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Comment by KirinDave | Hacker News Reader

Hi. I've lived my life with a closeted gender because of words spoken by my parents, friends, and incredulous members of the LGBT community. It lead to depression, frustration, and many wasted opportunities. Now that I am no longer concealing this I still receive regular discouragement that is extremely frustrating.

The idea that "words do not cause harm" is so ludicrous. What if I started a rumor that cost you your job? What if I planted drawings (no one harmed) of child pornography on your computer? What if I reveal you perjured yourself in court?

All these things are just words. All these things could lead to consequences in your life, of varying types.

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Of course semantics can hurt, obviously. But the choice of synonyms does not, and anyone claiming otherwise must try really hart to prove such an outrageous claim.

"idiot" is not a synonym for the word in question here. This is similar to saying that "t*ny" and "transsexual" are synonyms. They're not.

Let me give you an example of how referring to you in an insulting way can change your attitudes and discourage conversation.

1. Words have a lesser impact on you because you've [a lucky person] who doesn't live a life were they have been used to deny you opportunity and basic humanity constantly.

2. Words have a lesser impact on you because you're [a white male] who doesn't live a life where they have been used to deny you opportunity and basic humanity constantly.

Looking around the internet, #2 certainly seems more contentious. But let's be honest here, the overlap of case 1 and case 2 is much more likely in most of the western world than other ethnicity and gender and sexual orientation we could put in there.

Uh, you might want to look up "idiot" in the OED. "moron" also.

Do you think it's clever to point out 'archaic' uses? Someone else has been trying to make the case that we also live 200 years in the past and modern social context shouldn't be relevant.

"Uh", at least try to keep abreast of the conversation "also."

The fact that you are hurt by certain words doesn't actually grant you quite enough moral authority to call up a rage-mob and apply it to the face of every entity that acts as a medium to provide an open, public space in which some people say the words that hurt you. There is real harm in rendering public space hostage to the moral outrage of self-selected groups and individuals.

It's nowhere near the harm caused by genocide, of course, but we're not even physically in the realm of genocide, so that was never an accurate framing in the first place.

Censorship is a fact of life and human experience. Calling for its eradication is to call for the erasure of a fundamental aspect of human cognition.

So we're going to apply the principle sensibly. The simple truth no one here wants to admit while they argue slippery slopes and excluded middles about how the only harm worth noting is total genocide: there is no real communicative value for github in allowing slurs on the site.

Calling the request to "find a synonym that is not in current use as a slur against a marginalized group of people" is such a modest and low impact request. It truly boggles my mind that this is the line so many people here want to draw.

>The simple truth no one here wants to admit while they argue slippery slopes and excluded middles about how the only harm worth noting is total genocide: there is no real communicative value for github in allowing slurs on the site.

That's not actually the issue at hand. Github isn't actually supposed to communicate anything at all on their site, good or bad. They're supposed to act as a platform and a common carrier for others. This requires that they not be subject to a heckler's veto, as anyone can understand if they stroll down to a university campus and look at what happens when an unpopular political group attempts to hold a meeting in a classroom (eg: they get blockaded and shouted down by hecklers).

And by "unpopular", I don't mean "Hey let's throw slurs around for the lulz", I mean, "Anything to do with the Middle East, or the Radical Students' Union, or the Campus Republicans, or anything to do with the Middle East."

> Github isn't actually supposed to communicate anything at all on their site, good or bad. They're supposed to act as a platform and a common carrier for others.

"Supposed" by whom?

Arguably, they might be analogous to a common carrier with regard to their paid services. Their free services appear to be provided on the basis of mutual benefit -- the consumers of those free services get the services, Github gets the promotional benefit of hosting the services.

At least in the case of the latter, Github has a clear incentive to view the exchange differently when the content exposed by the repositories in question is, in Github's view, inconsistent with the image that Github wants to present, and seems to me to have a clear moral right to decide whether or not to make the exchange in consideration of that basis, among other factors.

> They're supposed to act as a platform and a common carrier for others.

This is your projected mission. They've never claimed they should, would or even CAN do this. Feel free to find another vendor in the marketplace that will continue to allow you to protect racial slurs on the dubious mask of free speech.

But it's worth noting the case in question WAS just "throw some slurs around because we're just massively insensitive."

> That's not actually the issue at hand. Github isn't actually supposed to communicate anything at all on their site, good or bad. They're supposed to act as a platform and a common carrier for others.

Here's the github term from their ToS that tells users to comply with local law.

Github doesn't think that Github is a dumb pipe. Github wants people in oppressive regimes to censor their projects.

https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service/

> You may not use the Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose. You must not, in the use of the Service, violate any laws in your jurisdiction (including but not limited to copyright or trademark laws).

Github doesn't want you to insult your employer if you were working in UAE. Github doesn't want you to insult various ruling families if you live in eg Kuwait.

>>KirinDave/StupidMinecraftFoolin

Now someone comes along and says: I have been called a stupid fool all my life. I have reported this repo because it deeply offends me. We stupid fools prefer to refer to ourselves as brainless nincompoops.

Can you show people using the word "stupid fool" in hate crime? Because we can do that for the word retard.

Can you show people using the word "stupid fool" in a genocidal program of mass murder? Because we can show the Nazis testing their mass murder techniques on "retards" before moving onto Jews.

Can you show doctors not providing medical treatment to people because those people are "stupid fools"? Because we can do that for people who were labelled "retards".

Can you show doctors conducting medical experiments on people without their knowledge because those people were "stupid fools"? Because we can do that for people labelled "retard".

Can you show people being forcibly sterilised against their will because they are "stupid fools"? Because we can do that for people labelled "retards".

Can you show people being segregated from society because they are "stupid fools"? Because we can do that for people labelled "retard".

How many people with LD have been kiled because of their LD?

If you don't know how can you tell if it's a genocide or not?

No, "idiot" is exactly a synonym, in even a strictest definition. And both versions of your sentence are equally wrong, deliberately misleading and twisted. Words have absolutely nothing to do with "opportunities" and "basic humanity".

Lol. Gotta love that sexist, racist argument of "you don't understand because you're a white maaaaallle!"

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