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534 points BlueFalconHD | 117 comments | | HN request time: 1.596s | source | bottom

I managed to reverse engineer the encryption (refered to as “Obfuscation” in the framework) responsible for managing the safety filters of Apple Intelligence models. I have extracted them into a repository. I encourage you to take a look around.
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trebligdivad ◴[] No.44483981[source]
Some of the combinations are a bit weird, This one has lots of stuff avoiding death....together with a set ensuring all the Apple brands have the correct capitalisation. Priorities hey!

https://github.com/BlueFalconHD/apple_generative_model_safet...

replies(11): >>44483999 #>>44484073 #>>44484095 #>>44484410 #>>44484636 #>>44486072 #>>44487916 #>>44488185 #>>44488279 #>>44488362 #>>44488856 #
grues-dinner ◴[] No.44484073[source]
Interesting that it didn't seem to include "unalive".

Which as a phenomenon is so very telling that no one actually cares what people are really saying. Everyone, including the platforms knows what that means. It's all performative.

replies(11): >>44484164 #>>44484360 #>>44484635 #>>44484665 #>>44485033 #>>44485034 #>>44486246 #>>44487244 #>>44488055 #>>44488114 #>>44500918 #
1. qingcharles ◴[] No.44484164[source]
It's totally performative. There's no way to stay ahead of the new language that people create.

At what point do the new words become the actual words? Are there many instances of people using unalive IRL?

replies(17): >>44484171 #>>44484218 #>>44484614 #>>44484958 #>>44484970 #>>44484989 #>>44485202 #>>44485277 #>>44485309 #>>44486128 #>>44486394 #>>44487625 #>>44487839 #>>44487936 #>>44488097 #>>44488704 #>>44493436 #
2. freeone3000 ◴[] No.44484171[source]
It depends on if you think that something is less real because it’s transmitted digitally.
replies(1): >>44484259 #
3. fouronnes3 ◴[] No.44484218[source]
This question is sort of the same as asking why the universal translator wasn't able to translate the metaphor language of the Star Trek episode Darmok. Surely if the metaphor has become the first order meaning then there's no litteral meaning anymore.
replies(2): >>44484280 #>>44485002 #
4. qingcharles ◴[] No.44484259[source]
No, I'm only thinking that we're not permitted in a lot of digital spaces to use the banned words (e.g. suicide), but IRL doesn't generally have those limits. Is there a point where we use the censored word so much that it spills over into the real world?
replies(2): >>44484941 #>>44484966 #
5. qingcharles ◴[] No.44484280[source]
I guess, so far, the people inventing the words have left the meaning clear with things like "un-alive" which is readable even to someone coming across it for the first time.

Your point stands when we start replacing the banned words with things like "suicide" for "donkeyrhubarb" and then the walls really will fall.

replies(3): >>44484518 #>>44484885 #>>44485791 #
6. userbinator ◴[] No.44484518{3}[source]
This form of obfuscation has actually already occurred over a century ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney_rhyming_slang
replies(3): >>44485043 #>>44487942 #>>44496850 #
7. cheschire ◴[] No.44484614[source]
If only we had a way to mass process the words people write to each other, derive context from those words, and then identify new slang designed to bypass filters…
8. mananaysiempre ◴[] No.44484885{3}[source]
Aquatic product[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censor...

replies(1): >>44484935 #
9. immibis ◴[] No.44484935{4}[source]
An English equivalent is "sewer slide".
10. immibis ◴[] No.44484941{3}[source]
Is this not essentially the same effect as saying "lol" out loud?
11. apricot ◴[] No.44484958[source]
> Are there many instances of people using unalive IRL

As a parent of a teenager, I see them use "unalive" non-ironically as a synonym for "suicide" in all contexts, including IRL.

replies(3): >>44485810 #>>44487880 #>>44488824 #
12. eastbound ◴[] No.44484966{3}[source]
People use “lol” IRL, as long as “IRL”, “aps” in French (misspelling of “pas”), but it’s just slang; “unalive” has potential to make it in the news where anchors don’t want to use curse words.
13. Terr_ ◴[] No.44484970[source]
> There's no way to stay ahead of the new language that people create.

I'm imagining a new exploit: After someone says something totally innocent, people gang up in the comments to act like a terrible vicious slur has been said, and then the moderation system (with an LLM involved somewhere) "learns" that an arbitrary term is heinous eand indirectly bans any discussion of that topic.

replies(5): >>44485038 #>>44485110 #>>44485356 #>>44486827 #>>44486843 #
14. BurningFrog ◴[] No.44484989[source]
A specialized AI could do it as well as any human.

The future will be AIs all the way down...

15. tjwebbnorfolk ◴[] No.44485002[source]
The only reason kids started using "unalive" is to get around Youtube filters that disallow the use of the word "kill"
replies(1): >>44489056 #
16. cyanydeez ◴[] No.44485038[source]
you mean become 4chan?
17. t-3 ◴[] No.44485043{4}[source]
Rhyming slang rhymes tho. The recipient can understand what's meant by de-obfuscating in-context. Random strings substituted for $proscribed_word don't work in the same way.
replies(1): >>44485127 #
18. Waterluvian ◴[] No.44485110[source]
Hey I was pro-skub waaaay before all the anti-skub people switched sides.
replies(2): >>44485315 #>>44485651 #
19. waterproof ◴[] No.44485127{5}[source]
In Cockney rhyming slang, the rhyming word (which would be easy to reverse engineer) is omitted. So if "stairs" is rhyme-paired with "apples and pears" and then people just use the word "apples" in place of "stairs". "Pears" is omitted in common use so you can't just reverse the rhyme.

The example photo on Wikipedia includes the rhyming words but that's not how it would be used IRL.

20. derefr ◴[] No.44485202[source]
> At what point do the new words become the actual words?

Presumably, for this use-case, that would come at exactly the point where using “unalive” as a keyword in an image-generation prompt generates an image that Apple wouldn’t appreciate.

21. montagg ◴[] No.44485277[source]
They become the “real words” later. This is the way all trust & safety works. It’s an evolution over time. Adding some friction does improve things, but some people will always try to get around the filters. Doesn’t mean it’s simply performative or one shouldn’t try.
replies(1): >>44487603 #
22. Rebelgecko ◴[] No.44485309[source]
This is somewhat related to the concept of the "euphemism treadmill":

the matter-of-fact term of today becomes the pejorative of tomorrow so a new term is invented to avoid the negative connotation of the original term. Then eventually the new term becomes a pejorative and the cycle continues.

replies(2): >>44488172 #>>44492807 #
23. SV_BubbleTime ◴[] No.44485315{3}[source]
How dare you use that word. My parents died in the Eastasin Civil war so that I could live freely without you people calling us that.
24. tbrownaw ◴[] No.44485356[source]
I'm pretty sure this can work human moderators rather than an LLM, too.
replies(1): >>44485473 #
25. pyman ◴[] No.44485473{3}[source]
Most of the human moderators hired by OpenAI to train LLMs, many of them based in Africa and South America, were exposed to disturbing content and have been deeply affected by it.

Karen Hao interviewed many of them in her latest bestselling book, which explores the human cost behind the OpenAI boom:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222725518-empire-of-ai

26. thehappypm ◴[] No.44485651{3}[source]
Skub is a real slur tho so that one doesn’t work
replies(3): >>44485766 #>>44486057 #>>44486483 #
27. osn9363739 ◴[] No.44485766{4}[source]
Isn't that a reference to a 10 or 20 year old web comic?
replies(1): >>44486254 #
28. marcus_holmes ◴[] No.44485791{3}[source]
I've heard "pr0n" used in actual real-world conversation, only slightly ironically.
29. kulahan ◴[] No.44485810[source]
Well that’s sad. They can’t even face the word?
replies(3): >>44485967 #>>44486546 #>>44487741 #
30. kevinventullo ◴[] No.44485967{3}[source]
It’s not about whether they can face it. The younger generations are more in tune with mental health and topics like suicide than any previous generation. The etymology of the euphemism was about avoiding online censorship, while its “IRL” usage was merely absorbed through familiarity from the online usage.
replies(4): >>44486136 #>>44486487 #>>44487563 #>>44488067 #
31. sitharus ◴[] No.44486057{4}[source]
No it isn’t, it’s a reference to a Perry Bible Fellowship comic https://pbfcomics.com/comics/skub/

(This one is sfw, not all of the comics are)

Even urban dictionary doesn’t contain a definition for skub as a slur.

replies(2): >>44487375 #>>44487606 #
32. nicoburns ◴[] No.44486128[source]
> Are there many instances of people using unalive IRL?

In my experience yes. This is already commonplace. Mostly, but not exclusively, amongst the younger generation.

replies(1): >>44488635 #
33. mcny ◴[] No.44486136{4}[source]
But unalive self is suicide and unalive is just death, right? For example, You can unalive other people against their will...
replies(2): >>44488518 #>>44500464 #
34. heavyset_go ◴[] No.44486254{5}[source]
The latter, we're old.
35. joquarky ◴[] No.44486394[source]
I feel like we can call our society mature when we no longer need safety alignment in AI.
replies(1): >>44486457 #
36. scarface_74 ◴[] No.44486457[source]
You never tried some of the earlier pre-aligned chatbots. Some of the early ones would go off on racist, homophobic rants from the most innocent conversations without any explicit prompting. If you train on all the data on the internet, you have to have some type of alignment.
replies(1): >>44486488 #
37. stirfish ◴[] No.44486483{4}[source]
Stop saying it! You're making it worse!
38. labster ◴[] No.44486487{4}[source]
The damaged interpret internet censorship and route around it.
39. decremental ◴[] No.44486488{3}[source]
You say that as if it stands as truth on its own. We actually don't need to filter out how people actually talk and think. Otherwise you just end up with yet another enforcer against wrong-think. I wonder if you even think that deeply about it or if you're just wired at this point to conform.
replies(2): >>44487497 #>>44489427 #
40. apricot ◴[] No.44486546{3}[source]
I think it's just the term they immediately associate with the idea. They see "unalive" more than "suicide" online, so it becomes their default word for it. The fact that it originates in automated censorship avoidance is irrelevant.
41. SXX ◴[] No.44486827[source]
It's not like this unique to LLMs either. By some little trolling on internet you easily can turn hand "OK gesture" into a hate symbol of white supermacy. And fools will fall for it.
replies(4): >>44487124 #>>44488042 #>>44488942 #>>44488953 #
42. grues-dinner ◴[] No.44486843[source]
The first half of that already happened with the OK gesture: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-49837898.

Though it would be fun to see what happens if an LLM if used to ban anything that tends to generate heated exchanges. It would presumably learn to ban racial terms, politics and politicians and words like "immigrant" (i.e. basically the list in this repo), but what else could it be persuaded to ban? Vim and Emacs? SystemD? Anything involving cyclists? Parenting advice?

replies(3): >>44487593 #>>44488628 #>>44488746 #
43. overfeed ◴[] No.44487124{3}[source]
...and then the bigots will fall for it too, and start using it in earnest, completing the cycle.
replies(1): >>44488051 #
44. Intermernet ◴[] No.44487375{5}[source]
I added one. It's under review. It's very self referential.
45. rootsudo ◴[] No.44487563{4}[source]
It's not about being intune, it's that their narrative is shaped by the filters implemented by online interactions.

Online env ban the word suicide. No one uses it. unalive is not banned. Discussion is the same, word or no word.

Vernacular 101.

46. immibis ◴[] No.44487593{3}[source]
People weren't using the OK gesture innocently. After 4chan trolls decided to start pretending it was a white supremacist symbol, actual white supremacists started using it as a symbol.
replies(2): >>44488027 #>>44488626 #
47. immibis ◴[] No.44487603[source]
Why do you think that AI pretending things like suicide don't happen (and that nothing is happening in Palestine) is an improvement?
48. jcynix ◴[] No.44487606{5}[source]
>Even urban dictionary doesn’t contain a definition for skub as a slur.

What about this then: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/skub

replies(1): >>44488182 #
49. girvo ◴[] No.44487625[source]
My Gen Z coworkers use it IRL, for what that’s worth!
50. animuchan ◴[] No.44487741{3}[source]
It's getting blocked / shadow banned / demonetized on sites like YouTube, so naturally all commentary starts using a synonym.

Unalive is one of the popular ones, but it's a whole vocabulary at this point. Guess what "PDF file" stands for.

replies(1): >>44487854 #
51. bravesoul2 ◴[] No.44487839[source]
There is one way: machine learning!
52. fragmede ◴[] No.44487854{4}[source]
pedophile
53. ErrorNoBrain ◴[] No.44487880[source]
If your teenager often talks about suicide, there could be some issue that needs to be resolved.

Sincerely the child of a parent who committed suicide. He mentioned suicide a few days before.

54. blitzar ◴[] No.44487936[source]
Always has been, nothing is new.

You can't say fuck on tv, but you can say fudge as a 1 for 1 replacement. You cant show people having sex, but you can show them walking into a bedroom and then cut to 30 seconds later and they are having a cigarette in bed.

Now after the influence of TV and Movies ... is Vaping after sex a thing?

replies(1): >>44489654 #
55. zimpenfish ◴[] No.44487942{4}[source]
See also Polari[0] and the Grass Mud Horse Lexicon[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari

[1] https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=6538 (CDT links broken, use [2])

[2] https://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Grass-Mud_Horse_Lexicon_...

56. coldtea ◴[] No.44488027{4}[source]
All 10 of them?

What about the other 7-8 billion people still using it normally?

replies(2): >>44488487 #>>44498920 #
57. coldtea ◴[] No.44488042{3}[source]
It's hack journalists reporting on BS totally fringe activity as if it's "a thing", and then idiots who take their cues from them
58. coldtea ◴[] No.44488051{4}[source]
who cares what the bigots use?

If the bigots start using "thank you" as some code word, should we stop saying it, lest we pollute our non-bigoted discussions?

bigots drink coffee too, maybe we should stop drinking it, because something-something...

replies(4): >>44488318 #>>44488783 #>>44488935 #>>44489218 #
59. coldtea ◴[] No.44488067{4}[source]
>more in tune with mental health and topics like suicide than any previous generation.

More in such a fad than any previous generation

60. fer ◴[] No.44488097[source]
> There's no way to stay ahead of the new language that people create.

Not even to match the current language. How would you censor LeBron James? It's French slang for jerking off[0].

[0]https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFrance/comments/1lpnoj6/is_lebro...

61. dkdbejwi383 ◴[] No.44488172[source]
It has been suggested - although I am unsure if there is strong evidence - that the word "bear" is a euphemism along these lines, meaning "brown one" for the since-forgotten original name for the animal, as it was allegedly believed to be either too frightful to say aloud, or would summon a bear.
replies(2): >>44488468 #>>44488547 #
62. sitharus ◴[] No.44488182{6}[source]
That literally defines it as a word from the PBF comic I cited? Nothing on that page defines it as a slur, just as a word used to mock people who argue about inconsequential things.
replies(2): >>44489789 #>>44489963 #
63. Eisenstein ◴[] No.44488318{5}[source]
It's all context dependent. There can be words or symbols which are totally benign but when used in a different context do have impactful meaning. Case in point: cheese pizza.
64. ben_w ◴[] No.44488468{3}[source]
While it's conceivable (consider phrases such as "speak of the devil and he shall appear" and similar phrases in other languages), I would also say the etymology of names for things are often at the same level as "brown one":

  • Horse, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers-, “to run”
  • Planet, from Ancient Greek πλανήτης (planḗtēs), “wanderer”
  • Lots of Latin-derived words, companion (bread together), conspire (breathe together), transgression (step across), etc.
  • Hamburger the food named after the city of Hamburg, where "burg" means "castle", because it had a castle
  • My forename means "son of the right/south" or "son of days", my family name means "wheat field/clearing" (in a different language); where "wheat" itself comes from Proto-Germanic, from *hwītaz (“white”) and the "ley" part from Proto-Indo-European *lówkos (“clearing”), derived from *lewk- (“bright”), and *lewk-  also gives all these derived terms even just in English:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_terms_derive...
65. thephyber ◴[] No.44488487{5}[source]
Some were using it in the traditional unironic (and IMHO cringe) way, similar to anyone who used the phrase “Let’s go, Brandon!” Before that NASCAR race when MAGAs adopted it as ironic + coded vice signaling.

Quit being overly pedantic. We all knew there was an unironic purpose for the gesture before it became ironic.

replies(1): >>44495169 #
66. rhdunn ◴[] No.44488518{5}[source]
I've seen 'unalived' used as a synonym for 'died' or 'killed' by YouTube minecrafters (e.g. CaptainSparkles) to avoid YouTube's demonitization/censorship. For example, using "I was unalived by a skeleton." instead of "I was killed by a skeleton."
67. 0points ◴[] No.44488547{3}[source]
It's not suggested, the historic use of noa words is a fact.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noa-name

replies(2): >>44491054 #>>44503895 #
68. PunchyHamster ◴[] No.44488626{4}[source]
then congratulations on making white supremacists define your langyage
replies(1): >>44489084 #
69. weinzierl ◴[] No.44488628{3}[source]
The OK gesture has always been very inappropriate in most parts of the world.
replies(2): >>44488774 #>>44500652 #
70. PunchyHamster ◴[] No.44488635[source]
I think it stemmed from content creators using it to avoid platform filters (even if video is not removed it gets deprioritized, at least on YT) and kids repeat it
71. xenator ◴[] No.44488704[source]
Lucky developers who wrote these rules live in totality different world at far distance from people
72. bee_rider ◴[] No.44488746{3}[source]
It would probably ban discussion of censorship.
73. chmod775 ◴[] No.44488774{4}[source]
> The OK gesture has always been very inappropriate in most parts of the world.

No, it isn't, and especially hasn't been historically. The negative connotations are overwhelmingly modern.

The areas where it is very inappropriate right now tally up to maybe 1 billion people*. That's pretty far from "most". For everyone else it is mostly positive, neutral, or meaningless.

*Brazil, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Italy, Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, other parts of Eastern Europe

replies(3): >>44489651 #>>44499210 #>>44500689 #
74. bee_rider ◴[] No.44488783{5}[source]
I don’t think we should treat human interactions like a technical problem, where we look for edge cases and outlandish hypotheticals to probe the edges of what is possible.

If “thank you” became widely associated with bigots, and had some negative meaning, to the point where it genuinely distressed people, I’d avoid it. I think it has a widespread enough normal meaning that there’s almost no chance of that happening, but it isn’t impossible.

replies(1): >>44495677 #
75. bee_rider ◴[] No.44488824[source]
“Unalive” is sort of… awkward in that silly online way. But, we also have phrase like “off oneself,” or just euphemistically describing the person as having died. It’s always been a difficult topic to talk about, I don’t understand using it as a specific example of gen-Z fragility.

Just that they suck at coming up with pithy new slang terms.

replies(1): >>44489660 #
76. sillyfluke ◴[] No.44488935{5}[source]
>who cares what the bigots use

you'd think so, but people often operate where multiple contexts could be valid.

Just as a thought experiment, if the eggplant emoji was used to denote "ok" in messaging and then people starting appropriating it for a sexual context, would you or the general public think twice about continuing to use it to mean "ok" on the off chance the other side may misinterpret the meaning?

I would say most likely yes.

77. ◴[] No.44488942{3}[source]
78. lynx97 ◴[] No.44488953{3}[source]
That reminds me of a question I have since I saw my first LLM hallucination: How much do people think hallucination/confabulation can be attributed to trolling and sarcasm having slipped into the training data? Is it possible we could get the rate of hallucinations down by better filtering of cynicism from the traing data?
79. mattigames ◴[] No.44489056{3}[source]
Pretty sure TikTok filters do the same and was also a major influence in using that term
replies(1): >>44496872 #
80. immibis ◴[] No.44489084{5}[source]
Do you still use swastikas as symbols of peace and love because you don't want white supremacists to define your language?

I strongly doubt you do that. Whether you like it or not, the Nazis defined what the swastika means now.

replies(4): >>44489609 #>>44490272 #>>44495182 #>>44500418 #
81. immibis ◴[] No.44489218{5}[source]
This actually happened. 卐 was a symbol of spirituality, divinity, good luck, health, prosperity, etc. Then some bigots used it. What does 卐 mean to you today?
replies(2): >>44491785 #>>44495158 #
82. scarface_74 ◴[] No.44489427{4}[source]
Really? You would want every conversation no matter what you were talking about to immediately devolve to something you would see on 4chan?
83. anton-c ◴[] No.44489609{6}[source]
It's still seen in the countries that used it that way and is seen as benign.

It can be easily summoned with the Japanese keyboard. It's seen on Buddhist temples all over Asia.

replies(1): >>44512393 #
84. weinzierl ◴[] No.44489651{5}[source]
"No, it isn't, and especially hasn't been historically. The negative connotations are overwhelmingly modern."

Maybe that is what Richard Nixon thought as well when he caused a little scandal using it in South America in 1950. In 1992 when the Chicago Tribune published "HANDS OFF" mentioning said episode the negative connotations still seemed to be in place[1].

In 1996 The New York Times stated "What's A-O.K. in the U.S.A. Is Lewd and Worthless Beyond"[2] as title of an article confirming the negative connotations.

It is worth mentioning that this article lists Australia amongst the places where the gesture is inappropriate. I always thought it was something used only in the English-speaking world but it seems in reality it is more like a North American plus diving world thing.

If you don't believe the press, I traveled around the world for more than 30 years and I can assure you in most parts using your thumb and index finger for a visual OK is not OK.

[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/1992/01/26/hands-off-34/

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/18/weekinreview/what-s-a-ok-...*

replies(2): >>44490415 #>>44490432 #
85. stripline ◴[] No.44489654[source]
My kids watch streamers on YouTube and the common replacement is “frick”. It’s said so often that they started using it saying things like “what the frick!?” so I had to explain to them that’s essentially the same as using the real word.
replies(1): >>44496886 #
86. anton-c ◴[] No.44489660{3}[source]
They do have some awful slang.

I agree though I think they're picking it up from online censorship in this case, not being fragile.

87. ◴[] No.44489789{7}[source]
88. jcynix ◴[] No.44489963{7}[source]
Seems I misunderstood the notion of "slur" as I'm not a native speaker. So now I've learned a bit ;-)
89. mopsi ◴[] No.44490272{6}[source]
Finnish use of swastika predates Germany and the Finnish Air Force Academy uses swastika to this day in their official insignia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Academy_(Finland)

Taboos are a cultural thing, and the world is (thankfully) very far from having a monoculture shaped by NYC's neurotic intellectuals.

90. chmod775 ◴[] No.44490415{6}[source]
Care to add any country to the list then? Did I miss anything? Let's see if we can push it past half of the world's population, but I don't think we will.

> I can assure you in most parts using your thumb and index finger for a visual OK is not OK.

You're moving goal posts. Of course it doesn't just mean "OK" in some places.

What you actually claimed was "The OK gesture has always been very inappropriate in most parts of the world."

Which is plain wrong. In India for instance it can refer to "money", while in China it can nowadays also be seen as a distress signal when performed a certain way (thanks to Chinese social media popularizing that use). There's some ways you can mess this up, like making it seem you're attempting to bribe someone, or signalling you're in distress when you aren't, but in neither country the gestures are inherently anywhere near "very inappropriate" and both will even understand it as "OK" if you perform it correctly and in the appropriate context.

That's already almost 3 billion people, but let's say 2.5 billion because there's regional variations in both countries and I'm sure you could find some northern Chinese village that will take offense.

I can easily push the number of people to whom it is not inappropriate past 4 billion by adding smaller populations (Indonesia, Japan, western Europe, USA, Taiwan, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, ...), so your claim that "[it] has always been very inappropriate in most parts of the world" cannot possibly be true.

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91. mopsi ◴[] No.44490432{6}[source]
That might have been the case decades ago. For example, in the USSR, various finger gestures usually implied something related to a penis and were considered extremely offensive. But that hasn't been the case since at least the early 1990s, when VCRs became widely available, people saw Hollywood movies for the first time and got used to westernized meaning of thumbs-up and OK gestures. Nowadays, when backing a truck towards a trailer, a thumbs-up would be taken as "good job" and an OK gesture (often paired with a kiss) as "exceptionally well done".
92. weinzierl ◴[] No.44490882{7}[source]
> I can assure you in most parts using your thumb and index finger for a visual OK is not OK.

>>You're moving goal posts. Of course it doesn't mean "OK" in many

I said the gesture is "not OK" to use (meaning inappropriate), not that it doesn’t mean "OK". Those are two different things. The gesture can mean OK in some places while still being not OK (inappropriate) to use in many others.

Also, I always said "parts of the world". You introduced population into the argument.

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93. chmod775 ◴[] No.44490985{8}[source]
> I said the gesture is "not OK" to use (meaning inappropriate), not that it doesn’t mean "OK". Those are two different things. The gesture can mean OK in some places while still being not OK (inappropriate) to use in many others.

Fair. That's clearly how I should've read that.

Though it does not materially affect this conversation, since demonstrably there's over 4 billion people to whom the gesture is not inappropriate. The claim "[it] has always been very inappropriate in most parts of the world" is wrong, regardless of what reasonable definition of "most" you use.

You edited your comment to add this, so I'll respond here:

> Also, I always said "parts of the world". You introduced population into the argument.

Right. And you're being vague on how you actually arrive at your claim of "most", which conveniently keeps the waters muddy while you attack attempts to turn this into something measurable.

So what other measure would you use? Most others are nonsense.

For example "places" isn't a useful measure, but even then: It can only be offensive to people. If I dropped you on a random point on the globe and you made that gesture, there's about a 99% chance nobody would be around to be offended.

By land area and predominant culture? Just Antarctica (hardly anyone there to take offense), the US, China, Canada, Australia, and India together are going to dwarf the opposition.

Counting countries? It's clearly inappropriate in around 10, with about another 20-30 where it can be misunderstood easily (Arab world, some of eastern Europe, scattered ones). A far cry from ~195 countries.

Either way there needs to be someone to take offense, so population is a pretty good measure.

You may disagree, but the onus was always on you, the one making the claim, to pick a measure and a definition of "most", then show that the bar is met. Feel free to now make more of an argument than "trust me I traveled".

94. dkdbejwi383 ◴[] No.44491054{4}[source]
I mean suggested in the sense that this specific example cannot be evidenced, as there aren't any primary sources from that time we can refer to.
95. SXX ◴[] No.44491785{6}[source]
It's still heavily used in Buddhism around the world, but good lord what happen if you put it on your house in US or EU.
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96. whycome ◴[] No.44492807[source]
I found out recently that "goof" is extremely offensive in some circles. Which is insane to me because I've always used it specifically because it's clearly in jest and not meant to be offensive. I can't win.
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97. jama211 ◴[] No.44493436[source]
Reducing the language used or making it harder does have measurable effects, it’s a logical fallacy in general that unless you can prevent something perfectly that thing will occur with the same frequency.

See many examples such as “padlocks are useless because a determined smart attacker can defeat them easily so don’t bother with them” - which conveniently forgets that many crimes are committed by non-determined, dumb and opportunistic attackers who are often deterred by simple locks.

Yes, people will use other words. No, this does not make this purely performative. It has measurable effects on behaviour and how these models will be used and spoken to, which affects outcomes.

98. sixothree ◴[] No.44493814{7}[source]
Someone I know from India bought a new car and put this symbol on the hood (non-permanent) as a celebration. I had to warn him to be careful. It felt bad. Then the thought ran through my head - we're in the deep south, who is really going to be that bothered about this and also doesn't know about cultural usages. Even worse.
99. coldtea ◴[] No.44495158{6}[source]
Those that actually used them in the 20th century (like they did in Asia, not some ancient vikings or whatever) still use it.

And that symbol was 100% associated with the Nazis in the West in the 20th century. Nobody used it at the time before the war for anything else, except some tiny fringe.

If it was some mainstream symbol or idiom, merely co-adopted, we'd probably still be using it too.

If the Nazis used the cross for example,people wouldn't stop using the sign of the cross.

100. coldtea ◴[] No.44495169{6}[source]
I mean, advice from a person who considers the traditional unironic use of OK as "cringe"...

Whatever dude

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101. coldtea ◴[] No.44495182{6}[source]
>Do you still use swastikas as symbols of peace and love because you don't want white supremacists to define your language?

They were hardly ever used in the west for at least a full millenium before the Nazis too (except a handful of cases, where they still use them, like the Finnish Air Force), so that's a moot analogy.

In Asia, they still use them just fine, in houses, temples, businesses, and elsewhere.

102. kbelder ◴[] No.44495621{3}[source]
Now I'm curious. To whom is goof offensive? And is it newly-acquired offense or does it have old roots?
103. rpdillon ◴[] No.44495677{6}[source]
This approach gives people you vehemently disagree with a lot of power over you.
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104. qingcharles ◴[] No.44496850{4}[source]
Shaka!
105. qingcharles ◴[] No.44496872{4}[source]
They do. I made a joke about cocaine in old Coca-Cola in a text caption† on a video, and while TikTok didn't ban the post per se it refused to allow it on the FYP.

† proving that TikTok's system actually analyzes every frame of an uploaded video with OCR of some sort to see what's on there.

106. qingcharles ◴[] No.44496886{3}[source]
I wonder why they didn't just use the "frack" from BSG?
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107. immibis ◴[] No.44498920{5}[source]
I promise you the world contains more than 10 white supremacists and less than 7,000,000,000 non-white-supremacists who regularly use the OK sign.
108. MonkeyClub ◴[] No.44499210{5}[source]
> Greece

It's perfectly OK in Greece.

109. fennecbutt ◴[] No.44500418{6}[source]
No, because western culture never really did. However the countries who have been using it for at least thousands of years in Buddhism are still using it just fine.

In fact there was a recent thing with one of the BTS members' uniform (worn during mandatory military service period in South Korea), which had the regular (not tilted) swastika on it because he was assigned to religious duties.

And of course the western world/media ran away with it. Plenty of absolutely brain dead people out there who couldn't research a topic to gain an understanding to save their lives.

110. fennecbutt ◴[] No.44500436{7}[source]
Yup, it's basically saying "I'll let bullies win".
111. fennecbutt ◴[] No.44500464{5}[source]
'An hero' came before it but that was as a meme.

Unalive is mostly to avoid censorship same as ahh. But once they enter common usage it's not really about censorship anymore.

112. SirMaster ◴[] No.44500652{4}[source]
The OK gesture has been the standard gesture for saying OK for scuba diving all over the world (PADI). I have used it all over the world on my scuba diving trips and have never had any problem or negative reaction to it.
113. SirMaster ◴[] No.44500689{5}[source]
I use it in Brazil scuba diving as it's the universal PADI hand gesture for asking (and responding) if someone is OK and never had any issues or negative reactions.

The PADI standard gestures are used and recognized all over the world to mean these things.

https://blog.padi.com/scuba-diving-hand-signals/

114. spookie ◴[] No.44503895{4}[source]
Oh! Cape of Good Hope was renamed that way when portuguese mariners discovered they could go around the areas more susceptible to "freak waves".

This is a problem even today, some have said it is due to hotter currents coming from the Indian ocean meeting the cold Atlantic. But the judge is still out on that one.

Good documentary on rogue waves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfNc_6EjbMU

115. blitzar ◴[] No.44506892{4}[source]
Takes a person of culture to watch BSG
116. immibis ◴[] No.44512393{7}[source]
Do Japanese people speak the same language as you and I?
117. thephyber ◴[] No.44529212{7}[source]
I haven’t used the “ok” gesture unironically since I watched Beverly Hills Cop (1984).