It's like how when I "execute" a program, you understand that I am not killing the program as punishment. Even though the word "execute" has that meaning, it only applies in other contexts.
When we apply "toxic" to a person or his behaviour, we borrow that seriousness. That's why we choose that specific, strong words with a well-known meaning.
I oppose calling "I disagree with your world view" toxic. A serial killer might deserve the term.
what makes you think so?
words means in theirs contextes whatever people attributed to them, and I've never seen toxic used in other context than somebody trashtalking somebody and being called toxic, so definitely not dangerous.
Because that's how language works. You don't call somebody a neanderthal to imply he has great hair.
Exactly, language changes dynamically
People years ago started using "toxic" to describe people who are negatively affecting them - e.g in games via trashtalk.
So, you knew what the meaning of "toxic" was all along, but you pretended to not know what the meaning was in order to make some kind of point? I would prefer a direct discussion.
> I oppose calling "I disagree with your world view" toxic. A serial killer might deserve the term.
Mr. X isn't toxic for his world view, it's his actions--his actions are to call people stupid over their religious beliefs.
Stallman isn't "toxic" for writing a couple essays or emails, but you could argue that he's toxic for the way he treated people over the past decades.
Yes, I knew all along that "toxic" means "dangerous". When we're not talking about eg. plutonium, we at least borrow the seriousness of that use. It's a very strong word.
> [...] his actions are to call people stupid over their religious beliefs.
I think it's a stretch to call speaking an action. Hitting religious people would be an action, calling them out really isn't.
Stallman is apparently not the most agreeable person, and possibly he's been nasty and hostile. Some people have chosen not to work with him, others have worked a lot with him. He's not killed anybody, he's not made of plutonium, there's no danger.
For this reason, verbally harassing people for their faith is IMO more toxic than "I disagree with you" or even "I disagree with you and I think you're stupid".
Pointing out that all available research points to some religious claim being wrong is not harassment.
According to US federal laws, religion is a protected class just like gender. You can’t discriminate people based on that, no matter whether you related to government or not.
As an employer or anyone at all really, ideally, you should do the right things, where “the right things” is only vaguely defined.
Some of these things are written in laws, regulations, and court decisions. They help when one doesn’t know how to handle certain citations (like this case about religious beliefs of other people): looking for that stuff and simply doing what’s written there is a good strategy to not screw up human interactions too much.
However, many other of these right things aren’t written anywhere, adult people are supposed to already know them somehow. Probably, that’s what called “cultural context”.
All that stuff is weird and often illogical, but that’s how all modern societies have been working for centuries if not millennia.