Imagine a future where babies can be incubated in an external enclosure, rather than a womb.
This doesn't seem too unlikely. I've been hoping tech would go this way -- We're doing IVF in June, and it's still hit-or-miss whether it'll work.
In that future, if someone identifies as nonbinary but still wishes to have a child, neither "mother" nor "father" would accurately describe them. And since a womb isn't required for a baby, there's not necessarily any "mother" (nor "father") in that scenario.
That said, I think the argument is "mainboard is better than motherboard for the same reason that denylist is better than blacklist -- the whole point is so that people don't have to be reminded of social issues whenever the word comes up in discussion."
As an african american, I never particularly liked the whole black and white argument (literally in this case) because those words and concepts go beyond western culture and even civilization. "black" in this case isn't referring to me anymore than a black mage is referring to me in DnD (I don't play magical classes). It's from a much more fundamental concept that humans are diurnal creatures that can't see well at night. Or rather, the "black of night". the unknown is scary, night is full of the unknown. This is why every culture has some concept of "black is scary", because we all have this natural fear or discomfort of what we can't see (our strongest sense).
If nothing else, maybe we should revisit the language as a whole and its obsession with overloaded homonyms.
Perversely though, when I see someone say "denylist", it stands out as an odd word, and it makes me more reminded of social issues than if they had just said blacklist.
This doesn't seem too unlikely. I've been hoping tech would go this way -- We're doing IVF in June, and it's still hit-or-miss whether it'll work.
In that future, if someone identifies as nonbinary but still wishes to have a child, neither "mother" nor "father" would accurately describe them. And since a womb isn't required for a baby, there's not necessarily any "mother" (nor "father") in that scenario.
That said, I think the argument is "mainboard is better than motherboard for the same reason that denylist is better than blacklist -- the whole point is so that people don't have to be reminded of social issues whenever the word comes up in discussion."