seriously people. prison rape is not funny. quit w the damn jokes.

[NNadir]

167. No. I'm just stating my opinion along with a fact from my life.

If, of course, you object to this, you could alert and see if other people agree with you that such a statement is objectionable.

I have agreed with you on the subject of rape jokes, but perhaps something else troubles you.

I have a somewhat thicker skin than some people, since I'm fairly sure about what I believe and know, since I spend the bulk of my free time being open to ideas. This process allows one to see and understand them and accept or reject them on the merits.

I have held ideas that did not stand up to scrutiny and am proud to have changed them. I have learned that ideas must be supported and I do support them, where appropriate with serious reference.

I have spent my entire long adult life checking on the validity of my views, and changing them when I recognize flaws in them.

The most important of these would be my views on energy and climate, which at the end of my long life, I consider the most important to humanity's future, since our planetary atmosphere is being destroyed by complacency and wishful thinking, including that expounded by obliviously bourgeois types. I have certainly changed my ideas on this topic. I used to spew popular pablum but I confess this was wrong. Having worked very hard for three decades, for long hours developing my ideas on energy, reading tens of thousands of somewhat abstruse technical papers, I am far more confident in them than I would have been if I relied on pop sources or repeating rote mythology.

I will not live much longer myself, which may make some people more happy than others, but my ethics require me to care about the future even though I will not live in it.

It's not like I confine myself to my suburban backyard. I care as much for example for example, about a kid in Bangladesh eating rice irrigated with ground water contaminated with arsenic because of all the dams on the Ganges than I would about, say, a subsidy for which I might qualify.

I will point out on occasion that I find narrower views of the world to be especially provincial, and I suppose that if I point out and dismiss provincial views, a provincial might find that insulting and alert, and then complain that the alert went nowhere.

It certainly seems possible.

I trust in the judgment of my fellow DUers to determine whether such remarks as I might make are offensive. Most DUers have good judgment, some don't but most do, which is why the jury system is to be applauded.

At least I think so.

We do have people who are too thin skinned to regard any failure to embrace their pronouncements on subjects on which they clearly have little, if any, understanding as a personal insult.

When I'm on a jury and rule that a post clearly doesn't break a rule, I almost always attribute it to misunderstanding, and being in good faith. I would do this with such an alert.

I've alerted maybe less than ten times in my long tenure here, and then only for obvious trolls especially since I learned to use the fabulous ignore button for people whose views I find absurd and inflexible.

Recently, although I have in my files copies of literally thousands of technical papers on the subject of the chemistry, physics, and biological properties of the widely naturally distributed 92nd element in the very wonderful periodic table, a table as a scientist I have intimate knowledge, someone deigned to lecture me on that element obviously from a rather limited cartoonish perspective. I could have claimed that this silliness insulted my intelligence and I suppose I might have alerted on it, but what good would that have done?

DUers, being by and large, sensible people, would not have approved of such an alert I'm sure and frankly they have better things to deal with than my parochial wounded ego.

There's that famous maxim that ends with the words "...remove all doubt..." I kind of like cliches because in general, cliches become cliches by being true.

I'm inclined to let bad ideas hang out in the air where they can be smelled to see whether they stink.

Anyway, I do applaud your views on rape "jokes" and I would certainly agree that any comment belittling the horror of sexual violence should not be allowed to pass here. Sexual violence is always abhorrent and is never funny no matter what the context. I have recc'd your post accordingly.