I find the whole idea that it matters if people are offended to be pretty infuriating. Not it does not. Intent matters. Whether one of an infinite number of readers was offended is irrelevant. There will always be at least one.
I think it depends what you mean by 'offended'. If people are just annoyed or outraged, yeah, no problem if you want to ignore that. But if my words are really hurting people, of course that matters to me. It doesn't guarantee that I shouldn't have said them, but it would be pretty callous just to dismiss it as irrelevant.
You are making some assumptions that I am unwilling to make. I cannot easily prove that you even exist. You could be a bot, or a sock puppet, or just a persona that only exists on HN. It makes zero sense for me to spend any time worrying about whether you were offended by something I said. Especially when there may be billions of you reading what I write. I can control my intent, and I have to be satisfied with that.
If you and I were talking face-to-face, then I may adjust how much I care about your feelings. But even then, it is entirely possible that your hurt feelings are unreasonable.
I mean, you can't prove that anyone you meet face-to-face isn't a p-zombie or a projection of your own mind either, but I doubt you're an actual solipsist. And I don't think you honestly have much trouble telling the difference between me and a bot. Yes, for all you know any given person could be a troll or sockpuppet, but you also know with very high confidence that there are many real and sincere people at the other end of the internet.
But maybe we disagree less than it seems:
> I can control my intent, and I have to be satisfied with that.
If this includes modifying what you say when you learn unexpected things about the effect of your words, that makes perfect sense to me.
But if it means refusing to take that information into account, I don't think you can really claim good intentions.
Yeah, it's a saying, but unfortunately it's nonsense. Non-physical bullying can drive people to suicide, or traumatise them for life. And insensitive discussion of painful topics can dredge up old trauma, etc. You're free not to care about all of that, but pretending it doesn't exist is just wrong.
Bullying falls under intent, so that isn't really on point.
Who defines what insensitive means in a public forum? As a willing participant in the discussion, the onus is on you to opt out if the discussion makes you uncomfortable. Nobody is targeting you.
If the world has to censor all public discussion that may be painful or dredge up old trauma for some random person, then it is going to get extremely quiet.
> Bullying falls under intent, so that isn't really on point.
As a response to you, true. It was just one of the most obvious disproofs of the 'sticks and stones' adage.
> Who defines what insensitive means in a public forum? As a willing participant in the discussion, the onus is on you to opt out if the discussion makes you uncomfortable. Nobody is targeting you.
Who defines any of our social or moral concepts? I'm not arguing for some kind of language police, I'm saying I care about whether my words are likely to cause harm, and I think other people should too.
> If the world has to censor all public discussion that may be painful or dredge up old trauma for some random person, then it is going to get extremely quiet.
I think you're creating a dichotomy where actually there's a massive continuum. You can care about the way your words affect other people, and modify them accordingly where appropriate, without self-censoring every thought that could possibly hurt anyone.
