this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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It's a little silly but I'm for making these changes but the only real defense for keeping them is "it's always been that way!" which is just a flawed argument
Hold on, lemme put on my downvote boots.
To me the defense is, if people are going around and saying that calling it an "Inca Dove" is racist or misogynistic and we all have to spend time and money and effort changing it around to something else, then it's going to hinder genuine efforts to resolve racism or misogyny because some people are going to start putting it alongside the "Inca Dove" thing into a category of "stupid stuff that doesn't matter." Changing "Oldsquaw" sounds great because that's actually racist. Changing the confederate name thing, eh, it seems weird to me but I can see it. "Inca Dove," alright now you're just making up stuff to get upset about and asking everyone else to play along with it and if they don't want to, they're some kind of bad person.
Just my opinion.
It sounds like you believe there is a tiny amount of people who can solve an incredibly small quota of issues and so we must all conserve effort.
If that really is your belief then stop wasting more time being here criticizing a so-called small problem and go there where you could use your effort to help out with those big issues you’re talking about. Lighten the load. This getting fixed isn’t actually distracting. But your criticism and acting off-character of your own argument definitely is.
Quoting myself from elsewhere in the thread: "Maybe I was too harsh. I’m not trying to be critical of someone who’s at least trying to make the world a better place."
Not sure what argument you're looking for with me, but a lot of what you're ascribing to me here isn't accurate. I'm just going on an internet forum and saying how I see it, same as you.
I think you are aware of the FIRST argument I had with you as you did answer it in the first sentence but then turn feign ignorance immediately in your next. my second argument now is : your using bad actor tactics. You are not acting in good faith arguing here.
I am not "arguing." I'm saying I think the kind of performative anti racism described in the OP article is silly, especially when it involves so badly stretching the definition of "racism." Maybe, though, it's overall not the worst thing in the world and I actually tried to partially retract some of my criticism of it as being overly harsh. But I still think it's silly and can actually be counterproductive.
If you think different, that's fine. I think I've explained myself at this point. I am in no way shape or form interested in having an exchange with you where we try to determine which of our viewpoints "wins".
I won't downvote you (and haven't been), we're having a civil conversation!
I didn't take the Inca Dove example as being about racism but can't speak to what the people deciding were thinking. For that one, if the "official" name is straight up wrong...I think it should be changed. More-literal names are always good in science, I think.
The only similar example that comes to mind IS a bit racist (Indians->Native Americans) but I was on board with that push because they aren't Indian.
Then again, I grew up in the Midwest where tons of city names reference non-existent geographical feature. Including "Heights" to the names of extremely flat cities is dumb but it doesn't really bug me.
I guess I just don't know exactly where I stand on it but I'd take the more accurate naming any day.
Haha oh yeah, I wasn't talking about you. Just I've noticed that certain viewpoints tend to attract a lot of downvotes here. I suspect that a lot of people like to do performative antiracism more than they do genuine antiracism, because it's a lot less work, and that extends to giving out vigorous downvotes to the "wrong" point of view.
But yeah, I can see the argument too. Everyone's going to draw the line of what's okay and not okay to say in different places, and at the end of the day I do think there's something to be said for trying to make the world a better place even in some kind of trivial way.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that Inca Dove is offensive so much as it's inaccurate, and while we're doing a mass name change, might as well change that one too.
Honestly, I wish we would just bite the bullet and do this with a lot of inaccurately named biochemistry stuff lol