I have been upset by a couple of threads of late.
A bunch of assholes thought they could be truthful in GD without first correctly calculating the offense generated by that truth.
This has been an ongoing issue, and it must not continue! Our primary purpose here at the SDMB is to love and cherish each other while sometimes educating. I despair of educating this kind of asshole! I know that, in comparison to the harsh world outside, we are funnier, more loving, more thoughtful, and our genders our more diverse; our Dopefests are legendary for their wit, alcoholism, and free love, yet why do we keep having assholes tell people the truth on the SDMB?
Even if the SDMB is ostensibly dedicated to Truth and fighting Ignorance, that is itself ignorant of our primary goal: Loving and caring about each other.
If we can find a place in our heart to listen and care for our friends and acquaintances at the Dopefests, than it is obvious that we can find room for them on the SDMB, even if it requires polite lies over hurtful truths. Which would you rather do: Comfort the oppressed with soothing validity or shine the white-hot actinic glare of truth in their eyes? The answer should not be different depending on the whether you are online or not.
I tear my heart out and cry over the many injustices heaped upon our minorities in the Real World – is there any reason to expose them, these gentle, polite creatures to further injustices by posters representing the Real World? No. We must provide room in our hearts and on our boards, and wherever else we can provide.
We should nurture and provide for our endangered minority species of poster: the gay, the transgender, the African-American, and the Native American – It is not enough to simply ban hate speech, what about hurt speech? Truthful speech, unwanted truth under cover of the raison d’etre of the Great Debates – they may be true, but if one minority person is offended, you’ve hurt them. Hurt speech must be banned as well.
I have confidence that we are nearly at this stage, but it is not enough, not nearly:
What about the dew-faced truth-teller, freshly charged from educating the ignorant, wanders into the wrong thread? Might his every unwitting utterance of hurt speech generate a singularity that unwittingly cause planets to collapse in the transgender community?
And what about the hostile minority species that reveals it is a minority after the offending statement, transforming it into hurt speech?
We simply cannot continue to take these risks.
We must remove any possibility of hurt speech upsetting our beloved posters; both from deliberate assholes wielding dangerous truth; and from those unaware of our Dopefest rules.
I suggest that in order to quarantine our sensitive minority groups, we create two Great Debate Fora. One for the arguments based on white lies, and loving inclusion, and our normal one where Truth prevails. I propose this additional Forum to be named The Polite Lying Society for the Protection of the Oppressed.
And then our existing Great Debate Forum could once again be a battleground of blistering, searing, and unremitting honesty, without worry about giving massive offense to some minority group with a fragment of hurtful, assholish, truth.
Your help and support in repurposing the SDMB for this higher purpose is greatly needed and appreciated. Please let your moderators know how you feel when you next buy them a beer – hopefully soon our beloveds will be protected and safe from Hurt Speech.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart,
The Ace of Swords