It is a suggestion, people. The same way you're allowed to missspell words as much as you want despite the little red squiggly line thing, you're welcomed to either ignore or disable the little purple squiggly line thing.
It's going to be okay.
It's going to be okay.
People start to wonder why you couldn't just follow a "commonly accepted best practice" and instead you went out of your way to insist on terminology that is now considered insensitive, hurtful, harmful.
People start to wonder why you made that conscious choice. What does that say about you? Are you a bigot? Do you harbor hatred for those harmed by such language? Are you making a political statement? Why can't you just do what you're suggested? It's only a click away after all.
And such folks can ask me what I meant or they can just fuck right off. Even if that means a few parting barbs from such folk or even a coordinated campaign to damage my reputation.
I have no control over what other people think, do or say, other than to speak my mind as well.
As Justice Brandeis put it[0] nearly a hundred years ago:
If there be time to expose through discussion the
falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the
process of education, the remedy to be applied is
more speech, not enforced silence.
This features right now is restricted too google docs for work. But imagine it was in all documents, emails, texting on android, etc.
Overtime if you constantly get these suggestions you will likely find yourself doing differently subconsciously.
The key problem here is not only is it Google dictating now what is right or wrong in the English language but also applying a US centric view on that.
Many words have different meanings in different countries or even in the same country. Different societal norms and it doesn't mean it is any less inclusive. They just consider it something else.
It didn't take that long for spellcheck to automatically start fixing spellings, a feature that many of us likely could no longer live without. I don't know the last time I actually interacted with spellcheck. That same thing can happen here if we allow this to be acceptable.
I think the vast majority of users especially outside the HN/technical crowd will not do as you. Default settings are powerfully influential UX. See dark patterns.
The correct spelling of words is defined and agreed upon and there is no moral judgement involved.
That is not the case with "inclusive language", yet by making these alternative suggestions Google is making a judgement that my word choice is wrong because it doesn't fit politically correct standards espoused and insisted upon by a vocal minority of society.
An editor used by millions should auto-correct spelling not decide what words are morally correct. It doesn't take much imagination to see where this is headed.
This is a slippery slope if there ever was one.
No, it's not going to be okay unless we make it so.
It'll cause people to replace perfectly reasonable text with accidentally offensive text, just to make the squiggly line go away.