4 ms·

The OP does not seem to realise that the "girlfriend" comment from Kagan could have been a joke.

by wyclif 15y ago

LaGrange 15y ago
So? The point is, not all jokes are appropriate. Some are offensive. Some jokes are just a lead-in to violence. Some just work to belittle people, little by little. So, yeah, the "ex-girlfriend is a bitch" joke should be ostracized.
- wyclif 15y ago
  This was a conference talk, not workplace speech. Methinks you protest too much. I don't want my conference content modded by the speech police, thanks very much.
  - praptak 15y ago
    "This was a conference talk, not workplace speech." So? Both are public, a conference talk even more so. Make your speech offensive, expect people to react. "I don't want my conference content modded by the speech police, thanks very much." Someone's calling out rude behavior -> cry speech police. A little bit on the strawman side if you ask me. This guy wasn't censored, wasn't forcibly removed from the conference. The only consequence of his "joke" was someone expressing their disgust.
    - wyclif 15y ago
      The only consequence of his "joke" was someone expressing their disgust. Right. Which is just shorthand for saying, "tomorrow morning nobody is going to remember this." People will just move on to the next outrage. If you don't think the speech is politically correct enough, stop attending the conference.
  - LaGrange 15y ago
    "I don't want my conference content modded by the speech police, thanks very much." I think Stewart Lee says this much better than I would: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo
- bluedanieru 15y ago
  Does it though? There's an assertion here in this write-up that 'bitch' is in the same class of insult as various racial epithets which are far more taboo. I don't think that's the case. At any rate, this wasn't even a joke. How is it funny? How could anybody think it would be funny? I don't even mean it isn't funny because it's offensive or not, it simply isn't funny full stop. Noah Kagan has a poor sense of humor, and should not attempt to make jokes.
  - LaGrange 15y ago
    "Does it though? There's an assertion here in this write-up that 'bitch' is in the same class of insult as various racial epithets which are far more taboo. I don't think that's the case." Oh please. The "there are worse things" fallacy is so old there are books on it. Even specifically on the case of "discrimination of women is not as important as whatever-is-deemed-important-by-dudes today".
    - bluedanieru 15y ago
      I was addressing a particular assertion in the article, namely: >Frankly, if the word on that picture had been a racial slur, many of us there that day would have [walked out]. It attempts to draw an equivalence between the two. You have reinforced that with your post above. I dispute that, for much the same reason I dispute that 'moron' or even 'retard' is in the same category. Simply, 'bitch' can not be used in the same way as a racial epithet. This is not a fallacy, and while there certainly are worse things that's not at all what I was getting at, and finally none of this has anything to do with 'whatever-is-deemed-important-by-dudes' or such nonsense.
      - LaGrange 15y ago
        Oh, it definitely has. You just decided that the case of discrimination based on religion or ethnicity is more important than discrimination based on gender.
        bluedanieru 15y ago
michael_dorfman 15y ago
I think the OP realizes that it was a joke, but argues that it was an unfunny, inappropriate joke.
- wyclif 15y ago
  I don't have anything invested in this one way or the other, but it all strikes me as a bit PC and oversensitive. I don't think I really want to work in an environment where considerations like this reign. I wonder if the author would prefer speech codes in the workplace. If so, I'm glad I don't work with her. I think startups should carefully screen for people with attitudes like the author (note: I'm not saying screening out women, for those who can't read carefully); not doing so could be costly in court, as well as having a frigid effect on company culture.
  - michael_dorfman 15y ago
    I'm a bit puzzled by this. We're not talking about "workplace speech codes" here, or lawsuits, at all, so you appear to by attempting to insert a slippery slope where there's no need for one. The case here is about a public presentation where a presenter offered up a rather bizarre, inappropriate image (a faceless woman labelled "bitch") which bore no relation to the talk he was giving, and then followed it up with a non-sequitur about it being "an ex-girlfriend." Now, it's hard to read that as anything but misogynist, and while it might be considered an ill-fated attempt at humor, it misses the mark by such a wide margin as to make one wonder exactly what Noah thought he was doing. Trying to dismiss it as "a bit PC and oversensitive" it another way of saying "Since I wasn't offended, I don't need to take seriously the possibility that somebody else might have been." But in this case, even that doesn't seem to fit, because putting "a faceless bitch" on the projector seems designed to shock.
    - wyclif 15y ago
      You're absolutely right that this isn't the workplace. It was a tech conference talk. Which only puts a finer point on what I mean by policing speech. I do NOT want to go to a conference knowing all the talks have been run through some bullshit politically-correct filter to please a given group of people in the room, and if I find out they are, I will cease attending those conferences.

The OP does not seem to realise that the "girlfriend" comment from Kagan could have been a joke.

by wyclif 15y ago

The OP does not seem to realise that the "girlfriend" comment from Kagan could have been a joke.

So? The point is, not all jokes are appropriate. Some are offensive. Some jokes are just a lead-in to violence. Some just work to belittle people, little by little. So, yeah, the "ex-girlfriend is a bitch" joke should be ostracized.

wyclif 15y ago
This was a conference talk, not workplace speech. Methinks you protest too much. I don't want my conference content modded by the speech police, thanks very much.
- praptak 15y ago
  "This was a conference talk, not workplace speech." So? Both are public, a conference talk even more so. Make your speech offensive, expect people to react. "I don't want my conference content modded by the speech police, thanks very much." Someone's calling out rude behavior -> cry speech police. A little bit on the strawman side if you ask me. This guy wasn't censored, wasn't forcibly removed from the conference. The only consequence of his "joke" was someone expressing their disgust.
  - wyclif 15y ago
    The only consequence of his "joke" was someone expressing their disgust. Right. Which is just shorthand for saying, "tomorrow morning nobody is going to remember this." People will just move on to the next outrage. If you don't think the speech is politically correct enough, stop attending the conference.
- LaGrange 15y ago
  "I don't want my conference content modded by the speech police, thanks very much." I think Stewart Lee says this much better than I would: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo
bluedanieru 15y ago
Does it though? There's an assertion here in this write-up that 'bitch' is in the same class of insult as various racial epithets which are far more taboo. I don't think that's the case. At any rate, this wasn't even a joke. How is it funny? How could anybody think it would be funny? I don't even mean it isn't funny because it's offensive or not, it simply isn't funny full stop. Noah Kagan has a poor sense of humor, and should not attempt to make jokes.
- LaGrange 15y ago
  "Does it though? There's an assertion here in this write-up that 'bitch' is in the same class of insult as various racial epithets which are far more taboo. I don't think that's the case." Oh please. The "there are worse things" fallacy is so old there are books on it. Even specifically on the case of "discrimination of women is not as important as whatever-is-deemed-important-by-dudes today".
  - bluedanieru 15y ago
    I was addressing a particular assertion in the article, namely: >Frankly, if the word on that picture had been a racial slur, many of us there that day would have [walked out]. It attempts to draw an equivalence between the two. You have reinforced that with your post above. I dispute that, for much the same reason I dispute that 'moron' or even 'retard' is in the same category. Simply, 'bitch' can not be used in the same way as a racial epithet. This is not a fallacy, and while there certainly are worse things that's not at all what I was getting at, and finally none of this has anything to do with 'whatever-is-deemed-important-by-dudes' or such nonsense.
    - LaGrange 15y ago
      Oh, it definitely has. You just decided that the case of discrimination based on religion or ethnicity is more important than discrimination based on gender.
      - bluedanieru 15y ago

michael_dorfman 15y ago

I think the OP realizes that it was a joke, but argues that it was an unfunny, inappropriate joke.

wyclif 15y ago
I don't have anything invested in this one way or the other, but it all strikes me as a bit PC and oversensitive. I don't think I really want to work in an environment where considerations like this reign. I wonder if the author would prefer speech codes in the workplace. If so, I'm glad I don't work with her. I think startups should carefully screen for people with attitudes like the author (note: I'm not saying screening out women, for those who can't read carefully); not doing so could be costly in court, as well as having a frigid effect on company culture.
- michael_dorfman 15y ago
  I'm a bit puzzled by this. We're not talking about "workplace speech codes" here, or lawsuits, at all, so you appear to by attempting to insert a slippery slope where there's no need for one. The case here is about a public presentation where a presenter offered up a rather bizarre, inappropriate image (a faceless woman labelled "bitch") which bore no relation to the talk he was giving, and then followed it up with a non-sequitur about it being "an ex-girlfriend." Now, it's hard to read that as anything but misogynist, and while it might be considered an ill-fated attempt at humor, it misses the mark by such a wide margin as to make one wonder exactly what Noah thought he was doing. Trying to dismiss it as "a bit PC and oversensitive" it another way of saying "Since I wasn't offended, I don't need to take seriously the possibility that somebody else might have been." But in this case, even that doesn't seem to fit, because putting "a faceless bitch" on the projector seems designed to shock.
  - wyclif 15y ago
    You're absolutely right that this isn't the workplace. It was a tech conference talk. Which only puts a finer point on what I mean by policing speech. I do NOT want to go to a conference knowing all the talks have been run through some bullshit politically-correct filter to please a given group of people in the room, and if I find out they are, I will cease attending those conferences.