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.

  • Civility [none/use name]
    1·
    4 years ago

    Insults based on intelligence are derogatory terms for people who are less able.

      • Civility [none/use name]
        1·
        4 years ago

        Are you saying "idiot" isn't derogatory or doesn't refer to someone who is less able?

        Or that being less intelligent isn't a form of being less able?

        • RedDawn [he/him]
          4·
          4 years ago

          Less able to what? You keep describing people as “less intelligent” which is literally just the same thing as stupid. In fact I find your use of the words “less intelligent” in all these comments extremely hurtful because less intelligent people like myself are discriminated against. I insist that you stop saying those hurtful words and apologize to me.

          • Civility [none/use name]
            1·
            4 years ago

            This is the "noticing race is racist, you bigot" argument chuds fall back on when they're trying to pretend they're not owned.

            Are you gonna tell me you didn't feel at least little gross typing that?

            • qublic69 [none/use name]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I just want to take a moment to appreciate this comment. lol

              At this point I'm not sure what to do with all the cognitive dissonance I have after this.
              Ironically arguing with RedDawn has shifted my view somewhat, especially:

              Slurs are bad because they reproduce systems of oppression against marginalized groups of people,

              is just impossible to square with using some of these words anymore.
              It's ridiculous, but it feels like I'm holding on to 'st*pid' for dear life and I don't really even understand why anymore.

            • RedDawn [he/him]
              4·
              4 years ago

              You should feel so gross you feel like you need to take a shower for actually trying to equate a word like “stupid” with actual slurs like the n-word. Frankly it’s disgusting and offensive in addition to being incredibly, mind numbingly dumb.

              • Civility [none/use name]
                1·
                4 years ago

                And this is the pro free speech warrior "haha look at me I'm calling the person asking me not to use slurs the slur" move.

                Why is it so important to you to be able to refer to less able people in a derogatory way?

                • RedDawn [he/him]
                  3·
                  4 years ago

                  Also, it’s obviously not that, since I have not one single solitary time called you stupid. But I have called your arguments stupid which is what this is really about. You don’t like being called out when you type fucking nonsense on message boards and you’re trying hard to make that into you being oppressed somehow. And it’s honestly beyond disgusting, you need to grow the fuck up.

                  • Civility [none/use name]
                    1·
                    4 years ago

                    Calling an argument stupid again, has a similar effect to calling a person stupid IF that person or people who see it have internalised that they're stupid. It's a social bludgeon to tell those people their input isn't wanted and they're barred from this discourse.

                    I don't think you're oppressing me. I was pointing out your using bread and butter chud arguments and attacks. That's three in a row now so I'm not gonna bother with this conversation anymore.

                    Please take some time to consider why you feel the need to use words people are telling you are making them uncomfortable.

                    • RedDawn [he/him]
                      2·
                      4 years ago

                      Thank god you’re done because every one of your replies that I read is making me a bit dumber.

                      Please take some time to consider why you feel the need to use words people are telling you are making them uncomfortable.

                      Because I’m not in the habit of pretending things aren’t what they are because it might make somebody “uncomfortable”. Racists get uncomfortable when you call their racist arguments racist, but I’m not about to stop doing that anytime soon either.