Comment by knappe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by knappe | Hacker News Reader

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You're making a huge leap of faith in using words that you know others find offensive, even if you yourself don't find them offensive nor mean to use them in an offensive manner. The leap of faith you're making is that _everyone_ will interpret their meaning in the way you've intended them to be used. Does it seem like that will always work out? The short answer is no. No it will not.

This is _EXACTLY_ why we have conferences now enacting a code of conduct [0].

"Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion, technology choices, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention."

The phrases used above certainly fall within the provision above.

[0] http://confcodeofconduct.com/

It's neat how "political views" is missing from that list up there. I wonder why that is.

People are people. As I tried to communicate to you before, this intolerance is no different than the intolerance used to persecute gay people all over the world. They are different, they are offensive. "It offends my religious beliefs." Morality is not about what's popular, and it's not about what offends you, it's about empathy. Failure to see that these words are not actually offensive is a direct result of failing to empathize with the speaker.

Probably going to get a fair amount of negative karma over this, but... here goes with the "in my experience" stereotypes (albeit largely also agreed to by a friend from the Gulf states who spent time in both Atlanta and Boston):

In the Northeast and much of the West coast, being tolerant is not saying a thing. In the Southeast, it's saying a thing with humor or empathy.

Example: my friend makes a joke with an African American friend in Atlanta referring to a stereotype in a humorous manner.

In the Southeast, that plays like "we both know our friendship is solid, and yes, some stereotypes we're both aware of are amusing."

In the Northeast? Surrounding people (not the friend in question, mind you), "How could you even refer to a stereotype out loud? That just shouldn't be done."

Call me crazy, but I subscribe to the Mel Brooks theory of laughing at a thing is the strongest form of rejection.

You can reject his language, but not his right to use it.

If you know you are going to be misunderstood and offend people with the words you choose, and you use them anyway, that is the exact opposite of empathy.

Failure to see that your words are offensive to some people is a direct result of failing to empathize with the listener.

That is an absolutely ridiculous statement if you look at the context of this conversation.

You are saying that I shouldn't call myself a pussy, because other people might get offended. That I should empathize with the fact that other people might get offended when I call myself names.

> if I had only manned up and broken out sed, but I pussied out and wrote some Python

Are you really suggesting that any given person should watch how they talk to themselves, because other people might get offended by how they talk to themselves?

This is lunacy. Absolute lunacy.

Censorship on how we talk to others is a joke in its own right, but now (when one puts your statements in context with the material being discussed) you are suggesting that failure to censor how we talk to ourselves represents a lack of empathy with the people who are listening in on our thoughts.

Is it so necessary that I defend my right to talk to myself how I please, that I defend the author's right to talk to himself as he pleases, do you honestly fail to see the absolute ridiculousness of getting offended over someone's inner monologue.

> should watch how they talk to themselves

A blog post is not talking to yourself.

It is very obvious that the author is referring to his inner monologue when when he states:

> if I had only manned up and broken out sed, but I pussied out and wrote some Python

It's very frustrating when people try to take an argument out of its context.

You said "I say shit's gay all the time. And I have no problem throwing around the word faggot."

Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10831106

That isn't about an inner monologue, and my reply is not out of context.

I fail to see how the subject of the sentence has any relevance to how offensive it is, if it indeed contains disparaging remarks. If I wrote in a blog post

> I stopped being a stupid ni _ _ er and smartened up

any well adjusted person would be offended by that statement. Even though I was referring to myself.

I don't care what their inner monologue is, but it stops being an inner monologue when they put it on a blog.

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