Comment by eof | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eof | Hacker News Reader

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I don't think he was buried due to his joke about rape. Or at least I hope not. He wasn't pulling rape out of thin air, as it's obviously the context of thread.

I imagine he was down modded for his weak use of sarcasm and abrasive way of making a weak point.

Gizmomagico seemed to be saying 'assange wouldn't have committed what he allegedly did; as it would retard his ability to move freely and he is too smart for that' -- which may or may not be true, and is irrelevant as evidence.

As a side note; getting offended about the content of a joke is really sort of silly. People seem to act like joking about something is somehow akin to 'doing' the thing. I don't think an argument can be made that a joke about rape makes rape any more likely; and while it may be crude and unfunny: making the claim that something is 'off limits' is really weak.

For example: 'statistically 9/10 people enjoy gang rape'

are you really going to try to tease out a scenario where it might be okay to make a rape joke? because even if you succeed, i am calling that a pyrrhic victory, at best. maybe you can do that among friends, but not on a global message board with thousands of readers.

the more sensitive the topic under discussion, the more careful you have to be to avoid offense.

Given that we have already had two rape jokes in this thread, you might want to reconsider your notions of what people "can" and "cannot" do here.

Additionally, I need not "tease out a scenario" where it "might be okay" to make a rape joke. I am knee deep in such scenarios (unless you actually believe jokes about rape to be morally wrong, rather than merely distasteful; I know I don't). Less common are scenarios where I can make a rape joke without negative social consequences, but there's still no shortage of those, either.

"the more sensitive the topic under discussion, the more careful you have to be to avoid offense."

You assumption is that one would want to avoid offense. (note that I don't mean 'not cause deliberate offense') Western newspapers were told to not run the Mohammed cartoons, so as to 'not cause offense'. Feel free to defend the position that people shouldn't make rape jokes, but basing that on 'you shouldn't cause offense' is not an argument.

Gizmomagico seemed to be saying 'assange wouldn't have committed what he allegedly did; as it would retard his ability to move freely and he is too smart for that'

The idea was just to point out the ridiculousness of the bullshit political maneuvering, not to imply that the only reason why he would not rape someone is because it would hinder his movement.

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