"The origins of the latest epithet in vogue are harmless." The origin of the word is irrelevant. Words mean things and can be harmful, regardless of the origin of the word. The meaning and context of words can change over time, regardless of the origin of the word.
Bringing Charles Darwin into the conversation does not help your point.
"Is it worse to have some condition of your birth used as a casual insult -- a reminder of your misfortune? Or is it worse to be constantly patronized, often behind your back by throngs offended on your behalf?"
This is a false trade-off. The whole conversation started because someone used a harmful word, knowing full well it was harmful. If they refrained from using the offensive word they knew was offensive neither condition would have happened (casual insult or patronization).
You know the euphemism treadmill right? The words moron and imbecile were once valid terms for mentally disabled, and offensive to use casually, but are no longer offensive in that way.
Conversely, people tried to introduce the term "special needs" to avoid the connotations of "retarded", and then "special" became an insult.
The word "lame" is also incredibly widely used and no longer considered offensive even though it's still a valid term for those who have difficulty walking.
I don't have a point, just find the whole thing very interesting. "retarded" is definitely in the grey area where I personally try to avoid using it, but it's still commonly used. Perhaps "crazy" and "insane" are next.
I was not familiar with the term "euphemism treadmill." Thanks for the info, that phrase does help bring some clarity and specificity to the discussion.
Is "fat" harmful? Could we say a company overspending is fat or bloated without offending? What about "impotent" or "bald," are they harmful? Can we use them abstractly without offending? What about "anemic?"
Lots of conditions of being are generally disfavored as a condition of our biology. Referencing that disfavor abstractly doesn't bring it in to being. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away.
These are all hypotheticals. Is there any serious, non-academic question about whether the word we're actually discussing is harmful? Even if there is, we all have a choice about what language we use and whether to respect the fact that certain words may hurt others. The cost of NOT using the relevant word is ... zero. This isn't an academic exercise. It's an emotional exercise.
I disagree. There's an ableist, patronizing assumption to be analyzed here: People with mental disabilities must have the language used around them carefully policed because they can't handle the implied disfavor and emotional harm that language may communicate via their own agency, not like the rest of us.
Sure, we shouldn't use harmful language and emotional intelligence matters. If you're overweight and talking with someone and they constantly find ways to derogatorily refer to your weight or even being overweight abstractly, they may be a jerk. But if someone online abstractly calls something fat, it's not directed at you. That's part of emotional intelligence in my opinion.
I do see your point and your explanation does add some nuance to my thinking on this topic. That being said, I still think it was a poor choice of words as evidenced by the fact that the majority of the replies are debating the OPs language as opposed to their original point.
"The origins of the latest epithet in vogue are harmless." The origin of the word is irrelevant. Words mean things and can be harmful, regardless of the origin of the word. The meaning and context of words can change over time, regardless of the origin of the word.
Bringing Charles Darwin into the conversation does not help your point.
"Is it worse to have some condition of your birth used as a casual insult -- a reminder of your misfortune? Or is it worse to be constantly patronized, often behind your back by throngs offended on your behalf?"
This is a false trade-off. The whole conversation started because someone used a harmful word, knowing full well it was harmful. If they refrained from using the offensive word they knew was offensive neither condition would have happened (casual insult or patronization).
Are the terms "bald," "stupid," "fat," "anemic," or "impotent" harmful when used abstractly and negatively?
Come now. At the root of all of this is an ableist, patronizing assumption: People with mental disabilities must have the language used around them carefully policed because they can't handle the implied disfavor and emotional harm that language may communicate via their own agency, not like the rest of us.
How do you verify someone's IRL identity without a government issued ID card in a scalable way?
I don't mean some idea that could work at some arbitrary point in the future (decentralized whatever...). If a social media platform were to do this, right now, how would they do it without verifying a government issued ID?
Identity doesn't come into existence with the registration with a government, it's something you build over time as you interact with the world around you.
Nicknames are an identity and it's pretty much common these days to have nicknamed account on all over the internet. The problem with these is that one can have multiple of those and a behaviour in one place doesn't transfer into other places.
So maybe we can have across-the-internet identities. You are jasonshaev but who you are on twitter? on reddit? on other places? Once you become the person who is known around everywhere the same way, you have the identity that you would like to protect. You can't troll one place when bored then be known as a nice person somewhere else. I think that's good enough identity. The implementation can be around crypto, single sign in, face recognition etc.
The thread started with "real name." The only way to verify that is government identity.
If you want to verify some other, "online" identity, that's fine, but I don't see how that would meaningfully affect anyones behavior. To be clear, I don't think verifying someone's real name will meaningfully improve online behavior either -- plenty of other threads explain why. In which case, what's the point of either?
Perhaps, but it IS a good example of a system that protects the end user from monetary loss in the event of fraud due to leaked credentials (in this case the card number + CVV + exp date). In my opinion, any system that seeks to replace credit cards needs to have a similar ability to recover user funds in the case of inevitable security leaks, which is something many crypto systems struggle with.
> due to leaked credentials (in this case the card number + CVV + exp date)
That information is practically public already, since you have to provide it to everyone you purchase from online with your card. If you regularly buy things online with your credit or debit card it's less a matter of if the credentials will leak than when. Regular checking and savings accounts are at least as bad given the existence of Direct Debit, a system where practically anyone can take money out of any account just by knowing the routing number (public information) and account number (printed on every check).
Cryptocurrency aside, just compare that to something like PayPal, where the authorization happens directly between you and the payment processor: the merchant never gets your credentials and can't take money out of your account without your express permission. The traditional banking system has the worst security procedures; the design is reminiscent of the early days of the Internet where plaintext passwords were commonplace in protocols like rlogin, FTP, SMTP, and unencrypted HTTP, when authentication was used at all. The only thing keeping it from complete collapse is the absolute fortune they spend on statistical anti-fraud analysis, which completely coincidentally requires them to have deep insight into every transaction passing through their network. Not that they would ever think of using that immensely valuable data for their own gain, of course. Perish the thought.
In any case, Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies weren't built to replace credit cards, but rather to replace cash. If someone steals your cash or you somehow manage to hand it to the wrong person or simply destroy it you can't just call up the U.S. Treasury and expect them to put things right. Holding cash and transacting in cash has its downsides, and yet those same risky properties can be extremely useful if proper care is taken. Escrow and human-mediated reversible payments can be implemented on top of a system of irreversible transactions. The reverse doesn't work; you can't very well run an escrow service where the payer can reverse their payment into the escrow account without following the escrow procedures after getting the goods.
Compared to physical cash, as a digital good crypto has several advantages and a few disadvantages. In the latter category you have the obvious risk of hackers compromising the wallet; IMHO a separate, secure, hardware wallet is mandatory if you keep any significant amount of self-custodial crypto. On the flip side, however, it's not all that difficult or expensive to make your crypto more secure against would-be thieves than the gold in Fort Knox if you're willing to put in a modicum of effort, and the possibility of geographically-distributed encrypted backups makes it much harder to separate you from your money if you plan ahead a bit.
The tone of your post is unnecessary and not helpful to your point. I don't agree with the authors point but I can say that without being insulting or snarky.
In spite of that, when did "making a database product" count as not "hard?" Building a database isn't "real software engineering™?" Since when was building "authorization microservices" easy? In the simplest case, sure. But authorization in general is a huge problem space and I don't understand calling that "bs." Active Directory would like a word...
On the contrary, I assume making decentralized database products is very hard. And I don't doubt that authorization is a whole can of worms. My point is not that they're easy, but that they're the type of problems you are most likely to care about if you're building a web service.
A web service. Not a moon rocket, or an MRI machine, or high frequency trading software, or computation fluid dynamics simulations, or a compiler, or a video processing pipeline, or a word processor, or a 3D game engine.
So, just saying: When bloggers consider the headline "Software component names should be whimsical", I wish they'd spend a second to ask themselves whether their advice actually applies to any of the niche domains I mentioned, or if it's just a best practice for their fellow web service developers. Presently, there's a cultural trend that you don't have to bother with that step, and you can just write as if your audience is always the other web service people in the valley. To me, that gets very grating, and that's where the snark comes from.
Asking the author to provide more context on what domain(s) their blog post is meant to apply to is a reasonable critique.
However, consider whether your original post made that critique clear, or if it got lost amidst the other ... stuff. The first two lines, in particular, will immediately put some readers (myself included) on the defensive. Describing somebody's work as "some web service bs" is a bad start. And if your point had nothing to do with the "hardness" of the problems, only that those particular problems are most relevant to building web services, why not just say that? Instead of the "...somebody who works on some web service bs assumes that that's as hard as the world gets," bit.
When it comes to rockets, whimsical names seem to be much more popular. Most of them are named after mythical figures with SLS being a notable exception.
It's a bit ... presumptuous ... to assume that scientists that have been studying climate change for 4 decades never considered these possibilities.
In fact, a quick google search:
```
While sulfur dioxide released in contemporary volcanic eruptions has occasionally caused detectable global cooling of the lower atmosphere, the carbon dioxide released in contemporary volcanic eruptions has never caused detectable global warming of the atmosphere. All studies to date of global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions indicate that present-day subaerial and submarine volcanoes release less than a percent of the carbon dioxide released currently by human activities. [https://www.usgs.gov/programs/VHP]
```
Even if it were true that humans contribute less to global warming than scientists think, we should still try to decrease our overall CO2 output because it's still a contributor to climate change, albeit a smaller one, and the majority of processes that lead to us putting CO2 in the atmosphere are unhealthy in other ways. In the US 50% of greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to transportation and energy production. I think we'd all agree that burning fossil fuels is not great for our collective health and car/airplane exhaust fumes are full of stuff we don't want to breath.
"Protect your right to say it..." from _the government_. There has never been a reasonable expectation that private businesses are or should be required to allow all speech. Doing so prevents the business from exercising their own first amendment protections.
"There has never been a reasonable expectation that private businesses are or should be required to allow all speech. Doing so prevents the business from exercising their own freedom of speech protections."
it still holds. Freedom of speech does not mean that a company should be compelled or required to host speech it disagrees with.
Correct, yet for a particular category of companies providing foundation utility-like services, there's a well established tradition of taking a liberal/neutral stance.
This is the law but everyone is free to adhere to the principle of free speech themselves. If you need to be compelled to do it, you simply don't share the idea of free speech, which is regrettable.
At the end of the article the author provides 3 high level areas to focus on improving. (1) and (3) clearly have nothing to do with censorship. It's also not fair, in my opinion, to assume that (2) implies censorship considering the author doesn't give any detail on HOW to reform social media. If the solution to (2) is "require social media companies to offer a chronological news feed," which has been suggested a bazillion times in the comments, how is that censorship?
Personally, I think the word "censorship" should be reserved for governmental suppression but that ship sailed a long time ago.
>> I proposed three imperatives: (1) harden democratic institutions so that they can withstand chronic anger and mistrust, (2) reform social media so that it becomes less socially corrosive, and (3) better prepare the next generation for democratic citizenship in this new age.
> Personally, I think the word "censorship" should be reserved for governmental suppression but that ship sailed a long time ago.
This is the exact same argument used all the time to justify censorship. Most people agree about government censorship being bad and corporate censorship being fine.
However, what people miss is that this is government censorship. To think what's going on now isn't government suppression is completely naive. There are several examples of the US government influencing social media to have them censor. They admit it all the time.
"Corporate censorship" is "fine" because preventing corporations from moderating content is inconsistent with the 1st amendment.
I do not agree that those 2 articles support your point.
"“We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,” she [Psaki] said." It's still up to Facebook to determine wether or not to take down a post. There is a BIG difference between a government official reporting a post to Facebook and the government passing a law preventing a citizen from posting in the first place (which would obviously violate the 1st amendment).
The second article describes people who used to work in government now working for Social Media companies. It is, in my opinion, a stretch to call that government censorship. "The problem is that having so many former CIA employees running the world’s most important information and news platform is only one small step removed from the agency itself deciding what you see and what we do not see online –" Disagree. It is a BIG step to leap from "former government employees, including members of the CIA, work in trust, security and moderation" to "the CIA is controlling what is on social media."
Fair enough. But if the government is giving these companies suggestions, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't follow them. The government can retaliate against the companies in several ways.
I just came across this. I'm not sure about this source but the emails look legit.
Not a lawyer but doesn't this have serious 1st amendment problems?
Article gets into this a bit:
"Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, said the First Amendment and Section 230, a bill that shields internet providers and tech companies from liability for the posts, photos and videos people share on their sites, provide a strong defense in many instances for websites and providers facing lawsuits over hosting information about abortion access."
The purpose of the law isn’t made with any consideration of its legality. This is a signal to force people to ask themselves if they’re willing to be prosecuted to prove out their rights.
It only has 1st amendment problems if the courts care. Making abortion illegal is an ideological project that the majority of the current SCOTUS and their acolytes has been working towards for at least 40 years. If you think they're going to let the plain text of the constitution, federal law, or its interpreted tradition get in the way of that you have not been paying attention.
I have been paying attention :). For what it's worth, a handful of recent state laws restricting speech have been struck down by the courts (Florida social media bill) or are blocked from being enforced (Texas social media bill blocked by Supreme Court) or are in the process of being litigated (Florida stop WOKE act).
While none of those bills related to abortion, I'm still skeptical the courts would let this bill stand
It's basically the Republican version of states that ban websites from hosting blueprints that tell how to make firearms.
It's more about scoring brownie points with your base and tying up your opponents in litigation for years... Even if they know the law is blatantly unconstitutional, there's no real downside to the legislatures (assuming their constituents support the unconstitutional law)
There is speech that is not considered protected by the first amendment. I suspect the states would argue the promotion of committing unlawful acts to be unprotected speech.
Where this would fall afoul is likely interstate commerce. South Carolina can't declare a website hosted in California illegal due to jurisdiction. They might be able to convince ISPs to block them, though.
Agreed. The future path for this law (if it gets passed) is obvious: the South Carolina agency charged with enforcing the law gets sued in federal court, the law is likely put on hold and eventually struck down as unconstitutional. But the "chilling" effect of the law still has a serious impact, despite it being unserious legislation.
Bringing Charles Darwin into the conversation does not help your point.
"Is it worse to have some condition of your birth used as a casual insult -- a reminder of your misfortune? Or is it worse to be constantly patronized, often behind your back by throngs offended on your behalf?"
This is a false trade-off. The whole conversation started because someone used a harmful word, knowing full well it was harmful. If they refrained from using the offensive word they knew was offensive neither condition would have happened (casual insult or patronization).