I hate the word ‘Consumer’ or I mockingly call it ‘CONSOOMER’. Because that’s to imply everyone in the world is just cattle, but with wallets. We’re no longer customers. We’re consumers now. And a consumer’s purpose is to consume shit, whatever is put out there. Got money? Shut up and consume, it’s what corporate interests and capitalism itself thrive on. Consume and consume.
A customer is an equal who participates in business transactions.
A consumer is a being who’s sole purpose is to acquire and use products.
When people describe something as a “vibe.” I can’t really put my finger on why. It just annoys me. Maybe it’s the vagueness or that people who say it seem desperate to sound cool.
Mood.
Junkie
Genuine question: is there a better term, beyond “heroine addicted people”? Because I can see how that’s gotten shortened in casual conversation.
“Addict”. No need to specify heroin unless it’s important to the conversation, and then you can just say “heroin addict”.
“Person with addiction”
It’s too easy to become apathetic when human keeps getting take out of the descriptor. As a person can change so the descriptor isn’t their only identity. The ‘person’ will always remain while the association can change.
Additionally, we shouldn’t let doctors off the hook too easy to stop remembering they are humans with a problem and they are not ‘the problem’.
Addicts are people. They can be both. I don’t feel the need to point this out. It’s like how you don’t say “person who acts” when you can just say “actor”. Heck, you used the term “doctor” and not “person who heals”. Some people definitely try to ignore the human behind the term, but they do that with every term because they’re shit and don’t want to treat people with respect.
“A person affected by substance use disorder”. Or " people with addiction disorders". Addiction is an illness that people sometimes have, but it should never become a descriptor of who or what they are.
those don’t really address the part where I can see how it’s getting shortened.
I don’t think it’s something that should be shortened. It’s dehumanizing.
It’s just unrealistic to think people won’t shorten it.
I will, sure, but the public at large won’t. So your answer just doesn’t address my question, is all.
Everyone should watch painkiller on Netflix. It’s gutting but eye opening.
“Customer” in a healthcare setting.
Well at least health care hasn’t started using the word consumer yet!
Consumer = customer stuck on treadwheel.
People have been called this in the cosmetic and otherwise elective space for a very long time.
Because that’s what they are.
Oh it has.
“Customer” in an unemployment agency setting. Before you call a person customer, treat them like one.
service user
Thanks, I hate that, as well
They avoid using that term and instead use “patient” but these are patients of money extracting procedures regardless.
I haven’t seen that in healthcare settings yet. Just curious what context it was in specifically.
“Gamer”, despite being a basic description of someone who plays video games often, has always felt wrong to use or be called.
Doesn’t help that it’s only really ever used ironically or to mock someone, and if it’s not that, it’s used to advertise overpriced and mid-tier PC peripherals that could be used as makeshift flashlights.
spoiler
Not that RGB lighting is bad, but it always feels like it’s used to justify insane prices for stuff that either doesn’t last that long, or malfunctions often.
If someone calls themself a gamer I know they don’t have much else going on. This is from someone that plays games.
I think it’s because “Gamer” make it part of your identity, instead of a hobby or something you do. It’s like when people call me a cyclist, it makes it seem like it’s the only thing I am when in reality I just use a bike to get around.
I knew a physics professor who also did tours reading his poetry internationally. in an interview he was asked if he felt he was a physicist who did poetry or a poet who does physics, and he said when he’s driving he’s a motorist, when he’s walking he’s a pedestrian, when he’s tucking his kids in he’s a father. the idea of an umbrella identity is restrictive and is for other people to put you in a category
Woo woo is a term I hate mostly because I associate it with New Atheist Dudebros and feel James Randi, the guy who coined it, was highly overrated and maybe not the best human being.
Note: I don’t have a problem with atheists, New Atheists and Atheists are two very different groups.
Karen.
If you tell me someone in your life is a “Karen”, then I just assume you are a asshole who didn’t like being told to stop.
deleted by creator
loud, obnoxious entitled complainers
loud, obnoxious entitled complainers
You Had it right there. Just use that.
yes: it’s wordy. But it is on topic. And it will never fall out of meaning or relevance. Because it’s practically a dictionary description.This is what communication is. It relays your actual meaning with clarity.
loud, obnoxious entitled complainers can’t wriggle of it with side arguments and assumptions about your narrative of the situation . They don’t take offence to it for the reason you think they are taking offence to it. They are taking offence to the blatant sexism you think you just got away with. And you’re making them look right when they point it out. So using ‘Karen’ as an insult is doing more damage to you than anyone you think you’re describing. Same could also be said about ‘cunt’ too. It just sounds like you’re trying to be an edgy 12 yr old gamer who just discovered the ‘n’ word and have become obsessed about it for no other reason than to push buttons. You can come up with all the Aussie backstory you want about it but then it turns into a story about you struggling to not look bad. It’s no longer about the loud, obnoxious entitled complainers. If anything, shorthand is false economy when you have to spend 40 more words to explain yourself on what you could have done with just 4.
Asshole? Jerks? Something other than an existing person’s name? I know two Karens, and they’re some of the nicest sweetest people I know.
“Lesbian.” I don’t hate the word, but the fact that it is considered dirty. Why is “brunette” or “blonde” perfectly acceptable, but “lesbian” or “gay” aren’t?
Agendas have been made to make people think they are filthy words.
“Stupid” or “smart” or “IQ”. Take your pick.
Intellectual capacity is a social darwinist fantasy.
That includes insults that go along the lines of, “Trump supporters can’t read.”
[Aside: I dislike Trump supporters, mind you. But if they couldn’t read (especially reading Breitbart, or the Epoch Times, or the text part to Russia-funded propaganda memes) that would actually be an improvement right now. Lower cognition would be an improvement if it were real.]
Anyways my reasons are as follows: I’ve tutored quite a few people, and never found one actually incapable of learning a particular concept.
I have, on the other hand, found a large number who were underconfident about their ability, citing their “low” intelligence specifically. And unlike their intellectual capacity, this belief in IQ was actually limiting. And harmful.
I have also encountered people (outside of my tutoring) who thought their “intelligence” was a source of superiority over the masses.
They were not superior people. Their vocabulary – which people often use as a misguided proxy for intelligence – was offputting because they often used words they had clearly never heard used in context. Indicating these words were added to their lexicon unorganically, pulled from a dictionary or thesaurus rather than an adventure novel, highlighting a strange set of priorities that always made these people suspicious to me.
Every time someone calls me smart, I tend to suspect they’re trying to scam me.
Every time someone calls me stupid, I shrug because they clearly haven’t met all of the people who call me smart.
But in all cases, they are invoking the idea that some people are just capable of more, and others are just capable of less. It’s social darwinism, like I said.
And I find it disgusting.
If you want my respect, never appeal to social darwinism in my presence.
I agree that people throw terms like smart/intelligent around incorrectly, and often try to “sound smart”, and I cringe at those things too.
…but you’re also asserting that intellectual capacity doesn’t exist and that is incorrect, or at least incomplete.
–TL;DR– Intelligence is valuable and varies between people but it seems like everyone has the ability to be intelligent given the right conditions. The taboo around intelligence prevents us from getting underperforming kids the help they need.
The important truth is that we don’t fully understand what contributes to intelligence.
We know that motivation is enormously important. The difference between being offered $1 and $10 explains something wild like >10 points on an IQ test. https://www.science.org/content/article/what-does-iq-really-measure
We also know that mental health and emotional state makes a big difference. So everything impacting mental health would contribute. https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-020-0372-2
These factors alone mean that our intellectual performance can change from moment to moment.
Another important distinction is that there are two kinds of intelligence, fluid and crystalized. Fluid intelligence is our ability to solve moment-to-moment interactions, and new and novel problems. Crystalized intelligence is the ability to take foundational principles that we’ve already been exposed to and use those to solve secondary, abstract, or complex problems. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelligence
That second one is almost entirely based on the types of problems we’ve been exposed to in our lives, meaning that it’s impacted by our previous behavior and our circumstances (which are largely out of our control).
We have no reason to believe that intelligence is some kind of immutable genetic trait that some have and some don’t - in fact that’s largely been debunked as far as I know.
However, the controversial field of behavioral genetics has demonstrated that a large percentage is our personalities and behaviors are impacted by our genetics. This would be an indirect factor. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201509/what-behaviors-do-we-inherit-genes
Where does this leave us?
A person may be more genetically predisposed to being hard working (trait conscientiousness), which may make them more likely to apply themselves to work and education, meaning that they have a higher intellectual capacity. Or, they may just follow instructions without thinking and have a lower intellectual capacity.
A person may experience an event that makes them highly value health, motivating them to become a doctor. Or they may behind afraid of medicine and avoid the subject altogether.
Similarly, a person may be told that they are stupid and that they will never amount to anything. They may believe it and give up, and never apply themselves. Or they may defy it and work harder to prove it untrue.
Your genetics and your circumstances don’t determine what you will be capable of. However, they do have an impact. Ignoring that would be an enormous mistake.
Having two mentally healthy parents in a stable home with many books and many adults that care about you in your community will give you a better chance at scoring higher on IQ tests.
Having a single parent that’s drug addicted and bouncing from home to home with no books and no caring adults in your community gives you a lower chance of scoring higher on IQ tests.
Higher IQ is correlated with a whole bunch of benefits, like having higher income and life expectancy.
The original implementation of IQ was to identify which school children needed intervention to help them succeed. It was never supposed to be an indicator of human value. That we’ve done that to it is a shame. It’s basically the best tool that we have to figure out which kids need the most help.
I haven’t found research that confirms raising IQ improves outcomes. But I have a hard time believing that helping kids learn (if they wanted the help, at least) would hurt their outcomes.
End rant.
Edit: oh, and the belief in intelligence as an immutable genetic trait is only social darwinism if higher intelligence makes people more likely to reproduce, which it doesn’t. That’s the premise behind Idiocracy. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25131282/
Edit: oh, and the belief in intelligence as an immutable genetic trait is only social darwinism if higher intelligence makes people more likely to reproduce, which it doesn’t. That’s the premise behind Idiocracy.
That’s what I thought at first too. But the definition, oddly enough, doesn’t actually mention reproduction.
From Merriam-Webster
social Darwinism noun : an extension of Darwinism to social phenomena specifically : a sociological theory that sociocultural advance is the product of intergroup conflict and competition and the socially elite classes (such as those possessing wealth and power) possess biological superiority in the struggle for existence
It’s most often used to describe Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” which was all about the superiority of some members of society, and the benefits society would reap by allowing them power over everyone else and over all of society’s resources.
Yo, this is amazing. Yep I was completely wrong about social darwinism. I either made up the definition myself based on my understanding of Darwin, or had someone explain it to me wrong and never questioned it.
Thanks for the correction!
It’s my pleasure. I enjoy these discussions, and you brought a lot to the table.
Calling someone “stupid” or “dumb” is all too common, especially online in places like Reddit and Twitter. I think it is a lazy and vacuous statement, or at best just a way to vent frustration.
It’s much better, and more constructive, to be specific about what you find reprehensible. It could be that they have horrible morals, and calling them stupid is like a shorthand for saying that they are unable to reason through towards a consistent and correct set of moral principles. Or it could be that they have been indoctrinated into nasty world-views, and that their “stupidity” is exhibited as a failure to protect themselves from the indoctrination or escape it. Or they could be deliberately hurtful trolls who say outrageous and inflammatory things to upset others, in which case their “stupid” behavior is most likely an outward-facing reaction to some trauma in their own lives. Or maybe they are just sadistic, which warrants being called out specifically, and not just attributed to stupidity. A lot of anti-intellectual posturing seems to come from some combination of these causes.
Anyway, I feel like being specific about your criticisms not only promotes compassion (which is ultimately most likely to win over those we disagree with) but also prompts you to more thoughtfully reflect on your own positions.
💯
This right here! Specify!
Replace stuff like
“Marjorie Taylor Greene can’t read”
with stuff like
“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s remarks on “globalism” should be alarming to anyone who has encountered the phrase ‘the International Jewry’ as they studied history.”
deleted by creator
Yeah, it’s heartbreaking to see stuff like that.
That word stands correct. To give you an example - Coca cola has been labeled #1 for the worst company when it comes to pollution however nothing being said about people who consumes and throw the plastic bottles wherever they feel like. A for profit company works on demand and forecast accordingly so consumers consume that shit and the company produces more to keep up with the demand. However people dont like getting blamed so they blame the company for not collecting their plastic and the company blames the government and it goes on. Hence the word consooomers
deleted by creator
You have much faith in humanity if you think that is being done simply because they don’t know.
There’s plenty of manipulative assholes misusing it and trying to hide behind it to take advantage of someone with it. And you’ll see that manipulation in every group. Con artists are everywhere. Don’t blame the game. Blame the player.
Had a lit class many years ago where the professor was a self proclaimed feminist. The first day, she went off curriculum and had everyone reading some heavily propagandized literature. She was openly hostile towards any of the men in the class. Refused to answer any of their questions, belittled them, etc. I dropped it, and one of my best friends stayed in out of curiosity. A couple months later, he told me that she was failing every guy that was still there. Purely malicious and discriminatory.
That’s been my experience with the more outspoken “feminists” I’ve met. Sorry if someone hurt you, I really, truly am, but being that sort of vindictive and malicious towards men doesn’t make you a feminist. It makes you a sexist and every bit as bad as the assholes who treat women poorly.
How hard is it to just be good and respectful to everyone?
Names and details.
This is just vague caricature bullshit.
Hate ‘consumer’ too. I know it is an accurate term per economics, but I remember when people still referred to themselves as customers. And like all shitty things, we just switched to the new standard without much noticing.
Btw not a word per se, but in a similar vein I hate how, when people talk about price, they slowly say e.g. 499.99. Just call it 500. That’s what it is. By starting with a lower number, you give the listener’s brain a second or two to start processing the information incorrectly.
Anyway I also hate words like “misinformation”, “whataboutism” and other similar terms, as they are so often used to accuse people of wrongdoing even if there was no such intent, or quite the opposite. It’s like a one-step way to try to win the argument.
Oh and a big one I rather spun into another comment.
This one makes me cringe so hard - when YouTubers ask to “leave a comment down below”, or even “in a comment section down below” or refer to “description down below”.
Good grief, does this “Down Below” fellow pay everyone for advertising? Can you just fucking stop? I know there’s a comment section, I know where it is, down and below is redundant, and in fact, don’t tell me what to do, I’ll comment if I feel like it, thank you very much. Also how about some originality? At least some keep trying to come up with new synonyms to tell me to “smash” the like button, but the comments, same shit everyone.
Gawd I hope YT starts penalising this at some point.
The only reason they do it is because their analytics tell them it works. Same with the subscribed vs not subscribed graph that so many of them flash on screen nowadays. Granted the ones I watch at least get creative with the commentary surrounding that one.
“artist-haters” “AI-bros”, as if we’re not all just artists trying to enjoy life kek
You definitely would’ve had an NFT pfp on reddit
nfts are fucking retarded. biggest pyramid scheme bullshit I’ve ever seen in my life.
I stayed the fuck away from that dumb shit and any other crypto bullshit.
Referring to artists as ‘creatives’.
It implies to me that some have the capacity to be creative and some don’t, which is simply ridiculous. It’s also pretentious as fuck.
I did not know it could be offensive. I’ll stop using it now.
Don’t stop using anything just because of this thread, lol. Except insults probably. Most of the general stuff here like “creative” or “gamer” or “content creator” are things very specific people have some gripe with that’s not at all how most people see those things.
It all depends on how you mean it. If you use words descriptively, most of all of them are fine to use. Only if you have derogatory or whatever intent behind it may become a problem.
I just find it annoying, not offensive. I never hold it against anyone using it and I can see why it gets used. I personally think using creators instead of creatives just comes across way less pretentious.
I don’t mind creatives because i don’t know what else to call a group of people who do different creative things.
I think using “creators” is fine because it implies someone using their creative abilities instead of people that have creative abilities, which is everyone, whether they think they do or not.
Ok. That sounds good.
