Comment by trainsplanes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by trainsplanes | Hacker News Reader

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Not trying to be rude, but as with most things, there are scales within the ranges of blindness and paralysis.

A lot of people assume blindness means absolutely no sight whatsoever, which isn't true, because quite a large number of legally blind people have eyes that detect some degree of light. Temporary blinding from illness/injury exists. Flashing a bright light into someone's eyes, rendering them momentarily unable to see, is also a very valid and very old usage of "blind" in the English language. Being metaphorically dazzled by something and temporarily unable to respond ties in with the latter meaning and goes way back in its usage.

Paralysis has a similar scale. Many people assume total lack of movement, and "only" having one's lower body unable to move doesn't even immediately register as paralysis in the mental image a lot of people have. People with severe mental illnesses like depression and some forms of schizophrenia are rendered unable to move (it's not a desire to stay still). People can also be temporarily paralyzed through poison or mental shock (as in they literally, physically cannot move out of fear).

Words have range. Context makes their meaning precise. I really hate to bring this word in here, but denying someone with a mental illness the right to use a word is because it's not "real" enough compared to another person's struggle is "gatekeeping". Suggesting words they use to describe their illness is "insulting" is harmful to them.

I completely agree. I think the lack of real, immediate issues (war, famine, terrorism, poverty) in the western world right now is leaving a lot of people with extra time and mental capacity on their hands to try to dig up issues where there aren't any. Everyone can take offense over anything they read, it doesn't mean it's grounded in anything or it makes sense. On the other hand there are people hovering the internets waiting for such a person, to jump to the opportunity and virtue signal how said person is seriously endangered and everyone should adjust to them.

Imho this is how we achieve greatness.

People getting pissed over things there parents took as inevitable is basically the definition of progress.

This is the first generation where mental health has been considerd a value. While its easy to dismiss there terminology issues i would say a few things:

1. That its hard to imagine the impact of having a defining life challange constantly talked about by strangers callously.

2. Go back and look at historical "political correctness gone mad" arguments.. even just to the 90s. The ones i have found all seem examples of things we would not dream of saying today and for good reason.

3. These apparently low priority discussions are how you really solve the root causes of issues. Its by figurng out how to support the un supported that all of society is elevated.

Imho in a certain manner I get what you're saying and I kind of agree up to a certain point, but having an issue when somebody uses the word paralyzed out of physical context is not how we achieve greatness nor is having an issue with the default git branch being master, nor do similar waste of time discussions. These things are only there since the loud minority wants to signal that they're more woke than their environment. There are real issues with race, religion freedom of speech etc all around the western world.

Same as calling some a cunt imho. The parts of scotland i grew up in it basically means "person".

And if i use it at work like this people know i am not meaning it the qymay it sounds but they still correct me.

That discuasion leads me to have better more productive language in the future. If i cannot handle some constructive criticism thats on me.

I know it can be hard for people who are very normalised to a certain way of speaking.. but thems the breaks. Better than actually being paralysed imho.. plus if i come up with another term for this i can use it with an audience that actually includes paralised people and the reference will still make sense.

No body expects perfect. I still swear too much at work and i still accidentally throw in metaphorical adjectives that belong in the past. But i am better at it than my grandpa (not that i ever heard him say cunt :) )

Slang != Proper non-insulting terms that somebody finds insulting. The original comment was related to the word paralyzed which is miles away from using the word cunt and a pretty stupid comparison tbh.

Fair comment, though the word slang is doing a lot of judgement work and the whole point is that offensivity is subjective. I chose that word as its right out there on the spectrum but genuinely seems totally harmless to me and means person with some additional flavour and familiarity.

I am not recommending the usage of the word. Just pointing out that my comfort with it doesnt make it okay to use.

Agreed that it probably totally failed to getthe message across.. i guess as someone who grew up in a dialect i am used all kinds of moderation and consideration for the listner, and so i don't buy these hard done by arguments over being respectful. I cannot talk in a way that the thoughts come in to my head outside a ridiculously small number of people and to me, it only adds to the richness of life and my personal growth. Ymmv

We are imobilised, we have lost all the momentum we had. Can we get back some of that dynamism we had prior to change x.. i dont see an issue with finding other ways to talking and if it turns out that those ways of speaking offend people i bet i willlearn somenew perspective when i hear why.

This is not a newspeak situation. This is just listening and trying to cause less pain.

The idea of the child generation always progressing from the parent is dangerously clouded by the immediate past and probably also very myopic.

Throughout history there are many instances where the child generation regresses the status quo by and large, sometimes over multiple generations. Even when there is progress in general, there may be specific aspects of society which do regress relative to the past. All I'm saying really is that we shouldn't look at all forward movement as necessarily moving upward.

Hmm not sure what you are arguing against here.

I didnt say all progress was good, only that progress has a profile and looking at this specific area: what is it about respecting people and understanding the importance of mental health has not been good.

I literally asked the reader to look at this specific issue.

But i agree not all progress is good and some progress is only temporarily good. E.g. capitalism, advertising, intellectual property

Wasn't referring to you specifically, but the idea of progress as a constant change made by the child generation which your comment alluded to.

There was plenty of mental illness in the past, it was just often swept under the rug, or when it was acknowledged it was termed a "nervous breakdown" (or "demon possession"), etc.

Now a lot more people are coming forward and talking about it, whereas before people would just pretend they were ok, as much as they could. That pretense still happens even now, as there's still a stigma about it, but more and more people are starting to feel safe to come out of the closet.

It doesn't help anyone to tell us them (us) that they just have "extra time and mental capacity on their hands to try to dig up issues where there aren't any".

Not to speak for anyone else, but I've been crazy busy before (and every shade of busy in between) and still been very depressed and had severe trouble coping. Keeping busy might help with mild depression but it rarely works for moderate to severe depression.

Depression is complex and has many different causes that vary from person to person, but if part of the reason for you is that you find life meaningless or find what you do meaningless, then staying busy isn't going to help you. Same if you hate yourself, or if your depression is related to trauma you've suffered, etc.

That doesn't even get in to the "chemical imbalance" theories of depression, which I'm not a big fan of myself so I won't go in to them except to say that just keeping busy might not have enough effect on that either.

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