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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

#81

Post by ocdtrekkie »

dorkrawk wrote: post #73

"What will they do when they hear opinions they’ve learned to shrink from? If they want to change the world, how will they learn to persuade people to join them?" This seems like an important quote for those who are sad/disappointed/angry about the US election results.

This is pretty key. To persuade someone, you have to understand what they believe, and why they believe it. When you approach a conversation with "the other side is stupid/backwards", their response will be that YOU are just stupid/backwards.

One of the things very few partisans seem to want to admit right now, is that the other party is NOT just a bunch of hateful people. That both parties are made up of humans who, for the most part, want to make better lives for themselves and others around them. Mostly people who want to make this country a better place, but obviously disagree on what that "better place" looks like. And those beliefs are built on their life experiences, both what they've been told and what they've been through. And that one person shouting at them and telling them they're wrong isn't going to magically change that. And trying to invalidate their lives by going after their social class or their "privilege" isn't going to help anyone, and is tone deaf to the fact that people at all levels of class experience the same emotions, the same level of panic, fear, and trauma.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#82

Post by mistermann »

yareally wrote: post #33
aaronchall wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same vein, I suggested discussing who we voted for the US Elections and why (I also mention SJW's bullying speakers off of campuses)- and my Ask HN was flagged ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12932905 ). I figured it would be timely and on-topic as a result: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence,…

I think there's a group of users on HN, including myself that wishes politics were not on the site. One can go almost anywhere to find political discussions because the threshold to join them is so low. Sometimes tech related politics gets a pass on here, but anything else tends to lead down a path of a low signal to noise ratio for insightful site content.

> One can go almost anywhere to find political discussions

But where do you go to find intelligent political discussions. For those of you who don't frequent /r/politics, it was completely taken over by HRC's Correct The Record team, the minute the election was over the character of the sub changed completely. You have to admire how effective they were.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#83

Post by fnovd »

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",…

That's a pretty one-sided view of safe spaces. I don't think "safe spaces" are meant to be so radically exclusionary, though it's obvious why they can end up that way.

It's to give people an opportunity to talk about the impact of a thing without needing to prove that thing exists in the first place. It's like climate scientists not inviting deniers to their conference: they want to focus on the implications of climate change, not debate the existence of climate change itself.

I think there are plenty of reasonable safe spaces that accomplish the thing they were meant to do without resorting to blanket exclusions. The answer to one extreme is usually not the other.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#84

Post by [deleted] »

mistermann wrote: post #80
Pigo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are a lot of young people on the right willing to have a dialogue, not much on the left based on my post-election observations. The alt-right is literally giving away the playbook on what happened, in great detail, but the left continues to insist the result is because "everyone is racist". It is depressing.

[deleted]

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#85

Post by CaptSpify »

fnovd wrote: post #62
CaptSpify wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My understanding is that the safe-spaces movement wants dedicated rooms and even classes to be safe-spaces. That sounds like the opposite of what I described. Is this simply a disconnect from what the original intention was vs the current movement?

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#86

Post by Pigo »

CaptSpify wrote: post #67
ipnon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dir…

All indications are that this is the safest time in history to be alive. The headlines give us all a sense of terror because it useful to some narratives, but any articles citing studies and statistics show otherwise. We're just much more aware of horrible things due to the proliferation of information. https://goo.gl/yQkFXx https://goo.gl/J9ib0x

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#87

Post by fnovd »

cmdrfred wrote: post #70
makomk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many universities are private property, and students have a say in how they are used, hence school-sanction safe spaces existing in the first place.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#88

Post by Zikes »

mLuby wrote: post #76
Zikes wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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",…

The US Presidency is such a "men-only (almost) whites-only" safe space, as are most circles of power in this country.

Article 2 Section 1 Clause 5 of the Constitution

> No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

I don't see anything there about genitalia or skin color.

But since it's a "safe space" I think I'll pop in there and relax for a bit. It's time I escape this mediocrity and claim the power of my white male birthright.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#89

Post by cmdrfred »

fnovd wrote: post #87
cmdrfred wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Many universities are private property, and students have a say in how they are used, hence school-sanction safe spaces existing in the first place.

As long as they receive no public funding I don't see a problem with it, but you don't get to take federal dollars and put up a no whites allowed sign on the door.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#90

Post by makomk »

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…

The difference between words and physical action only becomes apparent at the point fist connects with face, with is rather too late if you want to avoid being beaten up. This makes the mere threat of violence a very effective weapon. Look up the legal definition of "assault" sometime.
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