There's really no need to do this, or to point out that some of the men (or women, or persons) were black or asian, non-heterosexual, had a physical or intellectual handicaps or any other particular attribute that I didn't specifically enumerate. It sort of implies malice or misogyny on my part, of which there is of course none. I could have said "people", but it's malicious to assume that by not having chosen that word that I somehow myself am a chauvinist.
Policing speech in this way is, in my opinion, detrimental to us all and to our ability to communicate our thoughts and have them interpreted charitably, where instead we might have to consider every possible negative interpretation, carefully tiptoe around those, and just perhaps not say anything at all.
Imperfect communication is better than none, and malicious interpretation stifles that.
It's impossible to become perfect, but I also disagree that saying "men" is necessarily wrong or "imperfect", much like saying "hey guys" to a group of people that includes women, it's just a figure of speech, not a political statement.
One of the many dangers is that instead of debating the merit of the core argument (that worthy people become wealthy), we sit here splitting hairs and nitpicking at the choices of individual words that are extremely tangential to the original argument.
Therefore, as I said, imperfect communication is better than none -- otherwise we'd never get to debate anything at all, and therefore can't learn and grow.
> but I also disagree that saying "men" is necessarily wrong or "imperfect"
I'm sure that you do.
> (that worthy people become wealthy),
Note that you used "people" and not "men". Almost like this is a more accurate depiction of the argument you believe you're making. So why say men in the first place? Maybe...a deeply ingrained bias?
> otherwise we'd never get to debate anything at all, and therefore can't learn and grow.
But...if you're committing to not learning and growing either way, by suggesting that opportunities for growth are "nitpicks" and "splitting hairs", you also can't learn and grow...
That's just it though, isn't it? I have to say "people" instead of "men" or I'll be argued with and attacked on a tangential subject instead of the substance of my argument about wealth and worth.
That means I might spend 15% of my time thinking about how I might possibly be misinterpreted instead of on the actual problem at hand.
It's overhead and expense that doesn't actually help anyone. It's just a veneer of pretending to help. Anyway I think we've covered the whole tangent now.
If you consider this interraction an "attack", I'm unsure how you're able to communicate with other humans at all. I've been very cordial, simply pointing out an alternative way of thinking.
> subject instead of the substance of my argument about wealth and worth.
If you'd like to talk only to yourself, maybe don't post on the internet? I'm sorry, but communicating with other people involves _actually communicating_. As in, they're able to respond to the things you write.
> That means I might spend 15% of my time thinking about how I might possibly be misinterpreted instead of on the actual problem at hand.
If it takes you that long to replace a single (to you) irrelevant word in a sentence, I apologize for having ruined so much of your day. It's really not that complicated.
> It's overhead and expense that doesn't actually help anyone.
Are you sure? It seems equally as likely that you're just demanding to behave however you want, regardless of other people's opinions.
To be clear I'm not trying to imply your participation is an attack, I just meant that in the general sense in the modern world it's something we have to consider, people overreact to everything.
I mean, you yourself think I am overreacting -- perhaps we all are, but whatever the case, it's definitely on many of our minds in many of our interactions, I think.
After all, when I tried to discuss wealth and human merit, at least 3 people (me and you and the original reply) got into a discussion about something totally unrelated: uninclusive word choices.
Maybe I should learn to say "people" instead of "men", maybe I should say "denylist" instead of "blacklist", maybe I should say "differently abled" instead of "disabled", but the list is very long, changes by the day, and is sometimes an extreme niche of offense that no-one is aware of.
At the end of the day, I can try, but people will still get offended by something, so I think the friendlier, more productive option is to assume that people have good intentions, which is what I think my original comment was:
> After all, when I tried to discuss wealth and human merit, at least 3 people (me and you and the original reply) got into a discussion about something totally unrelated: uninclusive word choices.
I suppose what I'm trying to impart, is that just because _you mean something_, doesn't mean that's what other people get, and saying "Well what they got isn't important because it's not what I meant" is just kind of...not really how communication with other people work? Previously you said you don't believe that saying things like "what's up guys" is a problem which, _you_ think that, but the people around you might not? And again, you're communicating with them, so demanding they accept your standard of communication is just kind of closed off.
> Maybe I should learn to say "people" instead of "men", maybe I should say "denylist" instead of "blacklist", maybe I should say "differently abled" instead of "disabled", but the list is very long, changes by the day, and is sometimes an extreme niche of offense that no-one is aware of.
Or maybe you can exist mostly-similarly to how you're currently existing, but instead of arguing with them and acting adversarial, simply acknowledging their point? This all happened as a result of a person saying "Women too". Would a "Totally." not have been a validating response? Does that type of behavior compromise your opinions too much?
The common trend seems to be, if a person points out some kind of language issue like we're experiencing now, the person that made the original comment kind of flies off the hyperbole-handle and assumes they must correct every possibly contentious word, when really it seems way less complicated than that?
> At the end of the day, I can try, but people will still get offended by something, so I think the friendlier, more productive option is to assume that people have good intentions, which is what I think my original comment was:
I will turn this comment back on you, and say that the person that said "Women too" may have also been being friendly, and your response opened the less-productive negative-intentioned path.
