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This is a tough problem, because we are also experiencing people who take offence in a toxic manner. E.g. people who object to a statement because it might pos

This is a tough problem, because we are also experiencing people who take offence in a toxic manner. E.g. people who object to a statement because it might possibly be offensive to another group, despite members of that other group being present and not being offended. Clearly they are doing this out of the same enjoyment of other people's discomfort that you describe.

smcl 5y ago
I think some people do go a little far, but I don't think everyone's doing this out of some sadistic desire to watch people squirm. More likely they're just a bit too earnest and as a result try to correct others and overcompensate. Most people here have been an annoying college-aged kid at some point with an axe to grind on some specific point, we should remember that. That said, it's interesting this has come up during a discussion about how the intent behind what someone said is often either misunderstood or discarded.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I agree, but there seems to be no similar leeway for people who have said offensive things with no intent to be offensive. Any speech that could be construed as offensive is presumed to be malicious. So it seems fair to assume that taking offence needlessly is also malicious.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    There's another aspect too: mysterious third-party echo chambers deciding what's now offensive. The black/whitelist thing is a good example; very often the topic is introduced as if the issue is resolved "we got together and had a discussion, and yes it is offensive" and suddenly everyone not present in that conversation has to accept this verdict. Other times, you get the "well it's so very easy to make this small change, it's practically rude (or suspicious) not to" - a completely wrong sentiment for many reasons, but easy to make you look difficult for arguing about.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  I agree, but the fact that different sensibilities can have very strong/opposite opinions about a situation proves that bots are unsuited to regulate human behavior as a "neutral" judgement, which was the original point :)
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > More likely they're just a bit too earnest and as a result try to correct others and overcompensate. You are assuming way too much good faith. For every one that does it in earnest there's probably 10 grifters just taking advantage of the situation for their own personal benefit: The real reason seems to me like virtue-signalling. They don't care whether they're personally offended, as that would require burning social "points" by rocking the boat but potentially getting no outcome out of it (nobody else might agree). It's "safer" to just suck it up than sacrifice social points especially when you're on the lowest ranks. They also don't know nor care whether the protected class they are worried about is actually going to be offended. Again, rocking the boat and burning social capital for little personal benefit. This leaves the argument of earning social capital by virtue signaling among like-minded peers. Pick a common issue you already know is popular within your target "market" (racism, sexism, "diversity & inclusion", etc) and raise the problem. This doesn't risk any social capital, after all, people like you won't disagree (for the same reasons) and people that might be on the fence or would like to add nuance wouldn't want to risk their social capital in fear of being labelled a racist/etc. It also transcends the ranks - if anything, a higher-ranking person in the company would risk much more by speaking out than someone on your rank or lower. This eventually results in a positive feedback loop where everything will become offensive given enough time and those who disagree either comply or get pushed out. That's how you get bullshit like GitHub's "main" branch which helps nobody while continuing to sell services to ICE which you could argue actually hurts minorities.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >taking advantage of the situation for their own personal benefit: And therein lies the problem. A subset of people get a benefit from engaging in this behavior. So of course they do it at every opportunity. You get what you incentivize. Until the outcome is so frequently a net negative (however slight) in so many cases that the behavior is marginalized to a negligibly small number of people/settings the behavior will persist in enough volume to be worth caring about.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      > You get what you incentivize. The problem is that a large part of the tech industry nowadays relies on "engagement" aka monetizing user attention for the benefit of advertisers, thus extremely vulnerable to public opinion (the advertisers themselves would engage in this behavior, thus companies that supply them must also conform to it). The entire industry is on thin ice already so it makes sense for everyone to play it safe even though it just reinforces the feedback loop even more. This is why this behavior is rarely seen in other industries that make the bulk of their money on a tangible output, both because the output is less fungible/replaceable as well as those industries' employees typically having less time to waste engaging in bullshit.

smcl 5y ago

I think some people do go a little far, but I don't think everyone's doing this out of some sadistic desire to watch people squirm. More likely they're just a bit too earnest and as a result try to correct others and overcompensate. Most people here have been an annoying college-aged kid at some point with an axe to grind on some specific point, we should remember that. That said, it's interesting this has come up during a discussion about how the intent behind what someone said is often either misunderstood or discarded.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I agree, but there seems to be no similar leeway for people who have said offensive things with no intent to be offensive. Any speech that could be construed as offensive is presumed to be malicious. So it seems fair to assume that taking offence needlessly is also malicious.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  There's another aspect too: mysterious third-party echo chambers deciding what's now offensive. The black/whitelist thing is a good example; very often the topic is introduced as if the issue is resolved "we got together and had a discussion, and yes it is offensive" and suddenly everyone not present in that conversation has to accept this verdict. Other times, you get the "well it's so very easy to make this small change, it's practically rude (or suspicious) not to" - a completely wrong sentiment for many reasons, but easy to make you look difficult for arguing about.
southerntofu 5y ago
I agree, but the fact that different sensibilities can have very strong/opposite opinions about a situation proves that bots are unsuited to regulate human behavior as a "neutral" judgement, which was the original point :)
Nextgrid 5y ago
> More likely they're just a bit too earnest and as a result try to correct others and overcompensate. You are assuming way too much good faith. For every one that does it in earnest there's probably 10 grifters just taking advantage of the situation for their own personal benefit: The real reason seems to me like virtue-signalling. They don't care whether they're personally offended, as that would require burning social "points" by rocking the boat but potentially getting no outcome out of it (nobody else might agree). It's "safer" to just suck it up than sacrifice social points especially when you're on the lowest ranks. They also don't know nor care whether the protected class they are worried about is actually going to be offended. Again, rocking the boat and burning social capital for little personal benefit. This leaves the argument of earning social capital by virtue signaling among like-minded peers. Pick a common issue you already know is popular within your target "market" (racism, sexism, "diversity & inclusion", etc) and raise the problem. This doesn't risk any social capital, after all, people like you won't disagree (for the same reasons) and people that might be on the fence or would like to add nuance wouldn't want to risk their social capital in fear of being labelled a racist/etc. It also transcends the ranks - if anything, a higher-ranking person in the company would risk much more by speaking out than someone on your rank or lower. This eventually results in a positive feedback loop where everything will become offensive given enough time and those who disagree either comply or get pushed out. That's how you get bullshit like GitHub's "main" branch which helps nobody while continuing to sell services to ICE which you could argue actually hurts minorities.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >taking advantage of the situation for their own personal benefit: And therein lies the problem. A subset of people get a benefit from engaging in this behavior. So of course they do it at every opportunity. You get what you incentivize. Until the outcome is so frequently a net negative (however slight) in so many cases that the behavior is marginalized to a negligibly small number of people/settings the behavior will persist in enough volume to be worth caring about.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    > You get what you incentivize. The problem is that a large part of the tech industry nowadays relies on "engagement" aka monetizing user attention for the benefit of advertisers, thus extremely vulnerable to public opinion (the advertisers themselves would engage in this behavior, thus companies that supply them must also conform to it). The entire industry is on thin ice already so it makes sense for everyone to play it safe even though it just reinforces the feedback loop even more. This is why this behavior is rarely seen in other industries that make the bulk of their money on a tangible output, both because the output is less fungible/replaceable as well as those industries' employees typically having less time to waste engaging in bullshit.