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Comment by aerovistae | Hacker News Reader

Have a nice look at this list and let me know if you'd like to ban all of these too. After all, they have context and actual loaded meanings, and in many cases represent hundreds of years of oppression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs_by_ethnic...

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It's as if we as humans have some kind of context-sensitive language recognition capability, and can tell when a word is being used as a slur or if it has entirely unrelated meanings. We're slightly smarter than regular expressions. And yes, I'd fully expect Github to ban those too.

I'm sorry, but I believe that allowing even one idea to be banned from discourse is the first step towards a system where someone like Edward Snowden has to find asylum in Russia.

I don't believe in censorship or hiding away what was really said or done. If anyone has a problem with this developer's language, they can boycott his repo.

Slurs aren't discourse, or even the start of discourse. And removing them has nothing to do with pervasive surveillance.

> If anyone has a problem with this developer's language, they can boycott his repo.

Github did, and they did. And then someone decided to stir up trouble by posting it as though people should be offended by what Github did, rather than applauding them.

Github can do as they like on their own resources. If you don't like it, host your own, and welcome everyone who doesn't like to be decent to other people. See how it goes.

No matter what you do, you'll exclude people and silence ideas. Either you exclude hateful people, or you exclude people who don't enjoy hatefulness. Pick one.

Slurs are part of discourse.

Slurs are considered a problem because they're offensive. Banning them is the first step on the road to banning offensive content.

Who arbitrates what is offensive? Sure, we can agree on "The N-Word", but how about Idiot's Guide to Web Tools?

Can you not tell the difference between "The Idiot's Guide ..." and "The R---rd's Guide ..."? "Idiot" is not a derogatory slur.

Isn't that subjective?

No, there's a clear objective line there. And while it'd be difficult to teach a computer that line, a human can understand it just fine.

Objective: (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

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Please, PLEASE try and tell me that definition is compatible with a discussion of "which words hurt people's feelings."

You don't have to agree with a criteria to be able to apply it objectively; it just has to be something that can be evaluated by anyone to come up with the same answer. You can't objectively evaluate whether art looks good; you can only get subjective answers and attempt to find consensus. You can objectively determine if a word is a noun, verb, adjective, etc (given context, as some words can fall in several categories). And given context, you can objectively determine if a word is a slur. (Personally, I avoid both slurs and insults, but github only bans the former, not the latter, and that seems like a reasonable position to take.)

So, to be clear: there's an objective criteria for "what is a slur"; there's no objective criteria for "what is acceptable" or "what is offensive". But in any case, a hosting company is hardly required to provide an objective criteria for what they accept; it's nice if the rules they supply can be objectively evaluated, but that doesn't mean their choice of which rules to apply needs to be objective.

In any case, I have no further interest in arguing with you; I doubt you're going to stop being outraged that someone won't give you a free platform for hatefulness.

I already have a free platform for hatefulness, it's called America.

Oh, is there a threshold? How many people have to be offended by it before it counts? Can you give me a number? I find 'idiot' to be a derogatory slur, does that mean nothing to you?

And note what I said in a previous commend about the elder meaning of 'idiot.' Pretty much means the same thing as 'retard' but people don't think of it that way anymore. You're taking such a traditional mindset about this, kind of "just what your parents told you."

Github has a problem with this project's language, and they are boycotting the repo.

It's easy to go on the internet and virtue signal.

What sacrifice have you ever made toward the right of no race, person, or condition to not be offended?

What makes you so holier-than-thou, you can think it's ok to sit behind the keyboard like God and quash whatever idea runs contrary to your psyche?

There is a whole website called Twitter, where people act very pompous, very pious, but seldom have the fortitude to trouble themselves to help what they "fighting for". Kind of like how Occupy Wallstreet drank Coca Cola and brought iPhones to protests.

> What sacrifice have you ever made

Personal donations of money and time towards diversity-in-tech efforts. You?

> What makes you so holier-than-thou

Basic human decency. You?

Yes, I would like to ban the use of the word "ape" to refer to a black man (at least on Github), keeping in mind the Use-mention distinction and "common sense" to realize that the person was actually using it as a slur.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio...)

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