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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

In that sense the 'flip flopper' insult from American politics should actually become a mark of distinction. It is as if changing your opinion due to additional insight/input/thinking is a bad thing instead of a good one.

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The negative connotations of 'flip flopper' are mostly based on the implicit assumption that the politician in question changed their[1] opinion for reasons of political expediency, i.e. for reasons more to do with polling data than new data actually pertinent to the issue at hand.

It is true that this makes it harder for conscientious politicians to legitimately change their mind, though.

[1]: they as singular gender-neutral pronoun FTW

The political flip-flopper is I think more scorned for flipping or trying to play both sides of issues that are more matters of principle than simply changing a position based on new evidence. I have much more respect for a politician who sticks to principles, even if I don't agree with them, than I do one who tries to have it both ways depending on who he's talking to.

("He" can be used with gender-neutral intent. I dislike using the plural "they" for this purpose.)

> "He" can be used with gender-neutral intent.

Um, no it can't.

I can't tell ams6110 what intent he or she may or may not have....

but I can say that "he" will not be reliably read as gender-neutral.

> "He" can be used with gender-neutral intent. I dislike using the plural "they" for this purpose.

Then you and I are on opposite sides of the greatest grammatical battle of our time, my friend.[1]

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language_in_Engl... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neut...

They is perfect for being gender neutral; the only other method I've seen is those weird journalist articles that randomly switch between him and her. They makes semantic sense and is explicitly gender neutral, I don't see what the problem is?

One can argue that he is technically neutral, but practically speaking the association is always male.

https://thoughtstreams.io/glyph/they-lives/

Or they claim to have one opinion in front of one audience, and a different opinion in front of another.

Or they claimed one thing to get elected, and then "changed their mind" post-election.

Ugh, I hate it when I get new data and change my opinion and people look at me as if I'm easily swayed or something. I have new data that invalidates the old one, do you expect me to keep the same opinion even though I now think it's wrong?

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, etc.

The more you know the more you know how much you don't know.

with the proviso that the "additional input" is something more substantial that an opinion poll...

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