I think a big issue that this board is historically resistant to is that it’s not just a matter of a list of words that are allowed and disallowed (though many words should be disallowed, I’m not challenging that), but also the meaning and context of what you’re saying. I expect that this is an uncontentious example: the word freak. You can very easily use this term in a non-ableist way to describe someone with, for example, a bizarre and extreme ideology, like the paramilitary gangs in Israel who make a hobby of murder and destruction. Freak can also be used in an extremely ableist way, which we are all probably familiar with.

Just focusing on a word and not a broader sentiment in my example is probably sub-optimal, but I think you understand what I’m getting at and I don’t want to spend five paragraphs on it when this comment is already long-winded.

Contentious example: debate pervert and its associated concepts. It absolutely has valid, non-ableist uses, the example that I always give is the use of “gotchas” and other invalid rhetorical tactics. There are other uses too, of course. There are uses, however, where you’re basically saying that you don’t find some given detail about your claims important, so someone who thinks it is significantly incorrect must be wrong headed with no further investigation and even worthy of being compared to horrible fascists like Shapiro. You can imagine how this is a hostile dynamic to people who have ASD (and frankly also allistic people who just care about something that you don’t), and I’ve seen autistic users complain about this dynamic for a long time to no avail.

You don’t need to discuss something endlessly or treat any claim about any detail as a critical matter, but if you can’t be arsed to humor someone’s concern (or give up after attempting to), just ignore it or shrug or let others respond rather than sidestep the issue by insinuating extremely shitty things about the person.

I’m a really annoying guy who gets into endless arguments, I’m not really trying to paper over that, but I only get into endless arguments with people who also argue endlessly. You know what I do when I’m sick of talking with someone about something? I just mark the reply as “read” after probably not even reading it. If you fuckers are so above “debate pervertry” then surely you can do the same, or say “disengage” or whatever instead of make shitty insinuations about them.

While I’m at it, a lot of “nerd” discourse is ableist for the same reason, though of course I don’t think we should ban the word. We should probably get rid of though, for reasons that should be obvious after 5 seconds of thought about the basis of the caricature.

Sorry about talking more about the inverse of your question. I do think it is helpful though for answering the question because the question should fundamentally be if what you are saying is conceptually ableist, rather than being defined purely by vocabulary.

Edit: I like silly, ridiculous, and nonsense by the way