You seem to believe that offense is subjective to the individual. Should we then be responsible for everything we do that offends others? What level of recourse should they have for being offended? If we think that punitive action is appropriate given an offense, how do we determine what a legitimate offense is, versus a non-legitimate offense?

I don't see how offense could be anything but subjective to the individual, really. (Yes, I know there are things that are considered objective to the sub-group, but even within those sub-groups, there will be disagreement. That's clear from the various threads on this topic on HN.) The question many of us struggle with is where to draw that line between that "individual objection" and "free speech" - and how flexible that line should be.

1600 Penn (great show, btw) had an episode where people picketed the White House for the environmental policies. Through a series of hijinks, these people got an audience with the President to express their concerns. Once in there, it becomes a cacophony as some argue for public transit, others argue to corporate responsibility, etc. They had some "thing" in common, but each had much different ideas about what really brought them there.

So, I find true your statement that even within subgroups, there is disagreement over an offense's legitimacy. Yet, we as flawed humans still seek objective punishment for others's offenses, even when we don't personally ascribe to claiming those offenses for ourselves. This to me is the most interesting part of all of this, that everybody has a ready-made opinion about what thing should happen to these people involved even though the original offense was 100% subjective. This brings up some interesting questions:

1) Can one really be offended by hearing a story about a subjective offense from someone else, and thus pass legitimate judgment? If so, what is the real offense - the original act, or merely what the act represents. 2) If the true offense is about what the act represents, then does passing judgment on the offensive party appropriately handle the situation? 3) If an offense is a subjective thing, then does it need to be personal, and directed toward the offendee in order to be legitimate?

> Should we then be responsible for everything we do that offends others?

Yes.

> What level of recourse should they have for being offended? If we think that punitive action is appropriate given an offense, how do we determine what a legitimate offense is, versus a non-legitimate offense?

If people finding out publicly that you did it would cause you to lose your job, that might be a good indicator.

I'm sure it would offend (maybe sadden too) my grandparents very much that I don't believe in God, but I don't see that as a reason to never speak my mind about the fact that I don't believe in religion.

Nor should my believe in God have anything to do with my job, however I've worked at a place where that would certainly lead to me being let go if I were to mention or discuss that at work with my boss, but what I discuss between friends is my business and not his.

I don't see how I need to be responsible for making sure you, or anyone that might be overhearing or reading my words, is not offended by what I am saying.

I take offense that somebody as stupid as you could post on this forum.

Please cut of your hands.

See how that doesn't make any sense? Heck I get offended by overly politically correct people and people who get easily offended.

Well, let's say I'm offended by your username. I'm so offended that I feel the proper punishment should be paying reparations of no less than $1M to the charity of my choice. Is it my offense taken by your username a fair offense? What standard is used to determine what offenses are legitimate, and what determines a proper punishment for that offense. Furthermore, how are you to know in advance that your username is offensive to me?

Sure, and let's say that I'm offended by your face, and I want a million dollars for that. How do we resolve this?

It seems to me that we exist in a community that has a pretty well-evolved process for determining what is reasonable.

We take it to court, and if it doesn't fit within the boundaries of law, a judge has two options: toss out the case, or attempt to expand the boundaries of law by interpreting existing law in a new way. If the former, we are at an impasse, so how can we determine if our offenses are legitimate or not? If the latter, then now it is up to a judge and/or jury to use their subjective reasoning to pass judgment on whether the offense is legitimate.

The point I'm getting around to is that everyone tosses about objective judgments for people who cause subjective offenses. To me, this is pretty illogical. Most times, what we perceive as legitimate offenses are those by people who are the loudest, most influential, or greatest in number. It has very little to do with what the truth is, rather an opinion of the masses that has been manipulated that way.

For a functioning society, there must be some kind of barrier between "legally acceptable" and "socially acceptable."

"If it's not illegal, then it's okay" will not lead you anywhere you like.

The Hollywood Blacklist was completely justified then, because employing (suspected) commies subjected your company to negative publicity. Alternately, firings can represent the witch hunt of the age (except when it is actual witch hunts and they are actually setting them on fire.)

but people can take offense to anything, so that means you would be responsible for all of the stupid things people get offended about.

People don't have the right to not be offended. I think you are half right, but offense probably has to be both given and taken, not just taken.

Yeah, I mean, if we're in a public place I'm gonna do my best not to upset you. If we're at your place, I'll leave; if we're at my place, you've gotta leave. If it's a bad enough disagreement we can take it to court and let someone objective sort it out. That's how we all get along.

Then that someone doesn't get to publicly shame me for what is offensive to them, and doesn't have the right to ask me to stop.

My joke. Not meant for you. Stop listening.

Except that you can't stop listening because you're in a public situation!

I've sat through some train rides myself where I had to listen to people having 'private conversations' riddled with jokes about gay people.

I can tell you that will make your blood boil. I just got up and moved away, but doing that at PyCon during a talk is quite a bit harder.

If think you are ugly, are you obligated to wear a bag over your face in public?

It's quite true that you can't tell someone what is offensive to them, but that's entirely beside the point. If someone is offended by something and takes no action then that doesn't matter at all. But if someone does something in response to how they feel they were offended, we're going to judge that response by how reasonable that offense seems to us.

If the two men in the situation we're talking about had been making crude remarks directly to her and she had contacted the organizers I don't think any body (I care about) would have questioned her actions. If she had pulled a gun and shot them, then I think everybody would agree that that was unjustified. And if she had complained to the organizers because the men were wearing VI polo shirts and she was a diehard emacs user that would also be unjustified.

And there are some forms of receiving offense, such as when a racist seeing a black person at a Python convention, where them taking any action at all based on that offence would be wrong. I'm sure there was at least one person like that at PyCon, but I'm also sure that society has trained them to keep their mouth shut. And a good thing too.

So we don't get to tell Adria what is offensive to her, but when she shames someone based on that offence we will judge her shaming based on how valid we judge to offence to be. If one of the men had told her to her face that women didn't belong at PyCon then I think her actions would have been entirely justified. As it was, not so much.

Dude, it's vi and Emacs, not VI and emacs.

Either offensiveness is completely subjective in which case it is sole, entirely and complete the concern of the individual claiming to be offended.

Or there is some standard for offensive remarks, in which case you absolutely do get to tell people that they aren't offended by that.

Note that if offense is subjective you don't get to complain about others making you offended -- that is by definition your own feelings.

This is brilliant. "Nothing happens when you're offended."

> 1) You don't get to tell someone what is offensive to them.

That would mean you can't be upset for her publicly shaming the guy. You find that offensive, she does not.

You can have it both ways.

Sure, I can't tell you what you should be offended by, but I can tell you your offense is unimportant and selfish.