Hector Martin

Meta-commentary: I think we all need to keep our loop gain under control when it comes to social issues like these. Runaway negative feedback is how society becomes more polarized and oscillates out of control. Discussion is worth having, but keep it positive!

I don't think bringing it up at all is the issue; in this case I think you jumped to assuming malicious intent. I agree it's a stupid/insensitive joke, but I think he's poking fun at those who have (unfortunately) co-opted the term "trigger" to mean "think I don't like".

You used the words "out of his way" and "deliberate"; that implies intent. Sure, intent does not matter if you look at it from purely the point of view of impact, but it does when you're trying to establish a dialogue about the issue.

This is what I mean by loop gain. These days a lot of discussions seem to start right off the bat with effectively "Look at how evil this person is". People are immediately boxed as the "other side". This is not conducive to productive dialogue. It just brews more disagreement.

There’s a serious and real problem with this idea, though: When we force people to constrain their tone— to minimize ‘loop gain’— we’re also effectively forcing victims to expend mental energy to massage their arguments into a form that shows no upset. It’s inherently silencing.