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In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

nytimes.com

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Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#61

Post by duaneb »

maxerickson wrote: post #41
Kalium wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When "harm" is in the eye of the beholder, anything can be rationalized as harmful for political gain.

You really think that harm isn't in the eye of the beholder?

I think it's written as laws. We are not actually discussing them so much as ideals. Look at the ACA: I don't even remember a discussion about its merits or demerits. People assume a position and shout over their opponent.

Trump truly played a great song with the media. You have to respect his ability to avoid any policy discussion, preferring to shout fantasies. Clinton wasn't much better, but I don't believe it was an intentional ploy to avoid difficult discussions.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#62

Post by fnovd »

CaptSpify wrote: post #36
fnovd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a problem with safe spaces. To me, they're like office break rooms. Sometimes you just need a minute to disengage. But, if you're spending your whole day in there, I'm going to question why you show up to work in the first place.

Legit question for you: Why can't "safe spaces" equate to "I just want to disengage" ? I find that when I personally want a "disengagement break", I get more relaxation in just holing myself up at home vs taking over someone else's area.

I think that's exactly what they were supposed to be.

As for "taking over someone else's area," to me that's just politics. There are ebbs and flows of power and control. Trump's victory is going to legitimize a lot of criticisms and possibly over-correct, though hopefully we will be in a position to have a reasonable understanding of what a "safe space" should be within the next decade.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#63

Post by iainmerrick »

vonklaus wrote: post #23
ipnon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the New York Times is not an acceptable source of news then I'm the President-elect.

This is the same stupid shit as the election. My point is that there is apparent proof of dubious tactics in the wikileaks disclosures, their failure to call te election polling close, and the immeadiate dismissal of the comey announcement. You can disagree with this evidence, but telling me "you feel" im wrong isnt intellectual.

there is apparent proof of dubious tactics in [...] their failure to call the election polling close

I just want to address this one point. I think it's just untenable to imagine there was some big conspiracy to skew poll numbers in Clinton's favour. Why would all the pollsters fall in line, why wouldn't anyone break ranks and leak the story? It would be a huge story that would sell a ton of newspapers!

The pollsters were mostly wrong, but they were fairly close, only a couple of points off. Just about everybody (notably the Princeton Election Consortium) was way overconfident, with the exception of FiveThirtyEight who gave Clinton a 70-30 chance over Trump. That's not a bad guess given the final result. FiveThirtyEight never claimed to be correcting anyone else's bias, they just clearly stated their reasons for thinking the result was very uncertain. It's a shame nobody else followed their lead but you can bet they will next time round.

The one big outlier was the LA Times poll, which consistently put Trump ahead, but they put him way ahead, so they were actually one of the less accurate polls in absolute terms.

It will be really interesting to see what caused that overall ~2% polling miss, but I would bet a large sum of money that it wasn't "dubious tactics". The worst we should accuse the media of is overconfidence. (For example, a few left-leaning outlets accused FiveThirtyEight of gaming the system in Trump's favour; that just makes them look stupid in hindsight.)

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#64

Post by pyrophane »

vonklaus wrote: post #2

Nytimes should be banned from HN. It is paywalled and the information is dubiously sourced, if even true. This is not an acceptable source of news nor fact.

The reason the Times is important isn't because their reporting is perfect, but rather because of their commitment to good journalism. They have made numerous mistakes in my lifetime, but they have generally owned up to them and tried to address what they did wrong. That is pretty rare today.

On top of that, consider the important work they have done just recently on things like arbitration agreements, how the wealthy exploit tax loopholes, the exploitation of immigrants at NYC nail salons, and Amazon's corporate culture, to name just a few. Those are all significant pieces of investigative journalism that have made us much better informed about issues we wouldn't know nearly as much about without the hard work at the Times.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#65

Post by Swizec »

Zikes wrote: post #48
fnovd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a problem with safe spaces. To me, they're like office break rooms. Sometimes you just need a minute to disengage. But, if you're spending your whole day in there, I'm going to question why you show up to work in the first place.

Safe spaces as I've seen them implemented are exclusionary and discriminatory. A women-only safe space is sexist, as the implied "safety" of not allowing men implies that men are inherently unsafe. A POC-only safe space is racist, as the implied "safety" of not allowing whites implies that whites are inherently unsafe. If anyone were to even suggest the opposite implementation, a men-only or whites-only "safe space",…

Remember, if you are a white male it is fundamentally impossible for you to experience hardship. Only people of color and women ever have problems in life.

You know why there are no activist/support groups for "fresh off boat" immigrants? They're too busy actively and constructively improving their lives.

Fundamentally safe spaces and related are a thing of privilege. If you have time to think about that, you're part of the privileged group.

I could be wrong. Maybe I've just never come across a support group organized by and for poor people, or by and for immigrants. Are there any?

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#66

Post by makomk »

DarkTree wrote: post #40
st3v3r wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if that belief is that you're fine being an LGBTQ person, and the "challenge" is from people who believe that you shouldn't exist or have the same rights as others?

Then oddly enough, it becomes less about you being challenged and more about those who believe you shouldn't exist being challenged. Colleges are great for exposure to peers with varying backgrounds and beliefs and are great for fostering understanding of each other's viewpoints. Isolating your group to spaces of the same people will probably strengthen that demarcation and lessen the incentive (and the ability) for…

What if, sometimes, LGBTQ people want to achieve things other than challenging people who believe they don't exist - things like, say, arranging financial support for people who've been disowned by their family for being gay and are in danger of becoming homeless, or even just having a friendly chat with other LGBTQ people about their experiences? That's what the LGBT space at university was used for when I was there.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#67

Post by CaptSpify »

ipnon wrote: post #27
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #9

I am 50+ and this whole safe space movement is really perplexing. No, people should not be subjected to hurtful circumstances, but at the same time, they are a fact of life. Being a world citizen is a dicey proposition, and my gut reaction is that further insulating ourselves is the wrong way to go. I can't imagine how a military comprised of soldiers who have grown up in this movement can be expected to deal with th…

I am 20+ and this trend seems to indicate that people are growing decreasingly familiar with traumatic experiences in their lives, which also seems to indicate a general increase in average quality of life.

I wonder if one could liken it to allergies. Your body is so insulated from bad things that your immune systems kicks in when it's not needed. This trend seems similar, as it seems to me that those who have had real and damaging traumatic experiences need these safe-spaces less than those that have had pseudo-traumatic experiences.

I have no statistics to back this up, though, and would welcome evidence in either direction.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#68

Post by cmdrfred »

scintill76 wrote: post #53
Kalium wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When "harm" is in the eye of the beholder, anything can be rationalized as harmful for political gain.

OK, what do anti-gay-marriage people have to gain politically, if they got their way?

The politicians get votes for one.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#69

Post by Pigo »

PKop wrote: post #46
iplaw wrote: post #4

This article is from March 2015, and shows that the writing has been on the wall for quite a while. The "safe spaces" movement is a plague, and I am sick of it. I hold extremely diverse viewpoints which span the political spectrum. Socially liberal and fiscally conservative. How can liberals claim to be accepting of all viewpoints but, in reality, only accept those that align with their pseudo-personal-Utopia outlook…

And they want to conflate "words" with physical action; offense with violence. Thus the need for a safe space because hearing something that upsets you or you disagree with is the same as being physically assaulted. This is what you do when you are afraid of debate, afraid of being wrong and unable to defend your ideas... when you know you might lose or are losing in the arena of ideas. You criminalize differing opin…

I do believe it played a part in this election. Watching shows like Rubin Report opened my eyes to how fractured the left has become. It also gives me hope that there's a lot of people out there who still want to have a dialogue.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#70

Post by cmdrfred »

makomk wrote: post #66
DarkTree wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then oddly enough, it becomes less about you being challenged and more about those who believe you shouldn't exist being challenged. Colleges are great for exposure to peers with varying backgrounds and beliefs and are great for fostering understanding of each other's viewpoints. Isolating your group to spaces of the same people will probably strengthen that demarcation and lessen the incentive (and the ability) for…

What if, sometimes, LGBTQ people want to achieve things other than challenging people who believe they don't exist - things like, say, arranging financial support for people who've been disowned by their family for being gay and are in danger of becoming homeless, or even just having a friendly chat with other LGBTQ people about their experiences? That's what the LGBT space at university was used for when I was there…

Feel free to do so on their private property as has always been their right.
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