edit I'm getting downvoted for this. Please argue why you disagree. This is an honest attempt at breaking open a ground for open discourse. I'm open to discussion. If you feel this is pedantic, that's fine, but I would ask you kindly to move on and don't engage with this.

Some people are trying to turn "retracting a statement and apologizing as soon as a single individual states they feel offended" into a categorical imperative which every human ought to obey.

That's the extreme opposite to that other polarizing categorical imperative: "I am able to say whatever I want, regardless how anyone else feels about that."

Categorical imperatives don't work out at all in interpersonal relationships. They leave zero room for empathy or compromise, they dismiss any personal responsibility to take a step back and reflect on the context.

Like this:

> the joke in question is very clearly made at the expense of a certain group of people (mobile game players). What is fake or contrived about this if you're in that group and don't like being the butt of these jokes as is happening here?

One corollary of that categorical imperative is that any and all suffering is absolute. Everything is a 5/5. There's no nuance or room to take this apart through critical questioning.

However, asking critical questions, trying to understand and listening to one another are paramount.

Can you be sure this is targeted at mobile game players? Have you read the tutorial page and are you perceiving things at face value? Have you considered that satire can deliver a valid criticism via irony, pastiche, wit,...? Could this also be a warning or a put down directed at mobile game companies who tend to consider gamers as consumers through their business models?

These aren't questions meant to hurt, they are meant to understand where someone is coming from.

Even so, words do have an impact. They can be used to intentionally hurt. You can use words to clearly convey that you don't perceive the other person as an equal human being. You can use words to dismiss any form of equal reciprocity as to how you and the other behave/act/listen towards one another. That's where insults, disrespect, violence, discrimination and the like come in. And once those are out in the open, you can't take that back.

There's a difference between the former and the latter. A satirical piece questioning a particular behavior is one thing, a piece that intentionally attack individuals themselves is something entirely else.

Asking critical questions is about asserting the intentions of the author, figuring out where they come from, why they put a satirical piece in technical documentation in the first place. You can draw your own conclusions, but unless you ask those questions and go find answers, your conclusions will be conjecture at best, and turn into misunderstandings fueling further polarization deadening any further debate at worst.

> if you take that view then what is the point of giving feedback if you know it won't be acted on?

Interpersonal relationships are complex and multi-layered, meta at many times. All the world is a stage, and there's always an audience around. The point of publishing a satirical piece that targets mobile game businesses isn't to show them "the errors of their ways". It could also be read as a warning to mobile game players: beware from whom you purchase games.

While I'm addressing you directly with my comment, I'm very much aware that this is a public forum and there's an audience lurking and reading this.

Good communication is a complex skill to pick up. That's why communication science, journalism and PR experts are a thing.