So are people going to finally admit the shit about the ok hand sign is stupid?

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CM156

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Here's an idea instead of letting the white power types claim yet another symbol, can someone like BLM, or the LGBTQ community reclaim it, and other symbols so I or someone else doesn't get fired or expelled for accidentally not being in the know about which normal hand gesture is now racist.
Can they also reclaim the Roman Salute while they're at it?
 
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Agema

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I mean the same can be said about the left and some of the things they seem to take offense with. I saw someone complaining that blaming something on your OCD was triggering and ableist if you didn't really have OCD. And you have to wonder if they are going out of their way to invent new shit to be offended by.
I'm pretty sure that that is just behaving like a sanctimonious twat. Although...

I do wonder what a person with OCD might feel about a "normal" doing something a bit thorough and saying "Sorry, just my OCD, ha ha", because I suspect some people with OCD might find it a little demeaning or trivialising. I also suspect a great number of people talking to someone they knew had OCD wouldn't say that (assuming they didn't have an established understanding) because they would realise it might be insensitive. From that we can argue that if they wouldn't say it in the presence of a person with OCD because they wouldn't want to cause offence, they shouldn't say it outside the presence of people with OCD either.

For the record, I'm totally guilty here: I've said it, but would not in the presence of someone with OCD.

Yeah basically this, and because it gains so much media attention it just fuels the stupid fire.
Well, the media is in a bind here too. Is it news? Is it real? Is it one or neither? Bear in mind in this lovely world of mass communication via the internet, "news" can be classified as anything enough people are talking about on Twitter: because what people are interested in talking about is by its very nature an issue of public interest.

Can anything technically be a hate symbol if you hate the symbol?
Yes. Probably.

While I agree there is no good answer, the problem is that people are getting shamed on social media, "canceled" and actually fired from their jobs because they give an "Ok" gesture, and people just assumed they're a white supremacist. Hell there was one dude in California who got fired from his job because he was "caught" giving the gesture at a traffic intersection, and people assumed he was a WS and then it turned out he was Latino and was thanking the other driver for letting him go. Still fired though. Lost his job because people called him a White Supremist because of a hand gesture, thanks to the Anti-Defamation League.

If anything can be used as a hate symbol if its used as a hate symbol, then its not right to then just assume that's the standard use.
Yes, everyone needs to be more tolerant.

That's not happening any time soon, is it? We live in atomised, unequal societies fuelled by paranoia and stoked outrage.
 
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Chimpzy

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Can they also reclaim the Roman Salute while they're at it?
I mean, it's very likely just something an 18th century painter made up and not even Roman at all. Doesn't seem worth the effort.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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How is that not an accurate description?
Because so many other things are considered white supremacist symbols if used with other symbols to so you could have a Pepe making the OK hand sign or hell make a nordic pepe and it then counts as white supremacist. Hell Pepe drinking milk would be considered white supremacist because both Pepe and drinking milk can be seen as white supremacist symbols lol.
 

Hawki

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It isn't OK that the OK sign has been appropriated by people who aren't OK, who use the OK sign to signal that things are OK, when they're not OK, ruining things for the people who use the OK sign in OK ways, to signal that things are OK.

Alright?
 

Ender910

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I'm pretty sure that that is just behaving like a sanctimonious twat. Although...

I do wonder what a person with OCD might feel about a "normal" doing something a bit thorough and saying "Sorry, just my OCD, ha ha", because I suspect some people with OCD might find it a little demeaning or trivialising. I also suspect a great number of people talking to someone they knew had OCD wouldn't say that (assuming they didn't have an established understanding) because they would realise it might be insensitive. From that we can argue that if they wouldn't say it in the presence of a person with OCD because they wouldn't want to cause offence, they shouldn't say it outside the presence of people with OCD either
I can pipe in on this. Used to bug me a very tiny bit when I was younger (same with people using ADD in the same sense), but I've not only gotten used to it at this point and even get a good mutual laugh out of it when friends use it. These days I find such terms are perfectly acceptable and usable to describe bouts of quirky behavior in casual conversation.
 
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Agema

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I can pipe in on this. Used to bug me a very tiny bit when I was younger (same with people using ADD in the same sense), but I've not only gotten used to it at this point and even get a good mutual laugh out of it when friends use it. These days I find such terms are perfectly acceptable and usable to describe bouts of quirky behavior in casual conversation.
Thank you for that perspective.

I find it interesting, because where is the expectation that we get over something, and something being offensive? The fact you were originally annoyed suggests to me there is at base offence, which you had to learn to deal with. But there are likely to be those who don't, there will always be this little niggle that this an imposition that they have to put up with. Just like in the past black people had to put up with the n- word and women with sexual harassment.

Which is a way of saying that the basic principle we should just deal with it could in theory exist for absolutely anything - including of course terms which this forum itself will censor into asterisks, such as the n- word. Even many people who defend the right to use these terms more freely don't pretend that they aren't deeply offensive, and would not themselves use those terms in polite company for that reason. So what is the point where something potentially offensive is a thing offended individuals just have to deal with, or something it should be some degree of wrong for someone to say?

I don't pretend to have an answer, and as above I'm no paragon of virtue myself on the issue. But when people complain about the censoriousness of progressive busybodies complaining about how they talk, I think those progressives often have a point, because they taking rules about how society already deems it appropriate to talk to/about some people, and extending those principles to other people in a logically consistent way.
 

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Baffle

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I do wonder what a person with OCD might feel about a "normal" doing something a bit thorough and saying "Sorry, just my OCD, ha ha", because I suspect some people with OCD might find it a little demeaning or trivialising.
I can understand why people might take offence at someone trivialising what for them is a life-limiting condition, just because they have to say 'phone, wallet, keys' and touch their pockets as they walk out the door. It's not just 'lol, I have to check some things twice', it's 'If I don't do this and get it right, something catastrophic will happen' when really it won't (I'm sure you know this, I'm really just saying it for people who don't).

Like, it's fine to be offended by that. I'm not allowed to call my friend a fucking spaz any more either, and I'll get over it.
 

Specter Von Baren

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I'm pretty sure that that is just behaving like a sanctimonious twat. Although...

I do wonder what a person with OCD might feel about a "normal" doing something a bit thorough and saying "Sorry, just my OCD, ha ha", because I suspect some people with OCD might find it a little demeaning or trivialising. I also suspect a great number of people talking to someone they knew had OCD wouldn't say that (assuming they didn't have an established understanding) because they would realise it might be insensitive. From that we can argue that if they wouldn't say it in the presence of a person with OCD because they wouldn't want to cause offence, they shouldn't say it outside the presence of people with OCD either.

For the record, I'm totally guilty here: I've said it, but would not in the presence of someone with OCD.



Well, the media is in a bind here too. Is it news? Is it real? Is it one or neither? Bear in mind in this lovely world of mass communication via the internet, "news" can be classified as anything enough people are talking about on Twitter: because what people are interested in talking about is by its very nature an issue of public interest.



Yes. Probably.



Yes, everyone needs to be more tolerant.

That's not happening any time soon, is it? We live in atomised, unequal societies fuelled by paranoia and stoked outrage.
Eh, I understand that someone apologizing for their OCD is just an expression. I think everyone has something they're kind of obsessive about, some of us just have a lot more of them than others.
 

Agema

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Eh, I understand that someone apologizing for their OCD is just an expression. I think everyone has something they're kind of obsessive about, some of us just have a lot more of them than others.
Yeah, but tthere are a lot of things that are just "an expression", and yet if we stopped to think about it, clearly with potential to be insensitive or offensive.

With a key point being that there are a lot fewer than there used to be, because we've already pruned so many of them from civil discourse. And if we pruned them for being insensitive, why should others remain and be considered fair?
 

Specter Von Baren

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Yeah, but tthere are a lot of things that are just "an expression", and yet if we stopped to think about it, clearly with potential to be insensitive or offensive.

With a key point being that there are a lot fewer than there used to be, because we've already pruned so many of them from civil discourse. And if we pruned them for being insensitive, why should others remain and be considered fair?
Because eventually we'd have no words with which to discuss things. Like, think about the thousands of normal everyday words we use that can also be double entendre. Further more, even if you socially "outlawed" those words, people would just find new words and expressions to use in their place. With real world interactions where people talk with a limited number of people, it's fine to wish people to temper their words depending on the situation but you can't do that with the internet, anything one can say could be offensive to someone somewhere and it's a lost cause to try to avoid that.
 

Agema

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Because eventually we'd have no words with which to discuss things.
This is just not true, though. The English vocabulary is both staggeringly huge to start with, and it can be increased effectively infinitely with creativity, whether in terms of individual words or metaphors.

The basic key of offensiveness in this sense is to make some sort of prejudicial assumption about a group of people that might not be true for many individuals withi in, or to diminish and demean their problems and experiences. There easily exist the words to express ourselves in a way that avoids this. If we're doing something a bit obsessive, there's no need to express it in terms of people with OCD, or autism, or whatever else. There's no need to express an instance of poor co-ordination in terms of people with motor pathologies. There's no need to make any statement based on an assumption gypsies are thieves, black people are dirty, women are hysterical, and so on.

The problem is solely that there are established sayings and usages such that they readily come to mind when we try to express ourselves. We absolutely could change. It would be an effort though, and involve slip-ups, and also needing to be open and consider perspectives that something we did not think offensive in fact can be.

I suspect resistance to doing so comes down to a) the effort involved, b) unwillingness to admit fault compounded by c) backlash against criticism, d) ideology (sociopolitical stances), and more unpleasantly e) belief prejudices are true, f) enjoying being offensive. I'm not sure any of those factors inherently merit great respect.
 

Buyetyen

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Because eventually we'd have no words with which to discuss things.
If you require slurs to discuss anything, that says nothing positive about you.

Further more, even if you socially "outlawed" those words, people would just find new words and expressions to use in their place.
Like how after it became unacceptable to use "retard" as a slur, free speech warriors started using "autistic" instead.

With real world interactions where people talk with a limited number of people, it's fine to wish people to temper their words depending on the situation but you can't do that with the internet, anything one can say could be offensive to someone somewhere and it's a lost cause to try to avoid that.
How is that an excuse to put in no effort?
 

Schadrach

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Didn't the OK-sign being a hate symbol arise as a meme? Like I thought people were mocking SJW's by calling the ok-sign a hate symbol and then they just like ran with it and made it actually a problem. I thought it was completely made up and it just got way out of hand because people are crazy,.
Operation O-KKK started on 4chan, for exactly this purpose. Prior to Operation O-KKK I can only find one reference to the idea of OK as a hate symbol, and that's a Media Matters article that doesn't cite a source, was published just weeks before O-KKK, and was probably the inspiration for O-KKK.

They can make that up as they go along, to create a rigged game.
Doesn't matter, even if they explicitly call it out as satire, or follow it immediately with a paragraph making it clear it's not to be taken as serious advice, or what have you it will be taken in the worst way possible.

Lost his job because people called him a White Supremist because of a hand gesture, thanks to the Anti-Defamation League.
Just an acceptable casualty of the sort of social media behaviors that definitely doesn't exist.

You absolutely can't let Nazis have things or they'll ruin them for everyone.
You also can't control who will use a hand sign, emoji, or word. Like I said, with a bit of coordination we could make all communication white supremacy in under a decade.

People are copywriting memes now? The internet is selling out.
Pepe didn't start as a meme.

The English vocabulary is both staggeringly huge to start with, and it can be increased effectively infinitely with creativity, whether in terms of individual words or metaphors.
aka the euphemism treadmill, under which the new word then also either becomes offensive in turn or is so cumbersome to use that no one wants to use it at all outside of official contexts where brevity is of low value.
 

Master Of Puppets

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I can understand why people might take offence at someone trivialising what for them is a life-limiting condition, just because they have to say 'phone, wallet, keys' and touch their pockets as they walk out the door. It's not just 'lol, I have to check some things twice', it's 'If I don't do this and get it right, something catastrophic will happen' when really it won't (I'm sure you know this, I'm really just saying it for people who don't).

Like, it's fine to be offended by that. I'm not allowed to call my friend a fucking spaz any more either, and I'll get over it.
I used to care. Obviously your eyes are gonna roll when someone invokes OCD after checking something twice (often followed with a "I'm mad aren't I!?") when you know you've just spent the better part of an hour trying to leave the house and you're still thinking about it even though you've literally checked every door handle exactly 40 times. But... Fuck it.

CBT and all. I can't say I really took to it but I'm supposed to be worrying about things I can actually control. I can't control how people talk and I don't want to either.
 
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Agema

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Doesn't matter, even if they explicitly call it out as satire, or follow it immediately with a paragraph making it clear it's not to be taken as serious advice, or what have you it will be taken in the worst way possible.
This sounds like a variant on the usual tedious whine that free speech means no-one's allowed to say they don't like what you said.

aka the euphemism treadmill, under which the new word then also either becomes offensive in turn or is so cumbersome to use that no one wants to use it at all outside of official contexts where brevity is of low value.
Another big, fat heap of made up garbage that sounds like it's supposed to mean something important but actually doesn't.
 
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