I have a colleague which wants all lights in the office to be on, he/she says that he/she doesn't see colors in monitor clearly with 1/3 of the light.

Do they understand the concept that the monitor emits light by itself and doesn't need to be illuminated like a book? Is their brightness set to a reasonable value?

since i dont want to exploit gender

i will just call it retarded

Work ergonomics say that the monitor light must not be the dominating light in the room, and not everyone wants to work vampire style.

monitor brightness control?

if you lower the surrounding light and the output of the monitor you get less light in the eyes and therefore you get less eye strain

Some jerk at work always turns the lights down. Its like they think this is movie night at their house. I can't help having safety insecurities around someone that likes to work in the dark. This makes me think they are trying to hide things.

Or, I was violated in the past and I get PTSD when the light level is too low. I don't feel safe at work.

im not saying it should be that dark :)

Maybe she is borderline colorblind?

Argument bad, purpose not that bad: when working in night shift for elevator emergency control centre, everybody wanted lights off. How the hell am I supposed not to fall asleep. Also, indirect light makes us aware of the present.
However, stupid argument

I think I've heard that lowering the brightness will fuck up the color accuracy of a calibrated monitor

@electrineer Men can only see 16 colours anyway. Also, apricot is something to eat and not a colour.

I lose my color vision in dim light, and I'm certainly not setting my monitor to brighter than the ambient light in the room, thus further damaging my eyes, for some jerk to ruin their vision because they have nothing better to do.

@Lor-inc since when does watching a bright monitor in a dim room damage one's eyes.

@electrineer Ever since monitors are a thing. The brightness should be set to the highest level such that the monitor seemingly doesn't emit light. If the room is darker than the monitor then your pupils will be wider open than they should be (pupil size is largely affected by ambient lighting as a survival tactic) which means that the monitor will be a strong light source. Kinda like reading text written on a lightbulb. This puts a lot of strain on the eyes, but since we're busy with models and abstractions we don't notice the little signals like drying that tell us to take a break.

@Lor-inc I see that it may cause strain or even headache but how will it cause permanent damage?

@electrineer Continuous strain for extended periods of time (like an 8 hour workday) causes problems, especially with pressure in the eyeballs.