Comment by elefantastisch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by elefantastisch | Hacker News Reader

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At issue is not whether analogies and metaphors are a type of morally equating. At issue is whether it is appropriate to use a particularly severe term in a decidedly less severe manner.

"Kill" is used in many less severe circumstances. We kill plants and mold and bacteria. "Kill" does not nearly universally refer a specific severe act with a real human victim. Notice we don't murder programs.

Regardless of historical usage (words do not have some innate meaning which persists through all time), the current usage of the word is almost exclusively limited to a very particular crime. A better comparison would be "genocide". We should ask ourselves how we would feel about a company transitioning from cross-platform to a single OS being described as committing a genocide of other OS users. Or even better, we should ask actual survivors of genocide how they would feel.

And in this case, survivors are already telling us how they feel. For example: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stop-saying-rape-out-of-conte...

There are terms which because of their specificity and severity (in modern usage) cannot be used metaphorically without calling to mind the non-metaphorical meaning. This is quite distinct from more standard metaphors which we barely recognize as metaphors at all (no one thinks of a sprinter when we ask them to run a program).

Regardless of what decision we end up making on what terms we are comfortable using, we can recognize that not all violent terms are equal in how concretely they call to mind their violent meaning when used metaphorically and that victims of violence are speaking out about the usage of certain terms. How we should respond to that is a judgment call we all have to make.

Personally I think people should be free to say what they want to. And people are free to react the way they want to too. But neither side should have the power to silence the other.

Also since this submission hasnt been downvoted into oblivion, your personal, anecdotal reaction is not the norm (on HN)

> At issue is not whether analogies and metaphors are a type of morally equating.

He literally used the word “equating”.

> Notice we don't murder programs.

And if someone does say that, will you swoop in to tell them that it’s inappropriate? Because I have absolutely heard people use the word “murder” metaphorically.

> And in this case, survivors are already telling us how they feel.

Interestingly those are all cases where I can easily imagine someone saying “murder” instead of “rape”. I also think those examples are pretty flippant and waste the impact of the word.

For the record, I think this particular use of the word “rape” to describe the poem’s butchering is reasonable. The work shown was utterly destroyed.

My intention is not to argue that the usage is inappropriate. Sure, it's probably obvious from my post that I think it is, but that's not the argument I was trying to make. And I'm certainly not trying to silence anyone (as the other replier pointed out one should not) because of their word choice. I didn't downvote/flag any of what I'm replying to.

The argument I'm trying to make is first that it's not arbitrary to question the use of this word but not "kill" or other violent words. There is a distinction because of the specificity and linguistic contexts in which the word is used.

And second that because it's not arbitrary, the complaints from survivors are also not arbitrary and should be considered--not taken as absolute unassailable truth, but considered.

For comparison, I can imagine those who lost loved ones in the infamous Air France Flight 447 might be upset to be reminded of Air France. But Air France is a 10+ billion euro company operating hundreds if not thousands of flights per day. It is stunningly rare that "Air France" is used to refer to that accident and on balance, I think most would conclude Air France is of positive or neutral impact to the world. I would be quite suspect of an argument that "Air France" is inappropriate language.

On the other extreme you have a term like "Holocaust" which effectively has no other meaning or usage than a reference to that genocide.

Now you may conclude that no usage of any word is inherently inappropriate, and if that's the case, we're simply at an impasse, and I'm fine with that. I won't try to stop you or change your mind. But for most people, I think there is a point where the triviality of the use and the severity of the word add up to inappropriateness.

It's not clear-cut. You'd probably be hard pressed to find anyone genuinely bothered by "killing" a process. But you also won't find too many people who would defend say... being kicked out of a bar for causing a drunken fight being described as being persecuted like in the Holocaust. There's a spectrum.

So my point is just this... there are some logical reasons why many people consider a usage like this article on the inappropriate side of the spectrum. We can at least acknowledge that and recognize that there's a legitimate judgment call to be made here. We aren't in "killing a process" territory. And we certainly aren't in arbitrary word policing because we happen to be bothered by it territory.

Unless of course you fundamentally disagree that any metaphor could be inappropriate because of the thing which is alluded to in the metaphor. In which case we're just starting from different fundamental assumptions, which is fine. I'm not trying to challenge anyone's values.

I'll end here. There are obviously legitimate grievances in the article regardless of the word choice in titling it, and I've done enough to derail the discussion of those already. For that, I apologize.

I have no problem with the notion that certain words should be used with care. Rape jokes are generally in very bad taste. Flippantly using the word is rather uncouth.

I also think there is balance. The fact that some claim offense or hurt at a word does not mean no one should use it.

I often use 4 letter shortcut aliases. Inspired by this, "mrdr" is now a new alias of "kill -9".

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