Originally Posted by
DeathSlam
Since a few people have had a pop at me I'll bite.
My current IT team is 20% white but have exactly the same blind spots I used to see 30 years ago, Please understand that the beauty of rhetoric is that it doesn't have to be exactly correct, it merely needs to make you think about the issues. The point is devs didn't test correctly because of their assumptions.
As someone who is neurodiverse myself, I can spot it in others.
I am not a doctor and neither is my partner, but I do actually stop this sort of thing happening in my day job, so yes, I do lecture.
Being in IT for over 40 years, I know exactly where you are coming from. We have all had to learn to deal with our fellow citizens feelings and, yes, sensitivities. Being familiar with the issues at hand, I would also expect you to appreciate the effect this sloppiness by BA could have on some individuals feelings. I think we’d all agree that PC has probably crossed the line of common sense, especially when something non-PC is used in humour, satire, or in this case ridicule. Growing up as a nerd myself, I remember how easy these mistakes were to make and while people of various upbringings and cultures must open their minds, some others must unfortunately exercise patience.
When I see these kinds of errors, I recognise that this error message was probably coded over 30 years ago and it does give me the giggles. That might not help a lady Ph.D who has been offended, but I do think the lady originating the tweet in question here was ridiculing archaic IT and not necessarily archaic thinking.