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Comment by tshile | Hacker News Reader

>Like others, I find the title of this thread problematic. I also find your apparent refusal to understand _why_ it is problematic, even more problematic. You could have said parents instead of mom. Think about why you didn't.

Hah. So it's ok to be ageist but not sexist? Think about why you don't see 'parents' as ageist...

This is the problem with today's politically correct climate - it's not about what the person is intending to say anymore, it's about how people perceive what is said. And if a group perceives it as offensive then look out, because it doesn't matter what your intentions were anymore because your intentions are now being decided by others for you. Any hypocrisy in those people's stances is obviously to be ignored.

It's an interesting dynamic to watch. It's a shame you have to tip toe so much, it almost seems to take away from the actual issues these days.

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Cmon, its easy to avoid most of the offenses; just read what you wrote before hitting 'reply'.

As for ageist, that actually strikes at the heart of the topic. Web facility is absolutely correlated with age. Its defensible to talk about generations and technology frankly.

It's easy as long as you're taking everyone's sensitivities into account all the time.

My point is that the person that has a problem with what they consider obvious stereotyping that's a problem with discrimination has easily overlooked something others would consider an obvious stereotype that leads to discrimination...

If we're going to lambast the OP for being sexist, then this commenter should be lambasted for being ageist. Yet I bet if you ask the commenter they'll say they don't behave like an ageist and would rather not be called such...

yet said commenter doesn't bother affording the OP the same level of discourse or benefit of the doubt.

today's political correctness is full of this sort of hypocrisy.

in my opinion the better option is for people to stop being so sensitive and to look for actual discrimination instead of perceiving it from people they know nothing about based on one line on the internet...

I guess I tried to explain that? Its not ageist to assign technological facility to generation - its a true correlation.

Exactly. And obviously there are exceptions (many of them), but studies have conclusively shown both in usage and proficiency that younger generations are more comfortable with "the web" than generations that came before them. If you look at Pew's studies and others like it, you can see that the comfort level/usage patterns for the web (and smartphones, though not cellphones) mirror the age break points between the Baby Boomers and Gen X (defining Gen X as 1965-1980, which is how most socialists say culture has determined that generation) perfectly.

I'm not even saying its a good tagline, I'm simply saying the gendered aspect is unnecessary because if we're dealing with stereotypes, old[1] people get confused by the Internet is far more valid than the inference that it's just older women who are uncomfortable. That's the distinction.

[1] to be clear, I'm not saying anyone not born in Gen X or Gen Y is "old" or less comfortable online.

> This is the problem with today's [...]

Yeah, right. It's like this since 5th century BC at least. Haven't you ever heard about rhetoric? About Sophists?

Go read transcripts of some ancient (and I mean ancient, like 2k years ancient) public speeches, from politicians and philosophers. Tip toeing? Yeah, sometimes; sometimes exactly the opposite, but always well chosen words for conveying a particular thing to a specific target audience. It was considered an art and was widely taught until 19th century. The difference today is that there are many more poor, unprepared speakers (and writers), not that it's harder to convince people or harder not to piss them off.

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