@Runa216 that one seemed to be speaking to you.  I think perhaps Pi-Guy missed that given their response.

Edit - I could be wrong it wasn't my post, but when I read it I thought of you.

Okay, where does Runa talk about making it illegal to hurt someone's feelings?

Where does Runa talk about them being the one to decide on what hate speech is? 

Where does Runa talk about any kind of punishment? Or where does Runa talk about deciding who has power and who doesn't? Where do they talk about deciding when people's feeling get hurt? 

It's blatantly making up an argument, and it just makes it clear to me that you are all either being dishonest or you don't understand what Runa has been talking about. 

Again I could be wrong but these seem like questions asked when looking at the points Runa was trying to make.

These questions seem pretty pertinent in the UK by the way which seems to worry about "Punching Down" (pretty much the crux of Runa's argument).  I've seen plenty of posts from people that are upset about UK "hate speech" laws on other sites. I think you are being obtuse.

Once again not my questions though.  I am guessing at their intended target. They seem to be a natural progression in that line of reasoning is all I am saying.

Julius wasn't asking Runa or anyone else any actual questions. They were pretending to argue on the behalf of Runa or myself or someone else in the thread, while vastly misunderstanding what has been argued in the thread. 

I don't think I'm the one being obtuse.

Again, this is another post that encapsulates what I was talking about a few pages ago.  

Just because someone is talking about there being boundaries, doesn't mean they agree with whatever it is people think is happening in the UK. 

Punching down is not some concept that is exclusively applied in the UK.

This is a concept that George Carlin was effectively talking about here. 

A major issue with Julius's comment is the implication that "punching down", "power" are these ultra vague concepts that anyone can define in completely different ways in a way to manipulate people. 

They may not be ultra vague but they are very tied to perspective.  What happens if a gay makes a joke about a lesbian and vise versa?  What happens when both the gay and the lesbian think from their perspective they are more repressed and they are punching up while the other group is punching down.  They cannot both be right. If they were not tied to perspective then you should be able to provide a list and we will know, based on the list, if a person is punching down or up.  Cut and dry.

At that point who is making the impossible list of who is punching down and who is punching up? It is tied to perspective, you could be a straight white male and feel like you are on the bottom of the totem pole all the while others say you are privileged. 

From my perspective his points were pertinent. It is a subjective thing, tied to perspective. So who decides?

I know punching down is not tied solely to the UK but that is one of the places where a tweet can land you in jail and it seems very inconsistent with who can say what without the law getting involved. So "Where does Runa talk about any kind of punishment?" Runa doesn't need to spell it out, it is a natural progression from "cutting the bad-faith 'jokes' off before they grow into something more is the issue."  If shrugging it off is "dangerous" then shrugging it off or ignoring the source is not an option.  That would leave mainly murder or legislation. I'd guess Runa isn't thinking murder so that leaves laws.  How are laws enforced ... with a form of punishment.  You are not stupid so I accused you of being obtuse since you refuse to see the progression.

Also with Runa's reactions and all the words put in Legit's mouth why aren't you all over Runa?  You had no problem jumping in on Julius's comment, why not Runa's?  Of the two sets of comments I found Runa's to be far more toxic than Julius's.

Let me explain my position better, because misunderstandings are a bitch and a half.

Comedians should have boundaries. There, I said it. For example, pointing in a comedy venue at an audience member and shouting: “haha, you are ugly, your kid probably died of a horrible disease and the colour of your hair means that you should be murdered because of your political beliefs.”

That is clearly over the line. And any sensible person knows that. Comedians should have boundaries. And those should be: comedy. Everything that is not comedy, should be off limits. The rub is: comedy is subjective and we cannot expect every comedian to be a sensible person.

Also, we cannot expect every comedians transgressions be the result of a lack of sensibleness. Perhaps they are very sensible and just not very funny. Or they are not very intelligent. Or they are encultured differently and perform in front of the wrong crowd.

And that is the next thing: comedy depends on the recipient as much as it does on the sender. Something I find extremely offensive is definitely super funny to somebody else.

So, genuine question, what good is it to say that comedy should have boundaries, if those necessarily are different with every single person? If the position is that comedy should never offend anybody without power, nothing could ever be said, because the values, positions, personalities within that overwhelming majority of people on earth (people without power) are so vastly different.

I would even argue that comedy is fuelled by transgression. You have to test out how far the crowd accepts you going and then go a tad further.

Another point I want to make is this: we seem to have at least two different discussions here, a theoretical one and a practical one. What I wrote in my second paragraph is theoretical. In theory comedians should have boundaries, because I genuinely don’t want any asshat to say such hurtful nonsense to a guest of a comedy venue.

In practice the call for boundaries in comedy is absolutely meaningless, because there is nobody enforcing any boundaries, other than the audience itself, that can walk away or switch the channel. It is meaningless virtue signalling à la: nobody should suffer hurtful words from people trying to be funny.

Or the call for boundaries to comedy is not meaningless, because it is actually the call for somebody to enforce those boundaries. And the only way (I know) to do that, is to enshrine those boundaries into law. And I think we can actually all agree that this is an absolute can of worms.

Another major disagreement in this thread seems to revolve around our different perceptions of where the danger comes from. Some people on here, who are way more culturally aware and historically educated than me and have vastly better critical thinking abilities, think the danger comes from offensive jokes. This of course is evidenced by all the nazi and communist jokesters fuelling the hatred of millions, who in turn murdered millions of people. That was the reason, right? It started with jokes.

Others might say that censorship is even more dangerous than jokes (even if those jokes are in bad taste or uttered with malice) and that it is always the tyrant king who kills the jester and the authoritarian who wants to control information and criticism. I even heard of people like that burning books. Imagine that.

One last point to ponder for the critically thinking crowd in here: evil jokes outside of the Overton window have an effect. And when we don’t cut them off, they will metastasise into something uglier. If we accept this, perhaps the slippery slope argument can also be applied to censorship and the ever-increasing calls for it. Be careful what you wish for, lest somebody actually dangerous finds you usefull.

Edited. I Don't want the grief of posting in this confusing ass thread.

Awe screw it. This video is topical. Is this vvideo below punching down, punching up or punching along. I am two of the "marginalised groups" in this video and because it's well done I feel included, I don't feel attack and enjoy that humour is being used in such a way. I'm smiling even though there are people who'd be offended on my behalf, I find that ddegrading. I don't agree with the creator on his politics but I respect his art and I don't have a stick up my arse about it or expect him to be cancelled or shamed. What a ridiculous notion this is of punching down. I'd find it so much more offensive when people try to defend me like I can't have a laugh at myself. I'm ginger too, so there's that and I love a good ginger joke.

This man done more for LGBT equality than any activist artist ham fishing stuff into their work and shoving it down peoples throats causing resentment which will turn to distain and bigotry undoing the progress we've made. We are Equal, not lesser. Don't call me lesser because you can't take a joke. 

Also, was people making fun of Elon Musk recently punching up or down, he jumped out of awkwardness likely due to his autism but he's also the richest man in the world. I want it to be where people can make fun of Elon and me as long as it's not mean spirited and the same people who'd cry foul are the ones being extremly mean spirited to Elon Musk.  So hypocritical. 

The problem with Elon Musk isn't that he's awkward. 

And stop using his alleged autism as a defense. Plenty of people who have autism, despise the guy.

r/Autism - Do you still believe that Elon Musk is autistic?

"I don't know and i don't really care. But I find it annoying when people defend his actions because "he's autistic and doesn't know any better.""

"Right? I'm autistic and I'm kind, have empathy, have a moral compass, and would never behave the way he does. If he's autistic or if he's not, he's still a complete asshat."

I do agree that it is hypocritical that certain people call out appearances. 

The problem with JD Vance isn't him being socially awkward. The problem is him putting down woman, "cat ladies", etc.

Trump's problem isn't that he's orange, "overweight", it's the million other things. Cheating and lying to his wives. Breaking the law repeatedly.

I'm not talking Trump or Vance here, I'm simply using Elon Musk as an example simply because it's recent and I don't care what someone on reddit thinks, the man is obviously autistic and people would slip a switch if you denied someone else having such a disorder but bit's alright as he's the new political enemy, a man who just brought us decades past what NASA has done in decades itself in space technology. My point is there is no punching down and when you say there is punching down you're saying that someone is lesser to another person because of some trait they have which is incredibly backwards thinking and feels absolutely gross.