BBC:
A Facebook engineer has quit the firm, saying they "can no longer stomach" being part of an organisation "profiting off hate".
Ashok Chandwaney is the latest employee to go public with concerns about how the company deals with hate speech.
The engineer added it was "choosing to be on the wrong side of history".
Facebook responded by saying it had removed millions of hate-related posts. Another of its ex-engineers has also come to its defence.
The thrust of the post by Ashok Chandwaney - who uses "they" and "them" as personal pronouns - is that Facebook moves quickly to solve certain problems, but when it comes to dealing with hate speech, it is more interested in PR than implementing real change.
Can [or should] Facebook successfully purge its platform of speech it considers harmful?
(Score: 5, Touché) by GlennC on Wednesday September 09 2020, @11:44PM (12 children)
I refer you to my signature...
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @12:00AM (11 children)
Maybe FB could add a (user?) moderation system, -1 = raving radical or reactionary hate :: +5 = milquetoast.
And force their users to pick their browsing level each time they log in, so they know what they are getting into.
If the haters saw the voting, they might soon realize what a minority they are in.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 10 2020, @12:07AM (10 children)
We already know the line they'll use to excuse, Facebook is "profiting off hate". People can change, but not over something this slight.
(Score: 4, Informative) by barbara hudson on Thursday September 10 2020, @12:09AM (8 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:18AM (6 children)
Everything evolves. People will too. They haven't stopped yet. Hard to tell with the short time we have
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:37AM (5 children)
Evolution takes place from one generation to the ext. not during the persons lifetime.
Anyone believing in "jailhouse conversions" is naive.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:54AM
That's right, so be patient...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @05:04AM
ReiserFS FTW. Wait, what?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pe1rxq on Thursday September 10 2020, @09:18AM (1 child)
Only if you limit evolution to DNA...
A more pure defintion of evolution does not need DNA or biology at all. It concerns how successful 'traits' spread within a population.
Biology did give us a nice tool for that: it is called a 'brain'. Using our brain we are now capable of spreading 'traits' on incredibly short timeframes. Well within a generation.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:11PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:47PM
Got you, so I am the same person that I was when I grew up in rural Nowheresville that I am now.
(Score: 3, Redundant) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:20AM
I think that moderation should identify "hate speech" from various perspectives, then allow people to configure their personal echo chambers as they see fit.
I mean: in real life, people separate into various cliques and either learn to deal with the rude behaviors of their clique, or leave it for another - why should the internet be any different?
I don't think it is reasonable to expect the majority of "civilized people" to wrap their heads around the Billions of individual perspectives presented on social media today - most of them can barely deal with a circle of 20+ friends and colleagues.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @06:48AM
I have a khallow in my pocket. I stroke him, from time to time, to keep him erect, and ready, for the Boogerloo. But, alas, I think he will never be anything more than a pocket toy, to be taken out in times of joy,
but never when there is serious fighting to be done. khallow is too dear and fluffy. We keep him in the stuff bag.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2020, @11:52PM (33 children)
Good riddance, but that's only one less censorious twit at the company.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:28AM (32 children)
Bitching about censorship on Facebook, peak first world problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:42AM (15 children)
You would rather have third world problems, or even fourth world problems?
(Score: 5, Touché) by barbara hudson on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:54AM (14 children)
Let's see, huge unemployment, 10s of millions with no health care, fires out of control, including a record-setting 2 million acre fire, rampant homelessness, white supremists marching in the streets, peaceful protests violently suppressed by the government, a tin pot wannabe dictator who sucks the dicks of real dictators, sounds like you're already mostly there.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:09PM (11 children)
California problems. Gavin Newsom might be a tin pot wannabe dictator, but there are other governors and the federal government to keep him in check.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 10 2020, @04:08PM (10 children)
If you weren't already going to Hell, this sort of blatant lying would have punched your ticket. Get the fuck out of New York and go somewhere like Missouri where you can be surrounded by people who "think" like you.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 10 2020, @10:44PM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 11 2020, @01:36AM (5 children)
It's New York. You can surround yourself with people who think like you, no matter what your beliefs. That is, if a person is so inclined, which I am not.
But the parent mentioned forest fires, which New York isn't experiencing right now, so of course it had to be California. There are few states competing for King Idiot right now. Michigan, Washington, and Oregon are trying super hard, but California has to claim the crown with New York a close second.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 11 2020, @01:45AM (4 children)
Then all the more reason to get the fuck out and go somewhere more aligned with your beliefs. You know, somewhere where the people have more toes than teeth and fewer working brain cells than either? Where the family trees look like a Chia Pet fucked a telephone pole? That was also its cousin?
Drop the useless virtue signalling. Everything you claim you did to be "one of the good ones" was a lie, a sick joke perpetrated more on yourself than anyone else. Stop pretending, throw yourself the rest of the way into the abyss, and move somewhere you'd fit in already.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 11 2020, @02:21AM (3 children)
So are we supposed to leave or go to New York? You're sending mixed messages.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 11 2020, @04:17PM (2 children)
No I'm not, fuckstick. South of the Mason-Dixon line is where I mean. Go on, you and he just pack yer shit and leave.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 11 2020, @05:38PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 13 2020, @01:09AM
Oh hell, I've seen a few Confederate flags here in Buffalo. Thankfully, people like that are a loud but tiny minority here, and are mostly smart enough not to start shit.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 11 2020, @01:30AM (2 children)
You live in Eerie, PA, and you think I'm going to hell? Stop sniffing the loaners at the Lion's Den in your free time--it's degrading your mind.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 11 2020, @01:43AM (1 child)
That's the second time you've used that expression. What is the Lion's Den and what is on loan there?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 11 2020, @02:21AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @08:07PM (1 child)
"white supremists marching in the streets"
are you referring to antifa? lmao, what a stupid bitch.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 11 2020, @03:41AM
Love and community are the way forward. Do not let hate take hold of your heart my brother.
apk
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:09AM (15 children)
Smart too, because the insanity of the authoritarian left is going to bring us equity, bring us down below any banana republic.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:47AM (1 child)
Tell me, how disturbing is the sexual dance of Hannity and Carlson? I can only presume it is very weird and very awkward.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @06:52AM
OMG! If they actually mate? A right-wing nut-job Irish Catholic right wing nut-job? The implications are too horrendous, too evil, too, well, Fox News! Choose the form of the destroyer? Carlson already looks much like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man, and Hannity is not far off! Do not cross the beams!!!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Thursday September 10 2020, @03:02AM (11 children)
What is the left asking for?
Better health care.
Money diverted from reacting to crime (police and prisons) to social programs to reduce crime and provide opportunities for everyone no matter their circumstances.
My body, my choices - abortion, drugs, euthanasia, sex changes, etc.
Treating drug addiction as a medical problem (police chiefs also want this) on a per note, I've never used recreational drugs, not even tobacco, but I see how ineffective the current approach is).
Better schools.
No more billionaires. Less inequality.
A living wage. If you can't pay a living wage you need a better business plan.
No more gig economy with zero hours contracts and no benefits.
A sales tax on all stock transactions to encourage buying for the long term to create real value.
End to racism. Period. Including reparations to the descendants of those who were enslaved.
Eliminate the senate and the electoral college.
Ranked ballot voting.
No corporate political donations.
Low limits on personal political donations. This would end Bloomberg or (recently now that donations have cratered) Trump trying to but the election.
Verifiable paper ballots. Others can do it and get results within hours of the polls closing, why can't you?
This is a compilation of various goals. Not everyone on the left wants them all, but it's kind of hard to be against money corrupting politics, or better education, or reducing crime, Or helping the sick. And only white supremists want to perpetuate racism.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday September 10 2020, @04:26AM (6 children)
That's five of your fourteen items right there. My take is that the first four are a result of having little understanding of how economics works in a society.
The last one in particular is profoundly ignorant and a waste of time. First, you will never have the authority no matter who gets elected to end racism. Second, reparations are pointless when both culprits and victims are long dead. Sorry, the clock ran out long ago. Third, you're taking on thoughts and beliefs. Democracies can't stay democracies, if they're attacking peoples' thoughts and beliefs. Finally, it just continues racism rather than ends it, particularly given the clueless approaches used so far (such as racial quotas, reparation demands, assigning blame and victimhood by race, etc which naturally are racist themselves).
In other words, it's typical parasite logic. You want more better stuff, but have little clue or interest in how to get it. Just build those fake wooden planes and the real ones will come back and distribute that precious cargo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @07:05AM (3 children)
Most of those things are available in most first world countries. You're just throwing shade cause "muh capitalism" and you want to play king of the hill.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:43PM
Including the US. Note also that that list demands certain things not be available like billionaires, gig economy jobs, or racism.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @09:11PM (1 child)
"Most of those things are available in most first world countries."
brainwashed, overly comfortable, overly complacent and confident white countries who are thinly veiled Jew slave states in way worse shape than they realize. The Jews are flooding all white countries with violent, religious nuts and half retarded homo-erectus hybrids in a strategy for white genocide (and bragging about it) while you cower and turn on the few who see through the programming. Germany just had to install rabbis throughout their military to combat "antisemitic hate speech" aka any stirrings of resistance to the raping of the Goi slave state.
Just how stupid and blind are you anti-racist race traitors? You can't see what they're doing in TV and movies? Rewriting history, writing unrealistic and out of place black characters, using mixed race "blacks" to trick whites into thinking all blacks are more identifiable with whites and not the retarded, violent gorillas in the hoods of the formally civilized world, constantly promoting race mixing, especially white women with anyone other than white men, but the dumber and blacker the better (the Jews have openly bragged about destroying the white race by bringing in blacks. this is not a theory). Every show is about how whitey is bad in some disgusting way and "POC" are the good guys who must work together (using everything made by white people of course) to end evil and racism by being racist against whites.
Bolshevik Jew controlled cities, states and feds stealing money from whitey via taxes and using it to destroy white culture, white genetics, the businesses and civilizations we have built. They are purposely bringing the blood and the civs down so they can gain further control over the whole world.
The Jew World Order.
All the censorship of the internet is about the awakening to this fact being discovered by whitey. This is why they are so concerned with censoring "hate speech" (speaking the truth about the parasitic and sabotaging Jews) because people will find out that their money, their governments, their schools and their churches are all controlled by the Jews and their race traitor white lap dogs, and harnessed to destroy whites forever. That this is what Hitler was fighting and many millions of whites were sent to slaughter each other by the lying politicians of Goi slaves states called The Allies. After they had murdered many millions of whites in the bolshevik/russian revolution and the holodomor. The whites of the Allies didn't have the internet. Only radio and newspapers, that, again, were controlled by the Jews. Now, if whites don't use the internet to learn, instead of sitting on JewTube and SlaveBook, we are doomed.
Wake Up Whites and regain control of your destiny.
The problem with whites in history and now is not that we are so mean but that we have always been too nice, too greedy and too complacent. We should have removed every non-white from the US when it was conquered. We should have learned our lesson about cheap/free black labor from what happened in ancient Egypt, the Roman empire and countless other examples. Instead we let the Jews bring african slaves into america and when lincoln was trying to ship their asses back to africa someone shot him. If everyone is equal, then why do they all flock to white countries and then whine about how whitey is bad? Make your own shitty countries successful. No, it's not all whitey's fault that you can't grow crops. We can't focus the majority of blame on the immigrants, though. It's our own fault for not kicking the Jews the fuck out, not educating our kids about our race, not shipping the africans back to their long lost home many years ago and not shooting our treasonous politicians in the face when they fuck around. It starts at home. If you can't even educate your own children you are part of the problem.
The White Nationalist Manifesto: https://thepiratebay.org/description.php?id=31425122 [thepiratebay.org]
Europa: The Last Battle: https://www.bitchute.com/video/7J3B0raTNx1p/ [bitchute.com]
White Related Video: talievision: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/sRSb6x1IIW5A/ [bitchute.com]
Censor all you want, Jews. Whites are waking up.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 10 2020, @10:57PM
I go by evidence not emo. You haven't backed up a thing with genuine evidence. Germany throwing a bone to Jews with the rabbis, for example, is not some sign that Jews are taking over Germany. As to the "retarded, violent gorillas in the hoods" of the US, I bet a lot of them would evolve into productive members of society, if we get rid of the War on Drugs.
As to Hitler, the man was scum. Get a better class of role model.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 10 2020, @04:46PM (1 child)
It's called competent governance. As a conservative you may not be familiar with the concept but there are things called laws we can pass to make our systems work to achieve those goals.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 11 2020, @01:51AM
Competent governance didn't show up in that list. So no, it's not called nor is competent governance. In particular, the presence of inachievables like "End to racism" and "reparations to the descendants of those who were enslaved" indicates to me the opposite. So does the absence of anything resembling commonsense - like don't spend beyond your means.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @08:12AM (2 children)
That's pertinently untrue. We also have supremacists of the black/yellow/sandy variety in this world. Take a look at what China is doing to the Uyghurs, what Israel is doing to the Palestines, or what Qatar is doing to the Nepalis. Or should we not label the Rwandan genocide [wikipedia.org] as racism because it wasn't perpetrated by the white devil?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by isocelated on Thursday September 10 2020, @10:53AM
Were this Reddit, I'd upvote you. Since it isn't, take this comment implying vague agreement with your own comment instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 11 2020, @07:44AM
True, but to be fair the discussion is about the United States.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:00PM
I count 15 items, all but three of which are either platitudes ("better schools" is meaningless because it is so vague, "end racism" is not a thing you just do, and most actual left goals perpetuate rather than reduce racism) or just plain terrible ideas (race-based wealth confiscation, or the euphemism "reparations").
Two of those three (ranked choice voting and verifiable ballots) are not particularly associated with the left. Verifiable ballots are a signature issue of Donald Trump, for crying out loud.
That leaves only treating drug addiction as a medical problem as an actual thing that the left wants that would actually maybe help things.
Back in the 80s and 90s it became an article of faith that "there's too much money in politics!" and "rich donors have too much influence!" We got campaign finance reform and all these new rules. What happened instead? Politicians spend three times as much time fundraising as before. Dark money and PACs. Polarized, uncompromising politicians. Election subversion everywhere. Does our political system work better now, or in the 70s and 80s?
It is absolutely easy to be for money "corrupting" politics because politics got dramatically worse once the "corruption" was taken out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @05:08AM
Are you tired of winning yet or do you want to sink deeper than today?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mcgrew on Wednesday September 09 2020, @11:59PM (13 children)
I see all sorts of vile "humor" that isn't funny and slanders public servants, much of it blatantly racist, anti-semetic, anti-muslim, and anti anything that isn't white supremacist. Facebook does absolutely nothing while folks complain about being in "Facebook jail". I see the ultra-white wing radicals (that was a typo but I like it so I'm leaving it in) complaining about censorship. Well, they can either buy their own website (mcgrew.info only costs me fifteen bucks a year) or stop bitching.
I'd leave Facebook completely but I want people to know about and read my books.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Funny) by khallow on Thursday September 10 2020, @12:08AM (6 children)
You say that like it's a bad thing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Thursday September 10 2020, @12:14AM (5 children)
It's pretty miserable to put up with. Certainly among the multitudinous reasons I'll never visit facebook.
I don't want a law, but I don't want to be part of any community that puts up with it.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:22AM (4 children)
And THIS is what's going to eventually lead to change.
Pity it'll take a while to reach critical mass.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:03AM (3 children)
What type of change? Here we have a former Facebook engineer engaging in virtuous victimhood. [nih.gov]
Do you know why his preferred pronouns are in TFA? [spectator.us]
LOL, perhaps we should have a +50 "muh hate speech" mod for those of us who see through the bullshit!
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday September 10 2020, @03:20AM (1 child)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:43PM
Bloody hilarious - thanks for bringing it to my attention, I'd not have expanded and read A/C's post and that subsequent article were it not for your recommendation.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday September 10 2020, @10:38PM
Trivialising facetube et al and hopefully freeing their slaves.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:25AM
Yes, Facebook is a great big giant billboard, so you make the best of it and ignore the rest. Reddit is the same. The trade forums are perfectly civil and always on topic.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @05:09AM
Did you want to say anti-semenic?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @10:55AM
No one slanders white supremacist? There's whole 'movements' that do just that (and pretty much slander any white male no matter if they are involved in such BS or not).
If your books are about "hate speech" and such, you profit from hate more directly than FB, you know, just sayin'
I personally am against taking this stuff from one extreme to the other. Life ain't black and white and extremes are VERY RARELY the answer.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 10 2020, @04:43PM
But everyone on Soylent assures me it's completely impossible to set up our own discussion website!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @06:16PM (1 child)
Are you using a vps? If so, could you please tell me which one?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:34PM
I have a host up in Canada, R4L.com. That fifteen bucks gives me ten megs of space and lets me forward an email address to my main one. mcgrewbooks.com costs about fifty a year with real email addresses, lots more space, a huge library of tools that I don't use, some of which allow you to make a discussion site if you know how.
I just use notepad and Filezilla, notepad to write the HTML and Filezilla to upload the files.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @12:00AM (3 children)
The obvious goal of making a whole imbalance and digging back the caste of elevated publishers and peasant readers was to control information and revive 18th century publishing methods in which the artificial scarcity is a censorship mechanism. This was the objective when distributed/federalized webpages mechanism was hard to censor.
Making information extremely difficult and expensive to publish decreases its quality in the long run. That was with early publishing and this is now.
So this would certainly polarize people and make fighting "clans".
And this is the goal of any advertisement campaign.
So how do they imagine purging off "profiting on hate"? Society cannot be reversed, knowledge sells worse than sensationalism.
So OK, they would censor new words. Like these "Blacklists" or "master/slave". Without proud campaigns, profits generated by people who are offended by these words are at risk. Still millions of people are ridiculed and ostracized because they do not look as media shows. And they would buy more when discriminated so... all the hate they are fighting with is OK.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 10 2020, @11:11AM (2 children)
> Making information extremely difficult and expensive to publish decreases its quality in the long run. That was with early publishing and this is now.
Not true. If information is expensive to publish, the author has a strong incentive to ensure it's quality. If information is cheap to publish, there is no such incentive.
Of course, what does that say about SN posts??
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:24PM
Or incentive to not publish at all!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:46PM
Unfortunately this situation, although contrary to common sense, can be seen in pre-war books in Europe. Among a few diamonds we know today, most of things published these times were only things which would sell enough to significantly amortize costs of publishing. No, not a knowledge. Sensationalism, propaganda, useless periodicals.
So the quality decreased. Books written by, as we would call today, experts, which could be read by small number of knowledgeable people, were impossible to publish but sensationalist tales polarizing society would sell in thousands if not millions, so it got through the process easily.
And we repeat this now, only instead of printing press we have digital network.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @12:04AM (41 children)
No way I'm going to refer to some guy in the plural. Unless he weighs 300 lbs.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:03AM (39 children)
They has been a singular pronoun for a while. Deal with it.
Hmm... I sense that you were also trying to misgender them in addition to complaining that you're unable to deal with the dynamic and social nature of human languages. Well I don't know if you were but now I'm curious. How do you misgender somebody who identifies as 3rd gendered? What would the non-misgender version of this look like?
So does calling an enby a "guy" successfully misgender them? The above ought to be grammatically correct too. You can infer that "they" is a singular pronoun there based on the verb ending, like any other language (could be worse, could be German sie/Sie/sie).
Moved and been thinking about getting an X gender marker on my ID when I transfer it here. There are no female programmers, and at least in Michigan they don't take kindly to dick girls trying to change that. I'd like to get an F marker, and everybody genders me female anyway. But I dunno.... I moved all the way out here so I could be F, just F, nothing crazy. I just don't ever want to be sexually harassed and gaslighted like that again. But it's not like anybody here can help me figure this out anyway.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:24AM (25 children)
I'm not quite familiar with new-clown-speak. What is an "enby"?
Of course Ashok is a guy's name, so no "misgendering" there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:53AM (24 children)
My bad. enby = NB = non-binary
So if I want to sexually identify as other, then I'm restricted to names like Pat.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday September 10 2020, @04:02AM (6 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday September 10 2020, @05:23AM (1 child)
On the other side, you're killing very fine culture values of the past (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 11 2020, @12:04AM
I don't know why this was modded Funny. It speaks about a time when
My guts feeling tells me lots of the excesses we're seeing today with identity politics are exacerbated by the lost of the "get tough or die" as a value in everyday life.
Or misinterpreting it as "be a mean fucker and grind the others before they grind you", when actually "get tough" should be oriented towards building you, not destroying the others (even preemptively).
(Score: 3, Touché) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 10 2020, @11:24AM
I think it just seems a bit odd to me, who hasn't really dealt with this sort of issue directly, that someone can get really worked up about being called "him" rather than "they". It's sort of like I have a friend called "David" who doesn't like being called "Dave", and gets really worked up about it. Or I am a physicist and get really upset when people call me a chemist.
It feels like they are making a mountain out of a molehill; and if that turns into lawsuits (where I live I believe it is unlawful to misgender) then it can even get quite threatening. Meanwhile here I am, a dumb physicist (or chemist!) who just wants to go about my daily job.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 11 2020, @01:44AM
What? You need to get your temporal modulator fixed, because you're becoming unstuck in the time stream. "Sam [wikipedia.org]" has been unisex for a long time. So has Stevie [wikipedia.org]. There are numerous others.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:42PM (1 child)
I knew a big burly guy named Gail, who hated his parents. Always wondered why he just didn't get a legal name change, although his name may not have been why he hated his parents. Like you, I've wondered why it matters.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 16 2020, @01:49AM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @04:21AM (16 children)
Tranny logic: People who can't accept who they are, but want you to accept who they are not.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 10 2020, @04:49PM (15 children)
Non-asshole logic: why the fuck do you care about a tranny's opinion that has zero impact on your life?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @10:45PM (12 children)
I don't give a shit about their opinion until it affects me. When they demand I participate in their self delusion under color of law then we have a problem.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 11 2020, @01:49AM (11 children)
So answer me this: I'm a lesbian, the group that at least in theory has the most to fear from trans* people, especially transwomen. I've had some really negative experiences with a few of them, including one seriously creepy stalker. And I'm still not scared, and still not going to go the TERF route. I don't get it, but I can try to understand, and at all times I can keep the notion of human rights in mind.
So what are *you* frightened of? What is the worst a trans* person could do to you? Are you afraid of being attracted to a transwoman or friends with a transman, discovering they're not what you thought, and somehow losing your "masculine essence" or something? Please explain this to me.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 11 2020, @08:48AM (3 children)
Why are you pulling "masculine essence" into the conversation? Are you trying to insult him? That's what i don't get. How is it that, that sort of talk is just fine, talking about "masculine essence" being lost or "damaged", stuff being extensions to penis or what ever? How is that just a-alright, when people get insulted, and not just insulted, but subsitute insulted, about much, much more insignificant things?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 11 2020, @04:15PM (2 children)
What's the problem here? I'm not being insulting, I'm trying to find out what the hell it is that scares straight men so much about transgender people and specifically transwomen. Since they apparently don't even know transmen exist? Really, what does a man of any description have to fear from a transwoman? In theory at least I have a lot more to be frightened about and I'm not scared, despite coming dangerously close to TERFdom in college. I educated myself and the fear went away. Why can't they do the same?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 11 2020, @07:47PM (1 child)
It is very very simple, some trans women are very attractive and it makes idiots uncomfortabke because they are terrified of accidentally hooking up with someone that used to be a man. It is just a rather new concept for most people, and strange new things frighten people; especially when a dose of religious bigotry is involved.
As you point out men don't get worked up by trans men, because they aren't going to accidentally get romantic with one.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 13 2020, @01:10AM
Okay, I won't lie, it would be upsetting if someone who I was dating didn't reveal she was trans before we got to the point of considering sex, at least if she hadn't had bottom surgery yet. But I also wouldn't do what seemingly every man in this situation does, which is get violent. I'd probably tell her we're breaking up then and there, and not to even talk to me any longer, because if she can't trust me with that beforehand that relationship is going nowhere. I don't need the drama and I don't like boy bits.
Thankfully it's pretty much academic since I'm monogamous and taken, but still.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12 2020, @12:43AM (6 children)
Sweetie, I do not fear trannies of any persuasion. Just don't expect me to call a dude in a dress, "she". In the converse, neither taking hormones to grow a beard nor gluing a merkin to your face won't make me call a woman "he" either. Think about it this way. Dressing up like Star Trek characters doesn't make you a Klingon either even if you get plastic surgery.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 13 2020, @01:04AM (5 children)
So you're okay with transmen in the bathroom with your daughter then? The three I know are completely indistinguishable from cismen by this point, and one of them is about 220lb of almost pure muscle given how he works out. You're okay with him in the room while your daughter takes a leak then?
Somehow you pissbabies seem to forget transmen exist unless forcibly reminded! And I thought plain old lesbians were invisible =P
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 13 2020, @06:45PM (4 children)
I wasn't specifically addressing bathrooms; more the regulation against misgendering and deadnaming. If the mentally ill are so triggered by mentioning their birth names or the inescapable fact that their chromosomes contradict their delusions they should be seeking mental health treatment instead of asking others to roll their eyes and play along.
As I mentioned in an earlier post. Playing dress up and pretending to be what you are not is indistinguishable from the freaks that wear Star Trek costumes and pretend they are Klingons. You can get plastic surgery to make it look realistic, but that doesn't make you a Klingon no matter how much you believe it in your screwed up brain.
For your bathroom dilemma, the solution might be to require public facilities to install the freak bathrooms I see occasionally and require all the shapeshifters to use them instead. Normal humans can actively avoid them. They have some at my work and they could just as easily be a storage closet or a door painted onto the wall for all the usage they get. Women are so creeped out they will happily walk all the way to a different building to pee.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 13 2020, @11:30PM (3 children)
You know, most of these arguments are pretty similar to what plain old gays and lesbians got 50 years ago or so. I have some serious atonement for my borderline-TERFdom in college to do, which is why I've studied these things in some depth and will jump in to defend trans* people.
Your post is about half ignorance and half fear, with a generous marinating of bigotry. I honestly don't think you're arguing in good faith or looking to learn anything; instead it looks like you're just trying to troll. Why waste everyone's time? Either educate yourself, or stay ignorant but do everyone the courtesy of shutting up.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @11:41PM (2 children)
You want a good faith argument? How about this?
Gender dysphoria - the psychiatric term for transgender - was previously known as gender identity disorder up until 2013 according to Wikipedia. Now no longer considered a mental disorder it is instead "cured" with hormone disrupters and body mutilation rather than treating the underlying psychiatric abnormality. There is nothing medically wrong with their endocrine system or their physical body which warrants the treatments prescribed. The actual problem is that the sufferers "believe" or perhaps just wish they were not the sex their bodies present.
Contrast this therapy with that of Body dysmorphic disorder which frequently presents as anorexia or bulimia. We do not treat these individuals with liposuction and gastric bypass surgery. We do not find it helpful to condescendingly order others to reassure these patients that they do indeed look fat. No, we treat the underlying mental disorder and teach them good nutrition.
I believe you are simply hung up on my labeling these individuals who have permanently mutilated their bodies as freaks. My personal opinion is that regardless of the professional credentials of the people who assisted them, there is no functional difference from the body modification butchers who slice off ears or noses and file down teeth to create somebody's idealized body.
This kind of bizarre, ill-conceived, modern "treatment" is a terrible stain on the already historically shameful discipline of psychology/psychiatry. Patients come for help and instead of treating the problem, they irreversibly damage their bodies, selling them a lie.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 15 2020, @01:30AM (1 child)
So are you saying I should go to conversion therapy and learn to stop worrying and love dick or something? Because, again, this is the same argument plain ol' gays'n'lesbians got handed to us 50 years ago.
If we go with your assumption that gender dysphoria is a mental illness, we should be acting in good faith to treat it as well as possible...and the most efficacious cure seems to be transition. So if you're actually concerned for these peoples' mental health you should be all for them transitioning. It's fairly obvious you're just trying to wrap your ignorance in a superficially-respectable mantle of scientific rectitude, and it's not fooling anyone but you.
I don't get it either. And I thank my lucky stars I don't get it, because going through the wrong puberty sounds like some kind of Kafkaesque horror movie. I can't pretend to understand what they're going through but I can listen, educate myself, gather data, and watch real-world outcomes. Why do they threaten you? I have, in theory, much more to lose than you do from them and I'm not scared. So why are you?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @03:07AM
Hardly. I'm saying if you suddenly feel the overpowering need to undergo irreversible radical plastic surgery to make yourself feel better that you weren't born with a penis, your problems are not going to be solved with a surgeons knife. I made no comments on your or anybody's sexual preferences. It's not always about you.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 11 2020, @01:48AM (1 child)
Refusing to feed the narcissism of a vanishingly small sub culture does not make you an asshole. It makes you normal.
Resisting policies and government edicts that feed the narcissism of vanishingly small sub cultures does not make you an asshole, either. It makes you normal.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 11 2020, @03:45AM
Happy Holidays my friend ;) and a blessed Kwanza!!
(Score: 5, Informative) by barbara hudson on Thursday September 10 2020, @03:27AM (2 children)
"What do THEY want?"
We have always used they as singular as well as plural.
Some people are claiming otherwise because they have a stick up their arse over non-binary people. Why? Because change is hard, and it's easier to just be an asshole with a stick up their arse.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @05:42AM
considering the fact that "though" has been completely left out of regular speech, I assume using "them" hit two birds with one stone: it was consistent with the usage of "you", and it didn't have an explicit gender.
it's a shame I don't care enough about this to actually look it up. stephen fry, where are you when I need you?
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @08:28AM
English speakers say: "What does he want?"
Sure, "Wat up wid im?" and other such trash may be said by those who supposedly speak English. Heck, "Shoot the bastard!" is an option too.
Properly though, the masculine is assumed. That's just how the language works. It's how a lot of languages work.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @03:51AM (2 children)
Fair enough. Since what's good for the goose is good for the gander...
And to anyone who objects to the common usage of these words:
Nigga, stop being such a faggot.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:36PM (1 child)
I wonder which of the slang meanings of faggot was earlier.
Ignoring, of course, the use of "faggot" to refer to the pieces of fuel used to burn a witch.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 11 2020, @01:51AM
It's British slang for cigarettes.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:57PM (4 children)
And why do the theyists always conveniently forget that "he" has had genderless use for centuries too?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Informative) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:40PM (3 children)
As is the case with the plural "you" which can now used as a singular pronoun but still takes a plural verb.
The singular, still used in some dialects, is "thou", and takes a singular verb, as in "Thou art" and "Thou hast" instead of "You are" and "You have".
-- hendrik
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @03:18PM
The "you" form, while originally plural, was also the singular polite pronoun. It seemed to have replaced "thou" in 1700s. A linguist friend showed me an article once that recounted the story of a traditionalist who went into a pub around the 1760s and proceeded to thou the staff and guests, initially to their annoyance, and finally with them ejecting him to the rubbish pile out back.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 10 2020, @07:17PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 11 2020, @01:56AM
No, no, you have it all wrong. The proper form of the plural "you" is "yinz [wikipedia.org]."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 10 2020, @02:19PM (1 child)
Pronouns in English already have an "other" category for gender: it. If a person doesn't want to identify as a man or woman, the proper English is to refer to that person is "it/its/it's." German also has that, BTW, in the form of "Es." No need to play silly word games delivered in haughty tones, when established usage has it covered.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @11:20PM
"The Tranny Called It"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @06:55AM
Samoan Prayer Proud Boy, from Vancouver, and not the Canadian one. I still think he is under 300, but still in jail. Should be fun!