I deleted my entire social media presence before visiting the US

Re:I deleted my entire social media presence before visiting... by AnimalMuppet on Monday July 21, 2025 @03:46PM (#44639617)

But that's true of every term. "Computer programmer", say. People hear that term and automatically think certain things. " Few will think about a person they don't know, complete with vices and virtues they may or may not agree with." It "makes you think of a concept of a person rather than a person."

So I think that dynamic is present in every term we use to refer to humans as something other than "human". I don't need people to refer to me as "human who programs computers" so that I'm not dehumanized. (In fact, once "human that programs computers" becomes the accepted term, that term would also have the dynamic of dehumanizing those it covers. Having the word "human" in it wouldn't save it once it became a recognized term.)

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Re:I deleted my entire social media presence before visiting... by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF on Monday July 21, 2025 @07:23PM (#44641496)

Your whole first paragraph is actually offering another example of a dehumanizing term. The point of “human who does a thing” is to be a naturally-chosen phrase, not a term. Think, “Joe programs computers”, not, “Joe is a computer programmer”. You are correct that it would similarly be dehumanizing if it simply became another term to replace “computer programmer” like “Joe is a human-who-programs-computers” but that is because the statement is about what Joe supposedly “is” rather than being a description of things they’ve done.

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