
Everyone’s offended these days - davidism
http://eev.ee/blog/2016/02/15/everyones-offended-these-days/
======
krig
This is a complete misunderstanding of what that quote from Stephen Fry is
saying. Of course people get offended. Everyone get offended all the time! So
what? He's doing exactly the right thing: He isn't having fun using Twitter,
so he stops using it. He's not claiming that getting offended is somehow
beneath him, he's saying that getting offended is no big deal.

It's everyone else who is making a big deal out of him leaving Twitter, which
(again) kind of proves his original point. Stephen Fry leaves Twitter. Well,
so fucking what.

~~~
cconroy
I dont know Fry but he isn't handling things as well as Dawkins does it seems.
Dawkins has a hilarious video of him reading the most hateful tweets.

You have to be careful. Some of the people who complain about others being
offended all the time are the biggest babies.

[Edit] If he is leaving bc it is no fun anymore that is an excellent reason.

~~~
jdietrich
Stephen Fry has bipolar disorder. His most recent suicide attempt was in 2012.
His decision to leave Twitter is entirely understandable and sensible.

~~~
cconroy
Did not know that and that is important context. I hope he is receiving proper
medical treatment and wish him the best.

------
jimrandomh
I think this is a property of the way voting/distribution work on some sites,
but not others. On Twitter or Tumblr, if you want to reply to something, you
have to increase its visibility in the process. So if something is really
wrong and everyone wants to correct it, it creates these horrible positive-
feedback spirals where mass-outrage explodes out of nothing. This doesn't
happen on Hacker News, partly because the churn of top-level posts cuts off
discussions before they can go too far off the rails, and partly because
there's a downvote button which makes things less visible. So people reading
comments see mostly positive examples (things that were upvoted), which
influences the culture, which in turn makes the comments they write better.

Which is not to say that there's no outrage here. But it tends to be a better
sort of outrage, expressed by providing context and explaining what's wrong
and what ought to be done.

~~~
jerf
I've made a minor hobby of studying how communities are formed by the
technical structure of the community, and what interactions they enable. The
control of visibility is actually a subtle art, and a lot of things like
Twitter or Facebook start with an initial design that is quite unsubtle that
works at first, but scales poorly.

I'm not convinced Twitter is fixable as-is. The most obvious technical
solution is to do what Reddit did and make sub-Twitters, but they're not going
to do that. But as one big global broadcast platform, it too easily exceeds
the ability of the human mind to deal with things when you get even modestly
popular, to say nothing of being a celebrity trying to directly participate.

But in reality there's simply no way to be a member of a "community" of that
size. Arguably that's one of the places where this essay sort of stalls out...
there's no _community_ here to be discussing in the first place. Just a
really, _really_ big pile of people, with affiliations too loose to even
remotely be a community. If there is "power" here, it's not at all clear to me
who has it, and it certainly seems on the evidence that Stephen Fry is
actually on the short end of that stick rather than the long one. To the
extent that the essay seems to vaguely try to suggest that he did the wrong
thing, itself ironic in light of, well, itself, I don't think the case was
made.

~~~
bradleyjg
I can't say I've made a study of it, but I've certainly thought about it.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on reddit style voting with visible points
and reordering. In my observation each of those things are detrimental, at
least with respect to community building and maintenance.

~~~
jerf
It seems to scale to medium size OK (several thousand lurkers, ~100 regular
posters and a steady stream of drive-bys), though I observe even a medium
sized subreddit doesn't feel _all_ that different than a Usenet forum of the
same size. Voting may let the community get a little larger than just a
threaded conversation, especially because it can distribute spam filtering,
but I'm not sure it's that meaningfully different in the end.

I'm also not convinced it's terribly detrimental. Most of the accusations
against vote systems are true of threaded forums in general. Group think
develops, regardless. People can be hounded out of a community, regardless,
for the same set of reasons. It seems to me the real key is the use of a
threading system in the first place, rather than the votes attached to the
threads.

It may be fair to say that threaded voting enables the largest communities I
know about. At the scale they break down, I don't know anything that works.
I've never seen a mechanism for having a tightly-knit single community of
larger size without being what most of us would consider a community fail.

By contrast, threaded vs. flat is a vital change.

------
brhsiao
There's a bit of nuance needed re: the paragraphs near the start. Offended
people tend to expect others to cater to them. Stephen doesn't; he's simply
explaining why people are wrong: for treating "I'm offended" as something that
should be pandered to. That isn't the same.

The author seems to be suggesting that because everyone thinks their behavior
is universal and objective, one cannot justifiably make this claim, and that
every objective thrust must necessarily have emotional underpinnings. Maybe;
but Fry never tries to invalidate others' feelings. Those offended tend to.

~~~
hyperpape
"Maybe; but Fry never tries to invalidate others' feelings."

"“Will all you sanctimonious fuckers fuck the fuck off Jenny Beavan is a
friend and joshing is legitimate."

Really?

~~~
brhsiao
Some guy makes an inside joke to a female friend that in public might to some
group be considered sexist. Someone nearby hears him and yells "this guy's
sexist" and soon he's swarmed by an angry mob. "Oh for fuck's sake fuck off
you sanctimonious fuckers," he says with exasperation. That's not quite
"invalidating others' feelings" in the sense we're talking about, is it?

~~~
hyperpape
I don't know what sense you're talking about, so I can't tell you. It sounds
like he's bothered by how they're treating him, and he wants them to shut up,
because he thinks their opinion is dumb and their way of expressing it is
awful. That's being offended in my book.

~~~
mjblack
"It sounds like he's bothered by how they're treating him, and he wants them
to shut up, because he thinks their opinion is dumb and their way of
expressing it is awful."

Yes, because I've seen first hand what people do to those on twitter that say
something that can be misconstrued as punching down, racist, bigoted, etc.
It's not pretty and not nice in any sense.

He is telling them to shut up in the sense that they're being offended means
jack shit. The mentality of them being offended and people having to cater to
them is why free speech on universities are pretty much non-existent.

I saw a core contributor on a project be attacked because he disagreed with
italian schools teaching children about transgender subjects without
permission from the parents. They literally attacked the project, going on
about how the core contributor was "transphobic", that his code will translate
into that too. It was literally shocking to see the comments going back and
forth. And, that isnt the only instance I've seen in the last year or so.

We've seen people have their platform removed because others claimed that
their mere presence would violate their "safe space", even though the person
isnt violent and just has a different view.

He is offended, the only difference is he isnt using it to try and ruin people
or change policies. He is venting his frustrations publicly because he can. He
isnt looking for others to cater to him. This is contrast to the people he is
complaining about who do everything they can to shame and silence people that
have a difference of an opinion.

~~~
hyperpape
The vast majority of your comment is a non-sequitur.

But returning to Fry: I think he's offended by his critics, even if he doesn't
use that word.

But here's what will blow your mind: as far as I understand what happened, I
think he's right to be that way. They attacked him for doing nothing wrong.

People are acting like there's some magical thing "offense" that's only felt
by people they disagree with. But we all feel offense on a regular basis,
whether we call it that or not. It's just on us to do our best to only feel it
for things that are actually bad, and to react in a measured way. Our offense
doesn't mean anything per se--you can be equally offended by a good thing as a
bad thing--it's the content of the thing that shows whether your offense shows
that the problem is inside you or the thing you're made about.

Don't create some kind of dumb rule "being offended is bad". That makes no
more sense than saying "because I'm offended, your opinion is wrong."

~~~
mjblack
No, my comments are exactly part of the problem that Fry is talking about. He
isnt saying that you shouldnt be offended, he is saying that just because you
are offended no one should cater to you. He is choosing to leave twitter
instead of asking twitter or the community to attack the people bothering him,
which is a stark contrast to the social "justice" crowd on twitter, which are
the ones attacking him. He can make commentary about being offended but thats
about all he is doing.

Fry isnt exactly offended by his critics but to the outrage culture that
believes that being offensive means that the person is a racist, homophobe,
etc. That is why if you disagree with them on topics, while not being an
actual bigot at all, they'll still call you a name that is defined by bigotry.
That is why if you disagree with feminists (depending on which one), you're
instantly labeled a men's rights activists without ever giving indication you
are one.

------
ftwynn
For those that didn't read the article, I think the crux of it is here:

> The subtext here is that cretinism is acceptable, but being a target is not.
> If you’re a total dick who only uses the Internet to seek out strangers and
> ruin their day for kicks, you are absolutely welcome. If you happen to be
> one such sought-out person, there’s the door. What kind of reasoning is
> that, and what kind of society does anyone think it’s going to create?

It's almost a call for more putting the blame in the right place, given that
Twitter's sheer volume can take a grumble from an off-color joke at a party
and multiply it by a thousand fold into something much harder to bear.

Whether the solution is technical or social, it seems like a real problem to
me. We haven't had the ability to unify with similar voices in large numbers
so quickly before. It should be unsurprising that when we do so for the first
time we're a bit indiscriminate and heavy-handed with the power.

------
VeejayRampay
That tendency to react to other people's opinions and to be easily offended is
a behaviour that is most prominent in the Anglo-Saxon world (and North America
in particular) where defense groups and lobbies are powerful. I'm not
commenting on whether or not that kind of policing is actually good or not,
just that this is not "everyone", just "Some people in the Anglo-Saxon world,
especially the United States".

EDIT: I live in France and I have never observed that kind of behaviour in the
Latin world or Eastern Europe for example. Most of the time when someone would
say something "offensive" that doesn't directly impact the people in the room,
the reaction goes along the lines of "Well, that's your opinion, whatever" or
some form of polite debate.

------
mfoy_
The tsunami analogy was quite eye-opening for me. It puts things into
perspective. It's easy to look at an individual drop and say: "this is
nothing!"

Anyhow, it's a shame that it looks like only half the comments here are from
people who read the article instead of just jumping to conclusions.

~~~
CPLX
Perhaps. On the other hand it's not so easy to avoid a tsunami by simply
putting down your phone and going for a nice stroll.

------
lmm
"None of our platforms are built to deal with it" is a false equivalence. The
same social factors exist on every platform, but somehow you don't get the
same outrage-storms on other platforms, only Twitter and Tumblr.

I don't suggest people who find themselves offended quit the Internet. But I
do suggest that they, and everyone else, quit Twitter. You'll find you're much
happier for it.

~~~
crystalmeph
It probably extends beyond Twitter and Tumblr, but they certainly seem to be
the first ones anyone thinks about when you talk about emotional echo
chambers.

Given that, your advice does make some sense. If the problem is worse on
certain platforms, people should be asking themselves if staying on those
platforms is worth the price they pay. Of course this entails a trade-off -
this article was right that there are no easy solutions to the problem.

Full disclosure - this is the only active account I have on anything remotely
"social," although I do browse some of the other things without logging in, so
I'm talking as something like an outside observer with a personal bias against
the whole medium, precisely because I find the emotional echo-chamber off-
putting and distracting.

------
glenda
It's pretty interesting that the people complaining about people being
offended too often are so easily "triggered" by other people being offended.

I've been noticing this a lot lately, even on HN. Someone will mention
equality or fairness and there will be a whole slew of people complaining
about how people are too sensitive now-a-days. In reality, those complainers
are being overly sensitive themselves.

~~~
tomp
> It's pretty interesting that the people complaining about people being
> offended too often are so easily "triggered" by other people being offended.

Not really (for me). I couldn't care less if you're offended. But if you start
attacking me because I offended you (or someone else), and start making the
general discussion impossible ("pissing in the pool"), then of course I'll
oppose you, not because I'm "triggered", but simply because I want my
discussion back! (And also because I don't think people should be fired for
having opinions.)

> Someone will mention equality or fairness and there will be a whole slew of
> people complaining

Only if they mention "equality" (e.g. affirmative action) and "fairness" (e.g.
wage gap). That's not because our feeling are over-sensitive, but because
we're over-sensitive to the bullshit arguments proponents of these ideas keep
repeating as if they were the greatest achievements of logic and/or
statistics.

~~~
glenda
Of course these discussions do get out of hand, and it's true that not all
forms of inequality are completely valid in all cases, but it seems best to
ignore the people you disagree with instead of trying to convince them to be
like you. This goes for all discussions both on and offline. However, if
you're in an arena where being argumentative is encouraged than you should
have a better argument than "stop being so sensitive!" and the other side
should have an argument other then "things are unfair" or else you barely even
have a real conversation going.

------
s_kilk
> The subtext here is that cretinism is acceptable, but being a target is not.

> If you’re a total dick who only uses the Internet to seek out strangers and
> ruin their day for kicks, you are absolutely welcome. If you happen to be
> one such sought-out person, there’s the door.

Sums it up perfectly.

~~~
tomp
> If you’re a total dick who only uses the Internet to seek out strangers and
> ruin their day for kicks, you are absolutely welcome. If you happen to be
> one such sought-out person, there’s the door.

Stephen Fry wasn't "kicking" anyone. On the other hand, people who are
_offended_ usually do, they viciously attack others (even get them fired!).

~~~
Goronmon
>Stephen Fry wasn't "kicking" anyone.

I don't think the author was implying that Stephen Fry was the "kicker" in the
quote above.

------
KirinDave
> who cares? It’s just some noise. No one is going to have an existential
> crisis over it; we’re all surrounded by each other, a network of people
> whose very presence demonstrates that of course Python doesn’t suck. That
> person has negligible influence here.

> Now, you’re the only Python developer at a Haskell conference. You go to a
> talk, and one slide makes a joke at Python’s expense. The entire room
> laughs. Suddenly you feel much smaller, maybe embarrassed, maybe annoyed. It
> was still only one person making one joke, but that person clearly had more
> influence here

I'm not sure what the author is trying to accomplish here. Maybe they thought
they were "pandering to the audience." But I found this metaphor to be
inappropriate, poorly formed, and implicitly draws a comparison between 1st
world technical choices and actual harassment.

While we can respect other people's feelings, at some point we have to draw a
line and say, "This is something where you may be able to brush it off, since
it's basically an arbitrary choice you made that you could unmake at any
time." As opposed to the deeply-rooted and often immutable nature of subjects
that are axis of discrimination elsewhere, such as someone's race or personal
gender identity.

Either this author has so little respect for their audience that they think
this metaphor will actually speak to the average and intended reader (in which
case, wow... you genuinely think I'm stupid), or they genuinely believe that
these sorts of things are in a similar category.

Either way, I get a really bad feeling from it.

------
robgibbons
At best, this author is misinterpreting Stephen's intent. At worst, it's an
attempt to offendedly spin Stephen's post in exactly the way he described.

------
michaelbuddy
author of this article, has no idea of comparison. Some people who are
offended, gather the torches and try to get somebody fired for having a
different opinion. Stephen Fry is doing exactly what people who don't like a
conversation should do, leave. As much as we can connect the digital world as
real, kids should not be stressed or committing suicide over facebook. And
race relations aren't going to be solved over twitter. Best to disconnect and
take care of things one can control.

------
davidism
There's a mismatch in scale: the number and diversity of members on platforms
like Twitter is huge, but the ability to moderate is tiny. It would be
interesting to see if a system could detect the dogpile effect, by looking at
common phrases, checking if many users messaging one user all follow a common
user, etc. and offer some sort of temporary relief until a controversy dies
down. On the other hand, that's not actually solving the root of the problem.

------
gambiting
Well, the author's suggestion that everything is fine, trolls can be ignored
and Fry is somehow hypocritical with being fed up with trolls and offended
people is really something that I cannot agree with. Twitter, by its very own
format, encourages the worst in the human behaviour. Those who shout loudest
get the most visibility, and it has the very real potential to destroy lives
and encourage mob justice which is just the worst. Remember this girl who
tweeted a joke that she hope's she doesn't get HIV when going to Africa, and
was absolutely DESTROYED by twitter, sent death threats and had her personal
information published on the internet? This is what Fry meant when he said
that the pond is full of scum.

~~~
allenskd
I agree. I feel like people amplify their emotional reasoning to the extreme
with social networks enough to jump into whatever moralistic "shoulds" or
anything that can get them behind the "right", sort of like putting your
morals on the line in a popularity contest, a hell of a emotional
rollercoaster.

People seldom take perspective and context in account. Especially if they all
go into the angry mob mentality as you mention which I'm pretty sure we have
seen plenty of times.

~~~
slantyyz
>> People seldom take perspective and context in account.

Part of the problem is the speed that the Internet affords us. People feel the
need/urge to respond to things instantly, which often prevents them from
taking a breath to get some perspective or maybe to even do some fact
checking.

------
Gorbzel
Article makes some good points, but then rolls into an increasingly common
"nerd" talking point that completely undercuts the point:

"It’s fine that no one cares about whatever dorky thing you’re into, but wow
why would you make fun of the sacred and hallowed Super Bowl, which is so
important to so many people, how could you be so inconsiderate"

and the strawman couldn't be more blatant absent some flame emoji.

Now, she didn't reference the tweets which provided the supposed context, but
everyone's probably heard the "Ha ha, sportsball!" jokes from people who don't
enjoy athletics. The problem isn't that people are making jokes about the
popularity of sports, it's that the joke really isn't funny. Instead, it
perpetuates the behavior the author claims to oppose — rather than be pleasant
with one another and take at least a conversational interest in what someone's
saying...let's be inconsiderate and vitriolic about one another's hobbies!
This is wrong whether said hobby is football or League cosplay.

"I don’t think too many people are wanting for someone who’ll listen to them
talk about football."

The strawman continues with vague references to undefined populations that
strip people of their individuality. They're all rude sports bros, while we're
enlightened board gamers.

"Yet I haven’t seen any comics and snarky jokes suggesting that sports fans
listen to their friends rave about Warhammer.

Must not have been paying too much attention. Here ya go, guy is a pretty
popular standup who notoriously loves nerds, hates sports, and has a show
discussing internet culture with three comedians every weeknight(!).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hardwick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hardwick)

At this point, you may be asking. Wait — this started about Stephen Fry and
Twitter...why are we now talking about nerds vs sports? I'd ask the same thing
of the author. The section is poorly though-out and explains nothing about
power dynamics; Was hatred of one another's interest the most appropriate
horse to hitch the "serious discussion of Twitter mobs" wagon to?

------
Nexxxeh
I take an opposing view, and not because of any love for Fry.

OP of TFA says, "I love Stephen Fry, really I do".

I am someone who loathes Stephen Fry, with his pseudo-intellectual wittering,
his incorrect presumption of understanding of technical matters, and his
flippant arrogance. He has been described as "a stupid person's idea of a
clever person", something I wouldn't disagree with.

Watching him stupidly misinform viewers of Qi about how GPS works is one
thing. Reading him butcher the history of Dr Gary Kildall is another. I'd
argue the latter could reasonably be said to be "offensive" to most of the HN
crowd.

With that said, I don't think Fry's wrong on this.

Twitter (and Tumblr) have become a hive for the professionally and vicariously
offended. From the de-verifying of Milo Yiannopoulos, to this case which
resulted in Fry sulking off Twitter yet again, Twitter especially seems to
have it institutionally ingrained.

The bag lady remark was not unreasonable, nor mean-spirited. Nor was it taken
as such by the lady in question.

If you don't like Twitter, you can log the heck off. One is not forced to use
Twitter, certainly not with one's own real-world identity. If you don't like
it, you can say so, take a bow, and take your 120 characters elsewhere. As Fry
has done.

Twitter and Facebook are not the bastions of Free Speech they might claim to
be, but they do host proponents of both sides of most debates. If you say
something unpopular or something divisive, rightly or wrongly, you risk taking
flack.

But a boatload of people calling you a dick on Twitter is not the equivalent
of people throwing bricks through your window. Some people just need to get a
perspective.

Free speech is a double-edged sword. It is, however, required for freedom,
liberty, democracy, real equality and progress. Part of that is accepting
people are going to say stuff that you personally don't like.

A lot of people will disagree with my views on Fry. He is effectively a
British institution at this point. And that's fine. They can happily complain
bitterly about my characterization of him, although the number people would
actually care about what I say is probably rather small. That's all fine.
That's free speech. And I'm sure we all agree free speech is preferable to the
alternative.

------
twoquestions
For those who don't want to comb through the article, the TL;DR seems to be:

"Criticism of bad behavior is good and necessary, but it far too easily
spirals into a howling typhoon of nonstop vitriol and hate that's difficult
for the target to deal with, especially if they're not rich/powerful."

Still I'd recommend reading, it's not as long as it looks.

------
Shish2k
While it's true that "A) I'm offended, change yourself to accomodate me" and
"B) I'm offended, so I'm going to leave" are both forms of offence, it seems
pretty dishonest to say "A and B are equal, you're a hypocrite to complain
about A while doing B" :/

------
dawnbreez
I always wondered why people who take offense at what someone else says make
such a big deal of it.

Tell 'em you don't like X, block 'em, and boom, you're done. No need to make
15btweets explaining just how much you hate [Scapegoat off the week here].

~~~
masklinn
> Tell 'em you don't like X, block 'em, and boom, you're done.

Until X start automating the creation of new account and spamming your
specifically because you blocked them of course.

~~~
dawnbreez
At that point, the whole conflict has become ridiculous. Who has the time to
create a bot that automates creating accounts to spam, say, the N-word?

That's not even accounting for captchas.

~~~
masklinn
> Who has the time to create a bot that automates creating accounts to spam,
> say, the N-word?

Quite a few people apparently, and you only need one to do that and make it
available to everyone else.

~~~
dawnbreez
Fair point.

This is getting into Poe's Law territory.

------
VLM
Egalitarianism is dead, most opinions aren't worth hearing.

Democracy is dead, once shared common culture is destroyed the polis turns
into a rampaging destructive mob.

So the people pushing this, not the foot soldiers but the people at the top,
whats their angle, their logical next step? My guess is authoritarianism, mass
censorship, a return to some kind of monarchy. Or maybe they just like
watching the world burn. Or they think 1984/BNW/AF are instruction manuals not
dystopias. I suppose for the ruling classes, those books ARE utopias. We seem
very comfortable with those folks being the only people with money; perhaps
its time for us to give them all our civil rights too.

Divide and conqueror... people pay too much attention to the former and forget
the purpose of all the drama is the latter.

------
cconroy
Is Fry leaving bc of the PC culture or bc of all the mean things trolls say
about him? This may be obvious but I don't know Fry or his circumstances.

~~~
akud
He's leaving because of the pc culture.
[http://www.stephenfry.com/2016/02/15/peedinthepool/](http://www.stephenfry.com/2016/02/15/peedinthepool/)

~~~
cconroy
Are you sure it is not just because he is not having fun anymore. Otherwise is
skin is too thin.

------
Shivetya
well there is no shortage of those who want to see the world burn and there is
still a lot of anonymity in many of these tools. so the sycophants that join
in the attacks are pretty insulated from responsibility for their actions
while the higher profile instigators can pass off responsibility as well.

a common method that works in politics as well. leaders don't need to ask for
those who support them to cross the line because they know there will be those
who will and they derive benefit from their actions all the while decrying
them.

social media is just the back room games of mover and shakers out in the open.
the same rules but just more visible

------
xori
My safe space has bully proof windows.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U)

------
hendekagon
offended by others taking offence

------
populacesoho
Because we live in an age where real morals have been lost sight of, since
deterministic faith in the correctness of any authority has been lost sight of
( thanks, Post Modernism ! ), people are scrambling to fabricate the authority
of whatever they can grab nearest them ( since we all need a compass, even if
it's just a finger drawing in the sand ) -- so it works to be prepared that
you live in a world where someone else's subjective interpretation of their
own offence taken at whatever they select, and the fallacy they delude
themselves with that such offence makes them a fake victim of some fabricated
"wrong", which they make to therefore mean that they are "right", does, they
believe, afford them, what passes for moral value, these days. And, mostly,
this incorrect belief, passes the smell test, and "seems legit", in
contemporary discourse. As long as you claim you have been offended, you are
fucking-completely-morally-right, so long as you can own the narrative on why
you're a bigger victim than any other contenders for the crown of self-
appointed righteous one. Welcome to the Age of the Biggest Fake Victim. Of
course, the real evil starts when these self proclaimed victims use their
self-anointed righteous status ( face-painted on themselves in the authority-
skeptical moral vacuum of the present ), to pretend to justify whatever ways
they try to harm others. Wait, are we talking about terrorists who pretend
they are full fake-justified, because, of course, they are victims of the
West's oppression -- or were we talking about just some fake-left liberal arts
student at Cornell who's claiming to have been permanently damaged by whatever
"offensive" idea their professor happened to raise in class? Or is that
propensity to anoint the self proclaimed "offended fake victim" the status of
"moral mother superior" really the same evil unworkable force behind both of
these apparitions? You decide, dear reader. #CoddlingOfTheAmericanMind,
#FakeVictimClaimingAbusesRealVictims

\-- I value my tiny little accumulation of rep here. Please don't down vote
unless you really, really thought it through and mean it. And if in any way
you agree, upvote, you know...to protect me. ;)

------
chrisallick
Didn't read, but this offends me.

~~~
masklinn
> Didn't read

That's your loss, really.

~~~
Kurtz79
Is it ?

I kind of have a hard time understanding the point the author is trying to
make (apart from "Fry is an hypocrite").

It might be the writing, but it seems to me he constantly goes off a tangent.

------
theseatoms
Are people _actually_ deeply offended by things they read on the interest? Or
are people looking for reasons to be "offended"? Because the latter seems far
more often the case.

~~~
Shog9
How would you ever know?

You can judge actions, moderate actions, reward actions... But feelings are
harder to identify.

Which was sorta the point of this article, I guess. There's a good chance that
everyone _is_ offended... So, what are we gonna do about that? If everyone is
offended - and if we stop trying to sort out who has a "right" to be and who
doesn't - then these notions that some bad behavior is justified kinda start
looking silly: if we're gonna welcome everyone into the proverbial pool, then
we can't let anyone get away with abuse, including the system itself.

~~~
theseatoms
Yes, I agree that other people's feelings are hard to know. (Possibly
unknowable.) I just can't recall ever in my life having been offended, so I'm
skeptical.

~~~
Loughla
What you're doing is translating your experience to the human experience. With
7,000,000,000 of us, there's more than a fair chance that someone else's
experience is different than yours.

Put simply, (but not meant as an insult) you're not thinking about anyone but
yourself.

~~~
theseatoms
Yes, I realize that there are all sorts of human experiences that I've never,
and will never, have. I'm simply asking if anyone else here has truly been
offended by something they read on the internet. Because the concept is
completely foreign to me.

And yes, I see the potential for irony- that I'm on my soapbox, much like
someone who is offended might be. But I'm not offended by anything that's been
said. I'm not against criticism or disagreement or reasoned arguments. I'm
just frustrated by the chilling effects that the prevailing cultural climate,
which is humorless, politically-correct, and context-free, has had and will
continue to have on public discourse.

