The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse. Writing on the internet -- or doing anything at all meaningful on the internet -- is challenging because there are roughly eight billion people on planet earth right now and you can't please all of the people all of the time . The Overton Window -- or window of discourse -- will vary from one group and one person to the next. Exactly what is acceptable will depend on the details of the life of any given individual and the history of any given group. When posting online, you need to account for various Overton Windows at the same time in the same piece. In the movie Patton , the main character slaps a soldier and this leads to him being demoted. Other sources suggest the decision to replace him had already been made and the slap was not the cause, but the slap -- in actual reality, he slapped two different soldiers -- g...