Hilarious that you talk about nuance while explicitly removing nuance from the discussion by saying "A joke is a joke is a joke".
Ok dude, I'll look for your comedy special where you tell women to make you a sammich or put on a terribly racist Chinese accent and talk about eating cats or whatever.
Someone should have told that to the 12-18 year olds that would scream it at women as soon as one opened their mouth online in early xbox live during the "videogames are for boys" marketing era.
Since you seem to be arguing in good faith (albeit also in poor taste), when you ask a question like "Remember when you could make jokes?" it pegs your sense of humour to an era where women and minorities were the butt of oft repeated derogatory jokes. These jokes are not even worth considering for their comedic value because they were almost devoid of it in even the scenario that you outline.
A throwaway joke that relies on its shock value to derive any merit because it is not clever in the slightest. A category of joke that oversaturated the online landscape at one point, and now those with any sense of humour are numb to it.
When you repeat these types of jokes where the punchline is "racism" or "sexism" and people roll their eyes and don't laugh, it's not because they're offended, it's because your sense of humour is immature and underdeveloped.
So I repeat my earlier question: "Isn't it funny that the least funny people always complain about their inability to make jokes anymore?"
If it's a dog whistle that you can hear, then it's your whistle, summoning you, not the dogs
Well, honestly, I wasn't responding to an argument anyway, so why would I present an argument?
You argue: "Well technically a dog whistle is only audible to dogs so that means that you're a dog"
?? ok.
But that's not, to me, an argument - it's a expression of opinion, and you're free to hold one.
If you're saying that I misinterpreted it, maybe consider that it doesn't look like an argument - there's no evidence presented, there's no sequence of assertions, there's no antecedents, no consequence, no logical connectives ...
In short, there's no logic presented, which is why it looks, to me, like an opinion, and not a completely unreasonable one. One that I felt was made in good faith and so I could engage with in good faith.
> You argue: "Well technically a dog whistle is only audible to dogs so that means that you're a dog"
Ever read the last psychiatrist? A favourite phrase of his is "If you're reading it, it's for you." which sort of applies here - the claims of dog whistles/nazis/whatever are not to alert the general audience, but a rallying call to others of the same ideology.
It's a way to say "Come help me fight this argument because we believe the same things."
It is a dog whistle, but it's your dog whistle.
Being able to identify the conclusion that is not being said does not make me the target of the message. It just makes me someone with too much time invested in the 'culture wars' of today.
My observation is that "Dog whistle" is the new "They're a Nazi", which itself is the new "Think of the children".
They're all cognitive kill-switches and all mean the same thing - "I need to shutdown this conversation immediately".
Maybe there's a legit reason for shutting down a conversation, maybe there isn't, but the legitimacy of the reason is irrelevant to the fact that they are intended to shut down the conversation.
It's shaming language, designed to shame the other party into silence.