Quick thoughts:
In Yvain's post (linked here by gjm), Yvain says:
Although people pretending to be offended for personal gain is a real problem, it is less common in reality than it is in people's imaginations. If a person appears to suffer from an action of yours which you find completely innocuous, you should consider the possibility that eir mind is different from yours before rejecting eir suffering as feigned.
Uhm, it depends. My guess is that such people are rare as a fraction of population, but if they are skilled at exploiting other people's empathy, they can lie about their internal "pain" pretty often. So while the probability of "person X randomly chosen from population would do this" is very small, the probability of "a person who replied online on your post, acting offended and citing political arguments and calling in their numerous supporters, would do this" could actually be pretty high. (Prior probability, posterior probability, selection bias.) So I would probably use the way I have received a complaint as an evidence.
Situation A: I play a music I enjoy, and my neighbor says: "Excuse me, my ears hurt, could you please turn down the volume?" I would turn down the volume, and if it is too quite for me to enjoy, they I would simply turn the music off, or consider using headphones.
Situation B: There is an active political or religious movement X with typical modus operandi of finding something they complain about. My neighbor is a very active member of X. This month, their topic is "make your neighbors turn down the music, because our great prophet said music is sinful". I play a music I enjoy, and my neighbor says: "Excuse me, my ears hurt from your sinful music, you should be ashamed of yourself, and you will burn in hell. Could you turn down the volume?" I would ignore them, or offer a trade (something like "I am doing you a big favor here, and I expect some favor in return in the future"), depending on my mood and my estimate of their probability of returning the favor (the more righteous they are, the less likely).
I basically agree with you, but I think situation B to quite that extent is rare. And of course identifying similarity to that is pretty open to bias if you just don't like that movement.
Concrete example - I used to use the Hebrew name of God in theological conversations, as this was normal at my college. I noticed a Jewish classmate of mine was wincing. I discussed it with him, he found it uncomfortable, I stopped doing it. Didn't cost me anything, happy to do it.
Also, I think some of this is bleeding over from 'I am not willing to inconvenience myself' t...
My hidden secret goal is to understand the sentiments behind social justice better, however I will refrain from asking questions that directly relate to it, as they can be mind-killers, instead, I have constructed an entirely apolitical, and probably safe thought experiment involving a common everyday problem that shouldn't be incisive.
Alice is living in an apartment, she is listening to music. The volume of her music is well within what is allowed by the regulations or social norms. Yet the neighbor is still complaining and wants her to turn it down, claiming that she (the neighbor) is unusually sensitive to noise due to some kind of ear or mental condition.
Bob, Alice's friend is also present, and he makes a case that while she can turn it down basically out of niceness or neighborliness, this level of kindness is going far beyond the requirements of duty, and should be considered a favor, because she has no ethical duty to turn it down, for the following reasons.
1) Her volume level of music is usual, it is the sensitivity level of the neighbor that is unusual, and we are under no duty to cater to every special need of others.
2) In other words, it is okay to cause suffering to others as long as it is a usual, common, accepted thing to do that would not cause suffering to a typical person.
The reasons for this are
A) It would be too hard to do otherwise, to cater to every special need, in this case it is easy, but not in all cases, so this is no general principle.
B/1) It would not help the other person much, if the other person is unusually sensitive, the problem would not be fixed by one person catering to them. A hundred people should cater to it, after all there are many sources of noise in the neighborhood.
B/2) In other words, if you are unusually rude, reducing it to usual levels of rudeness is efficient, because by that one move you made a lot of people content. But if you are already on the usual levels of rudeness and an unusually sensitive person is still suffering, further reduction is less efficient because you are only one of the many sources of their suffering. And these people are few anyway.
C) Special needs are easy to fake.
D) People should really work on toughening up and growing a thicker skin, it is actually possible.
Polls in comments below
Please explain your view in the comments.