‘Male’ and ‘female’ plugs and connectors – gendered language

[Zucca]

Electronics and life are already complicated enough, I will continue to use "male" and "female" terms for connectors.

[5U4GB]

My best friend, a Zambian software engineer, more or less agrees with that. When I asked her about if "male" and "female" to describe connectors is a problem, her reply was more or less that the real problem isn't how it makes such a direct sexual reference, but that society considers sex as more of a taboo topic than it should be.

Christian missionaries are responsible for that.

And colonisers in general. A lot of Ottoman territories that the UK and France took over still have incredibly strict laws, typically blamed on Sharia, that were actually 1920s colonial law designed to keep them uppity natives in check and which have never been updated for the modern day. I assume former-African-colony law is just as bad, but there's no-one else to conveniently blame in that case.

[EEVblog]

There is intent and purpose in these efforts. Literally creating a master/slave relationship and forcing you to speak and communicate as they dictate. They would tell you you must comply and you do not get to have any excuses like there's no way to comply in your language.

I've gotten many emails from people (let alone public comments) telling me to not use certain words and phrases in my videos. My instant reaction is to tell them to FO. You do not control my speech, and the harder you try the more I'm going to tell you to instantly FO without entering into any debate or discussion.
If speech changes organically, fine, but the moment you try and tell me what I can and can't say, you can GTFO.

[Cyclotron]

There is intent and purpose in these efforts. Literally creating a master/slave relationship and forcing you to speak and communicate as they dictate. They would tell you you must comply and you do not get to have any excuses like there's no way to comply in your language.

I've gotten many emails from people (let alone public comments) telling me to not use certain words and phrases in my videos. My instant reaction is to tell them to FO. You do not control my speech, and the harder you try the more I'm going to tell you to instantly FO without entering into any debate or discussion.
If speech changes organically, fine, but the moment you try and tell me what I can and can't say, you can GTFO.

100% this^.  Direct interactions are best handled that way. 

The idealogical subversion is harder to get out from under.

Here's an example. I don't know how this will behave in all parts of the world.
I'm not sure all regions or countries get the Google Gemini AI response on queries but if you do, this is what I expect you'll see.

At least in the West, everyone would know what you mean when you say "racially diverse." It's been well defined for a long time.

I've used this example and several others when teaching AI Guard Rails and Information Security recently.
Open a google window (I used private browsing):

"What is the most racially diverse country in the world"

What you'll almost certainly get is Liberia or Uganda. And it will change to "Ethnically Diverse" which is no even in the same ball park as "Racially Diverse".
Note: I've noticed this query has started offering a more logical and correct answer but not first. It still offers the completely wrong answer first.

Then if you ask it how likely it is that the ethnic groups represented in Liberia are also represented in say the US, it will tell you its very likely.

There's a couple of paths to what is like the cause and neither are great.  It is certain that Google applies guard rails to its AI and those guard rails represent the views of the people that write them. Secondarily, the information used to train the LLM has been polluted with subversive ideology and is impacted just as it is intended. The LLMs are being trained just as humans are on the same information that's filled with crap like this.

The answer is very easy. It is highly likely that the US is the answer but I would have accepted Brazil or Canada as they are also highly racially diverse.

[dcrookston]

This entire topic is absurd and not-even-wrong.

The context for the article -- the lens through which it is written -- is a fairly specific American / Western liberal perspective that I'm sure we're all familiar with.  But if we (for the sake of argument) adopt this perspective, we will find that the premise of the article falls apart.  "Gender," within this perspective, is a social construct unrelated to biological sex.  There's a popular saying: sex is what's in your pants, gender is what pants you wear, and sexuality is whose pants you want to get into.

Nobody (again, within the perspective I am adopting for the sake of argument) disagrees that some sex organs are biologically male and others are biologically female.  (They wouldn't use those terms because the use of "male" and "female" to refer to bodies has become taboo; they prefer to use "male" and "female" to refer to gender, but I trust the readers of this forum to understand my meaning.)  So calling connectors male and female isn't a gender issue at all.  Gender is entirely in the mind, and entirely unrelated to the body.  But the connectors in question are entirely physical.  They have no mind, and therefore no gender.  You cannot ask a plug for its pronouns.

So the article is nothing more than an attempt to stir ####, or signal virtue, or to come up with yet another rule which all must follow lest we be branded cishet Nazi scum and thrown out of all respectable institutions and social gatherings.  It's a way to feel superior, demonstrate in-group behavior, and ostracize people you don't like.  Religious conservatives (sometimes, if they're bad people) do the same thing which I find delightfully ironic.

And the rules change constantly, so you have to be plugged into your source of truth (is it still Tumblr?) or risk using a word that was fine yesterday but is now "problematic."  The threat of ostracism for unknowingly committing an offense is a very effective means of social control.

As an aside, I am in favor of trans and LGBTQ+ rights.  Or whatever alphabet soup they're using these days; I stopped keeping track.  (I have a separate rant about changing the flag from a rainbow to whatever the hell they're using now.  For one it's a terrible flag, for two... no, no, I am not going to get started.)  All humans get rights.

[studiot]

As I see it, this whole storm in a teacup is brought on by underlying basic human nature.
And yes I agree some groups of humans are cute enough to take advantage of this trait for their own ends.

The point is simply that humans appear to have an innate desire to pigeonhole and categorise anything and everything.
Nature on the other hand is not obliged to follow human categorisation and often does not do so.
Humans also seem to want to narrow categorisation further to limit it to binary choices
Left and right
Up and down
Yin and Yang
Black and white

and yes male and female.

So is a bayonet fitting male or female and which is which ?
Is it left handed or right handed ?
Does the fitting have prongs, pins, clips, studs or grooves for contacts ?
and so on

But is it really surprising that the terminology suggested by an unusually active sexual animal contains many terms that also allude to something sexual ?

[TimFox]

I came up with a personal neologism that has not propagated further:
Since a panel-mount BNC has a female insert, but the shell is more male, and vice-versa for the cable-mount BNC, I referred to the panel-mount as having a female insert and a male "outsert".
Other series of connectors, and the "reverse" versions of some, can have a female insert in a female outsert.  Or not.

[studiot]

I came up with a personal neologism that has not propagated further:
Since a panel-mount BNC has a female insert, but the shell is more male, and vice-versa for the cable-mount BNC, I referred to the panel-mount as having a female insert and a male "outsert".
Other series of connectors, and the "reverse" versions of some, can have a female insert in a female outsert.  Or not.

Thank you Tim, I have learned a new word today.

But you also seem to agree that connection devices are far to diverse too be classified by a binary classification.

[TimFox]

I came up with a personal neologism that has not propagated further:
Since a panel-mount BNC has a female insert, but the shell is more male, and vice-versa for the cable-mount BNC, I referred to the panel-mount as having a female insert and a male "outsert".
Other series of connectors, and the "reverse" versions of some, can have a female insert in a female outsert.  Or not.

Thank you Tim, I have learned a new word today.

But you also seem to agree that connection devices are far to diverse to be classified by a binary classification.

The basic reason for my neologism was to cope with "reverse polarity" connectors, such as the "SHV" coaxial high-voltage connector and the variations on the "CPC" series of threaded connectors.
https://www.te.com/content/dam/te-com/documents/appliances/global/circular-plastic-connectors-series-1-catalog.pdf
The manufacturer refers to "standard mate" and "reverse mate" for the obvious variations on inserts and outserts.  When using that series at work, mixing the standard and reverse connectors was very handy for cables between cabinets.
But wait: isn't "mate" (verb) a sexual term?

[pdenisowski]

Mãdchen is neuter not because Germans disrespect their girls ...

Just don't call a young German woman "Fräulein" (also grammatically neutral due to the -lein):  that is considered pretty disrespectful in modern German 

[TimFox]

Mãdchen is neuter not because Germans disrespect their girls ...

Just don't call a young German woman "Fräulein" (also grammatically neutral due to the -lein):  that is considered pretty disrespectful in modern German 

According to Duden, one area in which the word still sees wide use is in the form of an admonishing address towards girls until about their mid-teens, usually by a parent.
In English, the corresponding usage might be "Missy", not respectful.
Formerly, "Frau" referred to only married women, equivalent to "Mrs." in English.

[kite31]

"What is the most racially diverse country in the world"

There is only the species homo sapiens, race being a social construct. Colours of things like your eyes, etc, can vary. Gemini was being reasonable in thinking you probably meant ethnicity or culture. No constraints were involved.

[jnk0le]

but the emails instead came from those who were offended on behalf of someone else.

Narcissistic personality disorder by proxy.

Transgender is tangential: it’s when your own gender identity does not align with your physical body. For example, a man feeling trapped inside a female body.

Typically it's Münchhausen syndrome.

disrespecting someone by deliberately refusing to use their desired name and pronouns

"disrespecting naked king by deliberately refusing to acknowledge the fact, that he is indeed clothed"

In this case it's simply explained as a "narcissistic insult". i.e. asserting one's non-submissivness by refusing to acknowledge a narcisstic dogma. (or glorification refusal)
In classic religions, it's called "blasphemy". In various ideologies it evolved into X-ism, Y-phobia and a few other words.

A normal person doesn't react to mis-gendering, mis-aging etc. as if his life was threatened.

[Analog Kid]

Transgender is tangential: it’s when your own gender identity does not align with your physical body. For example, a man feeling trapped inside a female body.

Typically it's Münchhausen syndrome.

You never heard of gender dysphoria?
That's a real thing, not a construct taught in a course on postmodernism or whatever.

Not terribly common (1-2%?) but it does exist.

[Cyclotron]

Well no crap, race is made up you say?  Did you inform the pseudosciences that came up with the concept and the political nonsense of categorizing everyone to pit them against each other? 

Did you also know that race and ethnicity are orthogonal to one another?  Gemini knows that.

I have done the research; part of my day job. Gemini, as well as most LLMs, will tell you a lot about the shape of their guard rails as long as you know how to ask.

The question I used is specific and has been repeatedly used to illustrate the problem.  MegaCorps are aware of it too. They have tried to tune for it and the evidence that they have is in the reply along with the evidence that the LLM knows what you mean and is avoiding it.

The followup question I offered is a particularly damning one. The LLM knows that even if the question is completely flipped to ask what is the most ethnically diverse country, the answer is almost certainly the same;  the US, Canada, or Brazil because it acknowledges that the US likely has near 100% of the ethnic sources represented in Liberia's population.

Megacorps are doing a lot of harm to society.  See the recent court losses of Meta as an example  Those in control of the LLMs are some of the worst and it should be regulated and I don't say that lightly as I frown on such in a general sense. But in this case, the amount of power and damage is too considerable not to use the only hammer that will work.

[kite31]

Why would I try to inform pseudo-sciences? By definition, they are not listening.

Sciences, anthropology and genetics, agree race is not a biological or genetic reality. If that causes any pseuds difficulty, that is not my problem.

On my enquiry Gemini LLM describes Papua - New Guinea as the most diverse ethnically and linguistically, which is no surprise given the continuing extent of tribalism in that developing country.

[negativ3]

A definition of pseudo science is starting from a desired outcome, proceeding backwards to something that plausibly fits then claiming whatever is proven. Evidenced by scribblings on what appears to be peer reviewed excrement catchers.

[Andy Chee]

A definition of pseudo science is starting from a desired outcome, proceeding backwards to something that plausibly fits then claiming whatever is proven.

Proceeding backwards is in itself not inherently pseudo science, otherwise the entire discipline of geology and plate tectonics would be mostly pseudo science.

[negativ3]

Oh I wasn't talking about geology or the cosmos, obviously.

[Simon]

I came up with a personal neologism that has not propagated further:
Since a panel-mount BNC has a female insert, but the shell is more male, and vice-versa for the cable-mount BNC, I referred to the panel-mount as having a female insert and a male "outsert".
Other series of connectors, and the "reverse" versions of some, can have a female insert in a female outsert.  Or not.

As I mentioned further back this is actually how most connectors work by default. only more complicated/expensive connectors allow you the choice. Maybe it's time for a new campaign, every connector shell has the right to the pins of it's preferred gender 

[Cyclotron]

Wait till they hear about right, left, center inputs/outputs. The future will have far right and far left outputs there will be no center.   

[tooki]

Transgender is tangential: it’s when your own gender identity does not align with your physical body. For example, a man feeling trapped inside a female body.

Typically it's Münchhausen syndrome.

I don’t think you have any basis on which to make such a claim.

disrespecting someone by deliberately refusing to use their desired name and pronouns

"disrespecting naked king by deliberately refusing to acknowledge the fact, that he is indeed clothed"

In this case it's simply explained as a "narcissistic insult". i.e. asserting one's non-submissivness by refusing to acknowledge a narcisstic dogma. (or glorification refusal)
In classic religions, it's called "blasphemy". In various ideologies it evolved into X-ism, Y-phobia and a few other words.

Is it not equally (or more!) arrogant/narcissistic to assume that you know better than the affected person what they are going through?!?

A normal person doesn't react to mis-gendering, mis-aging etc. as if his life was threatened.

Of course not. And neither do the vast majority of non-cisgender people.

[tszaboo]

"What is the most racially diverse country in the world"

There is only the species homo sapiens, race being a social construct. Colours of things like your eyes, etc, can vary. Gemini was being reasonable in thinking you probably meant ethnicity or culture. No constraints were involved.

Just because you say something, it doesn't make it true.
Just because some woke AI said something, it doesn't make it true.
Just because some gender studies professor said something, it doesn't make it true.
Whole genome sequencing and clustering studies have provided evidence of the contrary for what these entities are claiming as a "social construct".

[kite31]

Just because you say something, it doesn't make it true.

Where did I say I relied on "what I said"?

Just because some woke AI said something, it doesn't make it true.

Where did I say I relied on "what AI said"?

Just because some gender studies professor said something, it doesn't make it true.

Where did I say I relied on "some gender studies professor"? What the hell is the relevance of gender studies to species classification anyway?

Whole genome sequencing and clustering studies have provided evidence of the contrary for what these entities are claiming as a "social construct".

If you believe that then take it up with anthropologists, biologists, genomicists, paelontologists etc.

I lack your problems with the obvious so there is no basis for discussion here.

Have a nice day.

[studiot]

What is the point of this Taxonomical diversion from the topic ?

If you folks must, at least use the correct terms from taxonomy, which is the appropriate classification scheme.

There have been three human species under the genus Homo . X

H.Sapiens has displaced the other two.
But we all still carry remnants of their genes.

The next classification level down for animals including humans would be sub species which I can see might carry emotive connotations for the uninitiated.
Plants enjoy the categories Species and Varieties which does not contain the same emotive baggage.

Race is not part of the scheme, nor is it needed - it is indeed a 'social construct'

Racial diversity is not a scientific term as both race and diversity are not properly defined.

Both need to be properly defined for the term to have any meaning.

In particular the term diversity implies a define method of measurement.
I am genetically different from my neighbour, does that make us of different race ?
Are there therefore as many 'races' as there are humans ?