> No, what's counter-effective right now is social policing according to bleeding heart policies. Now is not the time to clutch at pearls and treat everyone "equally."
Everybody knows that Wuhan is where it came from, and that it's been the hardest hit. My understanding is that what they're concerned about is long-lasting associations. 100 years later we're still calling the 1918 thing the "Spanish Flu"; I'd be willing to bet tourism to Spain dropped significantly in the decade that followed that epidemic.
Could you name the place where SARS originated? I can't; and even if I could it wouldn't be a strong correlation in my mind. That's what we want 10 years from now -- for people planning travel itineraries to associate Wuhan with a the actual city and surroundings, not with a disaster that happened a decade in the past.
This isn't "bleeding heart policies"; it's just simple Golden-rule consideration, based on a century of experience.
People are not going to forget this came from Wuhan whether you call it the Wuhan Flu or not.
I understand that the intentions are benevolent, but policing language does not change reality. No more than stigmatizing the word "retard" (originally a scientific term like moron, imbecile, idiot, and all the rest) will change people's responses to those with mental disabilities.
The downside to this kind of stigmatization is that people start to abuse it as soft cultural power, which breeds resentment and discord among the population. I'd be willing to guess it's literally one of the peculiar Western cultural features those "evil Russian hackers" (and other nation states) are targeting to wedge society apart.
> The downside to this kind of stigmatization is that people start to abuse it as soft cultural power
Humans have been enforcing social norms for at least as long as we have written history. And people have probably been abusing that habit for just as long.
Some social norms are good; others are bad. Some ways of enforcing social norms are polite, others are annoying, others (Twitter mobs) can be horrifying.
I would consider "Let's call this the coronavirus, or CORVID-19, out of consideration for Wuhan 10 years from now" as at least a reasonable one; and a polite request on Hackernews is hardly going to give you PTSD or ruin your life.
In other words: I understand where you're coming from, but "My right to call this the Wuhan virus" is a funny hill to choose to die on. :-)
Because it's not "the coronavirus" any more than the Spanish Flu is "the flu". The Spanish Flu was one pandemic that happened with one strain of the flu; it's not the same flu that we get every year. Similarly, COVID-19 or whatever we end up calling it in the future is not "the coronavirus", because that term applies to MANY different viruses, including MERS and SARS.
Everybody knows that Wuhan is where it came from, and that it's been the hardest hit. My understanding is that what they're concerned about is long-lasting associations. 100 years later we're still calling the 1918 thing the "Spanish Flu"; I'd be willing to bet tourism to Spain dropped significantly in the decade that followed that epidemic.
Could you name the place where SARS originated? I can't; and even if I could it wouldn't be a strong correlation in my mind. That's what we want 10 years from now -- for people planning travel itineraries to associate Wuhan with a the actual city and surroundings, not with a disaster that happened a decade in the past.
This isn't "bleeding heart policies"; it's just simple Golden-rule consideration, based on a century of experience.