Give up 70% of the way through the hyperstitious slur cascade | Hacker News Reader

Give up 70% of the way through the hyperstitious slur cascade

astralcodexten.com

39 pointsSenAnder46 comments

This is why I refused to go along with the git master->main rename. Beyond being incredibly dumb and zero people being actually offended by this ever, if you get hyperstitious slur cascades in system identifiers that are hard-coded into a bajillion places, the result is an endless series of bugs and timesinks that will still be blowing up in people's faces a decade later.

The worst thing about these cascades is that they make people who jump on them early incorrectly feel virtuous and powerful, and that's seductive. Allow them to get away with it and before you know it there's yet another attempt at starting a cascade, and then another, and then another, and suddenly everyone is at each other's throats all the time over nothing. This is how we end up with people being attacked at work for using the word female (https://twitter.com/JoshPower80/status/1722675156017889607).

The only fix for this is for enough people to start proactively spotting such cascades when they start and plant stakes in the ground. "That isn't offensive and you are being disruptive by claiming it is" is a line that needs to start being heard much more often in the workplace. Otherwise there seems to be no real end to how fast this particular wheel can spin.

The most intolerant wins: [https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...]

completely agree. I'm not going to raise a stink if a project uses something other than master but I will continue to use master.

It's pretty well understood language is defined by its use, prescriptivism is a fantasy, and "I'd like to oppose change as long as it doesn't single me out too much" isn't exactly new human behavior. It's neither a wrong stance, nor is it a right stance. We all like changes in some circumstances, and we're all OK with not conforming in some circumstances - and then we choose which ones matter to us.

This happens well beyond slurs, too. Few people call somebody they consider stylish with edgy elements a "hep cat" anymore. We're not asking folks "How's tricks" to ask about their day. And though I do wish we'd resurrect “barmy on the crumpet", probably not going to happen either.

It's a two-way street. You might intend a slur but have it not heard as one, you may not intend but have it heard as one.

Who says it makes a difference. "Queer" was reclaimed, I think, no longer a slur. The "n-word" is or is not a slur based on the speaker being of black African descent.

"Oppose change" is really sort of a social morphing. Just because you change doesn't mean I have to, does it? If so, that means you have to change when I do too, right?

"Just because you change doesn't mean I have to, does it?"

If it comes to shared language, it kinda does. I mean that not as a moral obligation, but as a matter of practical usage. If everybody but you has agreed on a meaning, your intent no longer matters. If usage is split... it's hard. "Queer" is still considered a slur by some LGBTQIA+ folks. (I was going to say "gay folks", but even that isn't entirely clear - is it the entire community, or is it men only). It leads to a good bunch of heated debate, still.

And yes, of course context matters. The n-word is a prime example, but it's true for all language.

But ultimately, when it comes to language hurting people? Intent doesn't matter that much. Impact does.

This all about the process of going from nobody agreeing to everybody agreeing. In HR policies, impact is all, intent nothing. However, you're kind of saying that once one person feels slurred, everybody must pivot. It can be addressed by the feeler changing how they feel, too.

I am saying that if you hurt somebody, and you can not hurt them just by using a different word, yeah, my expectation is that you try not to hurt other people.

If that's asking too much of you... well, it's helpful info.

? That sounds like you make some inference about how I treat others based on how I view the process of assigning interpretations to words. That's kind of arrogant, this isn't Reddit.

I take a lot of care to follow people's preferences, because I don't want people hurt, I rather have more comfort and happiness overall in the world and I prefer more friends and good relations rather than fewer.

> It's pretty well understood language is defined by its use, prescriptivism is a fantasy,

But that's the heart of the conflict. Some people are prescribing language, and other people are unhappy about having language prescribed to them.

I enjoyed this take, it identifies a problem but doesn't take an extreme, foot stamping view which will offend a lot of people on one side or another.

I am a humanist, and I have always tried to deal with everyone fairly. I still get pulled up occasionally on using language that is apparently now offensive. Oops, no offense meant.

I will also now give up 70% of the way through the hyperstitious slur!

I've been noticing this happening with the American flag, and it drives me crazy because that should be one thing that belongs to everyone.

I'm still not over HUNKY showing up in Wordle. :-P

> There's nothing at all dehumanising about the phrase "The Poor" (if you think there is, compare to eg “the rich”. Are we dehumanizing the rich every time we call them that?)

Yes. That's why anti-capitalist protests will criticise "the rich" and not "rich people".

I like this article but this is actually a good point. "The rich" is mostly used in a negative way.

I'd argue this is because most attempts to reduce large groups of people to an idea like "the rich" or "the poor" are done in bad faith.

A support of this would be, within academic sociology or economics these terms will be used in a non slur way and it's because they actually have a reason to be thinking in terms of these groups instead of throwing them out as stawmen for some argument

In 3 months the phrase “Because it’s less than 70% of the way through the hyperstitious slur cascade, and that’s the boundary that I’ve set for myself.” will be a hyperstitious slur

This article is half a year old, just for reference.

Overall - fair enough, I'm sure it is a minor inconvenience to you that language and symbols can change out from under you.

That said, don't expect much sympathy, feels like saying "The war out there is hurting my ears." Like I get it, if your favorite symbol was the swastika (an ancient religious symbol) then hitler comes to power and ruins it, bummer for you, but doesn't really seem be a battle worth fighting.

Also re:

> if you think there is, compare to eg “the rich”. Are we dehumanizing the rich every time we call them that?

A little bit potentially yes. Like "eat the rich." Our ape ability to discriminate against a whole group relies on our cognitive ability to present thousands of individuals as one entity. I think we all feel this at an innate level -- if I was at a rich friend's house I wouldn't say something like "The rich are..." because I would understand this is potentially offensive generalization.

> Our ape ability to discriminate against a whole group relies on our cognitive ability to present thousands of individuals as "one entity."

You're right, but I don't think our tendency to group individuals is able to be overridden by removing words from our lexicon. These words and phrases exist because we group people, not the other way around.

I don't know if I agree with your take.

I do agree that regulating language perfectly isn't sufficient means to eradicate all tribalism, but I bet it helps.

Consider Hitler. Everybody puts sole blame on him for the Holocaust, and avoids asking "So exactly how did he talk an entire nation into this?" (And no, high reparations is not a sufficient answer). The best explanation I've heard given was that he was a great orator and was able to drive people into an emotional frenzy with his words.

I bet if all of Hitler's speeches were replaced with politically correct speeches, he wouldn't have been able to talk so many people into dying in war over his grudges.

> Consider Hitler. Everybody puts sole blame on him for the Holocaust

That's such a strange statement, I realize you're not saying it's your own view, but I'd hope most people don't have such a simplified view of history. Blaming one man for the actions of millions is not a good way to avoid repeating history.

> The best explanation I've heard given was that he was a great orator and was able to drive people into an emotional frenzy with his words

I think it's out of scope to get into how Nazi Germany became the way it was, but it wasn't simply the skilled oration of one man. Hitler was a product of his time - and rose to power because he echoed the sentiments that were already growing among all of Germany.

> I bet if all of Hitler's speeches were replaced with politically correct speeches, he wouldn't have been able to talk so many people into dying in war over his grudges.

Having recently been embarrassed in a World War, being in economic distress, the people craved the leadership of someone nationalistic, idealistic, and aggressive. Someone who has a plan to get them out of their situation. It wasn't just his grudges, many people shared the grudges. He didn't talk them into a war, the people wanted one. His ability to influence the public with rousing speeches certainly had a big impact in spreading his dogma, but I don't think they required politically incorrect speech. Whether that makes the past more or less horrifying is up to you.

Have you ever watched a speech by Hitler? I think most people haven't. If you do you'll immediately and viscerally understand how wrong that whole analysis is, and then wonder how such an inaccurate idea was able to take hold. Hitler was a terrible orator by any modern standard you might care to pick.

Consider for a second - can you off the top of your head recall any famous quotes by Hitler? Any catchphrases, any uniquely powerful passages from his speeches? This isn't a high bar, there have been leaders throughout history whose speeches are still famous today. Churchill managed it, for example. Probably the answer is no. That's not because his speeches have been suppressed by people terrified of the amazing mind-bending power of his words. It's because his speeches contain nothing worth quoting.

To double check this I asked GPT-4 to give me the top 5 most famous quotes from speeches of his, and the first quote it returned was actually by Goebbels (which isn't a surprise because his lieutenants were better at this), two of the rest were duplicates and none of them were actually from speeches. Also it seems several are in doubt as to whether he even said them at all.

To get a feel for the reality try watching Triumph of the Will. It contains clips from various events, presumably selected for being the best bits. Or flick through the transcript here: https://web.archive.org/web/20030622191345/http://www.dasbla...

First problem: there is no content. Nothing he says is actually about anything. There are almost no coherent political ideas or proposals presented. There's also no structure: no beginning, middle and end. You could skip whole sections, or randomly re-order all the sentences, and nobody would notice. His oratory is nothing but a disconnected series of vague one or two line political slogans and exhortations that don't seem to connect to each other in any way. Example: "Regardless of whatever we create and what we do, we shall pass away, but in you, Germany will live on". To the modern listener this is difficult to listen to because it's so easy to get bored and drift off.

Second problem: His delivery is absurdly over-dramatic all the time, even when he's saying mundane things. If someone tried that today they'd immediately become an object of mockery and derision because it's such a silly speaking style.

Third problem: he often seems to meander or become stuck in a loop, e.g. "We want this people to be obedient and you must practice this obedience; we want this people to be peace-loving but also brave and you must be peace-loving! You must therefore be peace-loving and obedient and courageous at the same time."

The "Hitler was an amazing orator" meme must originate from people who can't face the maybe more ugly truth: in a very young and unstable democracy full of angry hopeless people being crushed by war reparations, you didn't have to be good at conventional politics to take over. Being extremely energetic, telling people they're pretty great actually, being socialist and having a violent street army was all it took.

So to clarify, do you agree or disagree with the statement that if Hitler only made politically correct statements (including his book), that he wouldn't have been able to motivate the war?

The most fundamental part of my position is that I find it hard to believe that the average german citizen, in a calm and rational state of mind, would have decided World War 2 was in their individual self-interest.

I think there are two different positions you might be claiming:

1. That Hitler did whip people into an emotional frenzy, using nationalism (as well as other forms of tribalism), but didn't rely on what we'd call "politically incorrect" speech today to do so.

2. Hitler did use such techniques, but didn't need to.

Taking a step back, even if it turns out I have Hitler's speeches all wrong, it really only takes one dictator who uses such language to try to justify the overarching point (which again is that moderating speech actually does serve as a mechanism to reduce tribalism/hate/war in people).

I disagree with the statement. I don't think enforcement of political correctness would have had any impact because his words hardly mattered to begin with. Events were everything. If it wasn't Hitler it'd probably have been someone else, and that someone probably would have some famous quotes to their name. His words boil down to:

1. Patriotism. Germany is great, Germans are great.

2. Socialism (calling each other comrades, talking about how awesome the working class/"labour" is, calling for an end to class differences).

3. Generic vibes. The Nazi party is great, the future is bright, we are powerful, etc.

... expressed in a muddled and often incoherent way. (and in his book, hatred of the jews, but that doesn't get featured in their propaganda films).

The only obvious thing in the Triumph of the Will excerpts that would be red flags by today's standards are the open and explicit glorification of dictatorship. And for some people the socialism, but in the 1930s people didn't know what we know now about how that works out.

Now come up with a speech code that can forbid those things yet not also ban either of the two main American political parties.

> The most fundamental part of my position is that I find it hard to believe that the average german citizen, in a calm and rational state of mind, would have decided World War 2 was in their individual self-interest.

Hitler didn't literally say in his speeches "Let's start another world war", did he? And by the time he got into power and did start it, it was too late, speeches didn't matter anymore.

But let's put that to one side. Remember that in Germany in the 1920s and 30s democracy was brand new and very weak. From the perspective of people who had been used to monarchy it was absolute bedlam. Political parties were engaging in open street warfare, the government was run by fragile coalitions made up of lots of tiny parties that constantly bickered and collapsed, there was hyperinflation and then France and Belgium actually invaded Germany to seize the factories when it proved unable to pay the war reparations. Then things recovered briefly before the Depression hit. The constitution meanwhile allowed the president to suspend the whole democratic process and rule as a dictator in an "emergency" which wasn't defined. Hitler used this, but he wasn't the first, Hindenburg used it before him so normalizing the procedure. It was absolutely nothing like today's relatively rich and stable western democracies. Times were desperate.

So for the average working class German this whole experiment with democracy would have looked SNAFU. The economy was hosed, Germany was being oppressed by the victors of WW1, they feel like shit because they lost, the government wasn't working and there's no national pride anywhere (something very important to most workers who aren't very mobile at this time), and the democratic process was barely working. In steps a guy who very clearly (a) has a lot of energy, (b) promises to fix everything if given the power to just get rid of this stupid voting system and (c) is a patriot and socialist. He may not be articulate but so what, fancy men with fancy words had plenty of chances but haven't fixed anything. If you don't believe much in democracy to begin with because your experience of it has been bad, why wouldn't you elect a strongman who says the right things? That's how you'd pick your politicians anyway. They didn't know he'd start a world war and then lose it.

> don't expect much sympathy, feels like saying "The war out there is hurting my ears."

Portraying your enemy as privileged and without legitimate concerns and denying them sympathy, as you have done, is a key element of the attack against them. But consider his example of "all lives matter" [1], or perhaps "it's okay to be white" - the mildest possible expressions of white self-advocacy, have been reframed as hate [2].

When the mildest, most inoffensive defense you can put into words is ripped from you using a targeted hyperstitious cascade, so their Radio Rwanda [3] can continue unopposed, you should worry. The war isn't "out there" - it's on your doorstep.

[1] Even looking only at police killings, per homicide committed (not per capita), more whites are killed by police than blacks, so it is a valid concern.

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/stop-white-hate-sign-bel...

[3] https://www.newsweek.com/help-me-hate-white-people-entry-bes...

> Portraying your enemy as ...

Enemy...? Take a breather my dude.

Neither of those were reframed as hate. "It's Okay To Be White" was a slogan 4chan developed with the specific intent of being the most innocent sounding white suprematist slogan possible. ALM was occasionally said with innocent intentions, but again the origin of the phrase was an attempt at discrediting the claim made by BLM that people did not care when black people die.

I also have no idea how the author can claim with a straight face that forty years ago having a Confederate flag wasn't making a statement about race.

This is a very strange article. The author spends the whole time arguing against calling groups of people by the terms they prefer, with an extra focus on trying to excuse racism (such as claiming that "all lives matter" was perfectly innocent for the first week, despite the fact that it arose specifically as a counter to "black lives matter", and incidentally using ageism to make this claim). It's pretty obvious without even looking that the author is a white man.

I cannot tell whether this is sarcastic, or if you missed the point of the article. In either case, you did it spectacularly!

The entire top level point of the article, the part that is literally the focus of the title, is a recommendation not to call groups by names they don't like.

Did you read the article? Or did you read the first two paragaphs and decide it was wrong thought and go to yell to the internet?

In fact, the point of the article is an attempt to reason about the mechanism that determine why groups prefer that others don’t use this or that word to describe them—not to argue in favor of doing it.

No that's just the point of the first two paragraphs. Everything past that is claiming that we're taking this idea too far. It specifically used the hypothetical situation of Asian folks deciding that being called "Asian" was bad and that they should be called something like "People of Asia" (I forget the exact replacement phrase and the article isn't loading for me right now) as something that shouldn't be respected. I believe the point was something like the slur for Japanese folk was rooted in actual discrimination and so that's an understandable reason for not liking the term, but if a group of people just decide they want a different term, that's bad and we shouldn't respect their wishes because it makes life harder for white people.

You're spot on - it's the idle thoughts of a privileged white man trying to justify racism, but he presents no new arguments, and dresses the whole thing up in academicese.

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