Item — HN Reader

No, avoiding anything potentially negative is not what I'm saying. Your argument (that context always matters) leaves discourse and society highly susceptible to dog-whistles[1], by forcing all good-faith participants to interpret all communication in the most generous way possible. Bad-faith participants, on the other hand, are free to exploit that generosity.

By calling out and avoiding dog-whistles, even including accidental Nazi slogans (once pointed out), we reduce the impact of this attack on good-faith discussion and actual increase the level of openness and being up-front with our opinions.

One key difference between this and virtue signaling or thought policing is that it's the specific wording that is avoided, and not the underlying thoughts or opinions.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)

1 comments

When I read manual pages and see the so called "harmful" words, I am not impacted by them negatively because I am aware of the context. Why is this should not be taught? I understand what you are trying to say, but you even said it yourself, "accidental", so there was no intent either to begin with, let alone context in which it is embedded.

> thought policing is that it's the specific wording that is avoided, and not the underlying thoughts or opinions.

So we should avoid the wording / phrasing such as "killing children" in IT? It refers to well-known concepts, within a specific context. It is bad outside of IT, for sure, but not inside IT, it refers to ending processes (as you probably already know)

You seem to be responding to what you think I'm saying, not what I'm saying. As far as I know, "killing children" is not a dog-whistle. No one uses the words "killing children" to e.g., secretly express support for the Holocaust.

I didn't think the person was supporting Holocaust because he used the phrase "The Final Solution", that phrase is made up from very common words, and why would I assume malice, especially in the context of IT?

I may have used it unintentionally too, because "final solution" makes a lot of sense to use. The best way to ruin one's language is to keep using such common phrases that refer to such negative things. You know, there would not be a way to ruin it if people were just aware of the context and were not to attribute malice by default. It was probably accidental, like you said.

I think the issue is with this not-so-generous interpretation of it by default, or reading too much into it.

Do not allow your language to be ruined, and you could do a lot to help that cause.