[WoW] Why you shouldn't fraternize with lesbians

[Maximus]

(which falls under courtesy and is therefore probably incomprehensible to Martinus)

Seriously? I didn't think anyone would bring up this argument. It is completely ridiculous. Plus, someone's family may have been tortured or murdered.

QED

[C.C.R.]

Using the term like that is, of course, rude -- but so's a poker game in my garage, and I'd be as upset as what Marti is if somebody new came along & upset the Status Quo...

[Caliga]

You need to treat other people in WoW like badly-programmed AI.  That's what I do when I instance with random people and it works surprisingly well.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Personally I prefer the term "bugger them senseless"; but I fear you have to be male, British, middle class and over 40 for it not to count as discourteous 

[Martinus]

Personally I prefer the term "bugger them senseless"; but I fear you have to be male, British, middle class and over 40 for it not to count as discourteous 

It's insensitive to all WoW players who have been buggered senseless.

[Martinus]

What bothers me too is that, whenever person A tells a joke (or uses a word like "rape" or "gay") and person B is offended by it, as a rule of thumb there is a social pressure put on person A to reexamine his or her position and realize why person B was offended - and not on person B to reexamine his or her position and perhaps realize that he or she should not be offended.

This is especially troubling considering that the feeling of being offended is probably one of the most destructive social feelings, as it leads to divisiveness, hatred or even violence - whereas the feeling of flippant amusement expressed by person A carries none of these effects.

So perhaps rather than dealing with multiculturalism and diversity by sending people to sensitivity trainings, we should instead start sending them to insensitivity trainings and teach them how to stop seeing their personal reaction as an objective measure of another person's intentions.

[Martinus]

So in a sense, to put it differently, rather than telling people "think before you speak", we should start telling them "think before you react" - if someone uses some expression or tells a joke clearly not with an intention of making you feel bad, think why it nonetheless makes you feel bad and examine that feeling before you react. And above all else, do not get offended for other people's sake.

Not to mention, it's more economical. If you for example are at a workplace with 30 other people, and each of these people (including you) have 3 different things that offend them, it's much more sensible for each person to adjust his or her behaviour in three ways (i.e. trying to stop being offended by three different things), than to adjust his or her behavour in ninety ways, by stopping doing things that offend someone else.

[The Brain]

Not gonna happen though.  In Sweden ordinary people think that a guy who made a badly drawn image of Mohammed and now have Muslims trying to murder him "asked for it".

We have had peak freedom. At least I got to live through it.

[Martinus]

Not gonna happen though.  In Sweden ordinary people think that a guy who made a badly drawn image of Mohammed and now have Muslims trying to murder him "asked for it".

Yeah, it's amazing how people who would rally at such line of reasoning when it comes to e.g. rape happily embrace it elsewhere.

It's like in Poland where we have this soft version of archaic blasphemy laws (they prohibit "offending religious feelings") under which a pop music singer was recently fined for saying in an interview that the Bible was written by drugged and drunk old dudes who didn't have any idea about reality. Now, rather than advocating for this law to be abolished, the majority of the left instead campaigns for extending this to stuff offending people because of their race or sexuality.

People are a bunch of totalitarian cunts.

[Richard Hakluyt]

We are back to Voltaire.

I'm strongly in favour of politeness, with so many irritating bastards in the world I think it is a useful emollient. But I am also totally against laws which directly attack free speech. The modern state exceeds its rightful authority as it expands into these areas IMO.

[C.C.R.]

So perhaps rather than dealing with multiculturalism and diversity by sending people to sensitivity trainings, we should instead start sending them to insensitivity trainings and teach them how to stop seeing their personal reaction as an objective measure of another person's intentions.

Disagree.  Prefer Dr. Dennis Leary's approach to therapy of just telling people to Go Fuck Themselves...

"I feel so much better! He just told me to go fuck myself! Nobody ever told me that before!"

[szmik]

People are a bunch of totalitarian cunts.

[szmik]

You need to treat other people in MMORPGs like badly-programmed AI.  That's what I do when I instance with random people and it works surprisingly well.

fixed for you

[dps]

So in a sense, to put it differently, rather than telling people "think before you speak", we should start telling them "think before you react" - if someone uses some expression or tells a joke clearly not with an intention of making you feel bad, think why it nonetheless makes you feel bad and examine that feeling before you react. And above all else, do not get offended for other people's sake.

Not to mention, it's more economical. If you for example are at a workplace with 30 other people, and each of these people (including you) have 3 different things that offend them, it's much more sensible for each person to adjust his or her behaviour in three ways (i.e. trying to stop being offended by three different things), than to adjust his or her behavour in ninety ways, by stopping doing things that offend someone else.

This reminds me of a Bill James quote that I think I had in my signature for a while.  I don't have the text right in front of me, so this might not be an exact quote, but it was something like, "Tolerance lies not in a determination to avoid giving offense, but rather in a determination to avoid taking offense".

[garbon]

I'm strongly in favour of politeness, with so many irritating bastards in the world I think it is a useful emollient. But I am also totally against laws which directly attack free speech. The modern state exceeds its rightful authority as it expands into these areas IMO.

Agreed. Of course, naturally Marti wraps this up in a guise of legislating against free speech (something that is not present in the opening example) so that he can justify being an asshole.