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Comment by qwerty456127 | Hacker News Reader

People should just be taught (I would consider this is an essential skill which should be put in basic school curriculum to psychologically prepare people for the life, many support/sales professionals learn it quickly but the rest of the people don't) words are just words and they don't have to take them seriously. No word is rude until you consider it rude. No word can actually harm you directly. It's you who is in charge of deciding what to feel whenever you hear/see a particular word. Sadly, most of the people just ignore this job. I personally enjoy being called by the derogatory nickname of my ethnicity because I just like how does it sound. First half of my life I didn't even know it was supposed to be insulting (as I didn't know actual racists exist and can be serious about hating/judging people by just their ethnicity).

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We used to be taught that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me".

I'm not so sure that has ever been true. Emotional bullying was always a thing, and it did hurt. I'm glad that we're now taking that more seriously.

But it's also true that my emotions are my responsibility, and my emotional reaction to words is unique to me. I cannot force everyone else to be responsible for how I feel about their words. And I cannot expect everyone else to anticipate how I might feel about what they want to say and modify their speech accordingly.

There's a balance in there. I suspect that this balance is what we call "good manners" or "politeness".

>I suspect that this balance is what we call "good manners" or "politeness".

Or "empathy". And I think on an interpersonal level this is easy. You can't force anyone else to be responsible for how you feel about their words, that is true. But if you say to a colleague or a friend that "when you call me X, that makes me feel bad, could you call me Y instead?". Depending on the friend they might want to understand why this feels bad, but they would call you Y from then on. Easy peasy.

But on a collective level we aren't yet (if we'll ever be) as developed a civilization to have empathy on that level. So some people want to, with good intentions, extend their empathy to others and write code like this. But seconds later, the creative and determined individual called cVnt_h_ater have bypassed the code and can proudly wear his misogyny on his sleeve.

> But on a collective level we aren't yet (if we'll ever be) as developed a civilization to have empathy on that level.

I agree. Which is why we have rules around politeness and manners, which roughly conform to same actions as actual empathy. Which makes sense - people don't always have the same level of empathy, there are lots of neurodivergent people who will never understand empathy but who can learn a set of rules that will allow them to avoid social problems.

Or at least, we used to. I feel like this respect for being nice to each other so we can all get along is on the wane.

Or it might be that I moved to Berlin, and Berliners are famous in Germany for being rude/abrupt, and Germans are famous globally for being direct ;)

> I feel like this respect for being nice to each other so we can all get along is on the wane.

In my mind, part of that is that the rules are getting stricter, so people respect those rules less. Over time, the needle has moved further towards the idea that anyone can be offended by anything anyone else says. Even if it's clear (to the average person) that the speaker meant no harm (or even intended a totally different meaning for the words), the fact that someone is offended means that the speaker is wrong. Professors get sanctioned for using a racist word in a discussion about racism (and sometimes that word in particular).

At some point, people start seeing those rules as ridiculous and no longer respect them (though they may still feel compelled to follow them, for fear of repercussions).

> Over time, the needle has moved further towards the idea that anyone can be offended by anything anyone else says.

What do you mean by this? Are you talking about some contrived example where one person had their parents murdered by a maniac while shouting "bicycle" over and over which causes that word to be triggering ptsd for that individual. In that case that idea is correct since that, hypothetically, can happen for _any_ word yes. But how is that relevant to any of this?

I'm talking about things like

1. A professor fired for using the N-word in a discussion about racial discrimination

2. A professor placed on leave for using a Chinese expression that sounded like the N-word

3. People that express the opinion that someone who has undergone a gender change operation is different from someone that was born that gender. Expressing an opinion that they're different in some ways; not mocking or insulting them.

4. A man saying "I'd fork that" about a software project and everything went sideways because someone else decided it was sexual and was offended by it.

On and on and on. It has gotten to the point that if someone THINKS you crossed an imaginary line, a line that keeps moving, then you can face severe personal and professional repercussions. I do not believe that this is good for us as a society. People are supposed to have differing opinions and then discuss those differences. People are supposed to be able to discuss things in general. People are supposed to be able to have a little fun.

Accidentally offending someone has turned into a horrible offense, and it's bad for our growth as a society.

3. The words you use for this are trans and cis. No one is going to get upset at someone for using them. If you are trying to use "creative" language to say the same thing you shouldn't be surprised when people take offense, considering that non-offensive terms already exist.

The word the most rabid "PC warriors" use for this are "man" and "woman". If you dare say "Trans women are different from other women in that...", you can bet there's some looney who will jump down your throat along the lines of "How dare you call this woman anything else but just 'a woman', you horrible bigot!"

If you didn't understand that this was what the GP meant you must have led an exceedingly sheltered online life until now. (Which, frankly, feels so unlikely that it feels nearer to hand that your comment was made in bad faith or, at best, unthinkingly.)

This hypothetical situation with the looney you made up is not very fleshed out. The looney seem to be referring to an individual woman that is somehow out of frame in the story and judging by the looneys remarks, the person who now is talking about trans women in general seem to have made previous remarks about the individual that was insensitive to that individuals desires to be referred to as a woman and not a trans woman. Which is kind of a dick move...

But cool story bro. Fight for your right to be a dick I guess.

>>>> [@RHSeeger:] 3. People that express the opinion that someone who has undergone a gender change operation is different from someone that was born that gender. Expressing an opinion that they're different in some ways; not mocking or insulting them.

>>> [@dehugger:] 3. The words you use for this are trans and cis. No one is going to get upset at someone for using them.

>> [Me:] The word the most rabid "PC warriors" use for this are "man" and "woman". If you dare say "Trans women are different from other women in that...", you can bet there's some looney who will jump down your throat [...]

> This hypothetical situation with the looney you made up is not very fleshed out.

Fleshed out enough for anyone reasonably intelligent to get the gist, I would have thought. What, exactly, did you not understand?

> The looney seem to be referring to an individual woman that is somehow out of frame in the story

What "story" -- my hypothetical? Since "the looney" is prominently mentioned in it, how can they be "out of frame"?!?

> and judging by the looneys remarks, the person who now is talking about trans women in general seem to have made previous remarks about the individual

No, absolutely not. Where on Earth did you get that from? My hypothetical was talking about trans women in general, period. There's no need to make up any complicated backstory, because what I said was all I wanted and needed to say: If you dare say, in a general discussion on the Internet, e.g, "Trans women are different from other women in that...", you can bet there's some looney who will jump down your throat BECAUSE you used the term "trans women"; to some people that, too, is anathema because it "singles out" trans women from other women. Some people are so blinded by PC that to them, acknowledging any difference is a sin.

> that was insensitive to that individuals desires to be referred to as a woman and not a trans woman. Which is kind of a dick move...

Yeah, in your weird made-up story that has nothing to do with anything. You are of course perfectly free to make up little fairy tales and publish them on the Internet, but not to impute them as back-stories to anything I (or anyone else) has said. Don't put your shit in my mouth.

> But cool story bro. Fight for your right to be a dick I guess.

If anyone is "being a dick" here, AFAICS it's you.

I used the words that seemed the most obvious way to express myself. I would have had to look up the term cis to make sure I was using it the right way, and there wasn't a good reason to. The fact that someone could possibly be offended by the use of the words I chose shows part of the problem. That's like saying you think "Italian-American" is ok, but "An American citizen with Italian ancestors" is offensive. It's a clear, well understood description of the trait being discussed that expresses no judgement. It _cannot_ be offensive under any normal circumstances.

I think that's a slightly different problem - there is a purity spiral going on in academia (and Twitter) around the definition of "offensive" language.

Purity spirals never end well. The most famous one ended up with people being burnt alive as witches.

But it is a purity spiral - if you don't intend to be considered "pure" then it doesn't matter and you can effectively ignore it. Though whether your employer agrees or not is a different matter.

> I feel like this respect for being nice to each other so we can all get along is on the wane.

I think this is depending on how you see it. The modern landscape with social media makes activists very effective in creating information campaigns that raises awareness of how to be polite in a modern world. Eg. nowadays personal pronouns are complicated business but finding out and respecting individuals chosen pronouns are considered polite. A successful change of culture that increases empathy and respect of fellow humans in general. But the downside is that the opinions of the people who don't want to be polite in this way are also amplified and they may want to resist and pushback that triggers them to be contrary and act with less empathy and politeness to make their point. The thing is, positive changes in culture usually last and backwards reactionary people die so that makes me kinda hopeful.

> Eg. nowadays personal pronouns are complicated business but finding out and respecting individuals chosen pronouns are considered polite. A successful change of culture that increases empathy and respect of fellow humans in general.

In one way, that is of course true, and people who just blithely ignore that, or even explicitly refuse to use the pronouns they're asked to, are of course arseholes.

But OTOH, it feels like it's getting more and more to keep track of -- at least if you also want to keep up the old norms of "good behaviour" we learned as kids. And perhaps that's precisely why some of us are feeling those old norms are falling by the wayside -- maybe people only have some set amount of attention to spend on this stuff, and if something new is added, something else gets crowded out?

If that's the case, do we know for sure that it's unequivocally a good thing? I'm not quite certain.

> the creative and determined individual called cVnt_h_ater have bypassed the code and can proudly wear his misogyny on his sleeve.

Why deny him this right? Isn't it convenient to let kids and mentally unhealthy people to identity themselves this obviously? It's always easier when you know what to expect.

Because if you let them do their thing, they group together, drag more people down to their level and then get one of them elected as president. That's not in my interest.

The idea of hating all women this way is nonsensical for normal people (despite the fact limiting their rights used to be a common tradition, I believe most of the people didn't really hate them) and can only exist in some mentally traumatized people. Seeing someone exercising obvious nonsense rarely triggers you to start doing the same on systematic basis. Electing a president requires a majority vote. Even though majority's intelligence is mediocre by definition, it hardly is SO dumb and sick. Even a rude person with sexist jokes, even a women rights limiting proponent rarely is a real serious passionate misogynist, such will mostly see "cVnt_h_aters" ridiculous too.

> "when you call me X, that makes me feel bad, could you call me Y instead?"

There are absolutely people who will use this as a reason to put X on a billboard.

People, yes. Friends, no.

I thought it was something along the lines of "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can break hearts"

Basically, the pen is stronger than the sword, kind of morale.

I've never heard that one, but it might be a regional variant. I always heard the other one.

I grew up with 'words can never hurt me', but this variant is my favorite:

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will hurt forever.

I'm not a native speaker, so almost every time I hear that phrase it ends after "sticks and stones", because on TV and movies, that's usually enough for the intended audience.

After Googling, I think I might have picked up this version from Tim Minchins song "prejudice" [1] although Google also come up with this clip where a senator also use the "break my heart" version, clearly when it was meant for him to say "never harm" [2]

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw

2: https://youtu.be/QoMheenRUHM?t=92

I'm not the only kid Who grew up this way

Surrounded by people who used to say That rhyme about sticks and stones

As if broken bones

Hurt more than the names we got called

And we got called them all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY

> We used to be taught that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me".

Now it is more "sticks and stones will break your bones because your words have hurt me"

I'm quite a feminine guy and I was always called various homophobic slurs at school. Even though I wasn't gay I didn't understand why it would matter if I was so I would just say "ok".

Even when the insults could be considered objectively offensive I'm still generally okay with it. I've been called names quite a bit in the workplace over the years and I'm okay with it if makes them happy. Being autistic I don't really care and neurotypical people seem to get enjoyment calling people names so it's win-win.

High EQ individuals have told me this is wrong and the appropriate reaction would be to take offence and try to make them feel bad, but I've argued this would just result in an objective reduction in happiness in the world so it wouldn't make sense. Plus, most of the time my colleagues have been nice to my face so it's not like it's ever got in the way of me doing my job.

neurotypical people seem to get enjoyment calling people names

I'm of two minds about this, because of the generality of this blanket statement. Why should we accept this as the norm? I would classify these people ("enjoy calling people names") as abusive, and think that classifying this behaviour as neurotypical effectively legitimizes it.

That said, nicknames are also an expression of affection and inclusivity, and derogatory nicknames are not necessarily meant as an insult. Still, they're just as easily used to demean, belittle or dehumanize the target, so it depends a lot on context. I understand what you mean, but I disagree with your general statement.

I adore you but doubt your judgement about those being high EQ individuals.

By the way in the middle school we used a derogatory for gay every day without even having any idea of what did it mean, all we knew was that was the worst word we knew. When others bullied me (always (or I just never cared and don't remember the verbal) physically, way harder to endure) I occasionally went mad and called them this word repeatedly.

This is neither here nor there, but I learned from watching Louie that "faggot", the derogatory term for homosexuals, has the same origins as the word "fascism" – a bundle of sticks. The idea is that in the dark days of witch trials, one would, apparently, not only burn supposed witches, but also homosexuals. However, since homosexuals were thought of as less than witches, while a witch got the stake, the homosexuals were thrown in with the bundles of firewood. The now archaic word for a bundle of sticks was faggot, or fire-faggot in the case of firewood. The part about different forms of herecy receiving different treatment at the stake might be artistic license, the rest is true though.

https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/67623#eid46436...

This is probably also the root of the other meaning of the word "fag", which in British English slang (or is it even "slang" any more?) means not only "homosexual" but also "cigarette": A little stick that burns.

"Being autistic I don't really care and neurotypical people seem to get enjoyment calling people names so it's win-win."

Not sure how you win exactly, but others in a similar position but sensitive to name calling certainly don't.

The thing with basic etiquette and other secondary virtues is that if you have none of them, the climate can become horribly rough and unpleasant but you can also overdo them. It's all about a reasonable equilibrium.

As for name calling and slurs at work, I don't see a reason why these should ever be tolerated. Someone who cannot demonstrate a minimum of politeness towards their colleagues shouldn't be part of the team. To me this is a no-brainer.

Usernames are a bit different IMHO. In a general social network, offensive usernames give important clues that allow you to avoid all contact and block users before you even talk to them. So maybe banning them does more of a disservice than a service to other users.

> As for name calling and slurs at work, I don't see a reason why these should ever be tolerated.

The problem is when language changes for some but not all, so suddenly words that used to be perfectly normal are considered slurs: Those who learned and use them in the original non-offensive sense are suddenly, and in their own opinion unjustly, seen as bigoted.

> High EQ individuals have told me this is wrong and the appropriate reaction would be to take offence and try to make them feel bad, but I've argued this would just result in an objective reduction in happiness in the world so it wouldn't make sense. Plus, most of the time my colleagues have been nice to my face so it's not like it's ever got in the way of me doing my job.

You may be wrong, and these "High EQ individuals" right, in the sense that your acquiescence to this bullying behaviour might encourage the bullies to keep it up with others too. In that sense, your standing up against them would be not just for yourself but for all their potential future victims too, which would increase the future sum total of happiness in the world.

(I'm not saying it is necessarily so, but it may be.)

As the sibling comment eluded to, you definitely seem to be the "High EQ individual" in this story!

What s rude is the shared imagery not the words. If I call myself MyDirtyDickInYourDogBringsMeToOrgasm, imagining this scene is disgusting enough to ask me to change it.

Words are not just symbols on paper, they are image triggers in your brain.

I have Aphantasia, thankfully I'm invulnerable to this.

If someone attempts to degrade someone's emotional or mental state, that's something that should be stigmatized. But, that doesn't mean that the individual is not completely responsible for his own mental state, in the sense meant by Stoics. It's not about things, but our thoughts about things, which are ultimately under our control. We may play the victim, but we'd only be fooling ourselves.

I disagree. Language is very often used as a way to include and exclude people in and from various social groups. You're right in that there's never any direct harm in the sound of the words themselves. But you can say the same thing about verbally threatening physical harm (or even psychological harm) to someone, and would be very wrong in your assumption.

> But you can say the same thing about verbally threatening physical harm

No, verbally threatening physical harm induces reasonable fear and affects your logical reasoning because now you have to consider real risk.

Trying to hurt someone with words also induces a reasonable assumption of that person wishing you ill. You don't know how far they will go in either case.

> No word can actually harm you directly.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is something told to children in the playground who are too young to know better.

You might as well argue that there's no such thing as malware, because its entirely harmless until executed on a processor.

So "get over it" is your solution? Sounds like you've never been a victim. Place yourself in someone else's shoes please.

I mean I don't like the (self) censorship either and don't mind rude or mature words, since we're all mature here and calling a fucking asshole a f*ing a$$h0le is an insult to people's intellect.

As someone who was incessently bullied for many years, "get over it" is pretty good advice for some people. Like all advice on personal emotional problems, it doesn't sork for everyone, but for a lot of people it does.

> Uhura : But why should I object to that term, sir? You see, in our century, we've learned not to fear words.

Yeah, that only shows how stupid the original Star Trek often was. Just because they hadn't yet had a Trump or a Hitler in Uhura's century is no reason for her not to know that "words" are exactly what scum like that rises to the top on.

Agree, the scum is leveraging wetware vulnerabilities in our species around sound bites, tribes, labels, and twisted facts.

But I think that was Roddenberry's point: we can only advance after excising that primitive baggage.

I think words can hurt people in certain contexts, but it is very rarely about a single term.

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