I disagree. To call them incompetent is more credit than they deserve. Incompetence implies sincerity. I don't think they were sincere even for a moment, despite their "stated purpose." You don't have to bite at vranyo just because it's offered to you.
Some people are liars and many are also bad liars. Dishonesty and incompetence are not mutually exclusive.
As unusual as non-sarcastic uses of quotation marks may be these days, I put it in quotes because I was quoting you. I didn't quote incompetent because you didn't call them that directly, so I wasn't. I'm sorry to come off as argumentative, I'm not trying to be.
It is asking that yes.
I'm entirely willing to agree with this take. His complaint does poke a spot that right-wing propagandists have been trying to make as sore as possible out of the mild and very real annoyance that it is at base as part of their misleading narratives. Its relevance to Musk's complaints is fairly limited, though. Musk's complaints have far more to do with trying to court and con right-wing suckers, after all, with throwing his kid who he neglected anyways under the bus being a price he's quite willing to pay.
I agree entirely. He's pushing a button to accomplish his ends. A button that has little to do with what actually matters to him. A button that triggers a reaction and deflects people from paying attention to what is really important.
Even in 1977 skies were so bright my poor astronomy lecturers were forced to do a lot of their work not anywhere near Glasgow University but in Hawaii.
As a limited counterpoint to that sentiment, though, if it wasn't that button and the other main ones, it would just be several others that they push at hard. They're constantly searching for and trying to manufacture such buttons to hide their real agendas behind, after all, with no regard to actual truth or the good of either the country or individual. At some point, stands against falsehood and harm do need to be taken.
Nor really to me that I actually recall (though I could have forgotten out of sheer lack of caring, I suppose). At most, I've heard people ask in my vicinity, generally when it wasn't actually clear which were preferred, though. I fully admit to eye rolling a little to some of the more pointless online and political displays of support that just came across as performative, but I do support the general concept of respecting such preferences when they're expressed.
That's different. But I absolutely have been asked my pronouns preferences. I guess it depends on where you llive.
That's pretty much a given with fads, I think. More about who you associate with than where you live, though.
I also have a problem with some people's take on this. In a sane and reasonable society, a person whose gender is not obvious ought to be able to volunteer a pronoun, or correct an initial missed call, and for everyone else to have the decency to observe them, while the default applies to the majority without explanation. On the other hand, in certain situations, such as on line where one's gender is not clear, I suppose it makes a little more sense in forums and the like where one's identity is not clear, though even here, I don't see why anyone should be made to specify unless they care to. But I don't think it's a great big deal either, and I've never been asked for my pronouns. I think the idea that it's a horrible trend that threatens moral society, or anything more than an annoyance is pretty dumb.
This is why I offer mine upfront.
Oh, you're lucky. I didn't work that out until much later.