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Comment by chongli | Hacker News Reader

The courts rarely use such a low bar. The test is usually the reasonable person or “the man on the street.” Does a reasonable person find them inflammatory?

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I see the role of the arbitrator a little differently here: the workplace definition is geared for an employee who posts inflammatory things and then hides behind the “just kidding, you uppity types have no sense of humor” with a wink. They tried to use it on a comedian and got slapped down-independent of whether he was funny, he was foremost a comedian, not just an asshole hiding behind the defense that a reasonable person understands his trolling post-hoc attempt at comedy.

Yeah but the classic lawyer joke in response is, “have you ever met a reasonable person?” More often the “reasonable person” is the judge plus half a degree of leeway.

If you read the source document, you’d understand why the bar is set at that particular level.

the average person was not this unreasonable just 7 years ago

The "reasonable person" from law is not an average or typical person. It's an idealized person who doesn't change very much over time because the concept is rooted in common law. The average or typical person can change dramatically as social norms and movements go, but common law moves very slowly by accumulation of precedent.

I think that’s his point: the legal fiction goes back to Roman law and is specifically invariant when used for questions of constitutional equality or egalitarianism.

IMO, human nature has not changed, culture at large has not radically shifted, and the world is not coming to an end. This is just wide-tie/skinny-tie stuff.

But many people have said essentially the same thing, over the course of many years. I think there’s a moment for each of us when we realize that our worldview isn’t substantially similar to that of others anymore, especially younger people.

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