[ShredKazoo]

I'm not entirely sure how to parse your comment.

Did you notice this section?

>Equity-language guides are proliferating among some of the country’s leading institutions, particularly nonprofits. The American Cancer Society has one. So do the American Heart Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the National Recreation and Park Association, the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, and the University of Washington.

>....

>Public criticism led Stanford to abolish outright its Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative—not for being ridiculous, but, the university announced, for being “broadly viewed as counter to inclusivity.”

Even if no one is arguing back, it seems like the language police are winning.

[DubiousPusher]

I would ask you to consider where the mass of everyday people get their information. Consider the edifices from which actual powers spring.

Now read that list again and see if it seems important.

[ShredKazoo]

Fair point, but on the other hand, if language policing leads the American Medical Association to make decisions which decrease the quality of medical care, I'm not enthusiastic about that. The relative importance of the opinions of everyday people vs these associations is not obvious.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35006303

Re: "the edifices from which actual powers spring" -- if you want a high-paying job as a doctor, maybe you'll be best served by adopting their language guidelines. I could see the trend spreading through the general population because playing the language game becomes the best way to achieve "actual powers".

[DubiousPusher]

I think the thing much more likely to shorten people's lives than their doctor not being able to speak frankly because of woke vocabulary, is not having a house. I'm not even talking about the homeless here. The Atlantic should be running an article every day extolling the virtues of home building and questioning the morals of a country which fails to shelter even working people. Rather than pouring over the editorial policy of wonkish publications, they should be lambasting every state legislature that so far has done nothing to ensure there are enough houses.

I think that far worse for democracy than woke grammarians ratioing you on Twitter, is the rise of a surveillance state which previously couldn't exist but is now totally enabled because of AI automation. Obama firmly planted mass surveillance into and "acceptable" "legal" framework. We have learned little of what this apparatus can do operationally since the Snowden leaks which were before the deep learning stuff really exploded. The Atlantic should be questioning every day the moral fiber of a supposedly open and democratic society which has a shadow supreme court and an entire secret apparatus.

What I'm willing to bet has a far greater impact on people's ability to control their employment future and therefore their own autonomy far more than the possibility of getting fired for accidentally saying "gimp" during the next inclusivity training? The breakdown of organized labor and growing inequality. The Atlantic should be railing every day about the fact that sub-living wages and make workers desperately dependant upon their employer and less able to exercise their democratic rights.

But if you write for the Atlantic, you have friends in CIA. Your kids go to daycare with the kids of several corporate VPs. You don't know anyone that cleans rooms 10 hours a day and lives in a Super 8 for lack of permanent affordable housing. Writing about those things is actually controversial. It's actually risky. So instead, you turn inward.

This country's elite media appear to me to have totally lost any grip on reality. There is some fantastical disconnect from what actually impacts people. Instead they only see and obsess about what impacts them. They have gazed so far into their own naval that they are instead playing this Alternate Reality Game, chasing phantoms and navigating mind mazes.

[ShredKazoo]

The "this topic is less-than-maximally-important" critique applies to pretty much every story on the HN homepage.

[DubiousPusher]

My critique is not that this topic has shown up "a time or two" on the HN frontpage. And to be perfectly frank, I think you know that. My critique is that this topic shows up constantly on the HN frontpage. And more broadly, it claims a level of coverage far out of proportion to its impact on almost anything.

[peyton]

Surprisingly, a lot more people struggle to understand their doctor than you’d think. It’s a big problem.

I’d bet there are way more people shortening their lives by mismanaging diabetes than by not having a house.