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This "threat" was made in 1996 (not 2004 as some other commenters are noting—the _thread_ is from 2004). This is a fascinating view into how things have changed

This "threat" was made in 1996 (not 2004 as some other commenters are noting—the _thread_ is from 2004). This is a fascinating view into how things have changed between then and now. Honestly, in 1996 you could make a threat like this and a vast _vast_ majority of recipients would recognize that you weren't being serious. It's a little sad that we've lost so much innocence on the web since then.

dragonwriter 11y ago
I think that in most contexts the vast majority of recipients would think it was dramatic exaggeration now; there might be somewhat more people who would think it was serious, and those people who think it most likely to be dramatic exaggeration might weigh the potential risk of seriousness differently, and most important it might be more likely to be relayed out of its original contexts into other forums now, and thus be seen by more people, and thus more of the people inclined to take it seriously.
dalke 11y ago
What does "like this" mean to you? I got a death threat by email in 1993. I took it seriously, and the campus police got involved.
- tillinghast 11y ago
  I think it's a combination of the era and of the specific context. I would suppose that your experience potentially had other extenuating factors that caused you to give the threat more weight. Either way, I don't fault you at all for treating it as serious if you felt it was. It's not exactly a socially acceptable thing to threaten anyone—but at the time, and in this context, I think recipient would have recognized the ridiculousness of the "threat" (killing someone over the change of a command's behavior?) as an attempt at a joke. No longer.
  - dalke 11y ago
    Yes, I would like you to describe what you mean by "specific context", because I can think of many contexts that could be described as a "threat like this". If you mean "threats sent by email", then my experience is a counter-example. If you mean "threats sent to the XCOPY developers" then it's entirely too restrictive to be meaningful. Do you mean "untargeted threats send to unspecified members of a large company"? What do you think was the frequency of such events in the 1970s or 1980s, and the typical response? Without more information, it's hard to make sense of what you mean.
    - d23 11y ago
      I think it's obvious what he means, and you're probably just being difficult. It's a joke because it's a threat 1) over something incredibly trivial, 2) over something that is never associated with death threats (i.e. command-line arguments), 3) done by someone who presumably isn't normally associated with death threats (i.e. a nerd), and 4) that was submitted to the microsoft.com feedback form, an absurdly broad audience if this was intended to be effective.
      - dalke 11y ago
        Right, now, how has that changed over the decades? That's the part I'm being "difficult" about.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
YorickPeterse 11y ago
Yeah, because making death threats is just a "joke" right?
- tillinghast 11y ago
  Not necessarily in good taste, but… yes. At this time (1996) having an obvious overreaction like this would have appeared to be a joke.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  It's not necessarily in good taste, and not necessarily universally funny, but yes, it's totally possible to make anything serious into a joke. The usual technique is to bring a lot of absurdity to the situation, which truthfully I didn't see in this post. On a personal (potentially explanatory) note, my first death threat came from a man aiming a loaded gun at my face. No joke was intended there! I think that experience has left me somewhat unable to manifest concern about threats that aren't backed up with firepower, which probably leaves me more open to seeing the humor.
  - rconti 11y ago
    I think it helps that it's not a direct threat to an actual person. The reader gets the feeling that the writer not only will not figure out who made the decision (and, therefore, who to kill), but also won't even bother trying to figure it out.
- Joeboy 11y ago
  I guess if they're just a joke, they're not really death threats. But I've seen lots of things worded like death threats, that were clearly jokes. Example: http://zedshaw.com/archive/programmers-need-to-learn-statistics-or-i-will-kill-them-all/ http://zedshaw.com/archive/programmers-need-to-learn-statist... That's a joke, isn't it?
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    Maybe there's a bit of a gap between 'I am going to kill a hypothetical person' and 'I am going to kill Raymond Chen'.
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> Honestly, in 1996 you could make a threat like this and a vast _vast_ majority of recipients would recognize that you weren't being serious. Would they? If someone is angry and makes a threat of violence, how can you ever tell if they are not serious? Or, perhaps more importantly, whether you think there's any chance of them acting on it? Sure, it's a seemingly trivial thing and it's being sent in the context of a tech support complaint email with a real name attached, so you might think you're safe, but you never know. People have died over less.

dragonwriter 11y ago

I think that in most contexts the vast majority of recipients would think it was dramatic exaggeration now; there might be somewhat more people who would think it was serious, and those people who think it most likely to be dramatic exaggeration might weigh the potential risk of seriousness differently, and most important it might be more likely to be relayed out of its original contexts into other forums now, and thus be seen by more people, and thus more of the people inclined to take it seriously.

dalke 11y ago

What does "like this" mean to you? I got a death threat by email in 1993. I took it seriously, and the campus police got involved.

tillinghast 11y ago
I think it's a combination of the era and of the specific context. I would suppose that your experience potentially had other extenuating factors that caused you to give the threat more weight. Either way, I don't fault you at all for treating it as serious if you felt it was. It's not exactly a socially acceptable thing to threaten anyone—but at the time, and in this context, I think recipient would have recognized the ridiculousness of the "threat" (killing someone over the change of a command's behavior?) as an attempt at a joke. No longer.
- dalke 11y ago
  Yes, I would like you to describe what you mean by "specific context", because I can think of many contexts that could be described as a "threat like this". If you mean "threats sent by email", then my experience is a counter-example. If you mean "threats sent to the XCOPY developers" then it's entirely too restrictive to be meaningful. Do you mean "untargeted threats send to unspecified members of a large company"? What do you think was the frequency of such events in the 1970s or 1980s, and the typical response? Without more information, it's hard to make sense of what you mean.
  - d23 11y ago
    I think it's obvious what he means, and you're probably just being difficult. It's a joke because it's a threat 1) over something incredibly trivial, 2) over something that is never associated with death threats (i.e. command-line arguments), 3) done by someone who presumably isn't normally associated with death threats (i.e. a nerd), and 4) that was submitted to the microsoft.com feedback form, an absurdly broad audience if this was intended to be effective.
    - dalke 11y ago
      Right, now, how has that changed over the decades? That's the part I'm being "difficult" about.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

YorickPeterse 11y ago

Yeah, because making death threats is just a "joke" right?

tillinghast 11y ago
Not necessarily in good taste, but… yes. At this time (1996) having an obvious overreaction like this would have appeared to be a joke.
oldmanjay 11y ago
It's not necessarily in good taste, and not necessarily universally funny, but yes, it's totally possible to make anything serious into a joke. The usual technique is to bring a lot of absurdity to the situation, which truthfully I didn't see in this post. On a personal (potentially explanatory) note, my first death threat came from a man aiming a loaded gun at my face. No joke was intended there! I think that experience has left me somewhat unable to manifest concern about threats that aren't backed up with firepower, which probably leaves me more open to seeing the humor.
- rconti 11y ago
  I think it helps that it's not a direct threat to an actual person. The reader gets the feeling that the writer not only will not figure out who made the decision (and, therefore, who to kill), but also won't even bother trying to figure it out.
Joeboy 11y ago
I guess if they're just a joke, they're not really death threats. But I've seen lots of things worded like death threats, that were clearly jokes. Example: http://zedshaw.com/archive/programmers-need-to-learn-statistics-or-i-will-kill-them-all/ http://zedshaw.com/archive/programmers-need-to-learn-statist... That's a joke, isn't it?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  Maybe there's a bit of a gap between 'I am going to kill a hypothetical person' and 'I am going to kill Raymond Chen'.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

> Honestly, in 1996 you could make a threat like this and a vast _vast_ majority of recipients would recognize that you weren't being serious. Would they? If someone is angry and makes a threat of violence, how can you ever tell if they are not serious? Or, perhaps more importantly, whether you think there's any chance of them acting on it? Sure, it's a seemingly trivial thing and it's being sent in the context of a tech support complaint email with a real name attached, so you might think you're safe, but you never know. People have died over less.