Re: [Ghm-discuss] The posh talk does not complain with the policy

[Neal H. Walfield]

At Tue, 12 Aug 2014 11:22:07 +0200,
Luca Saiu wrote:
> 
> On 2014-08-12 at 11:11, Neal H. Walfield wrote:
> 
> > You're trolling.
> 
> No, he's not.
> 
> He convincingly showed that the policy as it stands prevents the kind of
> harmless jokes we commonly use.

You call them harmless, because you are not offended.

Successful communication requires knowing your audience.  Why would
you want to compromise your message when you have a willing audience?
If anything, the policy is not against communication, it supports it.
Effectively, the policy is a tool to help presenters understand who
the audience is.

If you want to tell these jokes, tell them to people who do not think
them offensive.  If you are offended that the hacking community is
becoming more diverse, that's your problem.  I think that most people
view this development positively.  Of course, a change takes time to
cement and some people hang on to their old ways.  This is why such
documents are useful.

> I remember another from an old speech by Richard, explaining what
> technical knowledge is by a comparison:
> 
> * Knowing that some person has a sexual relation with another is
>   personal non-technical information;
> 
> * knowing some marvelous sexual technique *is* technical information,
>   and educating people about it is good for society.  Preventing people
>   from disclosing such information is morally unacceptable.

Your example isn't a joke and it's hardly crude by modern western
standards.