Name: Anonymous 2014-12-18 1:48
<beingbrown> I like the idea of alternating pronouns
<pharpend> There's an old english pronoun
<pharpend> ou
<pharpend> which is gender-neutral 3rd person
<beingbrown> let's not use that. :p
<pharpend> why not
<pharpend> it's correct
<pharpend> and makes us seem like pretentious dicks
<pharpend> what's not to love
<beingbrown> I was going to say nothing's more pretentious than using precise language despite its shelf life.
<beingbrown> but I see that's already in the pro column now
<pharpend> Let's also use "thou" instead of "you"
<beingbrown> and I. create a classical philsosophical distinction
<beingbrown> :D
<pharpend> do you agree with the general sentiment of being minimally political?
<beingbrown> hm. I agree with not compromising content for political correctness.
<beingbrown> I do think there's very little to be gained from being 'edgy'
<pharpend> mhm
<Suhaag> I would agree with minimally political
<vanila> You should use she in a book
<beingbrown> vanila: I'm proposing use he and she, in alteration
<vanila> that's ridiculous
<pharpend> use "she" when we are insulting someone, "he" when we are saying something good
<Suhaag> Good idea
<pharpend> or you know
<Suhaag> We all know she can't solve this, so let's ask him
<pharpend> haha
<pharpend> "ou" does sound pretentious, but we could use it and put a disclaimer - "we are not trying to be pretentious, we just couldn't agree on a term"
<pharpend> benzrf: https://github.com/learnmath/lysa/issues/9
<beingbrown> why is alternating between he and she a bad idea, vanila ?
<pharpend> It's confusing
<pharpend> I said "it dosen't matter" a whole lot
<pharpend> "He" seems to be the standard, although there's no universally agreed-upon standard
<Suhaag> Use they
<Suhaag> Always when I am unsure, I use they
<pharpend> If all you get out of the book is anger about pronoun usage, you are reading the book wrong
<vanila> IDEA: Use the magic of hypertext to generate a copy of the book for each pronoun set
<Suhaag> It's grammatically incorrect sometimes but it gets you out of these discussions
<pharpend> Suhaag: While I agree with the general sentiment, I'm not going to let political correctness trump grammatical correctness
<beingbrown> what is grammatical correctness, but political correctness, anyway?
<pharpend> because it's annoying
<pharpend> and it usually gets in the way
<Suhaag> pharpend: I agree, I would use the same, but I just want to avoid sh*tstorm
<pharpend> I have seen that phrase used as a joke
<pharpend> and I have no idea what it means
<pharpend> How do I measure my privilege
<vanila> if you just write the whole book using $he $she $his $her (any one you choose, it doesn't matter)
<Suhaag> with a privilege-meter obviously
<vanila> then you can easily to a search and replace to set those to whatever pronouns chosen
<pharpend> vanila: we can use a latex macro pretty easily
<vanila> yeah that is a good idea
<pharpend> \newcommand{\xe}{she}
<vanila> a macro would be better for this purpose
<pharpend> \xe
<pharpend> \newcommand{\xer}{her}
<pharpend> If this is like that white privilege bullshit, I'm going to be very unamused
<pharpend> or very amused
<pharpend> depending on my mood
<beingbrown> pharpend: I hope you're joking.
<beingbrown> that wouldn't excuse it, but it'd make it maybe less ... frustrating?
<pharpend> I understand the concept, I just think it's ridiculous to base your political beliefs off of unquantifiable platitudes
<beingbrown> you mean like pay differences?
<beingbrown> or raise frequency?
<pharpend> if those statistics actually held water, sure.
<beingbrown> so you're saying there's not a wage gap?
<pharpend> There is a wage gap, but it's not for the reason you think it is
<beingbrown> ?
<beingbrown> the fact that there is a wage gap is the problem.
<vanila> maybe we should get onto some math :P
<monochrom> I watched the movie The Imitation Game yesterday.
<beingbrown> vanila: my specialty is stats. afaik, we're talking math.
<Suhaag> Oh yeah, let's talk math
<beingbrown> ^++
<vanila> you're trying to make me do a nasty joke about stats not being real math but I wont do it
<pharpend> My impression is, and it may be wrong, that people think that hiring managers, or whomever determines wages, has some innate discrimination policy towards women, in the sense that they just subconsciously think women should be paid less
<pharpend> vanila: well, you know, a guy who won a fields medal this past summer was a statistician
<beingbrown> that's not at all what 'people think'
<Suhaag> Statistics is the mathematic version of lying
<pharpend> okay, enlighten me
<pharpend> again, saying "women don't want the jobs" is just as bad, because there's no way to quantify that
<beingbrown> vanila: lol.
<pharpend> I know
<vanila> :p
<Suhaag> Actually in some cases it's true though
<pharpend> I was pointing out that I wouldn't say that, because it's an equally vacuous statement
<vanila> I have heard that the Moonshine conjecture has been proved!
<Suhaag> Is there a women's quota for jobs like garbadge-men?
<Suhaag> Or is it planned?
<Suhaag> Anyway, math
<pharpend> What most people are complaining about, women are paid less on average then men, for the same jobs. I find that implausible, because if companies could get away with doing that, they would hire entirely women. So, knowing that statistic is true, the explanations I can come up with are (1) women are somehow less productive, or (2) women get pregnant, and are therefore paid less. The first explanation makes
<pharpend> a little bit of sense, but I'm sure the same applies to men in some occupations. The second explanation is quantifiable, which is why I would take it
<Suhaag> Actually it was actually the case that staff in the white house was paid differently depending on gender
<Suhaag> And that was under Obama
<Suhaag> benzrf: Damn right you are
<pharpend> I'm not saying that gender discrimination doesn't exist. I'm saying that it probably exists because someone loses money.
<vanila> ok no one wants to talk about moonshine.. anti-sexism or whatever is more importnat
<pharpend> vanila: what's the moonshine thing
<pharpend> Anyway, this was exactly the kind of discussion I was wanting to avoid
<beingbrown> i'm sad at how little of this conversation refers to the actual numbers involved, and is mostly just raw, conjecture that is, in essence, the projection of privilege.
<pharpend> I apologize for veering off-topic
<beingbrown> pharpend: that is actually the more 'technical' argument: market forces, not individuals, are biased against women because the functional economy was engineered toward a gendered society.
<pharpend> beingbrown: should we make some rules about discussing politics? I'm generally fine with off-topic discussion , as long as it doesn't distract from on-topi discussion
<vanila> probably just let them finish the discussion
<vanila> it's not really a problem just annoying
<pharpend> beingbrown: I would be interested in hearing this. I find most of economics to be absolute nonsense, but if there were a mathematical component.
<pharpend> benzrf: I didn't decide to use "he". I explicitly said I didn't care, and I didn't think the issue mattered
<pharpend> from the commit
<pharpend> s/commit/comment/
<desbot> pharpend meant: from the comment
<pharpend> > That's fine, I don't particularly care.
<lambdabot> <hint>:1:12: parse error on input ‘,’
<pharpend> oops, sorry lambdabot
<pharpend> okay
<pharpend> here's my thinking
<pharpend> "He" is the standard, so I will use it, unless there is a good reason not to (beyond vacuous unquantifiable conjecture)
<pharpend> s/unquantifiable/unquantified
<beingbrown> pharpend: as much as I'd like the book to be apolitical, any book decision should be allowed to be discussed here, in an open forum.
<pharpend> I agree
<beingbrown> it turns out that gender is important to the discussion of the book, as benzrf pointed out, it sort of beats against one of the core tenants.
<beingbrown> tenets?
<beingbrown> sorry. been a long day.
<beingbrown> yeah.
<pharpend> "contribute to the exclusionary culture of stem" <- vacuous unquantifiable conjecture
<beingbrown> if however, we were to venture into immigration reform or something equally pointless to _the book_ I'd probably encourage finding a different channel
<pharpend> If you were to show me some data saying something to the effect of "these people would all be offended if you used he instead of she"
<beingbrown> wait. benzrf are you saying that stem gender bias isn't quantifably identifiable?
<beingbrown> sorry, not benzrf pharpend
<beingbrown> pharpend ^
<beingbrown> pharpend: asking a 'who is going to be offended' misses the mark of being inclusive.
<beingbrown> to be inclusive, approachable, a better question is "have we left anyone out"?
<pharpend> sure
<beingbrown> which, by picking 'he', you have. half of the human population
<pharpend> Yeah, I don't see how picking a pronoun is exclusionary
<pharpend> especially when that pronoun is the standard
<beingbrown> pharpend: allow me to give you some insight.
<beingbrown> you know why tests have all sorts of weird names in the questions?
<beingbrown> because if the reader can't relate to the problem, they don't feel a need to solve it.
<pharpend> beingbrown: hmm, I haven't heard that
<beingbrown> the same is true of a book. if it's written about he's, there's no connection between the reader and the content.
<pharpend> benzrf: you keep using that word, but there's no quantified definition of it
<beingbrown> hes*
<pharpend> I did
<pharpend> there's no quantification there
<beingbrown> pharpend: privilege +1 thing that is of limited access to another population by virtue of something that you have no control over.
<pharpend> @google definition of quantify
<lambdabot> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quantify
<lambdabot> Title: Quantify - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
<pharpend> Let me again state my position
<beingbrown> pharpend: to be honest, I think has drifted from your position on the book to a shock that you'd hold that position personally in the first place.
<beingbrown> which I guess is irrelevant.
<beingbrown> let's just use mixed pronouns?
<pharpend> Male pronouns are the standard. It is generally a good idea to adhere to standards. However, unless there is a good reason to use something else, I will use the standard.
<vanila> I think that female pronouns are standard
<pharpend> for the issue at hand, that's what we're discussing
<pharpend> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neutral_pronouns#Historical_and_dialectal_gender-neutral_pronouns
<beingbrown> pharpend: the standard excludes half the human population and we're trying to write an inclusive math book.
<pharpend> How does the standard exclude people?
<beingbrown> because half of the people aren't he's.
<beingbrown> benzrf: no caps, please.
<beingbrown> if you need to, take a walk
<beingbrown> but shouting down never got anything accomplished.
<vanila> I recommend using she or a macro to let people get the book in their preferred pronouns
<Suhaag> So when we say "Mankind" we also exclude half of the population?
<pharpend> saying "it's exclusionary because it's exclusionary" doesn't accomplish anything. You have to explain *why* it's exclusionary, and *how* it's exclusionary.
<pharpend> Unless you want me to accept that as a base axiom, which I refuse to do.
* Suhaag never heard "Womankind"
<pharpend> but, it's not
<pharpend> It's a general pronoun
<beingbrown> pharpend: can you point at a girl and say he?
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<pharpend> beingbrown: no. but when speaking in the general, the standard is to use "he"
<vanila> pharpend, perhaps ask some women for input on this
<Suhaag> Actually I just read that you can just use they
<Suhaag> And it's actually grammatically correct
<beingbrown> pharpend: I'm going to assume that you can't because it doesn't refer to them, right?
<beingbrown> Suhaag: I wrote a few papers in my lit degree on the use of they as a gender neutral singular pronoun
<pharpend> benzrf: the standard is not to assume that someone is male. the entire idea of a general pronoun is to not assume anything
<Suhaag> beingbrown: I have done that as well but only for small texts where nobody cares really
<pharpend> I have no problem with using she
<pharpend> but I think all it does is say "hey, look, we are being political"
<Suhaag> The few papers I wrote I have either used "one" or avoided pronouns in that manner
<vanila> pharpend, One of my favorite CS text books uses she/her the whole way through
<pharpend> by adhering to the standard, we are being apolitical
<pharpend> Okay, no more caps
<pharpend> can someone give me an actual argument
<beingbrown> pharpend: you didn't answer: can you not use he because it doesn't refer to a girl?
<Suhaag> But there is some irony in it pharpend
<beingbrown> benzrf: caps.
<Suhaag> There is no problem with using "She" the whole time but there is a problem with using "He"
<pharpend> beingbrown: when referring to a specific person, of course not. but, when using a gender-neutral pronoun, we are not referring to a specific person
<Suhaag> I call irony
<beingbrown> the point is that it's not a gender neutral pronoun. because you can't use it to refer to a girl.
<pharpend> Is there an apolitical solution?
<pharpend> Let's be clear
<beingbrown> by definition, that's both exclusive and gendered
<pharpend> okay, then we are going with the standard
<pharpend> If the two sides are equally political
<beingbrown> pharpend: are you just usurping the decision making?
<pharpend> let's go with the one everybody uses
<pharpend> I'm not usurping it
* ChanServ gives channel operator status to pharpend
<Suhaag> wow I can't believe you guys making such a fuzz over it o.O
<beingbrown> you're arguing that a gendered, exclusive pronoun is gender neutral after you said you can't use it without regard to gender. you have to realize how ... inconsistent that is?
<beingbrown> pharpend: ^
<pharpend> beingbrown: nobody is claiming the english language is consistent
<pharpend> I'm going to change the topic real quick
<beingbrown> pharpend: that's a terrible argument.
* pharpend has changed the topic to: Learn You Some Algebras for Glorious Good! See <https://learnmath.github.io/lysa>.
<beingbrown> pharpend: the english language is in fact incredibly consistent, but one has to know it in the same way we'd argue one has to know math to see it as inconsistent.
<pharpend> well, it sort of does
<pharpend> it says "this one will make fewer waves"
<pharpend> which is my entire goal
<pharpend> *with regard to this decision
* xceptioN has quit (Ping timeout: 265 seconds)
<pharpend> Okay
<pharpend> well
<pharpend> wait a minute
<pharpend> let me think
<pharpend> benzrf: that's wat I'm thinking
<pharpend> the only people who give a shit about this stuff are people like you
<pharpend> nobody will care if we use "she"
<beingbrown> 'people like you' < pharpend?
<pharpend> people who are the type who would care about this stuff
<pharpend> I have said many times, it's not that big of a deal
<Suhaag> <.<
<pharpend> nobody will get mad if we use "she"
<pharpend> benzrf: no more vacuous remarks for you
<pharpend> I'm not insistent
<pharpend> okay
<pharpend> if the standard was to say "the flying spaghetti monster", I would have gone with that
<pharpend> what the standard is is not relevant to me
<beingbrown> i'm going to get my wife.
<pharpend> the fact that it's a standard is what I was concerned about
<pharpend> beingbrown: a female opinion would be good
* Suhaag_ (~Kaare@i5E86A236.versanet.de) has joined
<beingbrown> pharpend: I mean this in all seriousness, but you've already had it.
<Suhaag_> what happend
<beingbrown> she'd have had harder words for you than me.
<pharpend> okay
<pharpend> I feel like people are getting too hung up on the "he" portion
<pharpend> I was saying "use it because it's the standard"
<beingbrown> for now, since you don't need it on, I"m going to ask you to -o?
<pharpend> oh sure
* pharpend removes channel operator status from pharpend
<pharpend> i just forgot
<beingbrown> let's leave that off for now.
<beingbrown> thanks.
<pharpend> I could care less what the standard actually is
<beingbrown> pharpend: I know you don't like the assertion of privilege, but the idea that 'people are too hung up on it' is awfully dismissive of viewpoints you don't share.
<pharpend> My current line of reasoning is, which is somewhat in line with what you said, the people with the strongest opinions are those in favor of "she", so let's use that unless someone louder comes along
<Suhaag_> benzrf: But following the logic, it should also be forbidden to use she as a pronoun
* beingbrown is now known as zz_beingbrown
<pharpend> benzrf: that's a valid point
<Suhaag_> (in that case)
* Suhaag has quit (Ping timeout: 244 seconds)
<pharpend> well
* Suhaag_ is now known as Suhaag
<pharpend> okay
<pharpend> let me be clear
<pharpend> the choice is either "he", "she", or "ou"
<pharpend> "ou" apparently is too pretentious
<pharpend> they is grammatically incorrect, even though it's common
<pharpend> it's sort of a small thing that irks me
<Suhaag> But using she because implicitly assuming that everybody is implicitly assuming all relevant people are male is also not fine
<pharpend> that was zz_beingbrown's suggestion
<Suhaag> :P
<pharpend> but I think that's too confusing
<Suhaag> Just always use (s)he
<Suhaag> Oh, ok, then nvm
<pharpend> because the reader would see different pronouns and think we are talking about different people
<Suhaag> I wasn't entirely serious anyway
<pharpend> oh i see
<pharpend> that's not a horrible idea
<pharpend> seems like it would be hard to follor
<pharpend> follow
<pharpend> How about this
<pharpend> because to have it strictly alternating would be a bit difficult
<pharpend> anyway
<Suhaag> I'd be either going with they or with (s)he but meh
<pharpend> everybody just use whatever pronoun you want, *as long as it is grammatically correct*
<Suhaag> hehe
<Suhaag> they is grammatically correct
<pharpend> the whole sexism thing is outside the scope of the book
<vanila> why don't you use a macro so that you can generate a copy of the book for either?
<Suhaag> I've just read
<vanila> this would jsut mean you write \he or \she (it doesn't matter which) intsead of he or she
<Suhaag> vanila: LOL "Click here for male/female version"
<vanila> yes :)
<pharpend> Suhaag: s/male\/female/shemale/
<pharpend> vanila: okay
<vanila> pharpend, That is a really offensive term
<pharpend> I wasn't aware
<pharpend> anyway
<Suhaag> Oh, btw, perhaps it is a bit sexist towards people who don't associate themselves with any gender?
<Suhaag> Just kidding :p
<pharpend> There's an old english pronoun
<pharpend> ou
<pharpend> which is gender-neutral 3rd person
<beingbrown> let's not use that. :p
<pharpend> why not
<pharpend> it's correct
<pharpend> and makes us seem like pretentious dicks
<pharpend> what's not to love
<beingbrown> I was going to say nothing's more pretentious than using precise language despite its shelf life.
<beingbrown> but I see that's already in the pro column now
<pharpend> Let's also use "thou" instead of "you"
<beingbrown> and I. create a classical philsosophical distinction
<beingbrown> :D
<pharpend> do you agree with the general sentiment of being minimally political?
<beingbrown> hm. I agree with not compromising content for political correctness.
<beingbrown> I do think there's very little to be gained from being 'edgy'
<pharpend> mhm
<Suhaag> I would agree with minimally political
<vanila> You should use she in a book
<beingbrown> vanila: I'm proposing use he and she, in alteration
<vanila> that's ridiculous
<pharpend> use "she" when we are insulting someone, "he" when we are saying something good
<Suhaag> Good idea
<pharpend> or you know
<Suhaag> We all know she can't solve this, so let's ask him
<pharpend> haha
<pharpend> "ou" does sound pretentious, but we could use it and put a disclaimer - "we are not trying to be pretentious, we just couldn't agree on a term"
<pharpend> benzrf: https://github.com/learnmath/lysa/issues/9
<beingbrown> why is alternating between he and she a bad idea, vanila ?
<pharpend> It's confusing
<pharpend> I said "it dosen't matter" a whole lot
<pharpend> "He" seems to be the standard, although there's no universally agreed-upon standard
<Suhaag> Use they
<Suhaag> Always when I am unsure, I use they
<pharpend> If all you get out of the book is anger about pronoun usage, you are reading the book wrong
<vanila> IDEA: Use the magic of hypertext to generate a copy of the book for each pronoun set
<Suhaag> It's grammatically incorrect sometimes but it gets you out of these discussions
<pharpend> Suhaag: While I agree with the general sentiment, I'm not going to let political correctness trump grammatical correctness
<beingbrown> what is grammatical correctness, but political correctness, anyway?
<pharpend> because it's annoying
<pharpend> and it usually gets in the way
<Suhaag> pharpend: I agree, I would use the same, but I just want to avoid sh*tstorm
<pharpend> I have seen that phrase used as a joke
<pharpend> and I have no idea what it means
<pharpend> How do I measure my privilege
<vanila> if you just write the whole book using $he $she $his $her (any one you choose, it doesn't matter)
<Suhaag> with a privilege-meter obviously
<vanila> then you can easily to a search and replace to set those to whatever pronouns chosen
<pharpend> vanila: we can use a latex macro pretty easily
<vanila> yeah that is a good idea
<pharpend> \newcommand{\xe}{she}
<vanila> a macro would be better for this purpose
<pharpend> \xe
<pharpend> \newcommand{\xer}{her}
<pharpend> If this is like that white privilege bullshit, I'm going to be very unamused
<pharpend> or very amused
<pharpend> depending on my mood
<beingbrown> pharpend: I hope you're joking.
<beingbrown> that wouldn't excuse it, but it'd make it maybe less ... frustrating?
<pharpend> I understand the concept, I just think it's ridiculous to base your political beliefs off of unquantifiable platitudes
<beingbrown> you mean like pay differences?
<beingbrown> or raise frequency?
<pharpend> if those statistics actually held water, sure.
<beingbrown> so you're saying there's not a wage gap?
<pharpend> There is a wage gap, but it's not for the reason you think it is
<beingbrown> ?
<beingbrown> the fact that there is a wage gap is the problem.
<vanila> maybe we should get onto some math :P
<monochrom> I watched the movie The Imitation Game yesterday.
<beingbrown> vanila: my specialty is stats. afaik, we're talking math.
<Suhaag> Oh yeah, let's talk math
<beingbrown> ^++
<vanila> you're trying to make me do a nasty joke about stats not being real math but I wont do it
<pharpend> My impression is, and it may be wrong, that people think that hiring managers, or whomever determines wages, has some innate discrimination policy towards women, in the sense that they just subconsciously think women should be paid less
<pharpend> vanila: well, you know, a guy who won a fields medal this past summer was a statistician
<beingbrown> that's not at all what 'people think'
<Suhaag> Statistics is the mathematic version of lying
<pharpend> okay, enlighten me
<pharpend> again, saying "women don't want the jobs" is just as bad, because there's no way to quantify that
<beingbrown> vanila: lol.
<pharpend> I know
<vanila> :p
<Suhaag> Actually in some cases it's true though
<pharpend> I was pointing out that I wouldn't say that, because it's an equally vacuous statement
<vanila> I have heard that the Moonshine conjecture has been proved!
<Suhaag> Is there a women's quota for jobs like garbadge-men?
<Suhaag> Or is it planned?
<Suhaag> Anyway, math
<pharpend> What most people are complaining about, women are paid less on average then men, for the same jobs. I find that implausible, because if companies could get away with doing that, they would hire entirely women. So, knowing that statistic is true, the explanations I can come up with are (1) women are somehow less productive, or (2) women get pregnant, and are therefore paid less. The first explanation makes
<pharpend> a little bit of sense, but I'm sure the same applies to men in some occupations. The second explanation is quantifiable, which is why I would take it
<Suhaag> Actually it was actually the case that staff in the white house was paid differently depending on gender
<Suhaag> And that was under Obama
<Suhaag> benzrf: Damn right you are
<pharpend> I'm not saying that gender discrimination doesn't exist. I'm saying that it probably exists because someone loses money.
<vanila> ok no one wants to talk about moonshine.. anti-sexism or whatever is more importnat
<pharpend> vanila: what's the moonshine thing
<pharpend> Anyway, this was exactly the kind of discussion I was wanting to avoid
<beingbrown> i'm sad at how little of this conversation refers to the actual numbers involved, and is mostly just raw, conjecture that is, in essence, the projection of privilege.
<pharpend> I apologize for veering off-topic
<beingbrown> pharpend: that is actually the more 'technical' argument: market forces, not individuals, are biased against women because the functional economy was engineered toward a gendered society.
<pharpend> beingbrown: should we make some rules about discussing politics? I'm generally fine with off-topic discussion , as long as it doesn't distract from on-topi discussion
<vanila> probably just let them finish the discussion
<vanila> it's not really a problem just annoying
<pharpend> beingbrown: I would be interested in hearing this. I find most of economics to be absolute nonsense, but if there were a mathematical component.
<pharpend> benzrf: I didn't decide to use "he". I explicitly said I didn't care, and I didn't think the issue mattered
<pharpend> from the commit
<pharpend> s/commit/comment/
<desbot> pharpend meant: from the comment
<pharpend> > That's fine, I don't particularly care.
<lambdabot> <hint>:1:12: parse error on input ‘,’
<pharpend> oops, sorry lambdabot
<pharpend> okay
<pharpend> here's my thinking
<pharpend> "He" is the standard, so I will use it, unless there is a good reason not to (beyond vacuous unquantifiable conjecture)
<pharpend> s/unquantifiable/unquantified
<beingbrown> pharpend: as much as I'd like the book to be apolitical, any book decision should be allowed to be discussed here, in an open forum.
<pharpend> I agree
<beingbrown> it turns out that gender is important to the discussion of the book, as benzrf pointed out, it sort of beats against one of the core tenants.
<beingbrown> tenets?
<beingbrown> sorry. been a long day.
<beingbrown> yeah.
<pharpend> "contribute to the exclusionary culture of stem" <- vacuous unquantifiable conjecture
<beingbrown> if however, we were to venture into immigration reform or something equally pointless to _the book_ I'd probably encourage finding a different channel
<pharpend> If you were to show me some data saying something to the effect of "these people would all be offended if you used he instead of she"
<beingbrown> wait. benzrf are you saying that stem gender bias isn't quantifably identifiable?
<beingbrown> sorry, not benzrf pharpend
<beingbrown> pharpend ^
<beingbrown> pharpend: asking a 'who is going to be offended' misses the mark of being inclusive.
<beingbrown> to be inclusive, approachable, a better question is "have we left anyone out"?
<pharpend> sure
<beingbrown> which, by picking 'he', you have. half of the human population
<pharpend> Yeah, I don't see how picking a pronoun is exclusionary
<pharpend> especially when that pronoun is the standard
<beingbrown> pharpend: allow me to give you some insight.
<beingbrown> you know why tests have all sorts of weird names in the questions?
<beingbrown> because if the reader can't relate to the problem, they don't feel a need to solve it.
<pharpend> beingbrown: hmm, I haven't heard that
<beingbrown> the same is true of a book. if it's written about he's, there's no connection between the reader and the content.
<pharpend> benzrf: you keep using that word, but there's no quantified definition of it
<beingbrown> hes*
<pharpend> I did
<pharpend> there's no quantification there
<beingbrown> pharpend: privilege +1 thing that is of limited access to another population by virtue of something that you have no control over.
<pharpend> @google definition of quantify
<lambdabot> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quantify
<lambdabot> Title: Quantify - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
<pharpend> Let me again state my position
<beingbrown> pharpend: to be honest, I think has drifted from your position on the book to a shock that you'd hold that position personally in the first place.
<beingbrown> which I guess is irrelevant.
<beingbrown> let's just use mixed pronouns?
<pharpend> Male pronouns are the standard. It is generally a good idea to adhere to standards. However, unless there is a good reason to use something else, I will use the standard.
<vanila> I think that female pronouns are standard
<pharpend> for the issue at hand, that's what we're discussing
<pharpend> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neutral_pronouns#Historical_and_dialectal_gender-neutral_pronouns
<beingbrown> pharpend: the standard excludes half the human population and we're trying to write an inclusive math book.
<pharpend> How does the standard exclude people?
<beingbrown> because half of the people aren't he's.
<beingbrown> benzrf: no caps, please.
<beingbrown> if you need to, take a walk
<beingbrown> but shouting down never got anything accomplished.
<vanila> I recommend using she or a macro to let people get the book in their preferred pronouns
<Suhaag> So when we say "Mankind" we also exclude half of the population?
<pharpend> saying "it's exclusionary because it's exclusionary" doesn't accomplish anything. You have to explain *why* it's exclusionary, and *how* it's exclusionary.
<pharpend> Unless you want me to accept that as a base axiom, which I refuse to do.
* Suhaag never heard "Womankind"
<pharpend> but, it's not
<pharpend> It's a general pronoun
<beingbrown> pharpend: can you point at a girl and say he?
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<pharpend> beingbrown: no. but when speaking in the general, the standard is to use "he"
<vanila> pharpend, perhaps ask some women for input on this
<Suhaag> Actually I just read that you can just use they
<Suhaag> And it's actually grammatically correct
<beingbrown> pharpend: I'm going to assume that you can't because it doesn't refer to them, right?
<beingbrown> Suhaag: I wrote a few papers in my lit degree on the use of they as a gender neutral singular pronoun
<pharpend> benzrf: the standard is not to assume that someone is male. the entire idea of a general pronoun is to not assume anything
<Suhaag> beingbrown: I have done that as well but only for small texts where nobody cares really
<pharpend> I have no problem with using she
<pharpend> but I think all it does is say "hey, look, we are being political"
<Suhaag> The few papers I wrote I have either used "one" or avoided pronouns in that manner
<vanila> pharpend, One of my favorite CS text books uses she/her the whole way through
<pharpend> by adhering to the standard, we are being apolitical
<pharpend> Okay, no more caps
<pharpend> can someone give me an actual argument
<beingbrown> pharpend: you didn't answer: can you not use he because it doesn't refer to a girl?
<Suhaag> But there is some irony in it pharpend
<beingbrown> benzrf: caps.
<Suhaag> There is no problem with using "She" the whole time but there is a problem with using "He"
<pharpend> beingbrown: when referring to a specific person, of course not. but, when using a gender-neutral pronoun, we are not referring to a specific person
<Suhaag> I call irony
<beingbrown> the point is that it's not a gender neutral pronoun. because you can't use it to refer to a girl.
<pharpend> Is there an apolitical solution?
<pharpend> Let's be clear
<beingbrown> by definition, that's both exclusive and gendered
<pharpend> okay, then we are going with the standard
<pharpend> If the two sides are equally political
<beingbrown> pharpend: are you just usurping the decision making?
<pharpend> let's go with the one everybody uses
<pharpend> I'm not usurping it
* ChanServ gives channel operator status to pharpend
<Suhaag> wow I can't believe you guys making such a fuzz over it o.O
<beingbrown> you're arguing that a gendered, exclusive pronoun is gender neutral after you said you can't use it without regard to gender. you have to realize how ... inconsistent that is?
<beingbrown> pharpend: ^
<pharpend> beingbrown: nobody is claiming the english language is consistent
<pharpend> I'm going to change the topic real quick
<beingbrown> pharpend: that's a terrible argument.
* pharpend has changed the topic to: Learn You Some Algebras for Glorious Good! See <https://learnmath.github.io/lysa>.
<beingbrown> pharpend: the english language is in fact incredibly consistent, but one has to know it in the same way we'd argue one has to know math to see it as inconsistent.
<pharpend> well, it sort of does
<pharpend> it says "this one will make fewer waves"
<pharpend> which is my entire goal
<pharpend> *with regard to this decision
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<pharpend> Okay
<pharpend> well
<pharpend> wait a minute
<pharpend> let me think
<pharpend> benzrf: that's wat I'm thinking
<pharpend> the only people who give a shit about this stuff are people like you
<pharpend> nobody will care if we use "she"
<beingbrown> 'people like you' < pharpend?
<pharpend> people who are the type who would care about this stuff
<pharpend> I have said many times, it's not that big of a deal
<Suhaag> <.<
<pharpend> nobody will get mad if we use "she"
<pharpend> benzrf: no more vacuous remarks for you
<pharpend> I'm not insistent
<pharpend> okay
<pharpend> if the standard was to say "the flying spaghetti monster", I would have gone with that
<pharpend> what the standard is is not relevant to me
<beingbrown> i'm going to get my wife.
<pharpend> the fact that it's a standard is what I was concerned about
<pharpend> beingbrown: a female opinion would be good
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<beingbrown> pharpend: I mean this in all seriousness, but you've already had it.
<Suhaag_> what happend
<beingbrown> she'd have had harder words for you than me.
<pharpend> okay
<pharpend> I feel like people are getting too hung up on the "he" portion
<pharpend> I was saying "use it because it's the standard"
<beingbrown> for now, since you don't need it on, I"m going to ask you to -o?
<pharpend> oh sure
* pharpend removes channel operator status from pharpend
<pharpend> i just forgot
<beingbrown> let's leave that off for now.
<beingbrown> thanks.
<pharpend> I could care less what the standard actually is
<beingbrown> pharpend: I know you don't like the assertion of privilege, but the idea that 'people are too hung up on it' is awfully dismissive of viewpoints you don't share.
<pharpend> My current line of reasoning is, which is somewhat in line with what you said, the people with the strongest opinions are those in favor of "she", so let's use that unless someone louder comes along
<Suhaag_> benzrf: But following the logic, it should also be forbidden to use she as a pronoun
* beingbrown is now known as zz_beingbrown
<pharpend> benzrf: that's a valid point
<Suhaag_> (in that case)
* Suhaag has quit (Ping timeout: 244 seconds)
<pharpend> well
* Suhaag_ is now known as Suhaag
<pharpend> okay
<pharpend> let me be clear
<pharpend> the choice is either "he", "she", or "ou"
<pharpend> "ou" apparently is too pretentious
<pharpend> they is grammatically incorrect, even though it's common
<pharpend> it's sort of a small thing that irks me
<Suhaag> But using she because implicitly assuming that everybody is implicitly assuming all relevant people are male is also not fine
<pharpend> that was zz_beingbrown's suggestion
<Suhaag> :P
<pharpend> but I think that's too confusing
<Suhaag> Just always use (s)he
<Suhaag> Oh, ok, then nvm
<pharpend> because the reader would see different pronouns and think we are talking about different people
<Suhaag> I wasn't entirely serious anyway
<pharpend> oh i see
<pharpend> that's not a horrible idea
<pharpend> seems like it would be hard to follor
<pharpend> follow
<pharpend> How about this
<pharpend> because to have it strictly alternating would be a bit difficult
<pharpend> anyway
<Suhaag> I'd be either going with they or with (s)he but meh
<pharpend> everybody just use whatever pronoun you want, *as long as it is grammatically correct*
<Suhaag> hehe
<Suhaag> they is grammatically correct
<pharpend> the whole sexism thing is outside the scope of the book
<vanila> why don't you use a macro so that you can generate a copy of the book for either?
<Suhaag> I've just read
<vanila> this would jsut mean you write \he or \she (it doesn't matter which) intsead of he or she
<Suhaag> vanila: LOL "Click here for male/female version"
<vanila> yes :)
<pharpend> Suhaag: s/male\/female/shemale/
<pharpend> vanila: okay
<vanila> pharpend, That is a really offensive term
<pharpend> I wasn't aware
<pharpend> anyway
<Suhaag> Oh, btw, perhaps it is a bit sexist towards people who don't associate themselves with any gender?
<Suhaag> Just kidding :p