[Pan-users] Re: updated info

[Duncan]

Steven D'Aprano posted on Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:10:05 +1000 as excerpted:

> Because you think so little of your wife, daughter and female peers that
> you imagine that they can't cope with reminders that life is sometimes
> unpleasant?

No, because they shouldn't have to.  Neither should anyone, for that 
matter, at least not voluntarily.

> I'm rather amazed that the thing you're focusing on is the innocuous use
> of the modifier "away" rather than the obviously sexist implication that
> *male* Emacs virgins are third class citizens, not even worthy of
> consideration by the Church of Emacs.

Interesting counterpoint.  Thanks.

>> Try it with other examples if you like.

> "Bruce Wayne's innocence was taken the night he saw his parents brutally
> gunned down in the alley outside the Gotham City Opera House."
> 
> "Bruce was able to take away his own fear of bats by spending many hours
> deep in the caves under Wayne Manor."

[many more]

Thanks again.  I'm a bit too tired to think straight ATM, but I did ask 
for some case disprovers, and you provided them.  I have something to 
ponder, now.

> Me, I think that *everything* is worth joking about. Humour is one of
> the most perplexing, inexplicable, WONDERFUL human traits. The ability
> to see humour in tragedy is important, and making jokes about things
> which are unpleasant is an important coping mechanism.

Well, there's a proper context.  Should you wish to make such jokes 
between you and your wife, or you and your friends, freedom of speech and 
all that, go for it!  But a public presentation is an unacceptable context 
for such things, and cannot and should not be tolerated.

>> I look forward to the day when if someone makes a remark like that in a
>> presentation, RMS or no RMS, half the room (more, it'd be great if it
>> were the entire audience, but there's always the few)
> 
> A few what? A few people with a sense of humour?
> 
> A few people whose coping strategy for tragedy is to make light of it?

[etc]
 
> This is not a rhetorical question. I wonder which "few" you are
> referring to.

The few "social oafs" who can't at least consider the sensitivities of 
others, if they don't see a problem with it standing on its own.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman