I understood GP as talking about what is in the 'overton window' or not. You and I may have qualms about saying retard but I've worked in industries where that is not the case. I've met people who would call an unprofitable VC-backed company whose only customer-facing product is a well-designed chat client telling them what is or is not acceptable to say something I wouldn't say here.
I dropped syntax highlighting a few years ago. My thoughts on it are not "colors are childish" and "books are black on white and we read those just fine." I don't like the computer trying to convey what is important in my text files to me via color. What I think is important and what the computer thinks is important is often different. Then why don't I configure my syntax highlighter to agree with me? It's just another configuration file to keep in sync on the computers I use, and :syntax off is right there... It's the nuclear option for being annoyed that comments are shown in light gray.
Are they? You still are in same infrastructure and legal framework. Thats like saying you are free not visiting neighbouring apartments. Their "influence" (smoke, noise) is still leaking to your space. Same with web. Like facebook negatively affecting separated web forums.
