Stuff like "stupid, idiot, moron, dumb," you know the ones. If you’re insulting someone for their shitty garbage beliefs and all you can manage to come up with is ways to insult their intelligence, appearance, or other aspect about them that has nothing to do with their cruelty and shittyness, you should maybe reevaluate.

Just saw a thread on here where a user was stubbornly refusing to adjust their language when another user politely pointed out that it was harmful to our comrades as well, and the person refusing was massively upvoted and the comrade trying to explain why it was harmful was downvoted. Thought we were better than that

I'm not calling anyone out, just wanted to make a post explaining my feelings on it and that when stuff like that happens (not the intelligence based insults, I know its hard to switch, but getting insulted for asking people to avoid them) it hurts and makes me feel less welcome here </3

Using words like “You’re being ignorant” or “That’s a cruel belief” is actually more effective than just going “lmao idiot”.

If those are the words you actually mean to convey I'd say use them instead :)

Edit: if the reception this post got isn't a good proof that this is something this community needs to grapple with, I don't know what is.

  • QuillQuote [they/them]
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    4 years ago

    Well people are shitheads because they spend most of their time with their head up someone's ass

    never considered shithead as an intellegence based insult personally, but that could just be because of the specific connotations it has in my head. I don't know how it came about and could end up changing my mind, especially if I were to hear it's hurtful to people

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      I can't imagine anyone in good faith reading it as an intelligence based insult. It's like "bonehead."

      • QuillQuote [they/them]
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        4 years ago

        Isn't bonehead rooted in phrenology? The 'science' used to 'prove' that black people and other races are inferior to whites?

        I've never checked but I feel like I heard that somewhere. Either way, I tend to agree with you :)