[pdabbadabba]

That's an interesting explanation, and it's an astute way of describing tactics that are sometimes employed in political debates. But as applied to this case, I think it fails to address some key issues.

1. What reason would HG have to distract from the substantive content in the OP's comment?

2. HG was not the only person who found OP's comment objectionable. Do we all have ulterior motivess?

3. There are, I think, objective reasons for finding parts of OP's comment objectionable, which HG, myself, and others, have thoroughly expressed elsewhere in this thread. Do you have a response to these substantive points, or are you merely concerned about HG's reasons for raising them (and, perhaps, his./her tone in doing so)?

I for one think that OP's comment is interesting, and I have no interest in distracting from its substance. But I do hope to point out how some unfortunate, casual choice of words may have inadvertently caused harm to other members of our community.

I'd also point out that, like the dictionary attack that you describe, baselessly impugning an opponent's motivations is also a tried and true tactic for distracting others from the substance of what they have to say, without meaningfully engaging with it.

[lighttower]

I don't suspect users here have conscious ulterior motives. I think that ____ (insert one of {media, communists, political elites, liberals, aliens, etc}) have conditioned knee-jerk language-policing. This has the side-effect of taking the current thread off topic while muting substantive discourse in this and future posts.

The dictionary attack has been practiced in media for a long time. Watch a famous 50s news anchor interview an atheist author (I can think of specifics, but I don't want to bias you). Back then it was obvious they were distorting what the interviewee was saying. The viewing audience wasn't stupid, they were complicit because they didn't agree with the atheist. Today this goes on, and occurs so regularly that no one cares if someone deliberately misunderstands something in order to be outraged. Actually whats even more telling is that this technique is a standard way to "communicate" political messages - just watch the campaigners.

I learned this dictionary problem while managing a startup with some employees who used a different dictionary than I. I'd say 80% of the conflict at work was due I say X while the other understood X'

Really if I had a way to efficiently and reliably transfer images in my head into theirs we would have saved countless hours and dollars

[jameshart]

Wow. You've gone from accusing people of faking outrage, to accusing people of executing a CNN-style 'dictionary attack'(?), to suggesting an alien communist liberal conspiracy...

... and you think that OTHER people are taking the thread off-topic and muting substantive discourse?

[lighttower]

Do you really not see the humor in political elites & aliens? Or are you just providing the readership with a textbook example of becoming outraged by deliberately interpreting things wrongly?