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The 'Scunthorpe Problem' Has Never Really Been Solved (vice.com)
dmoberhaus writes: Yesterday, a writer for SB Nation named Natalie Weiner posted a screenshot of a rejection form she received when she tried to sign up for a website. Her submission was rejected because a spam algorithm considered her last name "offensive." After she posted about this, hundreds of other people with similarly "offensive" last names sounded off about how they had experienced similar issues. As it turns out, this phenomenon is so widespread that it has a name among computer scientists. It's called the Scunthorpe problem and it's been a scourge of the internet since the beginning. Motherboard spoke to content moderation experts about its origins and why it's such a hard problem to solve 20 years later. A big reason why the problem has yet to be solved is "because creating effective obscenity filters depends on the filter's ability to understand a word in context," reports Motherboard. "Despite advances in [AI], this is something that even the most advanced machine-learning algorithms still struggle with today."
"This works both ways around," Michael Veale, a researcher studying responsible machine learning at University College London, told Motherboard. "Cock (a bird) and Dick (the given name) are both harmless in certain contexts, even in children's settings online, but in other cases parents might not want them used. Equally, those wanting to abuse a system can find ways around it."
"This works both ways around," Michael Veale, a researcher studying responsible machine learning at University College London, told Motherboard. "Cock (a bird) and Dick (the given name) are both harmless in certain contexts, even in children's settings online, but in other cases parents might not want them used. Equally, those wanting to abuse a system can find ways around it."
...on how silly/childish we still are by schoolyard snickering over "funny names". Apparently, we'll just never grow the fuck up.
The real reason it's a problem is because programmers are lazy bastards, and web developers are stupid lazy bastards.
Yes, I'm a software developer. A disillusioned one.
It's called the Scunthorpe problem because it has the word "cunt" in it, and that prevented the good people of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL back when that was relevant.
There, saved y'all a click, since that's probably the only thing you were interested in about this story anyway.
And remove all filters already. Kids will only benefit in developing strong psyche if exposed from an early age. If you expose them later to these "bad" words you are creating snow flakes. Get them used to the words from an early age and in a couple of generations the worlds will stop being offensive, duh!
But I sure know the problem. I was once tasked with creating software that would flag objectionable content posted on-line. And the business types were worried about people using "banned terms" altered by look-alike characters a la Leetish (oops... 1337.sh), or spurious punctuation inserted, so I built a finite automaton matcher for database of banned terms, and applied filters during matching so that remapped characters and certain inserted punctuation would not prevent matching.
Totally useless. When such software is run against pages of normal text, with the suspected "banned terms" being high-lighted red, it is really surprising how often (or how many) buried obscenities pass under our eyes, and we are not sufficiently "little old ladyish" to notice.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Simple searches are never going to solve the problem. They simply have no situational awareness. One of my favorite examples would be when 8chan was in the midst of the exodus from 4chan, and someone thought it would be funny to word filter all instances of "moot" into "cuck". I discovered this when one of myposts had the word "smooth" changed into the non-word "scuckh". I wasn't the only one to figure it out, and very quickly people were evading it by using a Cyrillic "o" instead of a Latin "o". This led to much hilarity as some people complained loudly that they were being filtered while others were not. It got to the point where people were putting a lookalike "moot" into posts simply to bait n00bs into thinking the filters no longer existed.
This was pretty harmless, but it demonstrated quite well why defining some regexps is never going to solve a social problem, and introduces many of its own.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
My health class had to coax us students to all say 'penis' and 'vagina' several times just to loosen up enough to talk about anatomy and sexual health. Genital shame feeds into our culture's sex negativity, and indirectly into bodily shame, all in a vicious circle. We would be much happier as a culture if we went out of our way to promote sex positivity and body acceptance. Unfortunately the Abrahamic religions are too invested in sex negativity, so I'm not hopeful that things will improve until secularism becomes more dominant.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Does it take a company as big as WeightWatchers to convince curators/censors to make an exception to the Scunthorpe problem? Like Scunthorpe, WeightWatchers has embedded sexual slang in the middle.
Even without mindless string matching, there are pinhead bureaucrats who will equally mindlessly reject reasonable requests for harmless strings on similarly specious grounds. A few years back, seeing that it was (by some miracle, I thought) untaken, I tried to snag "YT-1300" as a personalized license place. Yes, I'm that nerdly. Also, nothing good with "1701" was available. Some pencil-pusher at the DMV actually denied the application on the claim that YT-1300 is a "gang-related" term. WTF?!?!? Yeah. I'm to believe that there're gangs of Star Wars fans out there somewhere doing drive-bys at Star Trek conventions, hoping to "pop a cap in the ass" of the Trekkies. Sure Mr. DMV person. And you wonder why we all hate you and your kind.
Okay. Disney may have had something to say on copyright or trademark grounds if I *HAD* gotten the plate. But still...
Imagine all the people...
I bet there are a lot of websites having trouble with the name, "David Pecker". He's been in the news lately because he was running the National Enquirer and has a safe filled with information about Donald Trump potentially getting peed on and having sex with ladyboys and paying for abortions and who knows what else. He's also been given immunity by the Special Counsel and is currently cooperating, which means we're in good shape for entertaining news at least through the end of the year.
There have been so many jokes about David Pecker's name, that the Enquirer sent out a request to the news media to please stop snickering when talking about him. The request was written by the Enquirer's head of public relations, Fanny Goblincock.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The solution to the problem has always existed. Turn off the dumbass filter.
Don't use fucking filters to filter out fucking offensive language.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
why it's such a hard problem to solve
It is not a hard problem to solve. It is a very easy problem to solve. It is literally the Easiest problem to solve.
Stop trying to decide what's obscene and what isn't. Remove the filter. Boom, problem solved.
"Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated
out of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing -- with
"obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second
and third place." - Robert Heinlein.
Have were learned nothing from George Carlin?
One thing we did learn from Carlin is that context matters.
It's OK to say [baseball star] Roberto Clemente has two balls on him. But you can't say 'I think he hurt his balls on that play.' -- George Carlin
TFA makes the same point.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
When the old-line mail order purveyor of fine writing instruments Pen Island became aware of the potential of online commerce, it registered the obvious penisland.com . The company was totally unprepared for the porn avalanche that followed. Similar hilarity ensued when Experts Exchange came online.
How is it, that supposedly grown-up people use childish concepts like being "offended" anyway? What are they? 13? Never left puberty?
A grown-up, mature person either is confident enough, to know that if somebody's statement is wrong, then he's the idiot, and there is no need to do much about it.
And if somebody's statement is wrong, he's able to handle that reality about him.
As soon as he starts defending himself, he shows everyone, that the offense clearly contained something that he considers such a valid criticism, that he thinks it needs to be countered. That is what gives it validity in the first place.
I don't expect a kid to know this, but definitely a grown-up!
The problem today is, that everyone has become such an insecure loser (who'd be the prime target of bullies in any school in the 70s/80s), that everything that might suggest they are not perfect little snowflakes, shatters their entire world and excuse for a confidence. And then they lash out and bully others with "OMGOFFENDED!". Yes, bully. Since this has become the prime form of bullying today. Because you do not even have to attack anyone. All it takes, is them imagining you might mean something in a discriminating/offensive way. And let me tell you, ... they can "find" something in EVERYTHING!
So what we need, is to stop raising our children without self-confidence. Without giving out trophies for participation. And with bullies, for the sole purpose of them growing from letting the bullies bounce off again and again. So they later, in the real world, don't have to become SJW terrorists.
I don't think you need an AI to screen names, especially on emails. Obscenity filters aren't going to pick up anything on the name of the sender that they won't find in the body of an email. If the body of the email isn't flashing red with signs of abuse, then chances are... that your sender's name is fine, even if it's a last name like Weiner (which would be an absolutely idiotic thing for an obscenity filter to pick up on in the first place).
Filters like this are designed to be gamed. If your users have an IQ over 80, they're going to do it. Back in the day, when Planet Source Code was a thing, they had an incredibly aggressive filter there. Screened out all profanity, and went to far as to prevent you from using words like stupid and idiot. But you know, when you would see comments like "You're a S***** I*****!!!!" your mind would just go to places a lot worse than the terms the filter was trying to prevent you from seeing. At that particular site, it became sort of a running joke to call people Ldiots. I don't remember, offhand, how long it went on, or if they're still doing it, but it was fun.
Machine learning algorithms could be useful here. I don't know how sophisticated they need to be. The problem, at least as far as I see it has never been the technology, so much as the people who run it. They're the problem. They've always been the problem. And as long as we live in an internet culture where people want to impose language standards on others, it's not something that's going to go away anytime soon. Regardless as to how cool some of these machine learning programs are.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, stop being assholes. Don't filter people who you're expecting to be able to converse like adults. If you're working with children, this might be a learning moment... for both of you. But you're not helping anyone by being a fucking cunt -- and you're probably doing more harm than good.
That's really all I have to say about it.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Here in Western Australia, we have the City of Cockburn but they pronounce it Coburn to avoid any issues... "Captain James Stirling named the City in 1827. It is thought that the area was named after Admiral Sir George Cockburn, a well-known British naval officer." https://www.cockburn.wa.gov.au...
I wrote the program to create pass codes for the Webkinz children's toys. I probably should have looked at the codes created more carefully. About 1 in a million codes began 'F' 'U' 'C' 'K'. We then created a list of bad words and ran it against the codes we had already shipped. Not my finest day when I saw the result. Sorry to anyone who was offended.
Way back in the day, I was affiliated with a BBS that had filters for "obviously fake" names. I wound up getting peripherally involved when a Mr. Bob Blow tried to sign up for an account, and kept getting an automated rejection accusing him of using a false name.
Some years later, with another BBS, it took two years before anyone suspected Mr. Mike Oxlarge was using a fake name. Everyone knew who this person was online -- it only came to light when someone said his name in the office one day after a tech support call.
Mind you, it wasn't a problem for Mr. Takeshita, although it probably should have been. An IBM system mandated a maximum of 8 characters username, and corporate policy was to just the persons last name, truncated to 8 characters. Oops.
Yaz
Sadly, my favourite pub in all of southern England, The Cock, does not sell t-shirts or mugs.
A splendid marketing opportunity...wasted.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Aka Newspeak
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
I thought his name was Richard Pecker?
Decades ago I worked on a billing system that used a unique ID comprising the first three letters of the customer's surname followed by the first letter of the customer's given name. The ID was prominently printed on all customer facing paperwork - invoices, letters etc.
Then along came Mrs Cunningham. Mrs Tina Cunningham.
You can prick your finger; but don't finger your prick.
This space unintentionally left blank.
...And you should be sorry for what you did. Shame! Shame on your whole family! You should know better!
...than to ship product with a four digit security code. You know how easy that is to break? You are practically giving away passwords with a length of four. My god man, I bet you DIDN'T EVEN SALT YOUR DB.
I am so very dissapoint.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
At a former employer we had an internal collaboration system. This had a rude words filter but it was "turned up to 11" which meant that some day to day discussions were rendered completely pointless.
For example: "Press down hard on the cover and release the screw" became "Press down ********* and release the ******" which wasn't any help to anyone.
It ended up with posts either being strangely formatted (e.g. sc r ew) or [esp. when they were aimed at senior management] using convoluted phrases [attachment device requiring rotational motion to activate the helical engagement system] to point out the silliness. This in a system which would never be seen by (and thus 'needing' shielding provided for) customers, children or others who could be offended.
Still, it "st i mu l at ed" creativity and entertained those who loved searching increasingly obscure words in a thesaurus.
The real Scunthorpe problem is that it's a shit-hole in the middle of nowhere.
Seriously at middle school we were all swearing like sailor. In the environment I am right now we barely say it during normal conversation, only in case of stress. They are not called adult word everywhere by the way but rather in some culture. Here around they are curse words, swear words and similar name.
Basically let the children have those words, and once it is out of their system using it at school over and over and lose its lustre... Then you are fine.
"regulating and mastering your emotions" wrong by the way. Becoming adult is accepting that you do not get what you want and that every action has a responsibility. The "mastering emotion" is bullshit which lead to people repressing their emotion, depression, suicide, social isolation and pain of all sorts (not counting the same similar bullshit as "men do not cry"). It is better to show your emotion than pretend you are a master of it and stuff it in your psyche where it can fester all nicely.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Illiterate Americans.
The sausage is called Wiener after the Austrian capital Wien (Vienna).
And then there is the issue of pronunciation...
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
It is a very common name but overly sensitive Americans have all but banned it.
Luckily it is still in wide use in other countries, luckily because it is a variation of my first name.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Tangentially to the issue at hand, I once read about someone whose family name was Null, and it indeed regularly caused issues when his name was entered in some databases.
I'm not allowed to have 'FSCK" as my team name for CoD since it is clearly derived from a rude word. Most annoying, since we here all know from where it really comes.
Bunch of pussies.
At IBM Havant many moons ago, the online expense claim program identified key words in claims, and flagged amounts that exceeded thresholds. If I came back from the States with a meal receipt for more than 34 bucks, I quickly found that identifying the expense as 'a healthy repast' avoided the word filter quite nicely.
.. or other words where in one region the term has a colloquial meaning (Fanny being a slightly more polite version of Pussy in English Mark 1) and in another a more benign meaning? I could wax lyrical about the differences between English Mark 1 and the language of our colonial brethren in the US.
And then there are other languages in the world, after all. I remember my German colleagues giggling at an American stand at CeBIT in Hannover, whose company name was "Blast, Inc". Something to do with blowing, I understand. Quite childish really, but then a chunk of the comedy in the world relates to the naughty parts of human bodies and behaviours.
That's a novel use of SJW. OTOH it seems to always mean "things I don't agree with".
Sure. Eliminate all slang and vulgarity.
What was that? Teenagers just brutally thrust the London Gherkin through the gaping pleasure passage of your suggestion, rendering a whole sentence worth of new words taboo?
Good luck constructing sentences when your allowed language is down to three words.
A big reason why the problem has yet to be solved is "because creating effective obscenity filters depends on the filter's ability to understand a word in context," reports Motherboard. "Despite advances in [AI], this is something that even the most advanced machine-learning algorithms still struggle with today."
The real reason why the problem exists at all is because we think that we need obscenity filters. Because your childs psyche is going to be irrepairable traumatized if it reads words like "cunt" or "penis", right?
Small children don't care. The worst that will happen is that they ask you to explain what that word means.
By the time they care, they already know what it means.
Not to even mention that this is the one area where humanity has managed to turn half the dictionary into synonyms for the words you are trying to filter out. Good luck filtering that.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Sure, spam filters make sense because they spare you to deal with a text you don't want to read anyway (and even then you have to check the spam box every once in a while), but those are far more sophisticated now.
But "profanity filters", especially those that replace "fuck" by "f..k" and are easily circumvented by "f*ck" don't help at all. Everyone knows what it's supposed to mean and just replaces "f..k" with "fuck" in their own head. The stupid beeping in TV-shows is even worse. Not only is it annoying as hell, it also nicely highlights all the swearwords, and everyone just replaces it in their own head anyway.
Language is there to convey meaning, when "f..k" conveys the same meaning as "fuck", then what difference does it make. To try to keep the meaning intact and at the same time censor it doesn't work.
It's not about "protecting" kids either. They're usually pretty quick to figure such things out and have enough peers who'll tell them anyway. They will learn about swearing and foul language anyway. They should learn that such language is inappropriate for them to use, or for adults to use in their presence, just like they learn that it's inappropriate for them e.g. to drink alcohol or for an adult to offer them alcohol.
So who is more offended by "fuck" than by "f..k", when both mean the same thing and both make you think the same word?
Whoever uses "f..k" want's you to replace it with "fuck" in your own head but at the same time claim not to use "foul language".
Now that i find offensive.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Entry #2 in the Urban Dictionary?
Must admit, seems a bit of a fetch to me.
what could possibly go wrong?
I once got a call at work from a customer who was angry because he couldn't get the username he wanted. At first I thought he was trying to use something already taken. I asked what username he was trying to use, and it was "pieceofshit." Reminds me of another guy who had a verbal password for when he called in... and it was surprising to me as the verbal was "little shit fucker."
Only words FUCKING used offensively. This is not such an offensive use. This is: I will FUCK that BITCH until she bleeds! This is not an offensive use: I thinking Trump and Trump supporters are fucking evil!
...just trying having a last name of Null. The havoc that wreaks on web apps. Not sure why, but enterprisy stuff seems fine with it, it breaks web apps left and right...
Then try opening a joint account with Mr Void and cashing a cheque!
Some immature, childish people might enjoy registering to some sites with obscene names. So what? What's the big deal? Is it that some will be force to gouge their eyes after reading such obscenities?
A big reason why the problem has yet to be solved is "because creating effective obscenity filters depends on the filter's ability to understand a word in context
Wrong - the issue isn't context. The sorts of people that get 'offended' by character strings; that they know are not something the application designer or sight operator intended to put there but rather something something some troll thought would get a rise out of people like using the n-word for their handle don't care about context. They know the context and they get mad anyway because they are the types who go around looking for things to be mad about.
The issue is people. You can't solve people problems with technology no matter how good your AI is.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
You should see NASCAR's Dick Trickle try to use his name online
If you're logged in to Slashdot, you can click that white ball next to someone's user name and assign "friend" or "foe". Then set up your user settings to apply a modifier to scores of posts by friends and foes.
I don't understand why you'd be scraping an email address for "bad words" anyway... who gives a fuck if you sign up with fuck_cunt_6969@Business.com? The entire problem could be solved by just not giving a fuck at all about it in the first place.
and the Vice Prez at the time was D**k Cheny.
Speaking of elected U.S. federal executives:
Your rump is the part of your body in contact with the chair, mat, etc. when seated. From top to bottom: head, shoulders, chest, belly, rump. Other names for this part include "bum", "butt", and "ass". But you can't spell the name of the 45th President of the United States without "rump".
It's not really surprising, but so many of these "profanity" and "spam" filters just compare a list of "words" against the input using a naïve substring match with no concern for even word boundaries. I mean, just because you might think "tart" is offensive, I highly doubt you would think "start" is. (If you do, then you are the one with the problem.)
As far as I can tell, this sort of thing is usually motivated by the "ZOMG!!!1111!!!!11!!!!11!!1 Think of the children!!!!!!111!!1!!!1!!" types in management or management caving to those types. And, of course, the developers are given three microseconds to implement an impossible filter that will Protect The Children. Sometimes management even comes along with a list of Bad Words. Even if that isn't the case, the developers are going to look at the request, realize how impossible it is, and do the simplest thing that they can that will convince management that their system can now Protect The Children.
This is, of course, a subset of a more general problem of incorrect validation of input. The number of times I've had my perfectly valid email address rejected because there is a hyphen in the domain name, or worse, because it doesn't end in ".com", ".org", or ".net" (yes, that happened a couple of times, though not recently) is astounding. I even had my perfectly valid postal address rejected by a validation tool run by the national post office once.
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
Stop using computers to solve problems they can't.
If you want vocabulary police that is what moderated web boards are for and you pay the cost of people to review content and create a walled garden. Nothing posted without review.
Using a computer to filter 'unwanted' language is like using a car to take down unwanted walls in your house. Just not the right tool for the job.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
I am willing to accumulate and maintain a list of exceptions, if only because I found words/names like this somewhat amusing.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
No, it rhymes with hump, thump, bump, and you're a dumbass.
Mastering emotions and not letting things fester are not mutually exclusive. Many times mastering emotions can be about respecting other people around you.
Here is an example of mastering emotions.
Mastered emotion:
Discussing with a co-worker why they upset you in a meeting after reflecting a bit
Non-Mastered emotion:
Throwing a chair in a meeting while cussing up and down why they upset you
Does that mean Pecker is leaking stuff?
Louis CK had a bit about how he hates the N-word. No, not the word, the actual phrase "the N-word".
Nope, no sig
If that was being used Scunthorpe and Wetwang, real places in Yorkshire would be OK.
Trump, a noise wet fart would be filtered and the world would far better place.
Yep, and there are cowardly twats like yourself.
Weiner - as mentioned in the OP - isn't even how it's spelled.
That would be pronounced wye-ner.
Wiener - as in the penis, as an analogue (see what I did there) is believed to derive from the city of Vienna, or in German, Wien.
-Styopa
I've been on more than one site that flagged Senator Chris Coons's last name.
Five decades ago (way before the WWW), there were two secretaries in the company I worked for who were so sheltered and innocent that they couldn't understand why they kept having customers call to ask for a manager to complain about their "language." The reason for customer complaints? Their names were Frances Screws and Susie Bangs, which they clearly stated when answering the phone for their bosses. They were married, respectively, to Dick Screws and Hardrick Bangs. This was the Bible Belt, and my simply using the word "darn" would shock them (they considered it to be profanity); both would frown and blush. I did worse, however; they didn't like me a lot. Apparently, their husbands were equally sheltered and naive. I met both of the husbands once, only briefly, at a "holiday" party, but I didn't disagree with that characterization by others who knew them better. I thought the situation was of little real consequence, a little more than funny, but apparently (I learned after I had left) it caused both couples quite a bit of trouble in the real (Bible belt) world trying to do mundane things like making restaurant and motel reservations. I was told they had to get notarized, certified copies of their birth and marriage certificates in order to open bank accounts (and for one of them, a BankAmericard credit card account, which ultimately they were denied). My secretary explained to me that she had tried to explain to Susie what the verb "to bang" meant so she would know why folks she talked to were so offended, but first she had to explain what the verb "to fuck" meant and what "intercourse" was; Susie had never heard the first, but knew of the second, but wanted to call sex with her husband "marital relations." She simply failed to accept that the verb "to bang" could possibly mean what was claimed. So incredibly sheltered. About 20 years ago someone all of us had worked with back then told me both couples ended up legally changing their names (but that had happened in the late 80s, long before the web). While I would have much more sympathy today, I did convince upper management to allow them to use an "incorrect" name when answering the phone. Frances didn't want to do that because she considered it to be telling a lie, but someone or something eventually made her come around.
I've met a half dozen or so people in my travels whose last names were either Screws or Bangs (or something else once considered "suggestive"). They appear to enjoy hearing about Frances and Susie, but each of them had their own stories to tell.
This so perfectly captures the absurdity of modern offensiveness based politically correct culture... only the growing number of weak minded, delicate, and eager to be offended individuals makes this an issue we have to contend with. If people weren't so eager to make everything an offense no one would care what people were using as screen names, but god forbid some snowflake somewhere get triggered by anything so we try to censor the world to save their feelings.
Nope really - that was his name. He's a consultant who teaches requirements and testability. Looks like he goes by Richard Bender when searching on Google. I mean really, I had to pause before typing that into the search bar while at work.
But in the end, do we really need to care? Sure, message boards possibly care about offensive looking handles. Maybe the answer is "Report this profile"
Some people are offended by words other people love to use. The problem hasn't been solved because any "solution" will seem like a solution to some, but not to others. There literally is no solution, algorithmically or otherwise.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
That is precisely what it means. If a politician is asked their plan to solve some issue on live TV, they often will do this weird thing where all the words are real, and you can even diagram the sentence, but it conveys no meaning. It is practiced and purposeful. This happens mostly when there is no viable solution to said issue.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
if ( 'Scunthorpe' !~ /\bcunt\b/ ) {
say "What's the problem again?";
}
I am too lazy to read how the person above you used "master" your emotions. If they really meant "suppress", then I agree what you said about it.
For myself, "mastering emotion" is more like mastering the skill of riding a horse. Your emotions are the horse and you are the rider. Emotions, relatively speaking, are much stronger than 'You' are. Engage in hand-to-hand combat at your own peril.
You can not make a horse submit. You can not make your emotions submit. You can suppress them or some other delaying tactic, but those tactics have prices too.
No. You ride your horse. Don't try to fight it and don't let it drag you down the dusty trail.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen