Hacker News Reader

You're making a huge leap of faith in using words that you know others find offensive, even if you yourself don't find them offensive nor mean to use them in an offensive manner. The leap of faith you're making is that _everyone_ will interpret their meaning in the way you've intended them to be used. Does it seem like that will always work out? The short answer is no. No it will not.

This is _EXACTLY_ why we have conferences now enacting a code of conduct [0].

"Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion, technology choices, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention."

The phrases used above certainly fall within the provision above.

[0] http://confcodeofconduct.com/

It's neat how "political views" is missing from that list up there. I wonder why that is.

People are people. As I tried to communicate to you before, this intolerance is no different than the intolerance used to persecute gay people all over the world. They are different, they are offensive. "It offends my religious beliefs." Morality is not about what's popular, and it's not about what offends you, it's about empathy. Failure to see that these words are not actually offensive is a direct result of failing to empathize with the speaker.

Probably going to get a fair amount of negative karma over this, but... here goes with the "in my experience" stereotypes (albeit largely also agreed to by a friend from the Gulf states who spent time in both Atlanta and Boston):

In the Northeast and much of the West coast, being tolerant is not saying a thing. In the Southeast, it's saying a thing with humor or empathy.

Example: my friend makes a joke with an African American friend in Atlanta referring to a stereotype in a humorous manner.

In the Southeast, that plays like "we both know our friendship is solid, and yes, some stereotypes we're both aware of are amusing."

In the Northeast? Surrounding people (not the friend in question, mind you), "How could you even refer to a stereotype out loud? That just shouldn't be done."

Call me crazy, but I subscribe to the Mel Brooks theory of laughing at a thing is the strongest form of rejection.

You can reject his language, but not his right to use it.

If you know you are going to be misunderstood and offend people with the words you choose, and you use them anyway, that is the exact opposite of empathy.

Failure to see that your words are offensive to some people is a direct result of failing to empathize with the listener.

That is an absolutely ridiculous statement if you look at the context of this conversation.

You are saying that I shouldn't call myself a pussy, because other people might get offended. That I should empathize with the fact that other people might get offended when I call myself names.

> if I had only manned up and broken out sed, but I pussied out and wrote some Python

Are you really suggesting that any given person should watch how they talk to themselves, because other people might get offended by how they talk to themselves?

This is lunacy. Absolute lunacy.

Censorship on how we talk to others is a joke in its own right, but now (when one puts your statements in context with the material being discussed) you are suggesting that failure to censor how we talk to ourselves represents a lack of empathy with the people who are listening in on our thoughts.

Is it so necessary that I defend my right to talk to myself how I please, that I defend the author's right to talk to himself as he pleases, do you honestly fail to see the absolute ridiculousness of getting offended over someone's inner monologue.

> should watch how they talk to themselves

A blog post is not talking to yourself.

It is very obvious that the author is referring to his inner monologue when when he states:

> if I had only manned up and broken out sed, but I pussied out and wrote some Python

It's very frustrating when people try to take an argument out of its context.

You said "I say shit's gay all the time. And I have no problem throwing around the word faggot."

Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831106

That isn't about an inner monologue, and my reply is not out of context.

I fail to see how the subject of the sentence has any relevance to how offensive it is, if it indeed contains disparaging remarks. If I wrote in a blog post

> I stopped being a stupid ni _ _ er and smartened up

any well adjusted person would be offended by that statement. Even though I was referring to myself.

I don't care what their inner monologue is, but it stops being an inner monologue when they put it on a blog.

Do you think it is just a coincidence that the words gay and faggot became insults? I keep seeing this idea repeated that it isn't homophobic because these words have taken on a new meaning and the people using them aren't actually referring to homosexuals when they lob them at people or things. But the reason why they are used as insults is because of a generally understood idea that homosexuality is bad. Do you really not see why it is disparaging that words used to identify a minority of people are becoming synonyms for bad, uncool, and so on?

Getting offended by etymology is impractical. I’ll explain.

Faggot and gay are really fantastic examples because they have gone from everyday words to offensive slurs to useful emotional expressions all in the lifetime of many people who are alive today.

Are we going down the etymology route only so far as it fits your argument? Are we going down the etymology route only until someone gets offended? Because if I wanted to play that line of reasoning I would just say a faggot is a cigarette and to be gay means to be happy. Now we both know those words don't mean those things anymore. But are we both willing to admit that when I call someone a faggot or say something is gay I am in no way referring to boys who like boys?

So that argument actually works in my favor.

How did gay go from a positive word to a negative one? Because along the way it was used to refer to homosexuals, and lots of people hated (and still hate) homosexuals and want to distance themselves from that, and so everything else people hate becomes gay. Gay doesn't go from positive to negative without the hatred for homosexuals. Same goes for a word that means a cig or a bundle of sticks to become an insult.

Do words randomly change meaning over time? Sure. Are a disproportionately large number of them that have referred to homosexuals now all being used as insults? Yes, because of homophobia, and the continued use of these words as synonyms for bad is disparaging.

So you're just going to ignore my argument?

1. What's the point of getting offended over etymology? I could argue that no offense should be taken because of what the word "really" means.

2. I'm willing to admit that a word really doesn't mean X anymore. Are you willing to admit that the same word doesn't mean Y anymore?

2b. The same argument. I'm willing to admit that a word doesn't mean X when certain people say it (think British vs American use). Are you willing to admit that the same word doesn't mean Y when I say it?

You've ignored my entire argument and forced me to restate it. Please address my points.

I didn't ignore your argument, I threw it back at you.

1. Ok, here is why it's offensive. Let's use an example. Alice says: "Dota 2 is gay." That sentence only makes sense today because gay means bad. But why does it mean bad? Because gay also means homosexual. So it implies homosexuals are bad. And it is offensive because it is continuing to reinforce the association of gays to all that is bad. That's how it got its meaning after all. Same goes for faggot. She calls Bob a faggot over Skype not because she thinks he is attracted to men, but because no one wants to be a faggot or associated with faggots. Same goes for queer and all the other words that mean homosexual and are now being used as insults. Using these words in these ways is disparaging to gays because it implies they are bad.

2. Not sure what you are getting at because gay still means X and Y. It still means homosexual and it now means bad. Faggot is still a homophobic slur and now a general purpose insult. This is the very problem.

2b. I acknowledge that words have multiple meanings. Gay has multiple meanings and this is actually essential to my arguments above.

"Words mean what the speaker intends them to mean, not what you interpret them to mean."

It's both. If you understand that someone else will interpret a word in a certain way, and you choose to use that word, then you are responsible for them receiving that meaning from you - since it was what you expected them to understand from what you said.

If you don't actually know that other people will interpret words differently from the way you mean them, then you can't be responsible for misunderstanding until you get feedback and have a dialogue to figure out the different on understanding.

And of course it's fine to speak however you like with people who understand that you don't mean to offend them.

But you do know that people will understand certain of your words as offensive, so when you choose to use those words with people you know will be offended, you are intentionally offending them.

So yes, you actually are trying to offend people - you just don't care about it.

> Words mean what the speaker intends them to mean, not what you want to interpret them to mean.

Do you really shovel snow?