from Hacker News

Update on Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative in Stanford’s IT Community

by foofoo4u on 12/22/22, 3:17 PM with 17 comments

  • by g42gregory on 12/22/22, 10:05 PM

    From the article: "To be very clear, not only is the use of the term “American” not banned at Stanford, it is absolutely welcomed."

    It's pretty clear to me that the above is not a true statement. If the term "American" is/was absolutely welcome, it would not have ended on the "do not use list". You can frame it as "not a ban", but it would not make it "absolutely welcomed".

    This is a polite non-apology, non-admission, "sorry we put out something too early that we could not get away with right now, but we will try again soon" statement.

  • by deterministic on 12/23/22, 3:41 AM

    The idea that you can remove “harmful” person to person interactions by discouraging certain words is beyond naive. It’s as naive as the newspeak idea that removing certain words from a language will make it impossible for the population to revolt. People will simply make up new words or redefine current words to express what they want.

    The “African American” phrase is a great example of this. Has using this phrase in any way reduced racism, police shootings, or any other harm? Of course not. Racism is in peoples mind. And no amount of word censorship will eliminate it. Racists will simply figure out how to work around the censorship. Using other words to express their hatred.

    And non-racists will be in constant fear of accidentally saying anything that might be interpreted in some negative way. Making any interactions with outside groups a mine field. I personally feel like I am in a mine field talking to people of a different skin colour. Even though I am married to a person who is of a different skin colour from mine! It’s beyond crazy.

  • by Mountain_Skies on 12/22/22, 11:09 PM

    Academics have Publish or Perish, administrators have Regulate or Remain (in the same seat while others get promoted over you).

  • by sn0w_crash on 12/22/22, 3:37 PM

    I have read this twice and still have no idea what is being complained about or clarified.

    Have we truly run out of real problems to solve? How is this an actual effort by someone at a prestigious university?

  • by 082349872349872 on 12/22/22, 3:26 PM

    It is a shame that someone probably lost 15-30 minutes of their life in composing this (much more polite) expansion of "RTFA".