Maybe don’t generalize a group of people without careful thought and appropriate caveats then? Seems pretty easy to me. You even admit that you are writing from personal experience, and don’t have perfect information, so why not include precise language to reflect that? Seems pretty simple and way more inclusive.
Like I said previously, using precise language simply avoids putting readers that are a part of whatever group on the automatic defensive. Why not just take the extra couple of a seconds to avoid that miscommunication? If you don’t care to do that, then that’s fine, but over generalization is going to automatically alienate some readers that you perhaps didn’t mean to offend.
Yeah I don’t want to offend anyone but at the same time, I don’t want to go through the steps you mentioned in every single post where I express an opinion.
So I think I will have to be OK with some people being offended by me not specifically explaining that I don’t speak for everyone.
Maybe we should take a step back. Your original statement was that it’s hard to have these conversations without generalization. I tried to explain simple ways to avoid the trap of over generalization. Your response appears to be, “I don’t care to put forth the tiny amount of effort to avoid miscommunication.”
So is it actually quite easy and you don’t care? Why say it was hard to begin with then? I’m just kind of confused at this point.
Yeah I don’t think the effort you described is worth it. But thanks for your ideas how to solve this problem. I just don’t want to apply them to every single post.
It’s not even about inclusivity man, it’s just good writing and communication skills to say what you mean.
You don’t have to make the effort to include people who might be offended, but you should make the effort to be a stronger communicator if you value discourse and want to discuss your thoughts and ideas in a public forum.
Otherwise you’re just the online equivalent of a guy shouting his opinions to nobody in particular on a street corner.
