[sunilch]

Not something that happened 'On the Road' and hence not putting it in the thread for the same. I have had this funny incident/experience just a couple of hours back and that reminded me how funny certain things can be when it comes to life in the 'First World'

I salute the First World

A former client from AU is in good terms with me and we were having our regular Sunday phone call to catch-up on life and the software that they use (we did the development for the same). He wanted a small change in the same after some recent incidents that they have come across. They work in the legal profession.

The software generates a letter and in the Salutation part it puts in "Dear Sir/Madam" if it is not able to determine any specific salutation. This was done as part of the need when the development was done and you may not find anything problematic with it, if you don't want to fish out a problem.

But. They want me to, wait for it, "Dear Colleagues" because recently they have come across cases where people have found it to be offensive.

That was the moment I went . I mean seriously. I realized how far we are from these first world issues and how peaceful we are. We, usually, don't look for problems when there are none.

The client then went on into how the society in AU has gone mad and the supposed left has taken over it and so on. Sharing their opinion will be against the decorum here at T-Bhp and so I have kept it at minimum and excluded some other funny comments from their side.

I am sure many of you will have a similar incident/experience to share. Please bring it on.


Note to mods: If this doesn't require a separate thread, please merge it into the appropriate one.

[dark.knight]

This should be moved to the Shifting Gears thread since this has absolutely nothing to do with automobiles.

That apart, I'll keep it simple and brief.. the world was doing quite well before the western concepts of feminism, political correctness and gender equality kicked in full force. They are also called Social Justice Warriors (SJW for short) and are all left wingers who've left nothing but cracks and fissures in the society they seem to want to protect. Office life has been destroyed by these concepts.

In India people have jumped onto the left bandwagon with full, raging force.. but yet both genders are being disrespected day in day out, more than ever. People (both genders) are made to walk like there are eggshells and glass around.

Let an idea or reference be debated on its offensiveness, before its automatically tagged as offensive and regulated and muted. There will always be minorities, gender differences and cultural differences at all times, making all references class-culture-gender-fluid will result in extremely generalized references such as above.

Why don't we CELEBRATE OUR DIFFERENCES for a change? That's what I'd like, if a woman achieves something no other woman has, let's celebrate, same with men, same with views (as long as no one is getting hurt) and same with idealogies. Instead we pick holes and call everything as offensive unless we all fall into a narrow band of description where everything is generalized, streamlined and boring.

[GrammarNazi]

Remember somewhere recently I read a quote something to the effect of, "The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."

In the end of 2019, my friends & I were all contemplating how the decade had been and we came to discuss that people, especially women, seem to have gotten targeted by how social media works in our minds, and that how it gave us all a platform to impulsively share when we were personally having what would've been a temporary irritant, moreover when we wrote(/typed) them down, it in-turn etches the poor experience into our memories & we re-live them over and over again, thereby developing an angry temperament.

One of them is a psychologist & she opined that often such people turn into 'Woke' SJWs who can't disagree peacefully or constructively, instead their outrage is most often destructive (not to be mistaken with 'disruptive') & abusive/violent. This very often stresses out their dear ones and society.

Ofcourse, there are professionals (celebrities, journalists, lawyers, comedians etc), corporates (Co's selling FMCG or other products), politicians & 'activists', all of whom systematically encourage and take advantage of this 'woke' section of society for monetary and/or political gain. IMO, like alot of things this isn't about Left wing or Right wing, its probably about simply extorting money.

Anyway, there are a few Jordan Peterson videos on youtube that maybe you'll find interesting.

Originally Posted by dark.knight

...Why don't we CELEBRATE OUR DIFFERENCES for a change? That's what I'd like, if a woman achieves something no other woman has, let's celebrate, same with men, same with views (as long as no one is getting hurt) and same with idealogies. Instead we pick holes and call everything as offensive unless we all fall into a narrow band of description where everything is generalized, streamlined and boring.

I don't think its natural to "Celebrate our differences", a person can tolerate & accept others PoV. Maybe what people can celebrate is our right to agree to disagree & accept that there is more than one version of truth thereby our respective PoV can have more than one side.

[avisidhu]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

...
That apart, I'll keep it simple and brief.. the world was doing quite well before the western concepts of feminism, political correctness and gender equality kicked in full force....

Um, not really? While the broader point you made is true, please remember that it took a lot of struggle even in developed countries for females, minorities and other disadvantaged sections to gain acceptance and equality. Just because things might have gone too far over the past decade or so(which I agree with), does not mean we throw the baby with the bathwater.

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

Anyway, there are a few Jordan Peterson videos on Youtube that maybe you'll find interesting.
.....

He's one of the few sane voices on the conservative side. Even someone with liberal disposition should hear him out, to gain a more holistic viewpoint.

[Jeroen]

I would be very cautious of what you write here. Usually, it just shows how limited one's world view are. Admittedly, some nations problems differ from others. Some are new, some fade away with time. It rarely makes them less of an issue for those who feel neglected and or feel discriminated, not taken seriously.

I can make a very very long list of items/issues that started of by being mocked and ridiculed by others. And are now accepted as normal practice by most societies.

Don't mock what you do not understand or what you do not experience yourself, without having the decency to first of all dig into the topic at hand, talk to some of people who are behind these ideas. What are their stories, what makes them tick.

Just sharing random hearsay examples shows you as an individual with limited interest and worldly empathy.

Jeroen

Originally Posted by dark.knight

That apart, I'll keep it simple and brief.. the world was doing quite well before the western concepts of feminism, political correctness and gender equality kicked in full force. They are also called Social Justice Warriors (SJW for short) and are all left wingers who've left nothing but cracks and fissures in the society they seem to want to protect. Office life has been destroyed by these concepts.

Well, that is quite a statement. And I disagree wholeheartedly. Before all these concepts kicked in the world was doing relatively well if you were a man. Statistically that would give men a better outlook on life in just about any aspect compared to women.

Factually it is incorrect to think these are left wing concept. In many countries these are just main stream topics on which both left and right agree, but they debate on how to level the playing field, what mechanism to use, what policies etc.

The term feminism is actually rather outdated and in most of the western world you need to go back at least two decades to find that term being used or find an active, separate feminist movement. As I said earlier, this is now very much part of main stream thinking. But it did take a lot of dedicated effort. Often started by women themselves. Without the suffragettes, women might still not be voting in many parts of the world.

I for one think the world has become a much better place and fairer for it. Far from perfect, but better than it was. No time for complacency, still a very long way to go around the world. None of this work is done, nowhere.

What I also see is many busted male ego’s along the way. But that is fine by me. During my four years in India we managed to quadruple our gender diversity ratio. I dare say I have left numerous male ego’s busted in my wake. I can quote you some of the arguments coming from my management teams. Pretty appalling and pathetic. So we addressed that first. Some turned out to be very frustrated narrow minded little men. Some came around after a while and became the biggest advocates of bringing more woman into our company across all ranks.

The problem is never the women, the problem is always the men, unfortunately. Its is not women destroying anything, it is some men not coping with seeing and dealing with women on an equal footing.

Jeroen

[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by sunilch

I have had this funny incident/experience just a couple of hours back and that reminded me how funny certain things can be when it comes to life in the 'First World'

I salute the First World

A former client from AU is in good terms with me and we were having our regular Sunday phone call to catch-up on life and the software that they use (we did the development for the same). He wanted a small change in the same after some recent incidents that they have come across. They work in the legal profession.

The software generates a letter and in the Salutation part it puts in "Dear Sir/Madam" if it is not able to determine any specific salutation. This was done as part of the need when the development was done and you may not find anything problematic with it, if you don't want to fish out a problem.

But. They want me to, wait for it, "Dear Colleagues" because recently they have come across cases where people have found it to be offensive.

That was the moment I went . I mean seriously. I realized how far we are from these first world issues and how peaceful we are. We, usually, don't look for problems when there are none.

The client then went on into how the society in AU has gone mad and the supposed left has taken over it and so on.

I find this in bad taste. Laughing at a requirement, just because it sounds so trivial to one person does not make it right. I work in AU, and in a government organization. The level of inclusivity that exists here has to be seen to be believed. There are people who do not identify themselves as being of either male or female gender. So, systems and processes are in place to accommodate that decision. A society is determined by its level of inclusivity and making people feel safe.

I realized how far we are from these first world issues and how peaceful we are. We, usually, don't look for problems when there are none.

You might wanna revisit this. Look at some of the riots that are instigated in India for the simplest of reasons.

[kiku007]

And this my friends is a classic demonstration of what recruiters mean when they tell you, "You don't have local experience."

Experience is not about being physically present in a location. Experience is about being able to appreciate and understand the local land, culture, people, animals and pretty much everything for what they are and then providing solutions that suit them.

P.S: I wonder what ancient IT system is used by the client here that they had to use an offshore developer to change some text in a letterhead.

[FrozeninTime]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Don't mock what you do not understand or what you do not experience yourself, without having the decency to first of all dig into the topic at hand, talk to some of people who are behind these ideas. What are their stories, what makes them tick.

Just sharing random hearsay examples shows you as an individual with limited interest and worldly empathy.

I agree with you partially but isn't he entitled for his own view whether you agree or not?
Don't you think you are doing same thing by mocking him?

Originally Posted by Jeroen

The problem is never the women, the problem is always the men, unfortunately. Its is not women destroying anything, it is some men not coping with seeing and dealing with women on an equal footing.

Aren't you gender sterotyping by blaming everything on men?

[srini1785]

We have a potential 25 (or higher) pager topic here. I generally find that the number of posts in a thread to be directly proportional to the extent of ambiguity involved. While a very specific technical thread on a topic like ( just for example) " Teeth ratio correction for instant wheelie on Ct100 in third gear" would probably elicit a single learned reply, topics like these tend to hit big here. The first few pages would be a parliamentary ( ours , of course ) debate, while subsequent pages would border on metaphysical aspects.

As to the subject at hand : No comments.

[Thermodynamics]

Originally Posted by sunilch

The software generates a letter and in the Salutation part it puts in "Dear Sir/Madam" if it is not able to determine any specific salutation.... recently they have come across cases where people have found it to be offensive.

^^^
Actually, the word Madam is perceived offensive in some parts of the world.
Below quote from Cambridge dictionary (link)

a woman who is in charge of a group of prostitutes who live or work in the same house/brothel

I don't see anything wrong in picking neutral words especially when dealing with legal stuff. Generalizing a whole society based on momentary emotion can be quite gross and erroneous.

I will share an example from my personal life. I was in Europe for the first time. I landed at Frankfurt and asked for directions for my next connection to a German security guard. He replied, "say Good Morning". I obliged and he helped. For an instance I felt offended, yes, it may be a good gesture to greet before a conversation but one cannot insist it.

Later I found, Germans greet generously, it is just a part of their culture. They greet everyone, whether you know them or not, whether he is your boss or not, whether he is elderly or not, doesn't matter. Instead, the contrary is probably true, they might get offended if a person starts conversation without greeting.

So it took some time to me to understand a culture and I would have been grossly wrong if I had continued/generalized based on my initial opinion.

[AZT]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Don't mock what you do not understand or what you do not experience yourself, without having the decency to first of all dig into the topic at hand, talk to some of people who are behind these ideas. What are their stories, what makes them tick.

Well, that is quite a statement. And I disagree wholeheartedly. Before all these concepts kicked in the world was doing relatively well if you were a man. Statistically that would give men a better outlook on life in just about any aspect compared to women.

I for one think the world has become a much better place and fairer for it. Far from perfect, but better than it was. No time for complacency, still a very long way to go around the world. None of this work is done, nowhere.

What I also see is many busted male ego’s along the way. But that is fine by me. During my four years in India we managed to quadruple our gender diversity ratio. I dare say I have left numerous male ego’s busted in my wake. I can quote you some of the arguments coming from my management teams. Pretty appalling and pathetic. So we addressed that first. Some turned out to be very frustrated narrow minded little men. Some came around after a while and became the biggest advocates of bringing more woman into our company across all ranks.

The problem is never the women, the problem is always the men, unfortunately. Its is not women destroying anything, it is some men not coping with seeing and dealing with women on an equal footing.

Jeroen

Originally Posted by benbsb29

I find this in bad taste. Laughing at a requirement, just because it sounds so trivial to one person does not make it right. I work in AU, and in a government organization. The level of inclusivity that exists here has to be seen to be believed. There are people who do not identify themselves as being of either male or female gender. So, systems and processes are in place to accommodate that decision. A society is determined by its level of inclusivity and making people feel safe.



You might wanna revisit this. Look at some of the riots that are instigated in India for the simplest of reasons.

Thank you for these replies. Very well reasoned and I agree completely. The original post wasn't meant to degrade but generally I see a lot of memes and jokes about people not identifying as male or female on certain other forums and this is just because of a narrowly held world view. Decades back gays weren't considered normal and had to undergo shock therapy to "cure" themselves. Before that women weren't given the right to vote because it was considered they lacked the intellectual capacity. Now we have this whole 'there are only 2 genders' movement that makes all these memes and jokes about the Trans community and Feminism in general. They will find the absolute extreme case, make a screen shot and then make it look like that's the norm, which is exactly how propaganda works in general.


Most conservative people will never come to terms with the fact that there are more than 2 genders and being Transgender is not 'abnormal', the least we can do is try and remove our own unconscious bias and educate our own friends and family. Removing the Sir / Madam seems extreme now but I see it catching on in the next 10 years, some people simply do not identify as either and we will need to change some salutations, nothing wrong with that. I am genuinely happy at reading the above quoted posts here, we are definitely better than most other forums.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by sunilch

That was the moment I went . I mean seriously. I realized how far we are from these first world issues and how peaceful we are. We, usually, don't look for problems when there are none.

Would you also consider it funny at looking back what it took to even include the option Madam when the form just had Sir?

It's one thing to talk amongst friends and make jokes, but it's completely another thing to do the same on a wider social media. One needs to know where to draw the line.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Don't mock what you do not understand or what you do not experience yourself, without having the decency to first of all dig into the topic at hand, talk to some of people who are behind these ideas. What are their stories, what makes them tick.

Couldn't agree more.

[Newpunter]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Don't mock what you do not understand or what you do not experience yourself, without having the decency to first of all dig into the topic at hand, talk to some of people who are behind these ideas. What are their stories, what makes them tick.

Just sharing random hearsay examples shows you as an individual with limited interest and worldly empathy.

Jeroen

Originally Posted by benbsb29

I find this in bad taste. Laughing at a requirement, just because it sounds so trivial to one person does not make it right. I work in AU, and in a government organization. The level of inclusivity that exists here has to be seen to be believed. There are people who do not identify themselves as being of either male or female gender. So, systems and processes are in place to accommodate that decision. A society is determined by its level of inclusivity and making people feel safe.

Originally Posted by AZT

Decades back gays weren't considered normal and had to undergo shock therapy to "cure" themselves. Before that women weren't given the right to vote because it was considered they lacked the intellectual capacity. Now we have this whole 'there are only 2 genders' movement that makes all these memes and jokes about the Trans community and Feminism in general. They will find the absolute extreme case, make a screen shot and then make it look like that's the norm, which is exactly how propaganda works in general.

Thank you for these posts. After reading the first few replies on the thread, I thought I had opened my Facebook feed by mistake. Thank you, for reminding me why this forum is the best place on the web .

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

As far as I am concerned, this has nothing to do with left or right wing politics. This is just about decency and compassion

Totally agree! This is where cultural openness and experiences come into play. Otherwise it’s easy to be in one’s own shell and go on with left/right wing arguments, just for the sake of it.

[ishan12]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

As far as I am concerned, this has nothing to do with left or right wing politics. This is just about decency and compassion.

Jeroen

I never mentioned anything about politics. But these days I believe people have gotten into a habit of taking this a bit too far. I have no problems with anybody identifying themselves as anybody/ any gender/ no gender.
Specially Indian culture has been very liberal and accommodating towards all
genders/ no genders/ transgenders/ lgbt etc.
Transgender characters in mythological epics like Mahabharata, the ardha nareshvar avatar of Shiva, Khajuraho temple carvings, kamasutra are all a testament to that.
It is in our culture to welcome transgenders to our homes to bless our new borns. So, this SJW phenomenon which is quite new to western world has no place in India.

People who claim to be "liberal" should be liberal enough to ignore such small things like a letter salutation with "Sir/ Mam"
And where do we draw the line? Can I say I identify as a women and thus should be eligible to participate alongside women in the Olympics? (read in the news about a similar thing a few days ago) Or can I say that I identify as someone with no gender so please leave the gender column blank in my passport? Or since some one biologically male, identifies himself as women so he should be free to use the women's washroom/ changing room.

Read below somewhere a few days ago.

Social Activists -
Ohh look, there is no wheelchair ramp to that building, lets build one.

Social Justice Warriors -
Lets, persecute the people using the stairs and make them feel bad about having legs.