Hacker News Reader

Comment by freecodyx | Hacker News Reader

I’ve developed a phobia from street dogs. Especially with the bad experiences i had with them when i was kid. But what i have noticed. When the street is busy. They’re peaceful otherwise they will try to intimidate you as a group either you’re walking,cycling, biking, driving. When i am in the car and i am safe. I play games with them. I stop the car. They stop and they wait for me to drive. So they can run and bark outloud. Seems like they’re just playing. I wish i had the same courage when i am walking/running

View on HN

Isn't that the same for humans? You'd perceive little danger if you saw someone walking in your general direction in a crowded park, but remove all others and make it night time and the perception of that person changes entirely.

It’s way more complex than that. Your brain is running pattern recognition on the persons height, gender, age, race, clothing, gait, where they are looking, etc to work out the risk level.

If you saw an old lady carrying shopping bags you’d feel no risk of danger vs a large male in a hoodie walking in a weird way and looking at you.

The usual term for a male human is a "man".

The bots aren't perfect yet.

A man is an "adult male human".

Who's to say it's not a large "adolescent male human"?

There's an effort by activist to shame the use of male and female when discussing humans because it is an alternative to gender terms, which are ambiguous by design.

You mean because it's used as an alternative, and the activists' point is that it isn't an alternative.

I don't think it's ever been normal to use 'male' and 'female' instead of 'men' and 'women' in normal conversations.

I don't think the comment above had anything to do with trans activism. It had to do with whether you sound like a creepy robot.

It’s normal when they’re used as adjectives. Less so as nouns.

I think it's normal to use 'male' and 'female' when you have to specify species. "Male cats are solitery hunters... while Male humans hunt in groups"

Or when referring to non living things "Male USB connectors" or "Male protagonists".

But I don't think it's normal to refer to your fellow humans as male or female outside of those contexts.

At least that's what I've picked up via cultural osmosis.

> I don't think it's ever been normal to use 'male' and 'female' instead of 'men' and 'women' in normal conversations

It's common in deliberately dehumanizing contexts; you’ll see it a lot historically (in writing, we don't have audio recordings) in the context of the slave trade, it's used as distancing language by law enforcement, and “female” became somewhat common among people who talk about women-as-possessions from about the late 20th century.

Who said they were talking about humans? They deliberately left out the noun modified by “male”, there must be some significance to that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com