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thomastjefferyyesterday at 10:20 PM2 repliesview on HN

The problem is that there isn't a simple canonical way to disambiguate, despite that being the obvious and superior solution.

Taboo is a shitty communication feature. Taboo demands active silence in a system with too much entropy for that to be feasible. It would be far superior to train everyone to say "good crash" (and respond appropriately) instead.

Words only have meaning in context. The whole point of instating a taboo is that you control the context. Rather than use that control to introduce danger to words, we should use it to isolate danger from words.


Replies

simulator5gtoday at 12:00 AM

That would not solve the problem. On a radio, you could have a moment of interference and only receive 'crash' when someone broadcasts 'good crash'. It is better to avoid certain words entirely. There is also no reason to use those specific words when you could describe, e.g. a software crash as a software problem, error, issue, etc.

daptoday at 2:32 AM

Is it a taboo, or is it just reserving specific words to mean specific things and insist everybody be precise about it?