Once, in an argument, if you said, "I don't want X; I want Y", the person arguing with you would say, "It isn't that simple", but there is a new phrase used by politicians and other dishonest spruikers in such situations. "It isn't a binary choice", they tell you, which they think makes them sound much cleverer - and rather contemporary and hip, since it contains the echo of identity politics, and the faint implication of being "non-binary", (woo hoo, so cool).
The Treasurer of Australia, Josh Frydenberg, is the latest to throw the new phrase around, in a desperate attempt to seem relevant to someone, by calling for net zero carbon emissions for Australia by 2050, (while not mentioning that it will make not a blind bit of difference to anyone until someone persuades China and India to stop belching out foul gases on an ever-increasing scale).
I bitterly resent being made even for a millisecond to contemplate Josh Frydenberg or any other politician or public figure engaged in sexual activity, whether binary or non-binary. My view on the subject is quite simple and entirely binary; I am on the side of the binary choice, (or simple choice, as it ought to be termed), that says, when presented with fleeting references to other people's sexual activity, however inadvertent those may be, "Eurgh, no, no, no, no."
Ban "binary". It's simple.
Having spent some portion of the last thirty-five years considering binary representations of data, I'd find it hard to do without the term. It is unusual now for me to have to think about the actual 1s and 0s, and all the nifty ways one can manipulate them. But I may yet this year find some reason for doing so.
ReplyDeleteThe term "binary choice", though, just sounds clumsy. One could say "it's not just either/or", I suppose.
Like so much, it is a tehnical term that has crept into the everyday.
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