This is the biggest issue with this list in my opinion. We are teaching kids to be offended by things they wouldn't think twice about.

And this does two kinds of damage. Some kids will end up actually becoming vulnerable to things they otherwise wouldn't - this is just needlessly increasing the sum total of suffering in the world. But some other kids will figure out the same thing people pushing for and enforcing such lists have: that this gives them power over others.

And it'll just get worse when these kids grow up and become academics and make these lists even more overbearing. This is a stretch but I really don't have a hard time imagining a world where professors have to have a minimum amount of political pins/patches/posters/etc ("flair" a la "Office Space") to keep their jobs. Because as we all know, silence is violence.

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

Exactly right.

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.

Oh, we're already there. When applying for jobs at many universities, you have to include a "diversity statement"

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

I grew up in a very oppressive, very controlling cult. They made heavy use of control over language to exert psychological pressure on people and it was exactly like this, 100%. You could identify who was a member and who wasn't by these weird little phrases people would use. Each phrase had a story behind it, usually about what a horrible person you supposedly were in some way (for which the fix was the submitting to the church's doctrine of course).

> But some other kids will figure out the same thing people pushing for and enforcing such lists have: that this gives them power over others.

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

I agree. Which is why lists like this should be outright rejected - they will inevitably be abused.

There's a lot of silliness in college that goes away when you get your first job and have to take on more consequential and realistic priorities.

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.

People have said that for 15 years now. But these people run HR departments in virtually every medium sized and up organization in America.

This whole movement is just about control and power over other people - from people who have no control in their life and desperately want it. If they tell you that you cant say a word, and you abide, it gives them power over you and that stokes their ego. Its the same with pronouns. Its just an avenue to bully people and tell them what to do. At first it was somewhat reasonable, and now its just hijacked by selfish people who are making the whole thing crazier every day.

Damn, the really bizarre uncomfortable hacker news browsers are really out in force on this one. Hopefully they never try to gather all in one place, the smell would be unbearable.

I think the comment you were replying to was going to doom itself, you probably didn't need to insult the whole community.

There's a lot of weird transphobia going on in this thread fam. It's pretty clear a lot of people who post here are deeply uncomfortable people on this site. If our "community" is so good, expecting more respect and care for the groups who were unironically targeted by Hitler is a pretty solid start

Someone pointing out a perspective on the topic and then calling that person the classic "hitler" is why you're getting a lot of broad backlash these days.

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.

I think the list of people classically discriminated against by fascists is a really A+ place to have extreme vigilance. If someone is trying to deny religious minority, trans, or gay peoples' rights, a not so subtle reminder of the company they keep is in order. Anyone who doesn't have a nuanced response for why this line of reasoning doesn't apply to them is probably someone who shouldn't be allowed to engage in a broader democratic society.

"trying to deny rights" You dont have a right to force people to call you by pronouns that are getting more absurd by the day or not say certain words. Maybe drop the victim card and stop being a controlling fascist yourself? "someone who shouldnt be allowed to engage" another absolutely classic and oppressive line thats not at all unexpected from someone with your views. Sadly this has become typical and a stereotype is being reinforced.

No one has the right to force anyone to do anything. If you steal you go to jail, if you're being weird about marginalized groups exploring their identity and asking you to respect it, I'm gonna call you smelly. Simple as.

Is this only your feeling or has there been any psychological research to back up this feeling.

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 don't think a question about evidence or roots of my assumptions is a bad one.

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.

Thank you. This answers my question adequately

You're welcome.

I don't actually think any trauma specialists actually back this approach to eliminating all triggers for everybody. The general treatment model for traumatic stress issues like this is to steadily reduce the association between the trigger and the trauma so you can eventually go through life without having breakdowns over innocuous stimuli. The "safe space" approach is meant for acute episodes where patients need a supportive area to recover and relax (as in, be removed from stressors so they can come down from the trauma response). But it's not a model for "this is how your life should be from now on."

This is why we should have rejected changing master to main. No one was offended by that in the first place! They created the problem and negative association entirely out of thin air.

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 was bullied at work for rejecting this. Actually not even so much for rejecting it, just saying that if we were going to do it that we should not to make such a big, self-congratulatory public statement about on our company blog.

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.

> I was bullied at work for rejecting this.

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.

"It's just 25 cents..."