this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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Just because it's a term you learned in school doesn't mean it's not used to hold people back. The term is used to imply that people who aren't skilled don't deserve a living wage and lots of voters fall for it and push the narrative that if you flip burgers you don't deserve to pay rent on time and go to the movies on the same month.
Good news don't travel so fast. Changing the term to something harder to make derogatory would be a much better solution.
It's an emotional response to point out how a word has been used to keep people from being paid what they're worth? I think it's an emotional response to cling so hard to a word that could very easily be changed and hurt no one.
Because I've heard people use it as an excuse for why minimum wage shouldn't cover bills and they vote accordingly. Language matters.
Scientific jargon can and has changed to better represent what they're talking about no reason this can't either unless that makes some people too... emotional.
That is a way better example than I was planning on using if this kept going thanks
We're humans who have emotional responses to things, and we should be cognizant of that when choosing our words. We should also be aware of how bad actors may use our words to manipulate public opinion via those emotions.
We don't use things like mongoloid or crippled anymore even though they were once considered perfectly acceptable medical terms. Unskilled is inherently derogatory, and the thesaurus is offering alternatives such as fundamental, foundational, or generalized. I like generalized labor the best so far, because it contrasts perfectly with specialized.