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Comment by crispinb | Hacker News Reader

"Genocide"? Well there's a new low in English word usage.

> The systematic and planned extermination of an entire group.

Sure, technically it only applies to an ethnic/political/racial/etc group of humans, but it's not _that_ far-fetched to apply it to the systematic and planned extermination of an entire group of software (in this case Firefox add-ons).

First they came for Greasemonkey, but I did not speak out, because I was a Scriptish user...

It has some negative connotations worth disagreeing with, though. I for one am pro-Webextensions (WE) because the legacy APIs gave all addons unlimited privileges and kept Firefox internals from improving. WE apis have come miles; even Tree Style Tabs has a WE alternative.

I am hopeful for Qutebrowser, though; the dev is working on an interesting approach to extending the browser without WE support by allowing "userscripts" (not the Greasemonkey-esque ones). They can be written in tons of different languages. [Relevant documentation](https://qutebrowser.org/doc/userscripts.html).

i think maybe we should keep "genocide" reserved for people, or at least wait on applying it to software till we think that software might be sentient. linguistic inflation sort of sucks [0].

[0] http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/is-linguistic-inflati... ("linguistic inflation" is a term that i've been using in my own head for years without using it in conversation, so i'm glad to see others have the same complaint)

Right! Linguistic inflation has literally decimated the English language! /s

I think I sometimes confuse it with hyperbole.

Exaggeration is very common to provide color to otherwise boring language. In this case, it personifies Firefox plugins to describe exactly what is happening to them, to avoid saying something like "makes them incompatible with future releases" which doeosn't do enough grace to represent the amount of work plugin developers have put into the these plugins to have them no longer supported.

I think the intent is clear, it’s the word choice which some may find tasteless.

For example, a person who survived an actual genocide may find your analogy to be shallow because where you’ve lost some extensions due to a browser upgrade, they’ve lost everyone they love due to them having been hacked to death with machetes, or gassed, or worked to death in forced labor camps.

I don’t know, maybe they just need to get over it?

If you or someone else took offense to my word choice because of having personal connections with genocides, and that the horrible concept is brought to their mind after reading my post, I would have happily changed it during the editable time to prevent others from having similar negative thoughts. However, I do not give a bit of concern to people who get offended for others and have no actual personal connection with the word and thus have no real negative thoughts. They are as privileged as I am for being able to say the word and not be bothered by the connotations.

> people who get offended for others and have no actual personal connection with the word and thus have no real negative thoughts.

That could better be described as a capacity for empathy, particularly in the context of genocide. "No real negative thoughts" is your assumption.

A capacity for empathy, and a greater capacity for putting words in people's mouths. The assumed offense is what needs to be proven, not the lack of it.

By the same token, there exist many people who seek reasons to be offended. They will find offense no matter what you say. They will clamor in groups to be more outraged than the last. I try to disengage from those types of people.

I'm reluctant to use the term, but it applies. It's 'virtue signaling' and I presume it gives people an ego boost or a rush of endorphins. I doubt they really care, or have any true investment, they just want you to know they are morally superior and their peers to see them standing up for a cause, no matter how absurd.

My conclusion is, if you seek umbrage, you will find it.

I personally didn't take 'offence'. That would be objection in the domain of social manners, which was considered important in the Victorian era schools, but has somewhat dropped in esteem since.

My objection is in the domain of ethics, as I think taking genocide lightly is an ethical problem for all of us (that is, for humanity, which I take to include you).

> I am ... able to say the word and not be bothered by the connotations.

Quite.

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