All insults have collateral damage. Ugly is the mildest insult, so you probably don't see it.
Again, this seems like a really weird argument to me. Of course I see it. It's why I phrased the question the way I did:
Does someone's potential discomfort/pain outweigh the satisfaction you derive from being able to chew on that word?
It's a value judgment. If I call someone a fuckhead, someone's discomfort is
my aim. If any fuckheads nearby go "hey, there's no call to be denigrating all fuckheads now," I'll make sure to specify I meant that one specific fuckhead. But that's never going to be a thing that ever fucking happens, so I'm not sweating it. It's a safe decision to make.
If I refer to something as silly, goofy, dumb, ridiculous, shitty, etc. I've decided using those pejoratives is worth the risk, because any real collateral damage on the level we're concerned with in this thread is nil.
For me, the it's not worth the satisfaction of getting to spit "fucking
retard" at someone who has upset me with their poor decisionmaking skills, not
just because it's possible someone nearby would feel awful at one of their loved ones (or themselves) being used as an insult, and having their entire being summed up (and discarded) as something worthy of pure derision, but because
I would feel bad at being that reductionist about an entire group of people whose experiences are so much more than simply being a couple syllables I can spit at someone who doesn't measure up to my standards, such as they are.
You get what I was saying now? I'm not saying people should stop trying to use insults, or negative terminology, or even to stop speaking angrily. I'm saying it's a value judgement, and it's up to you to decide how much using that word is worth to you.
About a decade ago, I decided it wasn't worth very much at all. That's me, though.