This kind of initiative lacks a core understanding of the requirements for thinking and intelligence in general, and by its nature of compulsion is subversive.
In order to think, you must risk being offensive, in order to learn you must risk being offended. In either case, you must have the freedom to do either, and compulsion is evil.
By compelling speech like that, you are indoctrinating future generations, and doing so along a path where they will be at a disadvantage and won't think because they have been brought up in an environment where the priority given is that it is more important to say the politically correct/right thing than it is to risk being offensive or do anything. If you can't question anything, can you even form a basis for real thought?
Do you have any value as a person if all you do is parrot what someone else says?
Not only that, but it also shares some of the same philosophy that lead to the deaths under Mao.
This makes me fear for the future because Stanford people are supposed to be intelligent, and yet this is just so utterly... stupid, borderline brainwashing, and it likely violates core institutional mandates/ethos.
That this is even getting any traction, you have to wonder wtf is going on up there. Clearly someone, more likely many need to be fired. Unbelievable.
And these people will not only be the leaders of tomorrow but also the ones that control worldwide communications from their offices in Silicon Valley. They will shape the entire world.
I actually know the history of the word retarded as applied to children with developmental delays. Around 1960 clinicians started using the word to label children with delays. And it took about 3 years for children to start using it as an insult.
The bad thing is what these people are doing isn't depriving the English language of a slur. They're actually turning words into a slurs. And depriving the language of words with perfectly innocuous meanings.
I think most people are fine with a style guide discouraging "retards". That's not the issue here at all, and I'm really surprised that you think this is what people are objecting to. Do you really believe this is the problem?
On the other hand, a style guide discouraging "users" or "master" is a problem, especially for a school that offers Masters of Science degrees -- how exactly is their website supposed to cover that? How are software usage guides supposed to be posted online if "user" is not allowed? Or "submit"?
People turn to the web for information and need to be able to obtain this information. Stanford should understand this.
In order to think, you must risk being offensive, in order to learn you must risk being offended. In either case, you must have the freedom to do either, and compulsion is evil.
By compelling speech like that, you are indoctrinating future generations, and doing so along a path where they will be at a disadvantage and won't think because they have been brought up in an environment where the priority given is that it is more important to say the politically correct/right thing than it is to risk being offensive or do anything. If you can't question anything, can you even form a basis for real thought?
Do you have any value as a person if all you do is parrot what someone else says?
Not only that, but it also shares some of the same philosophy that lead to the deaths under Mao.
This makes me fear for the future because Stanford people are supposed to be intelligent, and yet this is just so utterly... stupid, borderline brainwashing, and it likely violates core institutional mandates/ethos.
That this is even getting any traction, you have to wonder wtf is going on up there. Clearly someone, more likely many need to be fired. Unbelievable.