[burneraccount12]

60 million starving children in Africa. Something like 25,000 people die every year to war. The US president, leader of the free world, is facing possible impeachment.

And what are we worried about? Pronoun use and codes of conduct on software Q&A websites.

Give. Me. A. Break.

Almost 2,000 words on it, no less. Talk about 15 minutes of my life I'll never have back.

I'm trying to think if there's something dumber to argue about than this, but right now I can't.

Not sure how the world will continue to spin on its axis what with the bloodbath of moderators on StackExchange but somehow the universe will find a way to carry on.

[dmitrybrant]

This is actually extremely poignant, because it's a neat encapsulation of the entire political climate in the US. While the far left are busy arguing and cannibalizing themselves over pronouns, the Republicans are busy getting elected.

Imagine if these people spent a tenth of that energy on striving towards positions of actual political power. But no, they must really want four more years of Trump -- why else would they spend an iota of energy on this nonsense?

[blub]

This is not only happening in the US, but also Western Europe.

Left-leaning social and political elites have jumped the political correctness shark so hard that they're not being taken seriously by a significant amount of the population which feel patronized and lied to and turn to voting anyone that will at least validate their concerns.

[saagarjha]

These issues aren’t mutually exclusive, and it’s not “dumb” to argue about something that affects the the software engineering community personally and that we can have a meaningful impact on.

[burneraccount12]

If you want to have a meaningful impact, go volunteer at a soup kitchen. No, seriously. Spend a day at a homeless shelter. Help with the disabled.

Arguing about pronouns is, in fact, dumb and no, it does not affect the software engineering community "personally."

[saagarjha]

I mean, those are all good things to do. But the software engineering community is largely isolated from those issues, so it’s natural that our conversation shifts to things like pronouns instead.

[thereare5lights]

This line of argument is specious. There are always bigger problems. That doesn't mean that smaller issues don't matter.

[burneraccount12]

Oh really? So if you had an open chest wound you'd say, "Worrying about bleeding to death is specious. There are always mortal wounds to worry about. That doesn't mean I can't worry about what color my fingernails are"?

[thereare5lights]

Thank you for proving my point. Your example relies on degrees of severity, urgency, and closeness to the problem to make sense.

If we apply that to the original problems you brought up, we see that your argument is indeed specious.

[burneraccount12]

I don't follow.

If we apply degrees of severity, urgency and closeness to the two problems the use of pronouns on programming websites does not rank as severe or urgent relative to...almost anything else in the universe.

But please, spend more energy arguing this point -- definitely a productive use of everyone's time, complaining about pronoun implementation.

[thereare5lights]

It's pretty clear you don't want to follow. The point is quite clear. This is a subjective issue. Your ordering of what problems should be tackled first is not likely going to be the same as anyone else's.

To someone else, this may be a the most prioritized problem for any range of reasons from being the most important or being the one that they can make the most progress on at the moment.

But please, continue to hide behind burner accounts and spend more energy arguing this point -- definitely a productive use of everyone's time, complaining about which problems other people focus on.

[burneraccount12]

LOL, OK. You go ahead and make how we use pronouns on software Q&A websites "the most prioritized problem" right now -- definitely makes sense.

Women face real harassment in the tech every day, I see it firsthand.

If you're LGBTQ it's even worse.

But you know what? Let's not focus our energy on solving those kind of real-world problems. You're right. Definitely let's spend weeks writing long-winded blog posts arguing about pronouns.

You've demonstrably made the world a better place.

[gdy]

"Talk about 15 minutes of my life I'll never have back."

And yet you had decided to waste more precious minutes to write that comment.