We have decided some brain quirks are disorders (and get accommodations, as is compassionate), whilst others are flaws (and get slurs). But no one picks their hardware. You cannot earn a better prefrontal cortex or deserve a calmer amygdala. Nor does one get to pick the environment they are born in, which will inform their choices later in life. Even the capacity to “learn better” is a roll of the dice, some brains start the race with sprinting shoes, others with lead weights.
So when we call someone stupid, lazy or insane we are not describing a choice, but simply announcing which kinds of unlucky we’ve decided are worthy of scorn.
None of this is how words work. Imagining a world where no one can be called stupid or lazy is just bizarre. These are just words to describe incredibly common and undesirable traits. Last time I checked, being lazy isn’t a mental disorder, it’s a characteristic that literally every human embodies at some point or another.
I very much like the framing you used here. Words are to communicate about the world and the persons in it. This shouldn’t be made unduely difficult and complicated. Individuals wishing a special treatment don’t have a right to it, people should still try to respect the (handicapped) persons, with the respect comes a willingness to accomodate their wishes (within reason like with everyone else).
An important detail though ist the differenciation between calling someTHING stupid (action or words) and calling someONE stupid.
Every person has their right to be happy and at peace, everyone needs their self esteem (and this includes people with mental handicaps). Calling them stupid is a quality about them as persons. Calling what they said stupid leaves their quality as a person intact, next time they can choose again.
Someone might inform you about a handicap to explain their behaviour, it doesn’t make the shortsighted actions any less shortsighted. But it might help to understand the reasons and limitations of said person.
Actually that ist also put into words how i feel about extreme reactions to someone mislqbeling or misgendering someone else. You can be whatever you like, if it stays reasonable i will accomodate your preferences. If you need me to make a handstand to accomodate your preferences i might choose not to.
Yeah. I mostly agree with most of what you wrote. I feel like the over policing of language is not helping anyone. And I think it gives truly shitty people another excuse to shit on otherwise reasonable politics. The idea that we have to sanitize every insult is like trying to rid the world of all bacteria or something. It can work on a small scale but you will never complete the job and if you zoom out, what the hell did you help anyway?
I’d much rather focus on bigger concepts rather than rethinking every piece of language we use. Some of the language changes as of late, probably even most of them, have been good. We don’t need to continually obsess about it.
You state that words like “stupid” or “lazy” are mere descriptors for common traits, and in this, you are correct. But let us be explicit: these words are not neutral. They are not clinical. They are not even accurate. They are judgments masquerading as observations, and their function is not to describe, but to dismiss, belittle and shame.
It is not the existence of laziness or folly that demands scrutiny, it is the impulse to label a human being as such, as though their value hinges on productivity or flawless reasoning. When you call a person “lazy,” you are not documenting a transient state; you are rendering a verdict. A judgment from a throne no higher than theirs. You ignore the depressed individual for whom movement is a Herculean task, the neurodivergent mind locked in executive dysfunction, the exhausted worker crushed beneath systems designed to extract labor without regard for humanity. The word “lazy” does not describe a choice. It erases a context.
Likewise, “stupid” is not a measure of intellect, it is a weapon. It presumes intelligence is a moral achievement, not a confluence of biology, environment, and luck. It assumes that those who fail to meet an arbitrary standard of competence deserve contempt, rather than inquiry. If a machine malfunctions, we do not call it “stupid”; we examine its design. Why, then, do we reserve such charity for objects, and withhold it from people?
The question is NOT whether we should “ban” these words. It is whether we recognize their purpose: to punish, not to understand. Language does not merely reflect reality, it constructs our perception of it. When we default to scorn, we architect a world where struggle is met with derision, where complexity is flattened into moral failure, and where the burden of proof always lies with the accused. This is not how justice works. This is not how compassion works.
Furthermore, if one desires a change in the conduct of one they would deem a fool, has shaming been shown to work? NAY! It has been demonstrated time and time again that shaming yields not the behavior of a distinguished individual but a seething hatred towards those that inflicted the wound. A resentment that easily turns what was once a mere human folly into a vitriolic conviction. You may then have no hope of opening this fortress of bitterness to see the harm their actions wrought, indeed they may feel justified in their actions. So as have been done unto them, they will do unto others.
https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/laziness-does-not-exist
https://www.uva.nl/shared-content/uva/en/news/press-releases/2025/08/guilt-makes-us-more-prosocial.html
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/216671499_The_longitudinal_links_between_shame_and_increasing_hostility_during_adolescence
https://neurosciencenews.com/guilt-shame-behavior-neuroscience-30065/
Of course, if your desire is merely to feel good for a moment as you unleash an insult upon another, by all means. But this is not the behavior of a paragon of virtue, rather it is base.
You spend almost the entire duration of this comment pretending not to understand what an insult is, then in the last sentence, you use the concept of insulting others as an insult itself. “Well maybe YOU insult people but that behavior is completely beneath ME, I’m not such a terrible person who would do that.” Ironically this post and all your comments come off judgy af.
It sounds like you’ve been called these insults and filter out possibilities outside of your perception. You assume the insults come solely from some condition(s) you might have. I think I can safely say, that is not typically what anyone thought about or meant.
Every single day, these insults are used to describe bad behavior and bad choices and my point is that this will continue, at most we switch to different insults. But that wouldn’t satisfy you either and it certainly wouldn’t solve anything. There is no evidence whatsoever that these insults are used even slightly in the direction of being only for people that “cannot help it.”
If you had simply said “maybe insulting people is bad for us ourselves. Think about it” then almost no one would be pushing back here. But instead what you did is you already decided (incorrectly in most cases) what other people mean when they use certain words and you’re here to tell those people that using those words makes them bad/lesser people.
https://youtu.be/JAV9Q_c82M4?list=RDJAV9Q_c82M4&t=60
Ah yes, you claiming to be Jesus in this scenario really showed me lmao. Couldn’t have possibly hoped for more validation than this link.
Dude.
You are literally arguing for the right to be mean to others without consequences.
Not in the least. I’m arguing that this user is full of false assumptions. Just because I admit that insults will always remain a thing doesn’t mean they’re beyond reproach.
I have to assume from your comment that you also think mean words are “carnage” 😬
You realize the OP is doing a melodramatic bit, right? It’s funny, at least to me.
You say that they are full of false assumptions but your arguments against them hinge on the assumption that they have been asking for banning for words. Can you point to a single instance where he says this?
If they’re trolling and you like it, good for you?
I deleted all my comments here because this is a STUPID fucking conversation. I won’t respond to further trollings.