What's wrong with putting pronouns in bio?

Meusnier said:

If poetry, literature, justice, liberty, equality, friendship, mathematics, physics, chemistry, politics are feminine nouns in French or Spanish (I have not checked for Italian or Latin but I am almost sure that they are of the same gender), that does not necessarily give to these concepts or fields "feminine" meanings (the allegory of justice might be an exception though). That a rose is feminine should not be surprising, but there are no good reasons why the sword should also be feminine...

Asking for a why seems unreasonable, and the gender of words is probably even more "surprising" in German; you will have issues finding good rational reasons behind the gender of words. In Japanese, although words do not have a gender, kanji can be called "strong" and would generally not be used for a female name. You do not need of those pronouns for such ideas of dualities to emerge. Eventually, since languages change, the gender of words can change too and the initial relationship with those complementary oppositions may be lost. For example, "mal" (evil) is masculine in French as it should be (violence), but "maladie" (sickness) is feminine, and this is clearly a corruption of the now slightly archaic word "mal" that also means "sickness." Likewise, war ("la guerre") is feminine, which also does not seem obvious considering that throughout history (especially in the regions those languages were formed), most wars were fought and started by men.


This is clearly not what @Kayle_x_Morgana meant, you should stop fighting against strawmen. He meant that a stereotypical male (like a bodybuilder) would not have to use pronouns not to be mistaken for a woman. And the woman that you showed could not be confused for a man too.


I had not seen this part... Mathematics teaches you how to think, I fail to see how this is brainwashing. The only thing that might appear as some kind of religious preach are some higher level concepts (like topoi that are supposed to solve many important problems "without any creative efforts," hum...), not the middle school planar geometry and say, the calculus and basic mathematics the engineer or average citizen should know (statistics, probability theory, etc). And from a trivial viewpoint, not teaching someone mathematics would make them unable to understand many essential knowledge they cruelly need to survive in our societies. Only the proponents of historical negationism think that teaching history is brainwashing.

Desolated said:
I never said that teaching, or "brainwashing" people is bad and unnecessary.

It's just that it gives people a certain idea, that it can be used to reject other ideas. For instance, 2+2=4 in mathematics, therefore you'll reject the idea that 2+2=7. The same can be said with teaching history. Let's just say when you teach that "The Communists tried to coup in 1965, but failed", it negates the idea of "The CIA backed the presidential coup in 1965 and blamed it to the communists", which is exactly what the historical propaganda in our country during Siharto's regime work.

brainwashing
noun [U]
the process of making someone believe something by repeatedly telling them that it is true and preventing any other information from reaching them:

- Many people thought the sect was guilty of brainwashing.
- This is corporate brainwashing on a massive scale.

Desolated said:
I never said that teaching, or "brainwashing" people is bad and unnecessary.

It's just that it gives people a certain idea, that it can be used to reject other ideas. For instance, 2+2=4 in mathematics, therefore you'll reject the idea that 2+2=7. The same can be said with teaching history. Let's just say when you teach that "The Communists tried to coup in 1965, but failed", it negates the idea of "The CIA backed the presidential coup in 1965 and blamed it to the communists", which is exactly what the historical propaganda in our country during Siharto's regime work.

brainwashing
noun [U]
the process of making someone believe something by repeatedly telling them that it is true and preventing any other information from reaching them:

- Many people thought the sect was guilty of brainwashing.
- This is corporate brainwashing on a massive scale.

Desolated said:

But protesting the government is allowed in China:
https://www.quora.com/Are-protests-allowed-in-China

Truths do exists, but people's interpretations of it are something subjective. For instance, "Khrushchev sent tanks to Hungary in 1956." is something true and factual. But if an anarchist saying "Khrushchev sending tanks to Hungary is very authoritarian and bad!", That'd be subjective thing. The same with if I said "Khrushchev is a bad leader but sending in the tanks to Hungary was something very great. Those fascists deserves to be crushed to smithereens!" These are also, something that can be taught in history class.

So by your logic, the information given in the process of "brainwashing" is always false?

Desolated said:

But protesting the government is allowed in China:
https://www.quora.com/Are-protests-allowed-in-China

Truths do exists, but people's interpretations of it are something subjective. For instance, "Khrushchev sent tanks to Hungary in 1956." is something true and factual. But if an anarchist saying "Khrushchev sending tanks to Hungary is very authoritarian and bad!", That'd be subjective thing. The same with if I said "Khrushchev is a bad leader but sending in the tanks to Hungary was something very great. Those fascists deserves to be crushed to smithereens!" These are also, something that can be taught in history class.

So by your logic, the information given in the process of "brainwashing" is always false?

Meusnier said:

? Perhaps you do not know well about the meaning of words, but brainwashing is always "bad."


What you want is to create citizens able to think by themselves, not sheep who worship Athenians democracies like the CCP regime. The ideal of education is to give basic tools to children to allow them to self-study and grow by themselves, not assert like my communist history teachers (pleonasm) that the world needs of more people like them.

Please, spare me your 1984ism from your Conspiracy Theorist Toolkit for Children Above 8... Good example, then you agree that historical negationism is a reality, and that by consequence, truth exists and can be taught in historical classes, at least up to some good degree of precision.

P.S. Where is the option "I don't know" in the poll?

Desolated said:

But protesting the government is allowed in China:
https://www.quora.com/Are-protests-allowed-in-China

Truths do exists, but people's interpretations of it are something subjective. For instance, "Khrushchev sent tanks to Hungary in 1956." is something true and factual. But if an anarchist saying "Khrushchev sending tanks to Hungary is very authoritarian and bad!", That'd be subjective thing. The same with if I said "Khrushchev is a bad leader but sending in the tanks to Hungary was something very great. Those fascists deserves to be crushed to smithereens!" These are also, something that can be taught in history class.

So by your logic, the information given in the process of "brainwashing" is always false?

Meusnier said:

This "but" has no object, and arbitrary detentions are still a thing.

Not "truths," but "truth." You do not have to be an anarchist to blame bloody repressions or the various political regimes of USSR (as Gide and Céline were already doing in the 1930s...). Ah yes, the "fascists," the only word that applies to the opponents of so-called communism, the thread of this grotesque puppet is way too obvious to have a chance to work today. The massacre of the populace aimed at perpetuating an authoritarian regime is only subjectively "bad," what was I thinking? You should stop calling yourself a communist at this point.

If something is true, you do not have to hide the sources that apparently contradict it, but include them in the discussion; brainwashing only makes sense to spread falsehood. This is why the idea of brainwashing people about the Moon Landing is somewhat contradictory.