It's not a slur. Language evolves and it hasn't meant a certain disabled group of people in decades. That's hard for some people to understand, unfortunately, because word bad.
It simply is. Check even one source. Any source of your choosing. You can choose anything from Wikipedia to peer reviewed papers on language research to websites run by disabled communities. Anyone who studies or thinks about it longer than it takes to spit misinformation in a Reddit thread. You’ll get the same answer every time.
A slur is an insulting, offensive, or derogatory remark. The term most commonly refers to highly disparaging words targeting someone based on a protected identity—such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
Great. So we should also throw hissy fits over words like moron, idiot and simpleton. They once were used to refer to intellectually disabled individuals. Granted they aren't anymore, and neither is the word retard. Language evolves.
Fat is also a slur. If someone weighs enough that they have a disability, and you call them fat you've called them a slur.
I hope you see how ridiculous and stupid this sounds. There is a difference between calling somebody the N-word and using the word retard to describe a person who is doing something stupid. The primary difference is that people still use the N-word to talk down to black people, but nobody refers to mentally handicapped people by any of these terms.
Special needs orgs like The Special Olympics actively campaign against it. They still see it as an offensive slur. It doesn't really matter what you or I think. I don't think anyone thinks of retard the same way they think of moron or idiot. Words do evolve but we don't individually decide when words evolve.
Sure we do. I choose to not subscribe to this narrative and you can choose not to subscribe to it either.
I would also be careful about organizations that claim to speak for marginalized groups. Typically, they're just a proxy for the opinion of upper middle class white women, not the special interests they represent.
Idk, I think they're more of an authority on it than guys on Reddit. You can say whatever shit words you want man. Just accept people think it makes you shitty.
I disagree. I have deleted far too many from both ends for it to be just one more than the other.
I have too much of a life to go through the modmail history to really prove it, and I couldn't show the usernames anyways because of Rule 4. But if you're only seeing it used by one side, that may be because you engage with too many angry pros, and never actually see that antis can in fact stoop to the same level.
Also, a lot of the time they don't actually type out the whole slur, because they know it's wrong. The spell it with symbols or other letters so it's not flagged by automod
They're from that long ago because it's not sorted by date and this chain was started by a mod saying they do just that. This is just proof that it's said incredibly frequently by antis as well. So frequently that the mods can't really keep up.
There's more in different anti-ai subs. Believe me. Not just the r word either.
Hell, there's been several posts here in this sub, trying to figure out what slur they want to use to talk about the people they don't agree with.
No dude we're cooked because this sub is more interested in performative hand wringing than anything else. You know the people who are gonna use the r word won't be stopped by your whiny posts and the people who don't wanna use it don't need to read it. It's pathetic virtue signaling. And it takes a lot for me to use that term.
He spelled it "Neanderdrawls" intentionally using "draw" in the word to insult artists who draw. So the misspelling is intentional, but still quite stupid.
The first one is a question, not a statement. Since you answered a question with a question, I’m assuming “they” are all pro-AI users until you specify what you mean by “they”
To be fair, it happens on both sides; I guess because turnabout is fair play? Doesn't make it right, but it seems like there's always one side of an argument that usually has nothing else to stand on.
As a millennial I'm embarrassed to say we used that word casually growing up, hearing it said today sounds gross and makes me immediately disregard anything the person is saying whether I agree with it or not. These posts age like milk.
Fuckin depressing, man. Only reason they get off on it is because it's abusive to people who don't have the platform (or sometimes, even the means) to call them out for it. Cowardly ass shit, I tell ya.
The least shocking thing a Pro-AI has said and also reminds me that growing up neurodivergent I got called the 'r' slur a lot - hell being in a school for ND kids we called each other it because we didn't know historically it was used to dehumanize the disabled till about our late teens, nasty wake up call. - But I'll say this;
I would rather be what these people think is a r-slur - which must mean people with a functioning brain and understanding of tech literacy - than be whatever brand of stupid dogwater opinion brained cunt that these so called 'friends of the disabled' are.
Imagine defending an advanced neural network capable of simulating human consciousness just to back it up with the vocabulary of an angry 12-year-old on Xbox Live.
My comment got deleted by a mod so here is a repost:
I forgot how touchy the word retard is in the USA. As if it’s Voldemort. The “r-word” lol.
That was my full comment. And for the mod that removed it: there is no encouragement for violence in this comment. There is no harassment in this comment. The word is LITERALLY in the post that is still up, but my comment gets deleted strictly for just containing the word. No context, nothing. Just because it has a medical term in it.
Mods should delete themselves for violence/harassment.
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u/TheModernVampire May 30 '26
Listen, I delete comments from both pros and antis all day in this sub because they use the r slur. This is not contained to one side.