Redacted Squad - offensive route names on MP

Gregger Manwrote:

According to David, the right to determine what name everyone else must use when referring to a route is irrevocable and absolute. Become a FA and you will be transported onto a talent show stage whence you cannot be dislodged for any violation of social norms. Bad taste must be humored and even celebrated, else The Man is repressing the FA.

You’ve got it backwards. The only people who are forcing are those who rename and censor, erasing history, and making a decision on behalf of others.

You can use whatever name you want. I don’t care. No one’s forcing you. Download a smart censor plug-in. Or appeal to the admins for a safe space variable. Or just avoid the routes that you don’t like the same way you’d avoid x rated routes that don’t have a safety margin to your liking. It’s your browser, you can view things how you want. No one’s stopping you.
But telling others that they can’t view something even if they want to makes you the route-nazi.

Gregger Manwrote:

According to David, the right to determine what name everyone else must use when referring to a route is irrevocable and absolute. Become a FA and you will be transported onto a talent show stage whence you cannot be dislodged for any violation of social norms. Bad taste must be humored and even celebrated, else The Man is repressing the FA.

I don't know about you but it's pretty easy to refer to climbs by their rating and location.  There is no must or celebrations 

David may be over the top in his numerous postings on this subject but his points are 100% valid. If we get used to history being rewritten by anyone anywhere in this country it's consequences won't be good on freedom which is what we supposedly strive for.

 Increasing resiliency to things we don't approve of is definitely a healthier way forward than trying to ban everything we don't agree with, there are much bigger issues to tackle. For example, why do some folks feel the need to write or say nasty and deplorable things? How can we help them understand their actions? I don't think censorship is the answer to that, it's just sweeping the dirt under the rug.

I would argue that place names are a unique case of property in common which is why renaming things has a long history of its own (Bombay, Constantinople, many others).

The part that seems absurd to me is that the route name is not even a necessary part of what we do: we climb. Useful beta about a route would be location, prominent features, gear suggestions, etc. The name is the wrapper around the thing we care about, and it's outward-facing. The titles of books are similarly constrained by social norms: obscene words get the vowel replacement treatment. Social norms, dude.

Gloweringwrote:

DIE initiatives are not evil as some make them out to be (which is a preposterous proposition), but are done with the idea of increasing fairness, inclusion, and equality. Do they sometimes go too far? Do they sometimes lead to unfair outcomes? Are they sometimes abused in ways that lead to unjust outcomes? Do some people disagree with them? All yes of course, 

Just as a point of analysis, how do programs design ostensibly for the sole purpose of fairness, inclusion, and equality lead to unfairness, exclusion, and unequal outcomes result in the opposite, to the degree that it's now common knowledge?  For the record, I think any organization, NGO, government, private, etc., that tries to implement policies that are designed to produce "equal outcomes" is a non-starter.  Even two twins raised in the same household with the exact same upbringing, going to the same schools, and knowing the same people, will have wildly different outcomes regarding interests, gravitating to different occupational fields, IQ, etc.  Thinking that this can be regulated and legislated to overcome human nature is the epitome of futility.  Equality of opportunity is what we should be aiming for- equality of outcome is utopian, and trying to force people to get there causes more problems than it solves.

For me having the i to click on and get the original name is a great solution. It’s says we are not condoning sexist, racist, and/or exclusionary language but we are providing the original name if you want to see it. So all the talk about erasing history or telling people they MUST not use the original name all falls apart, and just seems part of larger culture wars bullshit. 

This thread is the poster child for why the daily post limit is a good thing.

Gloweringwrote:

For me having the i to click on and get the original name is a great solution. It’s says we are not condoning sexist, racist, and/or exclusionary language but we are providing the original name if you want to see it. So all the talk about erasing history or telling people they MUST not use the original name all falls apart, and just seems part of larger culture wars bullshit. 

Exactly.  It is actually a bit astonishing that anyone has a problem with this balanced approach that is sensitive to both "sides" of the "issue".

* (there are no "sides", just a spectrum of opinions)

** (this is not some grand "issue" about freedom of speech, but a matter of a private company trying to be civil and respectful to the full spectrum, with only the free speech absolutists left out in the cold it seems)

Meanwhile posts are being deleted into outer space in the old folks thread because of someone posting about the prices of the resort next to the gunks...

M Mwrote:

David may be over the top in his numerous postings on this subject but his points are 100% valid. If we get used to history being rewritten by anyone anywhere in this country it's consequences won't be good on freedom which is what we supposedly strive for.

I feel like this is one where our middle school English teachers would be ashamed of us. David’s (and others’) general points, like “censorship is bad,” or “don’t erase history,” are 100% valid. And 100% irrelevant. And it is that irrelevance that books like “1984” warned us about.

Censorship is trying to make information unavailable. Not specifically making it available by clicking an ‘i’. What MP is doing isn’t like the religious nuts burning books, it’s like them burning the dust jackets. Same with “history erasing.” If the history is specifically being saved, they’re doing a pretty bad job of erasing it.

For some reason, people keep quoting “1984” when they talk about this made up censorship. Which is funny, because that book specifically talks about a more effective method of censorship. Ya know the quote everyone remembers, “War is Peace?” It’s not about not saying the word “war.” It’s about misusing it so often and with such certainty that the word “war” means the opposite as much as its original meaning. A legitimate Ministry of Truth action would be to keep repeating that non-censorship IS censorship. Now people who agree with what actually IS happening think they are in favor of censorship. And other folks are wasting their reasonable anti-censorship energy on policies that aren’t censorship at all. You don’t convince people that something they know is bad (eg censorship) is actually good, you convince them they don’t know what the bad thing actually is. That’s the trick we got warned about in middle school when reading (or not reading) “1984.” And it’s embarrassing how effective that trick is anyway.

(But I have no idea what’s going on over on the old people’s thread, maybe that is real censorship.)

ubuwrote:

Exactly.  It is actually a bit astonishing that anyone has a problem with this balanced approach that is sensitive to both "sides" of the "issue".

If this is such a balanced approach, then what if it was switched? Put Shockley’s Ceiling as the route name, and shove “The Ceiling” and that irrelevant “route history" into that (i) subscript addendum. But this is not what happens here. “The Ceiling” is an invasive change foisted on everyone, not an external addition, or an additional option to toggle the display name. 

The language is “his name is forever tarnished.” This ejaculation betrays a desire to lecture others, and remake the world in their own image. The language is "The name of the route is now "The Ceiling”.” This is no business decision to merely control what they publish, this is a self proclaimed attempt to control the climbing world into using the words they want others to use. “Executive decisions” and manipulation are the expressed rule, not the exception.

“Compromises" that step on the minority FA or contributor, without ever including the say-so of those minorities in the decision, are not compromises, and only serve as carrots to chew on for those who might otherwise have a guilty conscience. What’s actually astonishing is how desperately people cling to MP’s purported intentions, and utterly disregard the actual implementation of those "sweet desires” before their own eyes.

Gloweringwrote:

According to your black and white view all the places that were named after Adolf Hitler in Germany that had their names changed after WWII were purifying history and they should have left them as they were.

Yes, MP would no doubt rename a route titled “Adolf Hitler.” But would they rename a route titled Joseph Stalin? After all, he was a great supporter of DIE initiatives. The phrase “Political correctness” originated from the USSR too. 

Would you censor a Namibian FA who’s name is Adolf Hitler? The world is a complicated place. Trying to make blanket censorship rules makes you the one who is exclusive and undiverse.

As for your original question, many dictators come in and name things after themselves to which they have no credit in building or producing, often doing the renaming to begin with themselves. In those instance I support restoring the names. But if they do have some credit, like the “Napoleonic Code” or the “Volkswagen beetle,” then keep the name. Sure, I can personally call “volkswagen” (meaning the people’s car) “Hitler’s piss bucket,” but my ego isn’t so inflated that I think I can go and demand they call it that. Shockley’s Ceiling was made by Shockley. There’s no ambiguity. He made the route. Keep the name.