Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Posted Jun 21, 2020 13:42 UTC (Sun) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)In reply to: Loaded terms in free software by milesrout
Parent article: Loaded terms in free software
It doesn't make sense for it to be something that makes people happy.
When we made the change in our software, the customer who requested it was happy, as were a handful of other people who contacted us after we made the change. Nobody expressed unhappiness.
...the people that are pushing for these changes are not actually doing anything truly useful.
So the opinions of those people who ask for the change don't count? Plenty of people consider the changes very useful.
The second thing is that this sort of effort really does impair the larger fight for injustice.
Nonsense. Call me cynical, but I strongly suspect people who are upset by changes to language to make it more inclusive are highly unlikely to participate in larger fights against injustice. Changing the language is not going to turn people off who would otherwise fight injustice, and if it does, then their commitment to justice was tenuous at best to begin with.
The problem with this idea is that it's central planning, basically the economic calculation problem.
Again, nonsense. We're talking about free software here. It is literally the antithesis of central planning. If you object to language changes in a piece of free software, fork it! If enough people agree with you, great! The fork will thrive.
What's really going on here is that society is changing in ways that make some people uncomfortable. There's no conspiracy or central planning going on; it's just that attitudes are changing and you have to deal with it. Ten years from now, people are going to wonder what all the fuss was about, just as nobody questions women's suffrage or legality of interracial marriage or any of countless issues that were hugely controversial at the time but are now widely considered to be settled.
Trying to make this an issue has created far more unhappiness than it is supposedly attempting to get rid of
Raising difficult points is difficult. Do you rather advocate that people just stay silent? That is not a position likely to lead to long-term harmony.
Posted Jun 21, 2020 21:53 UTC (Sun)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (23 responses)
> Nonsense. Call me cynical, but I strongly suspect people who are upset by changes to language to make it more inclusive are highly unlikely to participate in larger fights against injustice. Changing the language is not going to turn people off who would otherwise fight injustice, and if it does, then their commitment to justice was tenuous at best to begin with.
Call me cynical, and yes I agree with you that the people who are upset by changes to the language are unlikely to participate in larger fights (because you're describing me), but I'm cynical in that I strongly suspect said changes will achieve pretty much nothing.
Plus, I'm strongly upset by *American* angst messing about with the *English* language ... if they were messing about with their *own* language I would be far less concerned ... ;-)
Cheers,
Posted Jun 21, 2020 22:26 UTC (Sun)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (18 responses)
I don't understand the rationale here. English is spoken in many countries and over time, variations have developed including in India (not talking about accent) and there are now considerable number of words originating from the country (ex: Guru) which have caught on and some (ex: prepone, one of my favourite words) which haven't. This is just the nature of language. A lot of the spread of the language could be attributed to colonization efforts. If you want to claim unique control of language while colonizing countries and making sure locals learned your language, there is a wee bit of hypocrisy there.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 0:14 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (17 responses)
In Germany they speak German. In France they speak French. I don't know where you're from, but if you're Nepalese you speak Nepalese ... it's absolutely fine if the Indians have their own variation(s), just don't call it simply "English" and confuse it with what the English speak.
I'm from England. I speak English. I do *NOT* speak American. And I wish the Americans had enough national pride and decency to call their language "American" and not try to steal ours !!!
The Australians have the decency to call their version of the language Strine, precisely because it is NOT what the English speak - why can't the Americans do similar? The Canadians prefix their laguages with the word "Canadian" ... why aren't the English allowed to call their language simply "English"?
To give you a simple example of the problems it causes - taking this very concept of blackness as my example - is that in *English* the word "Black" is just a normal acceptable description for black people. In America, adding another national description to "American" indicates ethnicity, so Irish American, Italian American, African American is perfectly acceptable. But in Britain, it implies political allegiance, so African Briton is an accusation of treachery.
American attempts to redefine their language have a real detrimental impact on ours, and if they had the national pride to have their *own* language, it would go a large way to fixing that.
Cheers,
Posted Jun 22, 2020 0:26 UTC (Mon)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (16 responses)
The reason that English is spoken outside English is that the English turned up, murdered a bunch of the existing inhabitants and then forced the remainder to speak English if they wanted to be able to function in the society that was imposed upon them. I'm sure a lot of people would prefer that the English hadn't stolen their languages sufficiently violently that, in some cases, those languages no longer exist. In any case, American cultural domination is sufficiently strong that Americanisms are already significantly more acceptable in the UK than they were when I was a kid - don't wish too hard, or some day you might find that the country speaks American instead of English.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 1:47 UTC (Mon)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (2 responses)
The hypocrisy isn't that. The hypocrisy is not acknowledging the violent colonization that resulted in the spread of the language in the first place
Even without this history, wanting control of a language is a futile effort. Even my own native tongue is spoken in several different countries and each have their own unique distinct dialects. I have zero say in that. Also my language has morphed into a completely different language just in my neighbouring state over a few centuries and again, I have zero say in that. Going around claiming that the way I speak or write it is the way that language is the only way the entire world should do is just ignoring the basic fact that language spreads and evolves in interesting ways and always will.
Even within a country if enough people misuse a word, the dictionaries will just acknowledge it as a common pattern (ex: using literally to mean figuratively). Fact of life.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 15:34 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (1 responses)
> The hypocrisy isn't that. The hypocrisy is not acknowledging the violent colonization that resulted in the spread of the language in the first place
WHAT violent colonisation? For the record, America is SLAVishly following the "UK Imperial Howto" (yes I used that word), and we didn't invent it, we merely copied the Romans. Oh - and it's widely recognised that as Imperial Expansions go, the British one was remarkably NON-violent.
Also, for the record, me personally part of my family fled Germany, another part were probably victims to The Clearances, etc etc. For heavens sake, it's all history! I have a Saxon name, Norman persecution is STILL visible if you know how to look ...
All *I* said was "why can't the Americans have some national pride", and everybody starts dragging British Imperialism into it. For **** sake stop acting like a teenager and grow up! America claims to be a Free Country and a Champion of Democracy - as the rest of the world see them they are a Police State (as in the Police ignore the law because they EXPECT to get away with it), and they most definitely are not a modern democracy seeing as large slabs of the citizenry are routinely denied the opportunity to vote!
Take PRIDE in being a Free Country - demand that the Police are held accountable for their crimes!
And stop exporting your propaganda about how nice you are when you quite blatantly aren't! LIVE UP TO YOUR OWN CONSTITUTION!
I don't think I ought to drag IP (mis)behaviour into this ... but America are widely seen as the bully saying "do as I say, not as I do". Fix that, and respect for America will grow. But until America gains some self-respect of their own, I doubt they'll be able to fix it!
Cheers,
Posted Jun 22, 2020 15:49 UTC (Mon)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link]
All of it. English language was introduced in many countries via that British empire which inevitably included violent intrusions and massacres of the native population including deaths of many sub cultures and local languages
Posted Jun 22, 2020 5:04 UTC (Mon)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (12 responses)
I think most people today would rather live in modern societies with modern technology and medicine while speaking English than live in a stone age society where a small cut being infected could lead to death, speaking the language their ancestors spoke.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 8:22 UTC (Mon)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (11 responses)
I think most people today would have preferred that their culture and population not be wiped out in the process of sharing knowledge.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 8:59 UTC (Mon)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (8 responses)
I think that Americans should stick to language policing themselves and stop trying to tell other people not to use words they've unilaterally deemed 'problematic', especially given that they are doing so because they simply don't understand etymology, context or nuance. If they want to have their culture wars then let them have them, but can they stick to having them with each other? I'm sick of hearing about them.
And for what it's worth, I do think that the net effect of colonialism on the native people of New Zealand was still positive in the case of New Zealand, at least. Ireland would be an independent, advanced European country today with or without British colonialism. New Zealand? Doubtful. Long way away from anywhere and technologically very primitive when first contacted by Europeans. It would at best be a poor developing country.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 9:11 UTC (Mon)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Jun 22, 2020 10:14 UTC (Mon)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (6 responses)
I mean really, who a couple of months ago could have predicted people would be asked to change the name of their repository because it had 'cop' in it... absurd
Posted Jun 22, 2020 11:18 UTC (Mon)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link]
That’s were this whole insanity is directly leading to.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 16:26 UTC (Mon)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jun 22, 2020 16:28 UTC (Mon)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link]
Posted Jun 22, 2020 16:35 UTC (Mon)
by amacater (subscriber, #790)
[Link]
Posted Jun 22, 2020 19:45 UTC (Mon)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (1 responses)
But you've made it pretty clear that you're opposed to that as well.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 20:49 UTC (Mon)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link]
If one stupid change was made but that was the whole issue that would be fine. But it won't be one change. It will be a long series of stupid changes. If we let this one happen then they'll just move on to the next like cop or blacklist
Posted Jun 22, 2020 15:45 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (1 responses)
I think you'll find that other nations were typically FAR worse than the British. What about the Spaniards in South America? I'm not condoning it but the North American Indians got away with it FAR more lightly.
The Indians? Well, they've still got most of their culture - modified, but it happens. The Indo-Chinese? likewise. The Australasians well yes they had a rough time too. The Falklanders? Well, actually, the British WERE the aboriginal settlers until the Argentinians decided they wanted to be a bunch of Imperialists!
And look at what happened to the Britons! Our alleged victims got off a lot more lightly than we did! The Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Danes did their best to ethnically cleanse the place. The Normans simply trampled the place.
FFS, it's HISTORY. You can't judge yesterday by the standards of today. And don't damn people for being people of their day - ESPECIALLY when, by today's standards, they were a lot more civilised than their contempories and predecessors.
Cheers,
Posted Jun 22, 2020 19:41 UTC (Mon)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
And? "Sorry we murdered most of you and deprived those that remained of your culture, but we could have been even worse" isn't a justification.
Posted Jun 21, 2020 22:44 UTC (Sun)
by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
[Link] (3 responses)
I'm cynical in that I strongly suspect said changes will achieve pretty much nothing.
I agree. On the other had, they do no harm, they do some small amount of good, and they are easy to do. So why not take care of the low-hanging fruit while fully recognizing that there's still much more to do.
Plus, I'm strongly upset by *American* angst messing about with the *English* language
That sentiment is very un-English; it's more worthy of the Academie française or similar. English is a wild, freely-evolving language with no central control, and it's all the better for that.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 0:18 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (2 responses)
The quicker it goes down the path of Latin and becomes like Italian/Spanish/Portuguese(/Romanian/etc) - several mutually comprehensible versions of the same root language which all have the decency to have their own name, the better!
Cheers,
Posted Jun 22, 2020 18:15 UTC (Mon)
by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
[Link]
In the past, English might have split into two languages, but given modern telecommunications, I suspect that's unlikely. You're stuck with the awful language of the ex-colonies.
Posted Jun 23, 2020 11:54 UTC (Tue)
by jezuch (subscriber, #52988)
[Link]
Anyway, English is not yours anymore and you have no right to dictate how other peoples use it. If it has ever actually been yours. A living language is much like free software - if you don't like the direction it's going in, you can fork it. But then you can't complain that nobody understands you when you speak The One True English.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 5:02 UTC (Mon)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (4 responses)
No, they weren't. I can absolutely guarantee they were not. They were temporarily satisfied. Nobody is *happy* about not using language they've convinced themselves is offensive. It's like being 'happy' you didn't get murdered today. It's not a good thing, it's just temporary relief from a bad thing. Except here it's not *actually* a bad thing, like getting murdered, but something you've convinced yourself - or have been convinced - is a bad thing through repeated conditioning.
>So the opinions of those people who ask for the change don't count? Plenty of people consider the changes very useful.
Opinions have nothing to do with it. It's demonstrably not useful. If that's an opinion or not doesn't really matter. I'm entitled to state my view that it is not useful, it's part of the basis of my argument, I've justified why I see it that way and I am happy to discuss it. Simply saying that other people disagree is completely useless as a discussion point. Quite clearly we both already know some people think it's useful or they wouldn't be doing it. What I'm saying is that it isn't useful. I'm happy to go into excruciating detail about why it isn't useful, if you would like me to, but I think that I've already explained it quite thoroughly before, so I wonder if you'll even read it if I do.
>Nonsense. Call me cynical, but I strongly suspect people who are upset by changes to language to make it more inclusive are highly unlikely to participate in larger fights against injustice. Changing the language is not going to turn people off who would otherwise fight injustice,
They're not changing language 'to be more inclusive'. I've already explained why they've done it. If you're not going to read my comments, don't reply to them.
And yes, changing language *absolutely* does, quite objectively, turn off people who would otherwise be on their side. I know several people personally that sympathise with a lot of the real issues but just cannot stand being around or dealing with the ardent keyboard warriors that make perfect the enemy of good and campaign hard for stuff like this that really really does not matter or positively benefit anyone.
> and if it does, then their commitment to justice was tenuous at best to begin with.
Why would one's commitment to justice be 'tenuous at best' just because you aren't interested in this issue? This isn't an issue of justice. It has nothing to do with justice, social or otherwise. It's purposeless language policing by people that do not understand or appreciate language or etymology or context. It is not social justice and it is not on the agenda of everyone that cares about social justice.
Here, again, you demonstrate the problem. If one does not agree with _everything_ that you stand for, then one is your _enemy_ and not _actually_ interested in justice. Ironically, for someone that professes to be inclusive and claims to want to change language to be inclusive, you're actually not being inclusive _at all_.
>Again, nonsense. We're talking about free software here. It is literally the antithesis of central planning. If you object to language changes in a piece of free software, fork it! If enough people agree with you, great! The fork will thrive.
We're not talking about free software at all, we're talking about language. And you've totally misunderstood what I said. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I'll explain again. You talk of needing to 'balance the net change in happiness'. You cannot do this, because you cannot calculate the net change in happiness. The only way your view would make any sense is if you assume that, as long as you optimise for _your_ happiness, the world will move towards a position where everyone is happy. That's not the case!
You might _think_ that you are advancing your long term happiness by advocating for this, but I don't think you are, as I have explained. And I definitely do not agree that the long term happiness of everyone is best optimised by forking everything so that nobody has to deal with or talk to anyone that don't agree on literally everything with.
>What's really going on here is that society is changing in ways that make some people uncomfortable. There's no conspiracy or central planning going on; it's just that attitudes are changing and you have to deal with it. Ten years from now, people are going to wonder what all the fuss was about, just as nobody questions women's suffrage or legality of interracial marriage or any of countless issues that were hugely controversial at the time but are now widely considered to be settled.
Okay you really, really don't understand what I'm talking about at all. 'Central planning' was in reference to you talking about wanting to strike a balance between making some happy with making others unhappy. I said that that is akin to the economic calculation problem. I didn't say there was some fucking conspiracy. You really need to learn to read things properly if you want to discuss them online.
Tens years from now people are going to think the same thing we thought ten years ago: holy shit why don't these SJWs focus on something that actually matters. Of course, now we've had ten years to answer that question and the answer is: because they want to control others and label everyone that doesn't agree with them as evil bad people.
Legality of interracial marriage or women's suffrage are, to be quite frank, utterly stupid examples. Are you really, genuinely, saying you think that this is anything like those issues? Those were about rights, people's rights to do things and participate in society. This is about you trying to control the language of others because you don't understand etymology. They're utterly, totally different.
>Raising difficult points is difficult. Do you rather advocate that people just stay silent? That is not a position likely to lead to long-term harmony.
Raising this has caused more harm than not raising it, not just in the short term but in the long term too, as I explained quite clearly. What part of it did you not understand? I can explain it again differently if that would help.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 18:23 UTC (Mon)
by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
[Link] (3 responses)
No, they weren't. I can absolutely guarantee they were not
Wow. You don't know who I am, what my company was, what the software was, or who the client was and you "absolutely guarantee" that? You have very little credibility here.
It's demonstrably not useful.
Making a customer happier is IMO demonstrably useful. Making terms more precise and accurate is demonstrably useful. Showing sensitivity to others' feelings is IMO demonstrably useful.
If one does not agree with _everything_ that you stand for, then one is your _enemy_ and not _actually_ interested in justice.
You are making things up. I never called anyone my enemy. I simply said that in my experience, people who object to changing language to make it more inclusive are also unlikely to do more to address the issues the language change addresses, and that if changing technical terms puts someone off addressing those issues, then they likely had only a tenuous interest in those issues to begin with. You're the one heading off into hyperbole.
You cannot do this, because you cannot calculate the net change in happiness.
Of course. So you have to make your best estimate. My best estimate is that making language more inclusive leads to a net increase in happiness. If you disagree, then wrt to free software, you are perfectly free to fork the software according to your estimate of happiness increase.
Anyway, I don't think there's any point in continuing this conversation. You seem to be getting upset and that is not a desired outcome. I wish you the best, but respectfully continue to disagree with you.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 20:42 UTC (Mon)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jun 22, 2020 20:46 UTC (Mon)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jun 22, 2020 20:56 UTC (Mon)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link]
Loaded terms in free software
Wol
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Wol
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Take PRIDE in being a modern democracy - demand that the right to vote includes the right to be given the OPPORTUNITY to vote!
Wol
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
"They" are also coming to abduct you in black helicopters and do experiments on you.
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Wol
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Wol
English (was Re: Loaded terms in free software)
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
This is not going anywhere useful, and this article is approaching 400 comments. I think that is enough. Please stop here.
Stop here please
Stop here please