Word Dictators?

Over the past week, up at the University of Michigan....folks in the IT Department sat there and made up a list of words and phrases that can't readily be used in company of others (meaning you could utter the chat terms with ghosts, imaginary people or border collies).

In this 'hint-paper'....they listed some words and said you needed to other ways of conveying the meaning.  I sat there for a while and thought over this process.

Basically, they want you to invent new terms of words, and once they reach some level of wokeness....then you gotta stop that and invent other terms.

'Brown-bag' got on the list.  You could utter work-bag, or a 'paper  bag of color' instead.

'Picnic' got on the list.  I imagine you could say grassy-dinner, or Earth-dinner instead.  

Who made up this list?  Well...the university had a group which devoted time to this....the Words Matter Task Force.  They seem to be a under-study group from the university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. 

How much time did they spend on this?  Unknown.  Maybe forty hours of thinking time with each person....maybe six minutes.

After a while of pondering upon this....I reached a stage of asking myself...isn't there more productive things that we could ask of college-level folks (I am one of those myself....twice over)?  

Then it occurred to me....if you were of the college-crowd, but marginally educated...this might be all you can really do.  In that, I'm suggesting that they may hold a certificate as an electrical engineer, but the most they can do is read a wattage chart and tell you how much a 110-watt bulb burns in one hour.  Beyond that, their knowledge is non-existent.  

I worked with a guy, who bluffed his way through a interview for a contractor job.  He had a degree that related to computer science.  He was in his mid-30s, and was hired to provide IT support to our group.  After about three weeks of effort, I came to realize most of what he knew....amounted to a dozen 3x5 inch cards.  Sadly, I probably knew a hundred times more related info on IT stuff....than this guy.  (I'll readily admit....there might be two-dozen IT things which I can do without any help or reference material, but beyond that I'm useless). 

For almost a year, this guy bluffed his way through daily work, and when our contract ended....he walked away....to find another company.  He probably showed marginal competence with that company, and bluffed his knowledge level all over again.  

As for all this effort to dump words out of English....just to invent new words?  Yeah, more or less.  

Old words which went out before these idiots?  Well...dungarees is't used anymore. Groovy isn't used anymore.  Snowbrowth isn't used anymore.  Excogigate?  Well, it used to mean something to the effect that you were burning a vast amount of braincells on some thinking and acting a bit Einsteinish (that's not a word, but I've invented it). Excogigate also went away as time passed.  

This Use of Sustainability

 Sustainability tends to have two meanings.

If you are a woken-individual....you tend to think of sustainability meaning that you have requirements in life, but you always worry about future generations and how they won't be able to have what you have, because social and economic conditions can't deliver.  So they will have less....which means you feel guilt.

If you are a regular person....then you think in terms of building, selling, developing, or doing something....which will repeat, over and over.  It's like a hundred acres of corn, and you kinda expect x-number of bushels each year, IF the rain comes on time.  

So you can imagine this meeting occurring at some local pub or honky-tonk.  Regular guy comes to meet woken-guy (who has fear/guilt on their mind).  

Regular guy is optimistic.  Woken-guy (fear/guilt on his mind) is pessimistic. 

Regular guy tends to worry over rainfall, failing equipment, and things he can actually feel/touch.  Woken-guy (fear/guilt on his mind) worries about one-thousand things....most of which are beyond his power or control.

Regular guy generally regards each generation of his family (since 1738 when they arrived on the shores of Georgia) has having gone up a notch in life, and they all seem  to have this built-in optimistic view of the next decade.

Woken-guy (fear/guilt on his mind) probably knows up to the grandparents level of where the family success/failure has come from, and doesn't let that knowledge diminish his fear of sustainability.  

Regular guy will kinda grin on the issue of energy consumption....admitting that since he got rid of that 1964 freezer in the garage last year, and swapped out his 1988 refrigerator in the kitchen....he's now using 50-percent less electricity compared to 2018's electrical bill.  He'll also admit that with the new Ford Fusion, he's now getting 42 mpg (three-times the mileage as with the 1994 Ford that he had).  

Woken-guy (fear/guilt on his mind) never pauses to think over his energy consumption or his mpg situation.....no matter how it relates to 1991, he feels bad about it.  

So, just some advice....maybe there's something better out there to worry about instead of sustainability.  Well...maybe even the septic tank sustainability, because it sure won't last forever.  

'Marxist' Kids?

 What's it really mean when some juvenile-behaving guy/gal tells you that they are Marxist in nature?

Well....it generally means ten things are revolving around in their head:

1.  They see class-warfare or class-unfairness constantly....wherever they go in life.

2.  They generally see social conflict around the clock.  

3.  Capitalism is bad....even if they are wearing Nike shoes, or lugging around a $800 I-Phone.

4.  They seem to think they are experts at urban-planning....even if they can't even manage their own lifestyle.

5.  Science has a single path (don't bring up the fact that science has multiple theories that sometimes conflict).

6.  Life is a continual struggle, and it's on their minds as they get up, and they prepare to sleep at night.

7.   Nothing is sustainable....meaning that everything is always on the verge of 'ending'.  The fact that Mountain Dew might not exist tomorrow....would be a concept they openly discuss.

8.  Everyone is pushed into tribal groups, and the more groups that exist....the better off this new alternate world would be.

9.  They generally regard welfare folks as 'peasants'.  In simple chatter....somebody (somewhere) has to fulfill this role.  If everyone were non-peasants, then the Marxism stuff would disappear over night.

10.  Wealth is a bad thing.  They will generally tell you that people don't know how to handle wealth.

In the end, you could walk into a room with a hundred such Marxists, and they all seem to want to control things and manage the big picture.  It's at this point that you realize that they all need a regular job (9 to 5), and some responsibility to fulfill their own lives before messing with other people.