Elon Musk has the ear of one of the most powerful people in the world – President Donald Trump – making him one of the most powerful people in the world, too. He’s been given unfettered access to adjust the federal government’s budget and headcount.
So what’s he doing posting a slur multiple times targeting the disabled community on social media?
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“it’s just a word” is such a shallow take. Words carry meaning and weight. Language also evolves and changes; this is why no one speaks Middle English.
I never said they didn’t carry meaning. I simply meant they are just words in the sense that they can’t actually do anything to you as a person. Just wiggly air or ink on paper.
I advocate more for what they do to the person who uses them. If people tell you they are hurt by your actions, and your response is to say they are wrong to feel that way and you keep doing it, who does that make you?
I never said it was wrong for people to take offense to the word inherently. My point is that it’s a choice to get offended by a word. Some people don’t like other random words and they freak out about it. I knew a guy in highschool that hated the word “moist” and because he had such an entertaining reaction to it everyone on the class made sure use it as much as possible. Eventually he stopped being bothered by the word entirely. The meaning hadnt changed. He just chose to stop being bothered by it.
Stop letting other peoples words have so much power over your.
All right then, you fucking fascist.
Edit: What? Just words, right?
Can you even tell me the definition of a fascist? Because I can guarantee you by any way you slice it I do not fit that bill even a tiny amount lol.
Unless of course we are using the made up version of the word where it means “anyone that I don’t like” which is how some of y’all seem to use it.
Okay fascist.
Just words, right?
You seem to think this is bothering me or something. I am asking you if you even know the definition of the word fascist.
I’m glad it’s not bothering you, dogfucker! You’re so right that they’re just words, shiteater!
Are you the kind of person who tells depressed people to just try smiling more? Or that a handicap you cannot see is not a handicap? Because that’s the energy and logic you’re giving off here.
You acknowledge that words carry meaning, but then immediately dismiss that those meanings can have ramifications.
No I do not tell depressed people to smile more. I lived with a buddy who is handicapped in a way nobody can see. Called him a useless cripple all the time and not only did he laugh but so did all the other people who knew about his condition because they all have a sense of humor.
When dealing with an individual you know well, behaving how they want you to behave… you are doing it right. When you assume everyone feels the same way and are wrong if they don’t, you are doing it wrong.
When did I assume everyone feels the same way?
We used sped in the 1970s as it is a portmanteau of special education. It never meant a retarded kid specifically it meant a special needs kid. Many kids labelled as “speds” were far from being mentally deficient but had other issues that prevented them from functioning in a normal class space.
We stopped using that term in the early 80s.
That’s the good ol’ euphemism cycle/treadmill. Linguists have long observed a process of semantic shift, often pejoration, for words of taboo subjects.
Words idiot, imbecile, moron were technical designations that became offensive yet somehow later softened into acceptable insults.
Words colored people, negro, black went through the euphemism cycle. At some point black was reclaimed & became acceptable. Now people are afraid to say it again.
VD became STD and now it’s STI. I still don’t know what was wrong with STD.
This phenomenon reflects society’s avoidance of uncomfortable ideas by shifting words. The words change, though it’s questionable they objectively change society’s discomfort toward the subjects. The phenomenon might be reasonably criticized as ineffective & distracting.
Can you guess what will happen to today’s euphemisms?
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Clinical terms will constantly shift to more neutral terms any time the current term has taken on more weight than it was intended to have. It can take a bit for the new neutral word to propagate, but it will come around sooner or later. Eventually, the stink of an old term will die down enough that it can come back into medical use.
Yeah I don’t care for that. If you have a word and it’s been used for something for a long time I do not see the need to change it if it suddenly starts offending people later.
Like working on cars. Lots of parts on cars use terms that some people are now taking offense too. Master/slave to refer to parts that work in a chain of command. Or male and female fittings to describe a connection that protrudes and a connection that has a hole in it.
I’m not going to change my vocabulary because suddenly after hundreds of years people are deciding they don’t like the words anymore. They make sense in that application to describe the function of the parts and there is no need to change it. Nobody is being called a master or slave. Nobody is being called a male or female. These are car parts that got named the way they did because it made the most sense.
I’m not gonna get upset with people using the term “fat” to describe anything wide or large just because I’m overweight. That was be stupid.
And indeed using the term engine retarding brake is still totally valid in that same context. You’re trying to apply one situation to the context of a different situation.
And when it comes to the word fat, let people around you know you are ok with it. But don’t just use it around everyone else assuming they are similarly ok with it. Unless you are ok with people using the word jerk or asshole around you. You don’t get to have it both ways.
Wait, three parents? Is at least one a step parent?
I consider 4 people my “parents” as in they all helped raise me to varying degrees. My bio mom and dad obviously. My dad’s second wife and now his third wife both helped ar different points of my life.
My mom is about to re-marry finally but I’m a little old to be parented by her new man so he’s sorta just a guy who makes my mom happy as opposed to yet another parent.
I’m sure your parents would be proud of this
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Alright go ahead and call your parents that word and see how that goes lol
I think George Carlin would agree with you, if you’ve heard of him. He had a thing with words. Elon’s a banal idiot, no offence to all the banal people out there, and idiot is no longer derogetory, it’s really Idiocracy out there these days.
I miss George Carlin so much. He would have some SPICY takes about what all has been going on lately.
You can both give someone armor to fend off blows, and also raise people to understand you shouldn’t inflict those blows, both help. But calling someone “retarded” is not something a good person does.
Nobody is making the word bad. The word is intrinsically bad because it inflicts unfair and callous pain on others. A person’s right to inflict that pain is debatable, but is also immaterial, because what we’re saying here is that using those words without regard to the other person and causing that pain recklessly, makes one in some real sense a bad person. They can say the pain inflicted is “not their intention,” but that’s also immaterial if they are recklessly disregarding that pain. And accountability for being a bad person is just a natural result.
While I agree words can offend, I challenge your understanding of linguistics: no word is intrinsically bad. They’re signs & symbols with arbitrary, often conventional meaning.
Usage & context matter. Take any euphemism & say it in a hateful manner: now it’s offensive. Lifewise, take any offensive word & speak of it in an inoffensive manner: not offensive. Language is flexible.
I agree with your criticism of “intrinsic.” “Intrinsically” as I thought of it means that there’s been a consolidation step that builds in all of the cultural baggage into the “carried” meaning of the word. I think even if there’s no absolute “intrinsic” meaning, with sufficient cultural use, that negative meaning is impossible to extricate from an unironic, active use of the word. But of course every word can change its meaning, no debate there.
I think it’s a little academic to say “any offensive word” can be said in an “inoffensive manner” - yes, words in a theatrical play do not convey an offensive meaning against the audience; words said ironically as a criticism of the word and user of the word can be used satirically, but we’d then need to debate what it means to “use” a word in an offensive context versus another. (In any case, “inoffensive” use is not what Elon is doing. He’s following adolescent edgelord troll rules, which is using it unironically while exulting in other people’s offense, and playing the victim of woke culture when called on it.)
No armor required as no blows are being thrown my friend.
Not a physical attack. It’s literally just a word.
I think you’re being intentionally reductive, and you think that that reductionism is appropriate (i.e., only physical pain is valid pain). But I don’t agree, and most people wouldn’t in 2025. Psychological pain is pain, and you can likewise inflict it in a morally culpable way. You probably agree with that premise - you wouldn’t defend someone being actively abusive, like a psychopathic partner - but we’re just debating where the line is.
There’s still a valid debate about the limits of freedom from mental pain in the public sphere and our corollary duties to each other - I get that, it’s not “any pain is too much,” nobody reasonable thinks that - but this is entirely foreseeable, preventable and to doggedly insist that you have a right to inflict it doesn’t mean that it’s right to inflict it.