I'm sorry, I did not mean to offend anybody but my reading of the word is that it has two meanings, one of which is 'stupid or dumb'. I'll update the comment.
At the same time I see HN slide towards reddit just one little bit more with all the 'you insensitive clod' comments lately and that is sad too.
If you don't want HN to slide that way, then I suggest you not give in and change it back. After all, I think offense is entirely in the mind of the beholder.
I think it's worse than that, it's sliding towards Metafilter, where half the conversation is derailed by meta comments and whether it's appropriate to talk a certain way.
It's less about HN vs. reddit and more about society at large. What sorts of rude and derogatory words do you feel the need to say where you can't pick a synonym?
I speak quite a few languages, and most of them badly, good enough for communications needs but not precise enough to win me any literary prizes. If we were having this discussion in Dutch I would definitely not pick on you for using words that may not be precise enough or that might be offensive to you simply because I'd assume that you must have learned your Dutch from other people speaking it and using it in your vicinity, coupled with media such as movies, books and so on.
I've seen the word 'retarded' used in the exact way I used it above in many places and I've checked the dictionary and it has a simply secondary definition ('Dumb, foolish') which is roughly what I intended to convey.
Since giving offense is not one of my pet hobbies I edited my comment but had the situation been reversed I would have definitely afforded you more leeway.
To me 'retarded' did not seem rude or derogatory until you pointed it out, judging by the number of other people that are actually native speakers that use it in that exact same way it seems to me that you have your work cut out for you.
I can appreciate the language barrier and I thank you for changing it when I pointed it out.
As for having my work cut out for me, I definitely expected this to happen (maybe not to this scale). HN tends to attract the kind of person who thinks that anything is fair to say any time, regardless of who it might hurt, because HN tends to attract people of massive privilege, many of whom have never been the victim of societal discrimination.
This could go two ways. One way would be where people appreciate your efforts and change their tone. Another way this could go is that people will stop participating. Either way you will likely get what you want.
By the way, "dumb" means unable to speak, or mute. Using "dumb" as a synonym for stupid is as offensive as using "retarded" as a synonym for idiotic. Which, in my opinion, is not at all.
It's certainly isn't as bad as an ethnic slur, but I feel strongly that it shouldn't be used in polite conversation. It's a matter of being considerate to your audience.
> A survey by Mencap of people with a learning disability has found that nearly nine out of ten respondents have experienced bullying in the last year. Two-thirds are bullied on a regular basis and almost one-third are suffering from bullying on a daily or weekly basis. People with a learning disability face prejudice and widespread discrimination that often makes them feel like outcasts and prevents them from taking a full part in society. Public attitudes in the United Kingdom towards people with a learning disability remain discriminatory. The Mencap survey suggests that the bullying of people with a learning disability is institutionalised throughout society.
How they described bullying:
> The following behaviours were most frequently cited: kicking, biting, name-calling, teasing, stealing, pushing, threatening, having things thrown at you, being told to leave a building, hitting, being shouted at, swearing, demanding money, hair-pulling, throwing stones, spitting, poking, being punched, being beaten up, having one’s head banged against the wall.
I did not contest the facts. But not using the word retard won't help any way. They face prejudice and discrimination because of their condition, not of the way said condition is called. And if we change the word with other - the other word will still be used as an insult. Because the condition itself is highly undesirable. No one wants to have it.
But simply not wanting to be inflicted with a condition is no excuse to dehumanize people who are. Perhaps part of the problem is simply people mocking eachother for being different, but another part of the problem is the cultural normalcy of abuse promulgated by linking diagnostic terms with definitions of global inferiority. Language is the very matrix from which thought arises, so real-world usage of words can alter people's perceptions.
> Call it what it actually is: short sighted, greedy, foolish, etc. Don't use a word that puts down people with disabilities.
No. Language is a liging thing and the meaning of a word can change overtime.
"Greedy" is not the word that applies in this case. Nor is "short sighted". This is a retarted and dangerous behavior, and you should not be afraid to call it for what it is.
See above example with the car and try to imaging is the following happened: you have to drive immediately to a hospital and your car doesn't start because your tire was changed by a non-authorized service.
"Greedy" and "short sighted" are not the words that come in mind. It's a trully retarted and dangerous decision, initially driven by greed (because let's make computers like black boxes, no-one can open it, no-one can mess with it).
What makes you think it's driven by greed?There is absolutely zero evidence for this assumption, and the alternative explanation - that it is a poorly implemented attempt to keep their promises about the security of Touch ID makes perfect sense.
But that's not the same definition as the word he used. Fire/flame retardant basically means "fire delayer" Run that through the original sentence and it becomes nonsensical: "It's totally 'delayed' that a functioning phone is bricked by an update".
In my dictionary it coild also be It's toally backwards that.... Does it make sense now?
Fire retardant example was to show you that the same word can be used in many context and not all of them have anything to do with offendong handicapped people. oh wait that word is now also politically incorrect.
People with learning disabilities face significant levels of violence and discrimination.
People with short sightedness, not so much.
No one kills a person who is short sighted just because they are short sighted, but this routinely happens to people with learning disability. Not just random fuckheads in public, but doctors will put people with LD under DNR orders without the knowledge or permission of the person or their relatives just because that person has LD and the doctor can't imagine any quality of life.
Absolutely. There are jobs that discriminate against people with eyesight disabilities (some aircraft pilot jobs, for
example) and there are many products that don't account for people wearing glasses.
People with glasses are widely stereotyped as nerds or geeks and often experience bullying.
People wearing glasses were also reportedly targeted in mass killings by the Khmer Rouge due to that same stereotype.
Physical ability and job qualifications are a central issue in the debate about discrimination in hiring. It's not just limited to disabilities, since the same debate has repeatedly taken place around the issue of whether women are physically qualified for certain jobs, as can be seen in the current debate over whether women are physically qualified for special operations roles in the US military.
Would you consider it discrimination if, for example, consumers are more likely to be influenced by a white athlete spokesman than a black one? And so, the white ones gets paid more?
<irony>
Because wearing glasses makes me feel insecure.
</irony>
Yes, a person with disabilities can be ridiculed and feel like crap. A fat one can too. Also one with glasses, long hair, or long nose (or very short, let's include them too, it's the PC thing to do).
Where do you draw the "disadvantage" line?
As much as you are being offended when people are using a series of letters that forms certain words, so do I when people act like irresponsible children putting blame on random words.
It's not about ridicule. It's not about offence. Why do people always make this same point about offence?
"My freedom of speech allows me to say what I like; FUCK YOU if you want to use your freedom of speech to tell me how much harm my words cause"
People with LD have been subjected to genocidal actions; they've been forcibly sterilised (without their (or their family's) knowledge or permission; they've been used as the subjects of harmful medical experimentation (again, without knowledge or permission); they often find themselves under DNR (without knowledge or permission); they face levels of bullying higher than other other group; they face levels of discrimination higher than any other group; this bullying and discrimination is bad enough when it comes from people in society, but it's often coming from care professionals; they are deliberately excluded from most of society who know nothing about LD.
> researchers found that participants showed less tolerance toward people who were referred to as "the mentally ill" when compared to those referred to as "people with mental illness."
> For example, participants were more likely to agree with the statement "the mentally ill should be isolated from the community" than the almost identical statement "people with mental illnesses should be isolated from the community."
> These results were found among [...] and even professional counselors who took part in the study.
> "My freedom of speech allows me to say what I like; FUCK YOU if you want to use your freedom of speech to tell me how much harm my words cause"
But they can say FUCK YOU to people who say things they don't like because that's freedom of speech too. Then those people can say FUCK YOU back and have a whole steaming flame war. It's all speech. It may not be productive, and you may not want to participate in it, but there is no law preventing anybody from doing it.
It's only when somebody passes a law against it that it becomes an affront to free speech.
Wow. It's 2016, and you're still saying bigoted words like "fool." My great grandfather was a court jester, and he was a very intelligent man. Why don't you read up on the history of tyrants and entertainment before you go throwing around such hateful speech.
