Day 739, Trigger Level

There's a fine line between tolerating something and being offended by it.

Different people have the tolerance/offence line in different locations.  How is it possible to present anything to any group of people without simultaneously infuriating some of those people who aren't 'triggered' by what is about to be presented but are 'triggered' by the mention of 'trigger warnings'?

Some of those people that are 'triggered' by 'trigger warnings' have provided a definition of the phrase here.  At least it keeps those people all in one place, or perhaps it doesn't, I'm mistaking an online forum for some type of physical public location for containing debate.*

My suggestion is that we don't complain about trigger warnings, that we recognise that there are a lot of things in the world likely to cause offence, and that we can't pretend those things don't exist.

This argument clearly needs some development, so until then what I propose is that we use the handy device pictured below.

As well as being a Universal Counter Timer, it also has a handy "Trigger Level" control knob.  The control knob can be used to effectively reset your own personal trigger threshold to either extreme, for example at the most sensitive level the use of the word 'knob' in a piece of text might bring the operator out in hives and cause smoke to come out of their ears.

Whereas if the dial is moved to the most insensitive level then a person could endure the most cretinous UKIPpy, Tory, brexity toss-wank possible, where it is plain that the speakers haven't got a 'Scooby-Doo' what they are on about or what they are going to do, yet the listener is as unmoved as if they'd spent the afternoon consuming a quarter of an ounce of Acapulco Gold until the smoke came out of their ears.**†

I think this is the most sensible solution for all involved.  In anything.

* You know, like a forum.
** I have never experienced Acapulco Gold but the mellow is supposedly très mellow.
† It might be more appropriate to consume some EU barn-grown Dutch classic giant such as White Widow to 'trigger' the brexiters - I'd never heard of White Widow before, I looked it up purely for the purposes of making a cheap joke.


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