The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
This administration is using 1984 as a how-to manual.
replies(7):
This administration is using 1984 as a how-to manual.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article1298372...
Banning "fetus" and "transgender" is completely indefensible as they're fairly neutral words with no obvious replacement. But for the rest, imagine that rather than a ban this was a style guide recommending against certain words. The common theme in the rest of them is that they don't convey much useful information but have a strong emotional charge.
You don't need to say something is evidence-based, just show the evidence. Coming right out and saying your position is evidence-based just sounds like a way to shut down any objections, even reasoned discussion, by casting the other side as being against science, evidence, or facts in general. This is similar for science-based, vulnerable, and diversity. If you're seen as being "anti-diversity" your argument doesn't matter because you're a misogynistic racist xenophobe.
Entitlements is charged term because you've cemented your position on social welfare pretty clearly just by referring to them as entitlements. It's not quite as bad as Derry/Londonderry , but it's certainly not neutral.
I don't think any of these words should be banned, but I do think it would be reasonable for government agencies to use neutral language and fully explain their thoughts rather than using emotionally charged buzzwords.
No, "evidence-based medicine" is a term of art. Maybe you could argue that it took too generic of a name, but that's the word we have. From Wikipedia:
"Although all medicine based on science has some degree of empirical support, EBM goes further, classifying evidence by its epistemologic strength and requiring that only the strongest types (coming from meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and randomized controlled trials) can yield strong recommendations; weaker types (such as from case-control studies) can yield only weak recommendations."
Let's be clear: The political right in the US pretends to care about free speech until they get serious political power.
It wasn't too long ago that conservatives were strongly against the depiction of violence and sex in video games.
Undoing Net Neutrality is a clear sign of this. It will hurt startups that try and compete in the spaces that Google/Netflix/Spotify occupy before it really hurts consumers. NN cements the current leaders in their position as they can pay the tolls and blocking them would be mass outrage. But gives very little room for a newcomer to compete.
There's always "transexual", the older word for exactly the same concept.
Fuck, rat bastard, and many other words may not be appropriate for use either. We don’t start surgically censoring non-elected, non-party affiliated, government staff for theoretical transgressions.
Let’s be evidenced based (sorry), and ask how many times in the past this approach would have helped a CDC situation? At least, a situation that does not divide along political lines.
Frankly, I'd love to know what is the best defense technique for the scenario I outlined. Any ideas?
Instead, I'm going to continue to be part of the silent majority that supports him, but doesn't speak out because we are often falsely labeled as deplorables or worse.
Edit: people like me are what you get when society stifles free speech: unwilling to engage and so continuing in our beliefs silently. maybe you coastal elitists should stop shaming people for having different opinions and mental models of how the world works.
And if you dummies think that speech isn't being stifled, look no further than James Demore being fired for trying to figure out root cause analysis of why there aren't more women in tech
Edit 2: someone is going through my post history and downvoting. Good job, ladies, you're proving my point.
Edit 3: and now I'm not allowed to respond to people because I'm posting "too fast". Great.
That budget is one of the more elaborate charades in Washington. Congress controls the budget by passing laws allocating funds to departments. The President can't not spend money allocated to those departments. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of the budget goes to stuff that is effectively non-discretionary; for instance, to Medicare and Social Security entitlements spending.
Banning words, and these words in particular, is batshit. I'm probably not alarming many people on HN when I say this is a batshit administration.
But this is about the words the administration is soliciting from a department for an elaborate marketing document. Someone tell me why, apart from the principles and precedents of it all, any of this matters?
The reason to ban them from using the word is because you do not like what they say when they do talk about it.
Also, "majority"? He lost the popular vote and I believe he has the lowest 1-year approval rating of any modern President? What majority are you referring to?
It's also worth mentioning that the question GP is asking isn't really "how can people support the administration", as there's many, many answers to it. The real question is "how can people support this?".
And frankly, enlighten me. Do you support this?
Edit: I should also remind you that Trump is not supported by a "silent majority". Quite the opposite: Trump is supported and was elected by a vocal minority. His approval rating today is the lowest it's ever been according to 538's aggregations. It's time americans get their head out of the sand on this topic.
Do I agree with this personally? I dont know. It's probably better to offer a style guide for reasons other comments have already covered.
Obama spent ever day of his tenure at war and bombing people with drones. Bill Clinton was very anti-immigration. Web and Rupert revealed how the CIA was funneling cocaine into the US from South and Central America.
This has been happening a long time. President Twitter's idiocy is just batshit insane enough that people yell about it now, but it's all there to make us angry and mad at one another. This is just another thing to make us angry. We are in the 24/7 hate.
Linguistics is important, words are important and there is a culture war happening around words politically from both left and right. The left has been far more aggressive, but the last year the right has been doing the same. Diversity, feminism, multiculturalism, globalism, transgenderism have now turned from something neutral/positive to something negative now and synonymous with a negative connotation.
That being said, I'll wait and see why the CDC is doing this. The only word that seems glaringly alarming to me is fetus. Pro or anti-abortion, being able to describe a fetus is mandatory and excluding that might force the CDC to not discuss that aspect with as much detail or even a more nefarious purpose.
Transfenderism is something the left has completely banned any debate about and the right have coined with mockery and derision. Gender dysphoria may be a better word to use, but I wouldn't know because of the extremely politically charged environment. This is also pushing an agenda, but might be the correct term, at least historically in the medical sense, but I'm almost certain it's still pushing down political agenda even if transgenderism is not the correct term to use.
Entitlement, evidence and science based don't make sense to me. Maybe it's too vague sounding and leads to credibility to the layman when there is little? I guess you could make anything sound factually true by using those words but it doesn't make sense why they'd exclude them.
Basically, freedom of speech isn't a left or right issue. Both are guilty and we as Americans should call out any bullshit on both sides because it's a very, very dangerous, slippery slope and I'm glad tbere's an uproar rightfully for this
Some words are good.
Some words are bad.
If maneesh's or your point is that you somehow cannot be against this without also being hypocritical, please check your assumptions. "You're likely doing it yourself" is complete bs.
I think you're too absolute there. Certainly many people can talk about mental illness and the mentally ill without hateful intent.
This particular issue gets very murky with the CDC and official documentation designed to inform the public.
There are some FCC standards around TV programming before prime time and safe harbour laws, but in general the reason we don't see tits and hear 'fuck' is more to do with the industry than the government.
Like you, I feel I might not understand this in its entirety, but I think the answer is...face saving. It’s counterintuitive but I believe these words are being banned from the budget to allow both parties to pass a maximum CDC budget which may be controversial politically for the GOP to pass and they might otherwise not support.
For example, if these words were not censored than you would have an electorate/media (more importantly tea party/primary opponents) that would be able to point at the elected GOP and question why they would pass a budget that includes research for transgender issues, research on fetuses, supporting science based research (rather than faith based), etc...
My understanding is the money would still be allocated and budgeted to support all the same issues (which is good). If my interpretation is correct, it might not be so far off from a budget to combat extreme Islam (drones, intelligence, secret courts, etc...) but censoring that phrase publicly because it allows some face saving for political purpose.
>Obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment and broadcasters are prohibited, by statute and regulation, from airing obscene programming at any time.
>The safe harbor refers to the time period between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., local time. During this time period, a station may air indecent and/or profane material. In contrast, there is no safe harbor for the broadcast of obscene material. Obscene material is entitled to no First Amendment protection, and may not be broadcast at any time.
To your point:
>Are there certain words that are always unlawful? No.
https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/guides/obscenity-indece...
Because there is a real danger of it spreading to other documents.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article1298372...
Its a slippery slope we've seen at the state level.
Also, 7 words[1]. Not 6, not 8. It could be coincidence but I really feel like we’re being trolled.
This isn't the first time it's happened. The Dickey Amendment in 1996 forced the CDC to stop research on gun-related injuries because the NRA was upset.
On top of that it's another level of bullshit that distracts you from all the other terrible things the US government is currently doing. "They are censoring words???" - mean while the worst tax reform in US history is being passed to increase inequality to revolutionary levels.
To be clear, Trump lost the popular vote (which is conducted with closed ballots so the silent majority can voice their opinion); and by all available measures has gotten less popular since then.
>And if you dummies think that speech isn't being stifled, look no further than James Demore being fired for trying to figure out root cause analysis of why there aren't more women in tech
Were you around HN when this happened. In my reccolection, there was a significant portion of HN that disagreed with the firing; and even many of those who defended the firing argued not that Damore was wrong, but that the PR against him justified the firing.
I am certain that my comments against the firing were well received (eg. upvoted) here.
Having said that, you are certainly correct that the left has its own anti-intellectual movement. It just hasn't penetrated into the political party as badly as it has on the right.
For example - some people view borders as an institutional immorality. Nancy Pelosi has said that America goes from the 'Rocky Mountains down the Andes' and Hillary Clinton as openly called for a borderless North American society.
This represents an absolute and fundamental shift in view of citizenry, nationalism and identity.
Such views should be allowed in America surely - but should we allow people with 'extremist' agendas to integrate them subtly into our government documents etc.?
Those words are banned because they might be used to further a specific political agenda.
One could argue it's 'defence' instead of 'offence'.
Anyhow - I don't like it and I don't want to defend Trump ... but I do prefer efforts to keep things generally neutral.
"none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control"[2]
[1]https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/12/why-we-cant-tr... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment_(1996)
2. Why are you saying something patently false about 538? They gave Trump the highest chances to win across most polls pre-election. They wrote several articles about how Trump could still win despite the polls.
3. Why are you equating election predictive polling with aggregation of approval ratings?
4. What's with your hostile tone?
You're a very unpleasant man, aren't you, calling people "you dummies", being overtly aggressive and playing the victim? Maybe it's time for you to face that you're being downvoted not because you "have different opinions and mental models of how the world work", but simply because you're a nasty person. After all, you haven't actually expressed any opinion yet, and you're still being downvoted, so it can't be because of your opinions.
Here's something for you to think about: I have different opinions and mental models of how the world works. I often enough say controversial shit, and yet I manage to do so mostly without getting flagged. Clearly, your approach is wrong.
538 gave Trump a ~30% chance of winning, where virtually all other outlets (Princeton, NYT, HuffPo, etc.) were giving him a 1-5%. They appear to have had the best handle on Trump's chances.
Actually, 538 was pointing out why other poll-based predictors were overrating her likelihood of winning (because, unlike 538 and contrary to historical evidence, thet were largely assuming deviation from polling averages in the election would be independent between different states rather than correlated.)
Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh and Jay Rockefeller were all Democrats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Entertainment_Protectio...
SS and Medicare and the buy-in attached to them is what the term “entitlements” (in terms of government programs) was coined to refer to.
Later, Republican opponents of those programs started using the term for general welfare programs in order to attach negative emotional loading to it and discredit SS and Medicare by association.
I've observed that face saving behavior at all levels of society in America, but very few instances of people willing to point it out or discuss it, except sometimes to accuse people of 'covering up bad behavior'.
When you visit someone's house and they serve you food and ask if you liked it, unhesitatingly saying 'yes' is face saving and also just simple good manners.
When your boss makes a bad decision but you don't call them out in the next team meeting, and instead first bring it up in private, that is face saving. You're trying to avoid openly embarrassing someone and reducing their social standing.
In this case, face-saving just makes sense -- let's get a budget deal passed (which is in everyone's best interests), and then mollify the crazies in the base who refuse to see it that way.
I guess pointing out face-saving in the US is itself potentially embarrassing, because it implies that person might actually be worried about their social standing, which can itself negatively affect their social standing?
In the 1970s, certain non-scientific branches of academia invented an entirely new concept and attached the label "gender" to it. The concept was that the way one presents themselves in society is "gender". This historically has never been the meaning of gender. The public at large continued to use gender in the original meaning (as you will see with official forms asking for 'gender'. If they asked for 'sex', people would add a box with "yes please" on it and tick it).
In the 2010s this new meaning of gender leaked out of academic circles and into the general vernacular. But it is a concept that is entirely the invention of left-leaning academics, cross citing each other repeatedly in echo chamber journals.
You say there is "great variety in both", but this is not true. There is great variety in "gender as a social construct", that is, the cosmetic way people dress, do their hair etc. But there is not great variety in "sex and I don't mean fucking". Disorders of sex development (DSDs) are extremely rare and do not constitute a new sex and are recognised medically as disorders. For example, XXYY occurs in 1 in 18,000 to 40,000 male births. XXXXY occurs in 1 in 85,000 to 100,000 male births. Compare that to the "normal" male sex characteristics, or the "normal" female sex characteristics, that each occur in about 1 in 2 births.
People erroneously make the claim that other conditions, like triple X syndrome, constitute a DSD (occurs in 1 in 1000 females), but because it causes no health issues or abnormal development it is not considered a DSD by the medical community. The DSD Guideline documents [http://www.dsdguidelines.org] are a trustworthy source of information and definitions.
They're not, but the Trump administration has been allowed to get to where it is through the abuse of an increasingly broken system.
Every administration puts policies into place that will last longer than the administration itself. For every administration you trust, that enables potential abuse, you have to ask yourself "Maybe I trust the current administration, but what about the next one?".
This is a point that I, and many others, tried to make during the Obama era. Unfortunately, few listened. Politicians themselves didn't care. Obama did a lot of wonderful things for the US, but he also centralized a lot of power into the White House, and look how that's turning out.
People are so easily tricked into believing the government forever has their best interest at heart, as long as the current person "in charge" is affiliated with their party. Democrats, in years past, enabled today's abuses of power. Republicans today, enabling the abuses of power for the years to come. It's as if the majority of voting citizens have zero ability to predict consequences.
djsumdog is right, the system has been broken for a long time. America is just coming to terms with the cultural shock of seeing it all play out at high speed instead of it being a slow boil. I am optimistic however, that this shock will end up being the wake-up call the US needed to start seriously fixing itself, so hope is not lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender#Etymology_and_usage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gender%2Csex&c...
This may already be a lost battle, but "entitlement" is a policy term of art with absolutely no negative connotations. It simply refers to any government benefit that a person or entity is guaranteed to receive if they meet a certain set of criteria (i.e. falling under a certain income, under or over a particular age, being a citizen, etc.). This is as opposed to grant programs (limited benefits dispensed according to an assessment of merit), lotteries (limited benefits distributed at random), first-come-first-serve, etc.
"The "male-or-female sex" sense is attested in English from early 15c."
So 15th century, not 17th.
"As sex (n.) took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be the usual English word for "sex of a human being," in which use it was at first regarded as colloquial or humorous. Later often in feminist writing with reference to social attributes as much as biological qualities; this sense first attested 1963. Gender-bender is from 1977, popularized from 1980, with reference to pop star David Bowie."
And from your own wikipedia links (which I'm assuming didn't fully read)
"In the last two decades of the 20th century, the use of gender in academia has increased greatly, outnumbering uses of sex in the social sciences. While the spread of the word in science publications can be attributed to the influence of feminism, its use as a synonym for sex is attributed to the failure to grasp the distinction made in feminist theory, and the distinction has sometimes become blurred with the theory itself; David Haig stated, "Among the reasons that working scientists have given me for choosing gender rather than sex in biological contexts are desires to signal sympathy with feminist goals, to use a more academic term, or to avoid the connotation of copulation."[2]"
Which is exactly what I said.
While I agree that some scientists are in a kind of echo-chamber, casually accusing everyone who does research involving gender (the social aspect) as politically motivated is uncalled for.
Actually, “gender” historically referred to a feature of grammar, gender for an ascribed social role in the modern sense (sometimes disambiguated as “ascribed gender”) dates from 1955 by John Money. “Gender identity”, which refers to self-perceived association with a gender role dates from the 1960s; both took off in the 1970s. (And I know from personal experience were in wide use when I was a teenager in the 1980s; they certainly didn't enter the popular lexicon in the 2010s.)
“Gender” being applied to humans or other animals in a way equivalent to “sex” actually became popular in modern use later (though it originated earlier), in the 1980s (driven largely by various organizations becoming squeamish about using the word “sex” and seeking an alternative.)
> But there is not great variety in "sex and I don't mean fucking"
Yes, there is; there are lots of biological sex traits, and while there are two modal clusters, there's considerable variation lying outside of them.
Yes, there's a fairly small number of possible configurations of sex chromosomes, but there are sex-related genetic differences at lower levels than whether a chromosome is an X or Y and how many of each are present, and moreover genetics in any case are causal or contributory factors to traits (sex or otherwise), but not themselves the only biological traits of interest (or even usually traits of particular interest except insofar as their contribution to phenotype.)
(And there appears to be a link between the complexity of biological sex and gender identity, because there's research showing that there are particular ways where transgender individuals tend to be more likely to fall outside the two main clusters of how biological sex traits align.)
Neither of these are good options, but if I were president, I would view my primary job as keeping the government well functioning. Without congress doing there job, this means increasing the scope of the executive branch.
The result is that the CDC now believes any gun violence research to be likely to result in political reprisal against them come budget time.[1]
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/...
Yes, of course, it's not a government agency policy. It is a university policy, corporate policy, industry policy, media policy, and so on, and so forth. But it's in no way unprecedented to have those, and I'm not sure what's the big difference here - the policy in question applies to the workers of the agency, just as university policy would apply to the workers of the university.
Obama administration chose not to use words like "radical Islam", "war on terror", "jihadi" and others that were not aligned with their political goals. He also banned words like "Eskimo" and "Aleut" from appearing in federal laws[1], since they are not considered acceptable anymore. Trump administration, of course, has its own policies, but the practice of telling government workers which words they can and can't use is certainly not new.
[1] https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2016/05/23/obama-signs-measu...
That's not referring to its use in academia, that's its use in the general population, which was "at first regarded as colloquial or humorous".
You can also take a look at the Google N-Gram viewer link I posted, which quantifies its use within general publications. Before the 1960s, it barely appeared, and then its use shot up to rival "sex".
You may be putting too much credence in the hysterical propaganda that sometimes passes as “news”.
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.as...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dickey-amendment-gun-vi...
The firearms industry wields a great deal of power in Washington through its lobbying and advocacy organization, the NRA.
Not far above that comment is the following:
Pretty much everyone who is not part of the elite ruling class is influenced by the Dunning–Kruger effect. We all think we have it figured out, and that there's no way they could pull the wool over my eyes like they do to those rubes, and don't realize that we are those rubes.
If you can't control yourself we're going to ban you, not because of your views but simply because you didn't control yourself. Please control yourself.
It might help to re-read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I was just posturing on possible reasons for this insanity and that's the best I could come up with which is why I call this BS and completely unacceptable. If anyone had any doubts that this is a "libtard conspiracy" or whatever they say these days, then I outlined possible reasons to support this and then hopefully emphatically repudiated that.
You might be thinking of Hilary Clinton?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Entertainment_Protect...
I have studied history and economics though, and typically you wouldn't want inequality to grow too far unless you want a violent redistribution of wealth. Considering America was already collectively crazy enough to elect Trump, I'd hate to see what happens when things get even worse.
Assuming this is accurate, we should contact the Nobel Prize committee, because clearly the Trump administration has figured out how to make viruses and bacteria also take "community standards and wishes" into account.
"Liberal snowflakes on college campuses need safe spaces, what babies! Haha"
Today:
"Hey, so don't use these words specifically, it may upset some people"
The bald-faced hypocrisy is staggering, not surprising, yet still it makes me trip.
U.S. diverging income inequality trajectory https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBGK...
Western Europe diverging income inequality trajectory https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBGK...
Full article. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/this-is-what-happene...
Their model gave Trump a dramatically higher chance than other poll aggregators for a variety of reasons (detailed at http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-why-our-...) and #4 there (correlated polling errors between states) wound up being very significant.
Now, you're right that we can't perfectly determine if 99% or 70% (or something else entirely) was Hillary's actual chance of winning. We can, however, look at the assumptions made by each model and evaluate those on their merits.
I find it interesting from my perspective as long time military guy where in the military subculture honesty is highly valued and kindness is not (it is just rolled into respect or otherwise ignored in favor of other virtues).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoring_rule#Proper_scoring_ru...
There was no ban coming from the administration, but a strategy coming from inside CDC to avoid these words so that their proposals would go more smoothly with Republican congressmen.