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Comment by ibejoeb | Hacker News Reader

>Sanity check becomes quick check, confidence check or coherence check

why?

Similar to how we no longer use "retarded" to be sensitive to the disabled, people have been rethinking words like "crazy", "insane", or "sanity" to be sensitive towards those with mental illness.

Update: Not sure why I got downvoted for stating the rationale for why people are making this change. Objectively I haven't even stated my opinion on the change, just the rationale I've seen for it. If you want a source here's one from NPR around this language: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739643765/why-people-are-argu...

also the US has a pretty ugly history of throwing up nonconforming people in mental institutions when it's convenient (see: suffragettes, gay people, etc.)

An interesting tangent is-- "retarded, moron, imbecile" all were relatively neutral medical terms once upon a time.

Labels applied to disadvantaged groups linguistically develop a pejorative connotation over time.

It doesn't really help that a lot of what we used to consider mental illness was mostly just behavior not conforming with the mainstream. US suffragettes hunger-striking were institutionalized and force-fed under the guise of mental illness, and being gay itself used to be classified as a mental illness.

Yes, but this is very much part of the Euphemism Treadmill[0]

I would fervently argue that 'sanity' has nothing to do with denigrating persons, merely ensuring that the solution remains "sane" in light of many people pouring time on things in different contexts.

Unless we're saying sanity in of itself is bad?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Evolution

But confidence check can hurt people with low self-esteem. It’s turtles all the way down.

I'm not downvoting you. I just don't see an argument against sanity or coherence. These are things are objectively good. Don't hear a lot of "hey, that's awfully coherent, how about maybe walk that back a little..."

I'm good with the rest of it. I have no need to call anything master/slave. I worry about analysis paralysis though. Primary/secondary has caste connotations, if you ask me...

"Confidence check" is insensitive toward individuals with low self-esteem.

I'm guessing because there might be a possibility someone might be offended?

Because according to a woke worldview, there is no such thing as insanity.

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