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Comment by bunderbunder | Hacker News Reader

More than a couple of us know Apple's terms and agree to them quite enthusiastically.

The perennial mansplaining around this issue mildly baffles me. Apple acting as a gatekeeper for iOS has been a well-known thing for a decade now. Coming to a place like this and preaching as if people don't understand Apple's terms is frankly insulting.

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Sounds like somebody learned a new word but couldn't be bothered to learn what it means.

how is this possibly mansplaining

It's as central an example of mansplaining as I've ever seen; Mansplaining just means "I'm too stupid to understand your point, so I'm going to throw in a non sequitur gendered insult".

At least as I understand it, it more means explaining things to the person you're talking to as if they don't know anything about the conversation topic, even though you have no particular reason to do so.

It doesn't necessarily have to be done by a man or directed at a woman. That's just how it tends to go. And obvs is a bit more fraught when it is going that way.

Leaving aside whether that's something to reasonably get upset about (how are people supposed to know exactly which facts are known to every single reader of their comment?), the way you're describing it seems pretty identical to the now-mostly-anachronistic expression of being "jewed" out of some money. The fact that the target of the slur doesn't have to be Jewish doesn't make it better; in fact, it kind of makes it worse. Hell, at least my example has its roots in a time when casual racism/sexism were accepted _pro forma_, and the term is slowly dying out. It seems to me your example is even less excusable.

It's the difference between punching up and punching down.

Meh, those aren't as well-defined as you think they are. Variously, market-dominant minorities have been labelled as "oppressors" throughout history, and "we can be as immoral as we want as long as the victims deserve it" has been cover for all sorts of horrible shit. You can do whatever you want under the aegis of "fighting the power" if you just define "the power" as the people you wanted to be vicious to anyway. It takes a pretty simple-minded view of the world to think that a one-dimensional oppressors/oppressed view of the world is anywhere close to reality, instead of just being convenient cover that can be targeted at pretty much anyone, so shitty people can be regressive and sexist and racist while sitting on their high horse.

Maybe you’re replying to a woman?

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