It sounds way less offensive to those who decry the original terminology’s problematic roots but still keeps its meaning intact.
There are many problems and many solutions. We don’t need to focus on one problem and pick only one solution.
My entire point here was that there is concern that industry jargon can be accidentally exclusionary to some demographics, interest and research on it isn’t new, and the effect is usually a “death by a thousand cuts” type thing, like migroaggressions are.
I didn’t specialize in this, so my knowledge on it is from one part of one class I took like 15 years ago, but I can absolutely see how it could matter.
People aren’t rational and society doesn’t raise us rationally. We can be perfectly ok with something in one context but not ok with it in another context. We can be ok with one thing, but not ok with another similar thing.
I agree there are deeper societal issues about how we raise boys and the incentives/traumas we put on kids. That doesn’t mean we cant pick off this low hanging fruit at no cost.
It’s important to meet people where they are, not where we think they should be.
it’s certainly possible it matters, but ultimately in the field of engineering, if you’re designing a bike, it’s probably more important to fix that problem where the bike crumples in half impaling the rider on the way down rather than the fact that the water bottle mounting holes need de-burring off the factory line to help prevent them from cutting people slightly.
Dealing with microaggressions is definitely one of the problems at all times, there is a question of whether it even exists to any significant degree, considering a lot of people make jokes about other things at the sarcastic expense of something. Is self deprecating humor a self microaggression that we should stamp out because it subconsciously influences people to be a worse person?
You see what i’m getting at here? I feel like it’s just a really hard problem, with a really hard solution, and i feel like the best solution is to treat it like a moderately insignificant problem, while being consciously aware of it. In fact one could probably argue being consciously aware of microaggressions is going to make you immune to them from the get go.
I also feel like it’s probably effort needlessly spent relative to other issues as well, like for example we could move to stop microaggressions, or we could like, move to stop racial bias hiring practices, which are probably going to be more beneficial. Or like, make an AI less racist, or like, don’t use AI for crime detection and stopping at all probably.
like it’s a death by thousand cuts sure, but i feel like we’re ignoring the missing leg and the dislocated and fractured jaw here as well.
It’s important to meet people where they are, not where we think they should be.
yeah, absolutely a great stop gap measure here would be doing this on a person by person basis, if X doesn’t like Y using Z term, they can mutually come to the agreement to not do that.
Another thing we need to consider, is that we can’t expect everyone to meet us where we are, because a lot of people (me included as a neurodivergent individual) i do not have normal behaviors, i just ghost friends for long periods of time, i don’t hold that against them if they don’t like that. That’s just a thing i do, and if they don’t like it, it’s fine, i won’t talk to them, and they don’t have to talk to me. Anything other than that would be an aggressive overstepping of my personal boundary lines. As well as theirs.
I think this is ironically, a shooting yourself in the foot problem, from the broader context, because we’re doing this “insignificant” thing to “marginally improve things for others” when in reality, we may actually just be making things more complicated for people who do not function inside of the bubble of normality.
I think ultimately, the best thing we can do is to simply prime people to not care. Things are shitty, shitty people say shitty things, just don’t worry about it and you don’t have a problem, at the end of the day, 90% of this shit is relatively minor, and thinking about it is only going to cause unnecessary anguish.
probably more important to fix that problem where the bike crumples
This solution is zero effort
microaggressions […] question of whether it even exists to any significant degree
It does. Ask POC
with a really hard solution
It’s zero effort to change jargon like this.
we could move to stop microaggressions, or we could like, move to stop racial bias hiring practices
We can do both. That was a bold false dichotomy
do not have normal behaviors
If your argument is that neurodivergent people can’t switch from “whitelist” to “allowlist” I think that says more about your personality than neurodivergency.
we may actually just be making things more complicated for people who do not function inside of the bubble of normality.
Ok there, that sounds like a pile of FUD to prevent progress
simply prime people to not care
Ok there psychology genius. Tell us how to do this and receive your nobel prize
I’m done replying to your novel length piles regressive bullshit and excuses dressed up in polite language.
This solution is zero effort
idk about that one, maybe that would be the case if the issue was forgetting to weld it into one piece.
It does. Ask POC
there’s certainly potential for that, but like i’ve already stated i’m not sure how immediately relevant it is, nor how productive it would be, there’s also the issue of intrinsically applied microaggressions which could easily lead to “hallucinated” microaggressions. That’s probably an equally significant problem at scale.
It’s zero effort to change jargon like this.
i mean, fundamentally no. Changing long term habits is not a super trivial thing even as an individual, and doing this on the societal scale is basically going to be impossible at large. At least 20% of the population is probably going to start being outright racist in response to this (in america at least)
idk if you curse but if you do, you should be trivially aware of how much effort it can take to simply not curse. It’s literally just a force of habit beyond a certain point.
We can do both. That was a bold false dichotomy
yeah, absolutely, that’s definitely an option, my concern is that we’re putting too much focus on fixing like 3% of the issue, with like 10% of the effort, when we could be fixing like 20% of the issue with like 25% of the effort, which short term is going to be more beneficial.
If your argument is that neurodivergent people can’t switch from “whitelist” to “allowlist” I think that says more about your personality than neurodivergency.
that is an incredibly narrow and uncharitable view of my argument. If that’s what you think i’m arguing you should probably go read a few books before reading this post.
Ok there, that sounds like a pile of FUD to prevent progress
i mean, it’s a possibility, a lot of really subtle solutions do bring about a number of subtle problems, of which are even harder to fix. We have gay rights now, but there is a non insignificant problem with infighting between members of the queer community. How do we fix that? That’s a good question. Granted this is a much less subtle example, but my point holds.
Ok there psychology genius. Tell us how to do this and receive your nobel prize
ok yeah so it’s really simple. You know how you open the internet, and like, people yell at you and shit? And how they like call you stupid and bad and shit? And you know how you can just like, ignore 90% of it, because it’s literally meaningless.
It’s extremely likely that a large number of microaggressions being committed are entirely subconscious or not even intended to be offensive in any manner. Chances are, you are simply thinking too hard about what is going on, and you should probably worry less about that, and worry about other issues like social representation or even governmental representation.
I’m done replying to your novel length piles regressive bullshit and excuses dressed up in polite language.
the irony being, that this entire post is just an elaborate series of microaggressions. Though not likely directed in a racial manner, they are still microaggressions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression
perhaps maybe you should go do some reading on the topic. I’ll wait.
