Who is renornalizing it?
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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Unpopular Opinion
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slurs are useful.
they are an escalation step that are words instead of physical violence.
making slurs illegals removes that step and leads the escalation straight to violence.
That is an unpopular opinion.
At no point has the suggestion been that saying slurs should be illegal. It’s that if you say slurs, you are a shitty person.
Also - this is probably the most sociopathic and scary take on this thread. People say slurs rather than do violence, so we shouldn’t be concerned with people saying slurs? My understanding is that slurs are more often then not preludes to violence.
Not trying to be a troll. I just genuinely don't understand why sociopathic is acceptable as an adjective and retarded is not. Can you explain the difference?
“Sociopath” is not a diagnosis for a mental illness or disability. It is a word describing behavior hostile to others. There is no systemic discrimination against people labeled as “sociopaths.”
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(1 replies)
"Oh noo if I can't say slurs then I have to just attack the ni-"
You gotta get past this phase bro
And you gotta see the Black Mirror episode, "Arkangel", bro. Cause it's obvious you haven't.
Ironically, the term "mental retardation" was introduced by medical and educational professionals as a less derogatory and more objective replacement for older, highly stigmatizing terms like idiot, moron, and imbecile, which themselves were previous medical classifications.
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(4 replies)
OP, I just gotta say, I really agree with you, and I find it really disgusting the amount of people in this thread trying to renormalize it or argue that it's not problematic. This thread has been one of, if not the, most frustrating threads here over the past two years. Like I'm genuinely feeling gaslit by some of these comments. Do people not remember the voice people would use? Do people not remember the motions people would do? Those weren't just a mild way to call someone stupid. It was always ableist and still is today. Maybe in five to ten years I'll feel differently, like language really has moved on, but it doesn't feel like that's what's happening. It feels like people just being more comfortable being edgy.
I'm with you on that. A lot of times lemmy feels like 4chan for self-proclaimed leftists, like look at how popular problematic greentext screenshots are.
But hey, at least this thread lets me know who I should avoid interacting with in the future
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(5 replies)
I think we have to say "neurospicy" now, right?
I find that significantly more offensive than people saying “retarded”.
I think most of us do. The state of mental healthcare across the US is in shambles a fucking joke. Trauma based therapy is a fucking joke. We have a generation of brain broken tablet kids that all believe they're on the spectrum because their parents so desperately want to be victims that they doctor shop for a diagnosis while they themselves self diagnose "AuDHD" because they like to stack things and play with a fidget spinner, but let's draw the line at calling anyone a retard.
At least America will have the factory and farm workers we need when the tablet kid generation hits working age and is functionally illiterate and have zero basic life skills. 🤷
Only with a doctor's diagnosis, otherwise its an insult.
None of the clowns using that term have a real diagnosis.
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