[fm191124]

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BTW, I understand why people who have, for example, lost someone close to them to suicide, or had suicidal thoughts themselves, might find it offensive, but I'm mainly talking about people who are offended by it just on principle.

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I think the people who are offended by it are not offended by it on principle. They're offended because they know things like killing yourself are pretty darn real and unfunny, either through not being out of touch or by having some encounter with people who committed or attempted suicide themselves.

This is one of those things where thinking it unwise and/or unkind to make that kind of joke is being more, not less, firmly in touch with reality and not spinning off into airy theory or some kind of bullsh*t. Sometimes people really reach for things to get snippy or offended about; when the subject is killing yourself or wishing that on someone else, it's not reaching at all.

I can see not wanting to see it that way, because mostly people who are easily offended or who get sanctimonious are off base. It's easy to feel that this situation shouldn't be an exception, or that maybe nothing could be.

For what it's worth, I've known a few women who have told me about being raped, and that's why I don't like rape jokes much at all. Not as a matter of some kind of super abstract principle I can use to get all high and mighty; it's just that people really do suffer some horrible things in life, and while I can't change the past for anyone, I hate the pain they've had to endure, don't like the idea of them having to relive it or have feelings about it follow them through their futures even a little, and think there are at least a few kinds of jokes the world is a lot better off without.

There are just more important things in the world than having to crack every last "joke" possible.

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what about racist jokes? (depending on type of joke, i find some of these hilarious, some are just repulsive) - weather hilarious or repulsive is not based on how funny i beleive the joke itself is.

what about dead baby jokes (i find these are ALL repulsive)

blond/lawyer jokes (these are just funny, some not so funny, but never repulsive)