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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   16190 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026

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This was a bad comment. HereAndGone2 went a little too far in admonishing you so I've warned them as well.

But this demonstrates my problem with bad posts, is that they often beget other bad posts. You have both been here long enough to know better.

Her. You've warned her. Pet peeve.

Unless their gender is relevant to a modding decision I'm not gonna take notes or remember it. Your pronoun is user.

Technically user is a noun. I'm not trying to be tedious here.

I suppose my peeve is with the default to the plural when his/her or he/him is perfectly clear in cases where one does not recall who someone is (in your sentence: "I've warned him/her as well"), and indeed was a norm until trans-activists (and the likeminded) pushed for the universal use of the plural pronoun, or terms like zim and zey or whatever. (I will admit I do not know to what degree these were seriously offered as "solutions" or by whom.) The argument that him/her used in this way is an awkward construction is not compelling to me for a number of reasons. And I think the still soft voice of the serpent is in such small details that we do not notice until they're second nature, at which point bringing up the issue at all makes one seem like a man shaking his fist at a cloud. Indeed we may already be there (lowers fist.)

That said, of course you can ignore all this. If no one else cares I'm not going to waste your time or mine any further.

If you cannot shake your fist at a cloud on themotte where can one do so?

I read you. I somewhat intentionally became set in my ways on pronouns about a decade ago. I like the 4chan ethos of "everyone is a dude" on the internet. I don't hear your tone of voice, how deeply or softly you might speak, I don't see your chest or shoulders to know how you hold yourself, and I don't see into your eyes or catch your stare. I just read the words you have written. I'm interacting with just a brain and fingers on a keyboard. A set of physical traits shared by both genders, and in doing so failing to define either gender.

Saying you are a pronoun "user" was a bit tongue and cheek. I definitely don't care about English grammar "rules". If Fuck can mean anything, so can other words. A "user" is the mind and words of person interacting with me over the internet. Maybe eliminate "person" from that definition once AIs truly get good enough (another year at this rate?).

I truly do not see you as men and women or boys and girls. It feels silly to me use gender terms in text-only online forums. If we were to meet in person, you'd absolutely have a gender term in my mind the instant I saw you. Highly likely that term would line up with what you were at birth.

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