Berkley to cease using gendered language like "manhole"

[Camelone]

Yeah, such bodies seem rather useless in my opinion.

Meh. Our RAE is pretty open-minded.

What does it actually do though to regulate language? Just adapt to changing language and record it?

[Page]

Gonna take some toddlers to watch Antichrist to own the SJWs and their trigger warnings.

For what it's worth, trigger warnings harm the people they're supposed to be helping.

Yeah, how is that? How is someone harmed by being made aware of content so they can decide whether or not they want that content on their mind at the moment?

[Liriena]

You clearly don't mean it to be synonymous with any Marxism whatsoever. Because, again, you're calling it a movement of "liberal-progressives".

This is basic.


So it's a cheap guilt-by-association tactic. Red-baiting with an added coat of pretentious paint.

Walter Benjamin is rolling in his grave.

What? Its not guilt by association. I'm not accussing progressives of wanting to seize the means of production or anything like that. I'm pointing out however that it comes from a similarly poisonous mentality

Yes, I get it. It's a smear. You're using Marxism as a smear word.

[Kowani]

Meh. Our RAE is pretty open-minded.

What does it actually do though to regulate language? Just adapt to changing language and record it?

Essentially, yes. It does also classify terms, though.

[Petrolheadia]

Do they also think that "horsepower" suggests actual horses, "cowhide" should be made by hiding cows and "muscle cars" have muscular tissue?

[Camelone]

What? Its not guilt by association. I'm not accussing progressives of wanting to seize the means of production or anything like that. I'm pointing out however that it comes from a similarly poisonous mentality

Yes, I get it. It's a smear. You're using Marxism as a smear word.

Cultural Marxism has a better societal gut punch to it than radical deconstructionism, a better ring to it though I think using radical deconstructionism would work a little better.

[Purgatio]

What? Its not guilt by association. I'm not accussing progressives of wanting to seize the means of production or anything like that. I'm pointing out however that it comes from a similarly poisonous mentality

Yes, I get it. It's a smear. You're using Marxism as a smear word.

I don't see what's the big deal with wanting to draw attention to the lessons of history

[Nakena]

Yes, I get it. It's a smear. You're using Marxism as a smear word.

Cultural Marxism has a better societal gut punch to it than radical deconstructionism, a better ring to it though I think using radical deconstructionism would work a little better.

I still prefer the degenerate and all powerful Globohomo Gayplex.

[Camelone]

What does it actually do though to regulate language? Just adapt to changing language and record it?

Essentially, yes. It does also classify terms, though.

A little weird to me but interesting nonetheless.

[Scomagia]

For what it's worth, trigger warnings harm the people they're supposed to be helping.

Yeah, how is that? How is someone harmed by being made aware of content so they can decide whether or not they want that content on their mind at the moment?

Encouraging people to avoid anxiety provoking situations or themes makes the anxiety worse. No anxiety disorder, including PTSD, is improved by avoiding the anxiety provoking stimulus. In fact, that's how disorders like agoraphobia worsen.
*have a panic attack in a specific place
*avoid that place because you had a panic attack there
*congratulations, the place itself is now a trigger.
*rinse and repeat until you can't leave home.

Source: ten years of GAD and Agoraphobia.

[Page]

Do they also think that "horsepower" suggests actual horses, "cowhide" should be made by hiding cows and "muscle cars" have muscular tissue?

AFAIK, horsepower does suggest actual horses, x horsepower is supposed to be equal to the force of x number of horses.

The whole muscle car thing is pretty fucked up though.

[Galloism]

For what it's worth, trigger warnings harm the people they're supposed to be helping.

Yeah, how is that? How is someone harmed by being made aware of content so they can decide whether or not they want that content on their mind at the moment?

By the way, trigger warnings is just basic human decency. Like hey, I'm going to discuss rape so maybe you don't want to read this right now because it might bring up painful memories you don't want to relive right now. Is that so terrible? Is that the worst thing the evil cultural Marxists have come up with, just giving a heads up so people can decide for themselves if they want to proceed?

I mean, according to a recent harvard study, probably yes.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... lp-or-harm

A recently published Harvard study tackled these questions. Researchers Benjamin Bullet, Peyton Jones, and Richard McNally had participants read passages from literary texts like Moby-Dick or Crime and Punishment. But before reading these passages, half of the participants received a warning that read: “TRIGGER WARNING: The passage you are about to read contains disturbing content and may trigger an anxiety response, especially in those who have a history of trauma.”

The researchers found that being exposed to trigger warnings caused participants to rate both themselves and others as more vulnerable to developing PTSD. Trigger warnings led to no self-reported differences in anxiety between the two groups overall, but for participants who already held the belief that “words cause harm,” trigger warnings led to an increase in anxiety.

While this study provides some initial evidence for why trigger warnings can be harmful, it has a major limitation: It was conducted with the general public, not with traumatized participants. Since trigger warnings are specifically designed for people with PTSD or those who would otherwise be sensitive to upsetting content that reminds them of past trauma, more research needs to be conducted.

The authors of the study addressed this limitation in their paper, and author Peyton Jones said on Twitter that the researchers plan to do a follow-up study involving participants with trauma histories. But, the authors have also proposed that trigger warnings may be counterproductive for individuals with PTSD because they encourage people to avoid trauma. Research suggests that avoiding trauma, while beneficial in the short term, can worsen symptoms in the long-term. One of the most effective treatments for PTSD is prolonged exposure therapy, which encourages repeated exposure to triggers so that patients can get used to them and no longer find them upsetting.

[Kowani]

Essentially, yes. It does also classify terms, though.

A little weird to me but interesting nonetheless.

English has something similar, although not quite the same.

[Vassenor]

Question: Who is actually harmed by this decision?

Or is this just conservatives looking for excuses to have the vapours over?

[Purgatio]

Yeah, how is that? How is someone harmed by being made aware of content so they can decide whether or not they want that content on their mind at the moment?

Encouraging people to avoid anxiety provoking situations or themes makes the anxiety worse. No anxiety disorder, including PTSD, is improved by avoiding the anxiety provoking stimulus. In fact, that's how disorders like agoraphobia worsen.
*have a panic attack in a specific place
*avoid that place because you had a panic attack there
*congratulations, the place itself is now a trigger.
*rinse and repeat until you can't leave home.

Source: ten years of GAD and Agoraphobia.

Except that its been found trigger warnings actually worsen psychological sensitivity/vulnerability:

https://medium.com/@CraigHarper19/its-official-trigger-warnings-might-actually-be-harmful-3e8acaae098b
https://www.noted.co.nz/health/psychology/trigger-warnings-psychological-problem/

[Cappuccina]

Do they also think that "horsepower" suggests actual horses, "cowhide" should be made by hiding cows and "muscle cars" have muscular tissue?

Cows, hippos, and whales must be renamed because fat shaming.

[Communal concils]

I see that the Conservatives are triggered over something that is insignificant.

What's the point of complaining ?

[Tombradyonia]

It may seem like satire, but it's true.

Soon, there will be no more manholes in the city of Berkeley, California. There will also be no chairmen, no manpower, no policemen or policewomen.

No, that doesn't mean a whole city will be without committee leaders and law enforcement. It means that words that imply a gender preference will be removed from the city's codes and replaced with gender-neutral terms, according a recently adopted ordinance.

The city voted Tuesday night to replace gendered terms in its municipal codes, like "manhole" and "manpower," with gender-neutral ones like "maintenance hole" and "human effort."

The item passed without discussion or comments and was not controversial, said Berkeley City Council member Rigel Robinson, the bill's primary author.

"There's power in language," Robinson said. "This is a small move, but it matters."

The revised city documents also will replace instances of gendered pronouns, such as "he" and "she" with "they," according to the ordinance.

Berkeley's municipal code currently contains mostly masculine pronouns, the office of the city manager said in a letter to the mayor and city council.

"Having a male-centric municipal code is inaccurate and not reflective of our reality," Robinson said. "Women and non-binary individuals are just as entitled to accurate representation. Our laws are for everyone, and our municipal code should reflect that."

The city of Berkley, California, unhappy with how many times they have to use 'man' as part of a sentence, has now seen fit to scrub all official use of gendered words from it's vocabulary. 'Manhole' is now 'maintenance hole', 'policeman' is now simply 'police officer', and so on. We live in a brave new age of Newspeak where words that no one outside of the Berkley City Council was offended by previously must now be limited (I mean, seriously, was anyone really offended by 'manhole'). Obviously, I find this to be ridiculous as I don't see how the use of these common terms was detrimental to anybody.

Thoughts?

I don't see a problem with this.

Republicans have turned the word 'lies' into 'alternative facts' and 'factual reporting' is now 'fake news' if they don't like what's being said.
What Berkeley does is small potatoes compared to the GOP snowflakes who don't like to be confronted with facts that don't back up right wing gospel.

[Scomagia]

For what it's worth, trigger warnings harm the people they're supposed to be helping.

It's promoting a bad mindset. One that gets hyperreactive to "triggers". Same happens btw on the alt-right where the hyperreactivity is however focussed on detecting supposed attacks on western culture etc.

More or less. Priming people, especially those with pathological thinking, to be anxious about something is likely to make them avoid it. This is bad because with anxiety, like so much else in life, the only way out is through.

[Galloism]

Question: Who is actually harmed by this decision?

Or is this just conservatives looking for excuses to have the vapours over?

I mean, taxpayers are a little bit, but even then, it's so spread out it's probably not worth caring about overmuch.

[Purgatio]

Question: Who is actually harmed by this decision?

Or is this just conservatives looking for excuses to have the vapours over?

The better question is what problem does this actually solve. Was there a problem to begin with?

[Kowani]

Question: Who is actually harmed by this decision?

Or is this just conservatives looking for excuses to have the vapours over?

It’s “Orwellian”

[Valrifell]

So we've run out of reasons to complain about this decision so now we're on to the leftists and trigger warnings as a broader topic?

[Scomagia]

Encouraging people to avoid anxiety provoking situations or themes makes the anxiety worse. No anxiety disorder, including PTSD, is improved by avoiding the anxiety provoking stimulus. In fact, that's how disorders like agoraphobia worsen.
*have a panic attack in a specific place
*avoid that place because you had a panic attack there
*congratulations, the place itself is now a trigger.
*rinse and repeat until you can't leave home.

Source: ten years of GAD and Agoraphobia.

Except that its been found trigger warnings actually worsen psychological sensitivity/vulnerability:

https://medium.com/@CraigHarper19/its-official-trigger-warnings-might-actually-be-harmful-3e8acaae098b
https://www.noted.co.nz/health/psychology/trigger-warnings-psychological-problem/

We are making the same point.

[Vassenor]

Question: Who is actually harmed by this decision?

Or is this just conservatives looking for excuses to have the vapours over?

It’s “Orwellian”

Usually anyone who throws that term around hasn't actually read Orwell.

How, for instance, does not using the word "manhole" erase the concept of a manhole from existence?