matter, and I don't see why everyone has to tell the most pessimistic, helpless story possible when these words come up by believing that harm is inevitable for each word on this (or any) list.

If we really need to police (sorry, regulate) language this much an alternative narrative would be that "these words are embarrassing for the speaker because they may appear old fashioned or niche".

The more of this we normalize for children, the worse it'll get as they grow up and do the same.

And what irks me, is that I feel that we've seen this before (or at least read about it): even if it's not the same, it rhymes with what's been happening around the world for most of the 20th century. The methods of psychologically forcing people to eschew logic and rational thought, and submit to a half-baked ideology instead, are pretty much the same - even if it's not state-sponsored and nobody is pulling guns just yet.

I don't think people pushing this insanity (err, wild thing) realize how close they are in methods to the historical groups and present-day boogeypeople they claim to oppose.

https://careerservices.upenn.edu/application-materials-for-t...

Tbf this seems baked in to human development, some children just love enforcing authorities' rules and tattling on other children

We've had bubble over the past 20 years where big tech companies and news organizations have indulged the silliness internally to reduce friction for the graduates they hire but that is drying up with the economic downturn. We're reverting to the mean.

Instead of insulting someone for an opinion, maybe try making a counter point thats on topic and relevant to the comment? I know its tiring to have a conversation on the issue and its easier to attack people but thats how discussion goes.

There has been extensive research into PTSD and other trauma syndromes. If what you are saying is true, then surely some psychological research has at least explored the possibility of the phenomena.

I'm basing my assertions on my experience with Meditation, Cognitive behavioral therapy, and similar things. From my understanding, mental health is severely damaged by negative internal narratives, and CBT and meditation attack (sorry, treat) these negative internal associations and narratives directly, and produce reliable positive interventions for PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc. Check out Happiness Hypothesis for a thorough grounding on all these statements.

In this case, I'm suggesting that by focusing on harm, and introducing new harmful associations with otherwise benign words, we're circumventing the intent of the speaker, and introducing the negative narrative. It's like reverse CBT.

Here's info on CBT:

https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/cog...

(Seriously, look at that page and tell me that "identifying all possible negative associations, cataloging them, and relying on collective authority to minimize harm to self" is a helpful psychological strategy)

And yes, there has been research that trigger warnings (sorry, content warnings) have the opposite effect -- they almost encourage people to feel anxiety over the content that follows. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/harvard-pr...

That is why I believe that the story we tell ourselves about an event is actually more harmful than the event itself in most cases.

But we accepted it, updated our tooling, retrained our muscle memory from git checkout master to git checkout main to appease them. We gave them a taste of power and they're going to keep exercising it until meeting sufficient resistance.

Enough people need to call it out and say No. You do not get to dictate and colonize the language from the top down.

I'm the "CI/CD guy" (sorry, person) and so far I'd guess I've spent about 40 hours fixing builds as a result of this change, pretty much always unexpectedly. Every time this happens I feel burned again.

Good: what you call bullying is what people from an older generation would have called the start of a robust and healthy conversation about why playing along with PC crap is bad for everyone.

This is straight out of totalitarian regimes' playbook.

It's not only taking social justice too far, I'd say it's a betrayal of the ideal of a just, inclusive and safe society.

<insert "Always Has Been" meme here>

This has been quite obvious for at least a decade now; that's when the term "social justice" started to gain pejorative associations, and it did so for a reason.

I remember back in ~2010-2012 when this was seen as an exciting, new, positive development. That was back when we were talking about 4chan trolling Scientology <insert "Oh Fuck The Internet Is Here" meme here>, and the Arab Spring (back before it became apparent it wasn't just Twitter vs. authoritarian governments, and that people didn't come out of it better off). I remember cheering to a TED talk that talked up decentralized activism, comparing it to "murmurations", complete with video of starlings flying to "Pachelbel - Canon In D Major".

A decade later, I don't find it inspiring or exciting anymore. I find it utterly terrifying. Yes, even back then, I had the thought on the back of my mind, that this "unorganized mob" could be abused (something the TV show Continuum later reminded me of), and is capable of pushing for both the right and wrong thing. But there was this sense of optimism that it'll "arc towards justice". Oh how very wrong we were back then.

> And this is why I disagree with Elon, I don't think the wokes are any more dangerous than any other performative religion or subculture. They are annoying but have no real goals other than winning the virtue signaling game.

I don't know what Elon Musk has to say about this, but I disagree with what you wrote here, for two reasons.

1. They've already proven to be much more dangerous than "other performative religion or subculture". Other religions and subcultures didn't manage to make people afraid of speaking their mind on the Internet. Other religions and subcultures didn't manage to change hiring policies, standardize all kinds of weird trainings in corporations, or make a well-known university publish an absurd list of "bad words".

2. If anything I was taught about late 19th and early 20th century was accurate, socialism and communism started with decentralized, organic movements popping up all around the world. Those movements were then quickly co-opted by competing political upstarts, who first started to fight another - until, after a lot of bloodshed, one group emerged victorious, took power from the incumbents, and became a defining force of 20th century history.

My point being, decentralized, distributed mobs with no real goals but lots of pent up energy are a resource to political schemers. They are thus dangerous in the same way spilled gasoline is: on its own it just smells bad, but it creates an environment where a single spark can lead to a lot of devastation.

Have you ever heard of gamergate? Do you have any idea what it's like to be a woman on the internet?

Yes. It's what arguably started (this iteration of) this insanity. And it's very much "the wokes" GP was referring to, not "other religions and subcultures".

> Do you have any idea what it's like to be a woman on the internet?

No. I have some idea based on what I've been told by women close to me, but it's obviously a small sample limited by age and geography.

It's mostly white, mostly affluent people, competing in the political sensitivity olympics, probably without even realising they're harming the very causes they claim to fight for.

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

If you don't feel uncomfortable for any of these words or phrases, then consider yourself fortunate; it does not apply to you. But don't dismiss it because you're not offended for any of the words, just be fortunate it's not a problem you have.

This list is in itself offensive. Multiple entries try to force words into negative territory. This includes words previously used to be inclusive and presumably words from this list of "alternatives" will be in a future list.

People, all people, need to stop being offended on "my behalf." Especially people with a job that entitles them to work on something full of self-realizable hypocrisies like: "Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person."

For those curious: I have worked all my life to see my "off-center brain chemistry" in a positive light. I do not under any circumstances want some person telling me OCD is offensive.

Take half your paycheck and save some lives. Have a reason to actually feel good about yourself.

But I happen to be from Bosnia and even when I first immigrated to Canada in the late 90s, I was amused at my Canadian friends constantly getting offended on my behalf. A joke or reference that somebody would make that I would find funny or agree with, would send my friends in a whirl and a twirl. I focused on intent - these particular people in these particular circumstances neither wanted nor did offend the relevant party.

I fear if we treat words themselves as "offensive", making lists with no consideration of intent, circumstance, relationship, and actual impact, it's at best a pointless and at worst a divisive and Orwellian exercise.

Edit : some suggestions are genuinely useful and thoughtful, and I think conversation rather than lists is where we should focus, as even the very second line on the list - "replace addicted with hooked" - isn't it obvious that next iteration of the list will include "hooked"??

The gist is that anyone can joke about anything, but jokes from outside an experience tend to be quite boring. Like the American reactionary love of The One Joke[0]. Calling them offensive gives the jokes way too much credit. Nothing they come up with holds a candle to what an actual trans or nonbinary person can think up. Some people think making "offensive" jokes prevents them from being a hack.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/onejoke/

This is an absolutely absurd take.

The initiative is to remove words from official websites, not about making sure people never hear them. If you see negative language about your race/gender on your school website, you don’t think that’s gonna cause some anxiety? You don’t think that’s gonna make you wonder if you belong there? You don’t think that doubt will impair your ability to fully participate in that institution?

> This way you can search for infractions and more expeditiously accuse and eject your rivals (people whose work is better than yours).

How are you gonna play bully and victim in the same post? Pick a lane!

I have no doubt that you could find an actual victim/target/member of a marginalized group to claim to be bothered by any of these phrases in the first person. But I'm also certain that members of such groups enjoy telling other people what to do just as much (on average) as all of humankind at large, which is to say a lot, and so a better standard of evidence is needed.

I've struggled to envision what such evidence would look like, but I think it will have to be someone who is better at devising experiments than me.