Quote Originally Posted by Alpha View Post
Has anyone ever said that you do have the right to not be offended?

No one has.

What people have said, here, and in other analogous situations that I imagine you're drawing from, is to be careful with words and actions. It is incredibly difficult to empathise with someone who takes offense at particular words and actions. Case in point, there's a story in the national news in NZ at the moment about a prominent fashion designer (and Dame) who featured Native American headdress. She called it something like "70s retro vibe", and seemed blithely unaware of the countless times this issue has been raised. (First Nations headdress being very sacred to the culture from which it originates.) I won't pretend to be super informed about this particular issue, given I've never even seen a Native American in the flesh let alone talked to one. But I know enough to understand that although the patterns and shape may seem interesting and innocuous to my culture, it is far more than that to another culture. A good comparison I read today was that between the headdress and war medals. It is considered highly inappropriate (in my culture) for someone to wear someone else's war medals. The exception is if you're a descendent of the person whose medals they were, and that person is no longer alive. In such cases, the person who did not earn them then may wear them, but only on the opposite side of the chest. These medals could conceivably be considered insignificant pieces of metal and ribbon to others not steeped in the same culture and who didn't grow up with the familial stories of heroism and sacrifice that attend these "pieces of metal and ribbon".

I'd find it offensive if someone sold someone else's war medals, or attempted to appropriate them as their own. I don't have a right to not be offended if someone does these things, and indeed I think there's no law actually preventing these things from happening, so they have a right to do them if they legally found themselves in possession of such medals. No one can stop me from wearing my grandfather's medals as though they are my own, short of ripping them off my chest, which may actually be assault. But just because I can, doesn't mean I should, or that I should get prissy when a decorated veteran takes issue with my actions.

Am I getting off topic? Marginally. The point is that just because you, or even a majority of people do not find something offensive and do indeed have the right to say or do it, does not preclude you from the repercussions of that. Firstly it shows immense insensitivity to those it does offend. It shows immense ignorance of another person's perspective. It shows lack of empathy. And it also completely degrades the legitimacy of your own feeling of being offended when it occurs to you. If you don't stand up and say "that's offensive to X", when it comes your turn to say "that's offensive to me", why should anyone care? There's never been an automatic right to not be offended by things. But it is a mark of wisdom and respect to other people to avoid saying and doing things that others may find offensive, especially when the benefit to you of saying things like "trap" is so ****ing small.

On that last point about the benefit of even using this term... Seriously, is that game any better because someone used a slur against transgender people? No, it's not. So all it has achieved by its existence in the game is that some people are offended and others are nonplussed. That represents a net loss to society. Well ****ing done. A+
You need a cape, mask and a symbol. Seriously. You being offended about things that have nothing to do with you (someone else selling their own property etc) is borderline psychopathic behaviour. If you also believe that I should face repurcussions from NOT finding something offensive, then you're out of your mind, especially when its nothing to do with me. You're acting like im the guy who works for the localisation team, who basically did his job. I think its accurate portrail of the online community, being rash and somewhat negative without any concern or regard for the feelings of others. People dont tend to hold back when its online and often called far worse things, so I dont see how why its more offensive to adress someone as an idiot of ****ing ****, then just saying trap. Both will offend people, but for some reason its considered more offensive when talking about someones gender or someones natioanlity. I really dont understand. Maybe I am the one with sociopathic behaviour, i just see things how they are. People choose to be offended by things that have nothing to do with them. Who would have thought someone could be offended by an NPC addressing the gender of another NPC. I suppose the next complaint will be that there are no transgender characters included in the game? Or no same sex marriage? You attribute to the plethora of eggshells developers and scenario writers have to walk on getting through production. Of course its wise not to be mean to others, thats a lesson I learned long ago, but what the hell is happening here thats so bad or different from anything else?

Also, is lack of empathy really such a bad thing? Do people honestly need to be coddled when they fall over and hurt their leg? or get called a name? Geeze, give me a break.