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Comment by bcook | Hacker News Reader

My mom is not tech savvy.

Can I get your permission to laugh at the link's title or do I need to be wildly offended?

I think it seems appropriate to laugh (especially since it pertains in your particular life) and at the same time understand and appreciate what sort of societal stereotypes it perpetuates, which might then contribute toward less women desiring to participate in technology communities.

Personally, I am much more bothered by the caustic atmosphere created by the overly Politically Correct backlash when an insignificant implication is made...

The environment is caustic in large part because you're pouring lye onto it.

Someone took a moment to explain --- very correctly --- that using "mom" as a metonym for "technically naive" is inaccurate, dismissive, and exclusionary. That comment didn't accuse anyone of intending to do any of that. It simply pointed out the outcome of the wording. The very same comment could have been written about "grandfather" and ageism.

Nobody asked you to be offended, or to take offense.

Perhaps the implication is not actually insignificant.

Nobody has asked you to be "wildly offended". Please stop.

I thought that if so many were being offended on the behalf of others (women, parents, elderly, I dunno), the implication was that there was something that needed attention.

Due respect, but who do you think you're kidding? Use your browser, hit CMD-F (or whatever), type "offen", and grep through the thread to see who's using that word.

Now pay attention to the timestamps and see who's introducing it. The only person to use the word before you was carefully explaining that they were not taking offense. You responded to them by accusing them of being "primed and ready".

Please, please stop doing this to HN threads. What you're doing on this one is poisonous.

Top thread refers the title being "insulting", which is what set this whole thing in motion.

I am not ranting & raving. I am having a logical conversation. Stop treating me like I am out of control. I am happy to have a logical conversation, but your numerous "please, please stop" replies are non-contributory and demeaning, so... please stop. :)

I didn't accuse you of "ranting and raving".

No, you just said my posts were poisonous and you repeatedly begged me to stop, which is completely unconstructive criticism, bordering on plain old insults, which I never resorted to.

Just because I disagree with you, you think you can bully me with nonsense rather than having a conversation? Whatever. You win.

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