--- title: "Glossary" date: 2022-05-07T00:00:00 draft: false _build: list: never --- # GLOSSARY * Alien: The word alien carries a negative connotation of strangeness and otherness. It should not be used to describe unauthorized immigrants. * Antigayist: Someone who oppresses or supports the oppression of homosexuals. * Antimuslimist: Someone who oppresses or supports the oppression of Muslims. Antimuslimists are almost always racists too. * Antisocial media: Online platforms whose mission is to keep users online as long as possible to monetize their data and show them ads. Antisocial media purports to connect people, but its business model is antithetical to human connection. Instead, it tends to cause conflict. * Antitransgenderist: Someone who oppresses or supports the oppression of transgender people. * Child: Someone twelve years of age or less. Calling adolescents and teenagers children is condescending. * Digital tulips: Cryptocurrency. A reference to tulip mania of the Dutch Golden Age. * The disease-spreading party: The Republican party. Republicans blocked federal funding for Covid vaccines and treatment for a partisan win while buying stocks to profit from the deaths. * Disloyalty program: A rewards-based marketing strategy which offers discounts in exchange for sacrificing one's purchasing privacy. Disloyalty programs unfairly reduce the anonymity of every other shopper who isn't signed up. * The exploitation economy: A less neutral-sounding term for the gig economy. * Global heating: A less neutral-sounding term for climate change which better conveys the severity of the crisis. * Hypocrite: Someone with blatant disregard for the alignment of their words and actions, as opposed to someone who imperfectly adheres to their own principles. Being imperfect makes one human, not a hypocrite. * Inappropriate: A weasel word used to criticize actions when one lacks valid criticism. * The injustice system: A vengeful legal system which uses the incoherent concept of free will to justify keeping people in cruel and inhumane conditions. Punishment is emphasized over rehabilitation, but only the non-rich are punished. * The lesser of two evils party: The Democratic party. Corporate democrats suck, but at least they're not Republicans. * Pass (away): A euphemism which encourages people to never really come to terms with death. * Planet-roaster: Any entity that advocates policies which worsen global heating. * Police officer: A respectable, hardworking person who doesn't act like a thug. * Techno-ponzi: Cryptocurrency. * Thug: A badge-and-gun-wielding predator who attacks nonviolent protesters, jails peaceful drug users, harasses the poor, and lies in court to defend other thugs. * The wannabe dictator: Donald Trump. * Worth: Reject the idea that a person's worth is measured by their financial assets. Measuring one's "worth" seems to be motivated by an unhealthy obsession with social status, so I avoid this phrase entirely.