Evidence that words we use then toss off as 'useless semantic arguments' are themselves a semantic argument. Don't folks get as tired as I do from our internal and social loops we rarely escape?🙄 #SocialJustice #Semantics #Language #HumanLoops #Thursday nytimes.com/2021/04/13/techn…

People are not computers. Computers are not people. This absurd dialog is distraction from important issues in the world.

Here’s the thing, Steven. Computers are built, programmed, and used by people. And if we want people from all backgrounds and paths in life to contribute to those important issues in the world that you mention, we need to make them feel welcomed, and show that we care.

I strongly agree, and I also think imposition of thought, generalizations and constant misuse of language is passed off as unimportant when it is the underlying disorder. Disorder, because that's what our results of not paying attention to meaning ends up as when we abuse words.

This topic is complicated. A friend of mine works at a place where they banned the term "backlog grooming" because it was considered offensive versus "backlog refinement". I'm certainly in favor of being sensitive to the vulnerable, but views on language are quite subjective.

Views are subjective but also relative in a cultural and team context. Subjective in one sense minimises the critique. In another sense it exactly points to the dynamics of language that is and always will be what we negotiate

If someone asked me to not use a certain word around them, I would probably accommodate them because I have compassion for others, but I'm wary of how far it goes when we start banning generally benign words. The nature of language is such that we could create negative...

associations with any word on an individual basis and we might not even be able to build a consensus. This is even more confusing because consensus isn't always great either.

But I can see with the care of your reply that you would be careful in person

I think I agree with you that it's about contextual exceptions generally. It's more important to me to look out for people than to debate the philosophy, but I also try to understand what is reasonable to ask of the people around us and it's not easy to determine at least for me