MistyRiver asked What are your thoughts on people referring …

The ability to criticize gets eliminated with such thinking, and it brings us closer to a society where we're all effectively lobotomized while the world just burns, as we have blank looks on our faces, helpless and infantile.

stp · 3mo

Disagree.Try to avoid myself not clever either

J1smith · 4y

Well, on one hand, when people call others stupid or dumbass, it's more than just a derogatory term for having low intelligence. It's usually because they're angry at them for some other reason. So calling them stupid or dumbass is just a way to vent and you could say that calling it ableist is SJWing. On the other hand, the fact that these are the derogatory terms people use is revealing. It shows how lowly we think of people with low intelligence, even though our intelligence level presumably is completely out of our control. I don't know if people of low intelligence are especially hurt by the popular use of the terms "stupid" and "dumbass", I don't know if they associate those insults with their own social challenges. "Stupid" people, as in people who aren't profoundly challenged but do irritatingly stupid things, don't know they're stupid. And those who have profoundly low intelligence are probably not called "stupid" or "dumbass" very often because they exist in their own category.

inhahe · 4y

People should be nicer.

Queen Megan👑 · 4y

I can't think of any time me or people I know have used those words with the intent to be ableist. Like saying 'thats gay/retarded', I think its just an edgy naive use of a word over anything intended to be barbed towards anyone with any mental retardation or someone in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Pandy · 4y

I haven't heard a strong consensus from the disabled community on it so in the meantime I will continue to call people who don't know what an onion is stupid

Teo · 4y

i think they are retarded

Daniel · 4y

Like Timesplitters? I think he's a stupid dumbass, but that's besides the point.

Alice 💋 · 4y

This view can be valid but it isn't covering any and all of human behaviour or human condition. The usual dumbass we often talk of isn't stupid due to any lack of ability as such, the typical dumbass is not using the abilities that person has shown to possess due to falling for a range of issues that are more or less self inflicted obstacles, like e.g. prejudices, racism, weird beliefs, absorbing lunatic theories and such.

Kate Matsuda · 4y

See now, this is why I go with shitbird myself...anyone can be a shitbird...equality! aaaaanyway I hesitate to use them except on myself, but not because I think they are ableist...my instinct is that they are super generic terms, too generic to say that a group is being targeted/diminished - bad ideas can come from all different people of all different mental capacities and different reasons and so on

Sean ⚡🤖 · 4y

I can understand people getting upset about hearing words like "retard" or "retarded" used as insults but "stupid" and "dumbass"? No, people don't refer to disabled people as stupid or dumbasses unless you're a huge asshole I guess but that's just not what those words mean. A dumbass is someone who crashes while texting and driving or shoplifts from Walmart. A stupid person is someone who fortnite dances in public or thinks vaping is cool. They're not disabled, just kinda dumb and don't know it.

MistyRiver · 11 answers · 4y