That would mean you cannot talk about it. You want to constrain debate. You want issues to not be discussed. The idea that any particular word should not be rendered is absurd.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211108155321/https://freddiede...
Forgive me if my interest in arguing with someone who quotes "CRT in schools" (with a salient example) and an intentionally (?) crude understanding of what "defund the police" means on the website that courted far right populists[1] is rather insubstantial.
I think we're just too far apart to reconcile anything. A YouTube personality called Vaush might be your kind of rhetoric if you look for left leaning people to address the claims head on, in length. I don't have the breath for it.
[1]: https://nathantankus.substack.com/p/i-am-leaving-substack
No. We use vague and loaded terms all the time. That's OK. That's human. Paternalism yields resentment because it treats adults like babies. Some person in some corporate office trying to teach me how to think when they themselves lack critical thinking ability is unacceptable.
Words like "woke" mean different things to different people and their use is very harmful to discourse between people from opposite sides on that particular culture war. Tabooing the term and replacing it with one's intended meaning can really clear things up and prevent getting people's backs up. E.g. rather than "woke" one might use "race aware" or "tribalistic" or "injustice aware" or whatever specific meaning one intends to convey. That way you can actually be understood rather than offending people because they identify as "woke" but consider it to mean "injustice aware" rather than some negative meaning.
Tl;dr: words are for communication, use words your audience has the same understanding of
Here you and I are having a civil discussion and meta-conversation. We can literally talk about how the word is used, misunderstood, weaponised, etc. Thoughtful and curious debate should be encouraged. If a word triggers behavior that is unpleasant or counter productive, we should reprimand the individuals doing so not assume nobody can use the word in a civil discussion and I for one feel I learn different perspectives that I hope make me a better person.
> words are for communication, use words your audience has the same understanding o
That’s a very narrow perspective. Not only is it not achievable in principle (meanings of words shift over time and have cultural and personal context), but the point of communication is often to build shared understanding.
I do, however, it is a valid decision to want to make certain topics off limits, because they tend to devolve into chaos and a broken community, but I would argue against a blacklist of words. We should be able to discuss porn but not share porn in this site. We should be able to debate each other on wokeness (the word and our differing perspectives) without getting disrespectful or assuming bad intent or overlooking abuse.
Maybe I’m too idealistic and you have the more practical position… so I want to be open to that possibility.
> Here you and I are having a civil discussion and meta-conversation. We can literally talk about how the word is used, misunderstood, weaponised, etc.
I want to warn you that that does not apply to all words. I was informed by moderation that the following is not acceptable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38680523
I'm pretty curious if you agree with them there (I've actually been meaning to get around to asking someone else for their opinion but it's still emotionally a bit difficult). (I think this subthread is dead enough that no one but you will read this)
I read it. What specifically did you hear was unacceptable - there’s no moderator comment attached to your writing so I cannot tell what they told you is unacceptable.
(I was avoiding going to that thread again because looking at it stresses me out, I took a week long break from hackernews after that)
take the word eugenics, for example. we've decided that's not okay. by asking modern questions around it, you think you can make it okay to support eugenics. but unfortunately words can have two meanings, and the word eugenics has picked up the meaning that non-blonde blue eyed white people are to be euthanized. thus, you can't use the word eugenics. you want it to mean one thing, but the rest of us have agreed it means this other thing, and you're left confused because you're saying X and everyone else is hearing Y because Y is what that word means to everyone else.
My sad experience is that you just can’t do what you want, if what you want is most people to treat your language with the high precision you intended or to pause their emotional filters and explore some philosophical “what ifs”. You might be able to find some pure and deep thinkers in real life or private settings to explore questions highlighted in the fourth post in your link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38699727
But in public settings (including online) you mostly can’t.
You also can’t even use some words online, despite them having a very precise and innocuous meaning.
As an example:
Try to guess the reaction to something like: “when I realized Colin didn’t leave a tip, I didn’t confront him as I knew that he wasn’t going to change since that was just an inherent part of his niggardly nature.”
A human compiler, equipped with the correct dictionary definition of “niggardly” will process your sentence one way. A random person on the street, online, or in a pub is highly likely to take offense. If you insist that people are obliged to treat your sentence as if you’d said “stingy” (the definition of the race-connotation-free word “niggardly”), you’re going to be confused when many refuse.
Similarly, if you ask some of the questions from the link above among strangers in a public forum: are they asking in order to deeply explore all valid philosophies concerning them? Or are they placing poop into the pretty nice punch bowl we have here?
Many will assume and treat you as if it’s the latter, because their experience is many people do do that online, and treat you as if you’re doing that as well.
You know your intentions. Other people have to guess at them. If you communicate in a way that matches you to a pattern they have a negative reaction to, you’re going to get that reaction.