I don’t think you have a point.

You met some crazies, which just proves the point that they exist, and we all have good reason to act with caution lest we encounter one with unfortunate results.

I can somewhat agree with that.

But no one here is suggesting any of this is grounds for completely disregarding a person or a demographic of people.

I would turn down that first at-home date, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t make a counter-suggestion. And even then I would risk offending her by revealing my unwillingness to immediately trust her.

And if she does take offence, that isn’t exactly telling of her having a healthy understanding of how the situation might look to me. Even as I turn her down, it’s not like I’ve already decided she’s a crazy person.

The people getting mocked are ones who feel they’ve been wronged by this kind of caution, for example by getting an overly careful and roundabout “no”, taking offence because someone would assume the worst about them. That they wouldn’t have taken a straight answer well.

In reality, it was going to be a “no” either way, and she was perfectly within her right to do it carefully with a complete stranger.

Throwing around the stats and explanations is to help us understand. The point is that the numbers are such that vulnerable people do not even have the option of being fair, because if they are, inevitably, they will run into at least one nutcase which will then proceed to explode in their face.

Unfortunately, the real solution here is actually to take it on the chin, because most of the time, it really isn’t personal, or even consequential.

In any situation where two or more people interact, a more vulnerable party has every right to take whatever precaution they feel is needed to be safe, until they know for sure that doing so isn’t needed.

When this is the case, there is nothing to take offence from. It’s not about you.

But it can still hurt, and when you then see stats and stories about violent men thrown around it feels like people are telling you that “they were right about you” and that you should feel hurt.

But that’s not the point. The point is that there are good reasons to be careful. And when someone does so around you, unless there are additional circumstances to consider, there’s nothing there that’s a personal slight upon your character, gender, or anything else.

So what exactly is the change you want?

If you’re not asking vulnerable people to throw caution to the wind, be specific about what should be different.

I know it feels like absolute shit to have the worst assumptions made about you because of your gender, race or whatever else, but aside from treating everyone fairly whenever no risk is involved, we can’t ask people to assume the best about others when deciding anything, if doing so puts them at the mercy of a stranger in any way.

Hell. I’m a tall man, and I would have reservations if a girl wants to have a first date at her place, alone. Odds are, 99.99%, it’ll be fine, might get laid, woo. But what if it isn’t fine?

We’re not discussing the kind of discrimination where you instantly and completely dismiss someone as a human being, but the kind where you are careful about what kind of human being they might be.

The first kind robs people of life opportunities, the second only ever hurts our feelings.

I wanna add that it’s a delight to see someone competently explaining something that needs to be more widely understood.

This is what social media should be for. The ever advancing push towards consensus and common understanding.

No, no, you’re supposed to treat everyone fairly, the exact same way and always assuming they are the best, most stable people who would never react adversely to a “no” or any other negative occurrence.

And then when you run into that statistically inevitable crazy person, just let em beat you to death! You wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of all the perfectly decent people you met before then, would you?

Big giant /S

This is unfortunately one of those cases where the mere existence of dangerous individuals makes being a little unfair with the rest of us completely warranted.

No. The point is we can’t ask vulnerable people to throw caution to the wind when around those who have the ability to harm them.

Part of being one of the good ones, is not taking it personally when someone who doesn’t know you are safe, takes steps to try and make sure you won’t harm them. Because they can’t know for sure that you wouldn’t.

What?

I’m saying you’re the one who was in danger and therefore had the exact same concerns, and thereby you enforced my point that prioritising your own safety in this way isn’t about gender.

Anyone can be at a physical disadvantage, and therefore have to rely on caution. And anyone can turn out to be a crazy person.

The exact same considerations apply. If you’re in a situation where others could physically overpower you, you tend to try avoid doing anything that gives anyone reason to do so if that occurring is even the tiniest possibility.

When it comes to ones own bodily safety, other considerations become secondary, whether that’s fair or not.

It’s not matter of “all of them are like that” but of playing it safe.

That’s not really the point.

If a good man has a woman turn violent on him, odds are he has a physical advantage and will be able to deal with it. It shouldn’t have to happen that way but he can probably keep himself safe.

Flip that around, and as a woman, even if 99.99% of men will take it completely calmly, the small chance that you’re dealing with that 0.01% who will flip out and try to hurt you the second things don’t go his way, is fucking terrifying.

Especially if you’re smaller than average and dealing with someone bigger than average, the smart thing is to not just risk it. No, it doesn’t feel good when a girl assumes the worst about me, but I get it, so I don’t take it personally.

I can know I would never turn my strength and size to hurting to someone, she cannot.

It’s not that wild, but I absolutely LOVE blue cheese in a burger.

I’ve also found that coarser salt works WAY better for certain stuff.

If it is too fine, for some stuff you have to use a ton or it just disappears, and I don’t really like the result. But if you get the stuff that comes in giant crystals, that’s fantastic for steaks/chicken, stuff where you lay it onto the surface of something to season it. It’s like uneven salt lets you have spots that are way saltier than what would be enjoyable if you salted the whole thing that much, and it ends up tasting better than the same amount of salt applied more evenly.

Sauces, or anything where I want it dissolved, is the only time I use the fine stuff anymore.

The last one could just be “free education”

Fair enough. And I’m absolutely far more interested in convincing people to just not jump to “patent troll” with this little to go on.

And preferably not spreading misinfo like “nokia is just a microsoft puppet” when this is about the part of the company that MS never even acquired.

I’ll be ready to flip the second it comes out if this suit is BS.

But I’m initially siding with Nokia Oyj here because they have a decent track record of actually doing the legwork on their tech, advancing the science, and sharing that with the industry through sane licensing.

Also the company is one of the success stories of my country, so maybe I’m biased, but then that hasn’t stopped me from hating exploitative pieces of shit like Rovio and Supercell.

And inaccurate. MS never bought Nokia in its entirety, the parts it did acquire languished for a while, with the brand eventually ending up with HMD Global. That is the company that makes Nokia phones today, and they’re doing ok.

The company that’s relevant in this patent dispute is Nokia Oyj, the main operations of which is telecom RnD and infrastructure, and it has nothing to do with MS aside from being the company that they bought a mobile phone division from.

That’s not even close to the full story, and partly straight up incorrect.

They sold their mobile branch. The brand of which eventually ended up with HMD global, which now makes Nokia branded phones.

Nokia Oyj is a telecom RnD and infrastructure company, as in the hardware and standards behind wireless communication tech. They never stopped.

They essentially pulled an IBM and exited the consumer market, but they never ceased operation, or sold off their main business.

Microsoft has had absolutely nothing to do with Nokia Oyj since buying their consumer handset branch off them.

Why are we mad about an active tech company protecting their IP?

Patent trolls buy up more patents than any company could ever be able to use in actual products in order to make money sueing everyone under the sun or striking extortionate licensing deals.

Nokia Oyj is the part of Nokia that Microsoft didn’t buy, and it is a telecom company that does its own RnD to this day, and is perfectly open to doing reasonable licensing deals. How tf does this make them a patent troll, unless this is over something dumb and frivolous, which we don’t know yet?

It’s a long rope. Woven from decades of WoW, StarCraft and Diablo.

It’ll run out soon. Mostly it’s only been burning so slow cuz people have been in denial over the fact for so long.

Activision is burning the rope that is the ancient goodwill of Blizzard-fans at both ends.

It’s almost like most people will just use whatever is most convenient to get around, regardless of what exactly that is.