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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33194 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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A counter point would be that we are supposed to write as if everyone is reading and we WANT them to read and take part. Given the term in question it is likely some people reading are likely to be upset or offended by it. If it is necessary to be used specifically for the post in question that should probably take precedence, but if everyone knows what you mean using the censored version, then that is a consideration worth thinking about also.

People who do not believe in the use/mention distinction are still people that we want to read here because they are a subset of everyone.

What's the limiting principle for this? Lots of people can be upset or offended by all sorts of things.

What if I find it offensive and upsetting when people censor words instead of spelling them out?

There isn't one. That reality will probably kill this forum long-term, as values-drift makes it completely impossible to communicate effectively across the tribal divide. Some people here regret that reality, and are trying to forestall it as long as possible. Of the actions taken to postpone that eventual tragedy, the one we're discussing here is quite minor.

This is not an arbitrary taboo someone thought up yesterday. It's one of the three or four most deeply cemented taboos our society has.

That is why I said it is a balance not a mandate. Having said that I suspect there are many more people offended by that particular slur than by writing the asterisks in n****r. From the POV of the point of this space, things that are inflammatory and the like are generally defined by the mods to be the big culture war clashes and that would seem to be a pretty obvious one.

At the end of the day we should be considering the best way to make our argument in the most palatable way we can. For me that is the most important point of this space.

Then f**k you.

You're trying to be too clever by half. Yes, I get what you're doing here, and it's still not the kind of post we are going to tolerate.

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