I'm not feeling oppressed. The problem isn't me feeling oppressed, it's other people feeling oppressed.
Poor choice of language can set up an exclusionary environment.
To you, this may be funny.
To me, your accusation of humorlessness reminds me of people who engage in sexually harassing "jokes" in the workplace, and then try to get away with it by using "humor" as an excuse.
You aren't the one who gets to decide when other people feel uncomfortable.
You say that the word "bro" is needlessly offensive. Let me ask you, where is your balance point? What is the right level of offensive? The cost of censorship is real, and teaching people to be helpless victims does more harm than any word ever could.
Yet even without definitions you are typing words and I am reading them and we're having a conversation here, so let's not go pretend-meta here.
The right level of offensive is the level that, given all viewpoints, does the most to benefit to society as a whole.
You're a rich straight white guy whose only discomfort over this comes down to not being able to say whatever you damn well want whenever you damn well please.
From this thread you can clearly see that there's a shit ton of people, many of whom have to re-evaluate their every word and action in our industry, for whom this triggers feelings of marginalization, ridicule and disrespect.
Insisting on maintaining your privilege over theirs and even going so far as to label their reactions as taught helplessness and defining that as evil ... well ... that pretty much sounds like the root of all evil to me.
When somebody starts victim-shaming people it's very relevant to bring up the fact that they are in a social position where they have the least possible real-world experience with the negative side of the issues they're being dismissive about.
But yeah; the tone argument. Good to see that brought up. Going through your comment history is literally Derailment Bingo gold. I'm sure paul is happy to know that his bro's still have his back. ;)
Such a tone-deaf retort is typical of those who fail to see the problem. Again the issue isn't about your or my level of comfort; the issue is the environment we set up for young people considering their opportunities in life.
> I'm not feeling oppressed. The problem isn't me feeling oppressed, it's other people feeling oppressed.... You aren't the one who gets to decide when other people feel uncomfortable.
Do you realize how patronizing it is when white males get preemptively upset over something instead of letting women and minorities speak for themselves?
The funny thing is women and minorities are rarely offended by these sort of things but the White males of HN seem to think everyone else is a damsel in distress in dire need of their protection.
> You aren't the one who gets to decide when other people feel uncomfortable.
> it's other people feeling oppressed
Seems a bit hypocritical doesn't it? You are sort of correct.
The only person who gets to decide if "he/she" (notice the political correctness?) is offended is "himself/herself." Just as you cannot tell someone he/she is offended, you cannot tell anyone he/she is being offensive. The only person who can label someone as offensive is the person who is offended by the words.
Stop getting offended over pointless shit. Nothing can be offensive without offensive intent. 99% of the time, the problem lies with the person getting offended, not the person doing the offending. Nobody has an obligation to feel like they are walking on glass when he/she opens his/her mouth.
We should compile in a Wiki (or something similar) everything that might make someone uncomfortable.
That way, we can look up and make sure this thing never happens. Then, with any luck, a strawperson (not strawman) will never feel like that for something on the internet again.
Why would this hypothetically offended person not by offended by "man"? They would not use it(as offended as they are), therefore they'd never learn it meant "manual", just as they wouldn't learn that "bro" is short for "brochure"....right?
Poor choice of language can set up an exclusionary environment.
To you, this may be funny.
To me, your accusation of humorlessness reminds me of people who engage in sexually harassing "jokes" in the workplace, and then try to get away with it by using "humor" as an excuse.
You aren't the one who gets to decide when other people feel uncomfortable.