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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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You are using the label "taking" because it has strong negative associations. It has strong negative associations because central examples of "taking" cause harm. Duplication of data very clearly does not cause harm in these ways. This is basic logic, not "playing silly semantic games". Stretching affect-loaded labels to cover highly non-central examples of what they're supposed to describe, on the other hand, pretty clearly is playing silly semantic games. I can't stop you from calling duplication "taking", but I certainly can point out that doing so is dishonest. But hey, don't take my word for it when you can consult the sacred texts.

Ah, so you're not playing semantic games, you're accusing me of bad faith. Yes, that's so much better. /s

No, my good man, I'm not using the term "taking" to try to cash in on some negative connotations in a disingenuous way. It was just a simple word choice, one which I maintain is actually the correct one (taking never has meant that one must deprive someone of something, nor does it have negative connotations, contrary to your assertions on both counts). But even if I were wrong on that score (which I don't believe I am), I'm not some kind of bad faith commenter trying to twist words to my advantage. At the absolute worst, I made a poor choice of words.

It's honestly super obnoxious that you (and others) have chosen to jump down my throat over a simple word choice, one which doesn't actually affect my position even if I had used something else. Maybe instead of assuming bad faith on my part, you should follow the forum rules (you know, the other holy texts) and be charitable.

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