Copernican

I think the new phenomenon is discussed:

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. The words these guides recommend or reject are sometimes exactly the same, justified in nearly identical language. This is because most of the guides draw on the same sources from activist organizations: A Progressive’s Style Guide, the Racial Equity Tools glossary, and a couple of others. The guides also cite one another.

It's calling out that a handful of sources that are cited in profession specific style guides that have referential loops, and are managed by a small portion of people. Based on the names, of these sources, is the activist nature appropriate for general style guides, or is it a dangerous tool of politicization of language? I identify as a leftist and progressive, but I don't think partisan orgs with this much influence and questionable methodology should set standards. The Progressive's Style Guide links websites like this as sources ( which is basically one journalist's opinion blog post): https://grist.org/climate-energy/how-to-write-about-climate-pull-up-a-barstool/

Or this table from the source. How is "genderfuck" a professionally acceptable term, but "sexual preference" a taboo. Or slut or slut shaming is allowed, but only in certain context? Or we can't talk about metaphors of spirit animal since that is appropriation, but for gender two spirit is okay to appropriate? How does a lay person navigate this minefield of discourse without a masters degree and staying up on style guide updates?

Or this page on discussing Israel. Personal politics aside, this style guide has an obvious political agenda, right?

Yeah, and we switch back to black because not all black people are African American.

As for the euphemism treadmill aspects, we’ll never outrun that; language and meanings are always changing, and we can’t pretend it doesn’t. We’ll always need to be changing our language with time as language itself evolves if we want to have the same or similar meanings as before.

Yes, but as the author points out.

Although the guides refer to language “evolving,” these changes are a revolution from above. They haven’t emerged organically from the shifting linguistic habits of large numbers of people.

Something has changed recently where the language change has been too top down, and seemingly more about creating pleasant sounding euphemisms that either mean the same thing or obfuscate the meaning to make the term less useful.

Is this that crazy though for AI since Hamilton the musical? All founding fathers were portrayed as people of color in the casting. Google image search for Alexander Hamilton is pulling a decent number of pictures from the musical cast.

I had a very anti-war sociology professor that had been protesting since vietnam. Despite his qualms with military industrial complex, he would always say that the the military is the last vestige of upward mobility in the united states as it's one of the few places where you can enter a playing field that is somewhat leveled for new entries, have merit impact your growth, and get access things like subsidized education. Sure there's still racism, sexism, etc. but in terms of economic mobility it provides a decent ladder.

Last word, corpse reviver #2, naked and famous, paper planes. I love that style of elevated and citrus cocktail served up.

I understand. But I think from the get go of the announcement of closing the API's, Reddit had always discussed not wanting to be harvested by AI tech for free. The point is they saw the value of their user content, and wanted to establish a model to profit on that. This announcement is just that; they now have something in market to allow AI to be trained on it's user generated content.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/technology/reddit-ai-openai-google.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/technology/reddit-ai-openai-google.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/technology/reddit-ai-openai-google.html

Reddit Wants to Get Paid for Helping to Teach Big A.I. Systems - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/technology/reddit-ai-openai-google.html

They were transparent about it. AI and gatekeeping the user generated comments was the deciding factor to close the API and that's what they told the public.