Elon Musk has the ear of one of the most powerful people in the world – President Donald Trump – making him one of the most powerful people in the world, too. He’s been given unfettered access to adjust the federal government’s budget and headcount.
So what’s he doing posting a slur multiple times targeting the disabled community on social media?
No, I did not. I added a second paragraph to address your obvious misinterpretation.
The first paragraph is what you replied to, and remains intact. You could have tried to understand it on its own, but instead you chose to look for an excuse to chide a stranger. That was unkind, unwarranted, and unnecessary.
The question asked by [email protected] stands.
His question wouldn’t make sense if you didn’t edit your post, though. As my post would have referred to your first sentence absent the second. And you’ll notice everyone read your post the way I did before you edited it. When I came along, you had -5. The only reason mine seems like a weird response now is because I responded to what was effectively a completely different post, even if the original post is still in there.
You were correct to edit your post. I don’t want to edit mine, but I will add context.
“You” knew what your original post was supposed to mean. But if every other viewer saw it as meaning what was written instead and you had to turn it around, are all of us readers really the ones in the wrong?
There was never a point where my comment contained the first sentence absent the second.
Bandwagoning is very common on web forums. People are easily influenced by the first reply they see, and will often click a vote button before thinking about what was actually written.
The paragraph I added was to try to guide people away from that bad habit once the bandwagoning had already started. It does not imply fault in my original comment.
When I am the listener or reader, any time my first impression of a comment is negative, I consider it my responsibility to stop and consider other meanings before crying foul. That’s the only way we can avoid miscommunication, after all, since it’s not possible for a speaker or author to predict every potential misinterpretation, and the burden of avoiding it should not be entirely on them. I wish more people would do the same.
So, you advocate for a generous reading of peoples posts. But, despite knowing what your original post contained, took me at my direct word instead of what I clearly meant… weird, why would someone do that? You knew I meant paragraph, and yet assumed malicious intent. While saying people shouldn’t do that…
And in your case it should have been even clearer I wrote the wrong word to convey my intended meaning.