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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

#101

Post by Swizec »

cmdrfred wrote: post #95
Swizec wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The poor peoples campaign was one. They demanded an economic bill of rights. Martin Luther King was the founder of it, he believed that poverty the main issue in America at that time. A month later he was assassinated and the whole thing fell apart. "The Poor People’s Campaign was motivated by a desire for economic justice: the idea that all people should have what they need to live. King and the SCLC shifted their f…

I had no idea! Thanks! This looks interesting to look into.

Too bad it's a was. Is there anything like it today?

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#103

Post by cmdrfred »

Swizec wrote: post #101
cmdrfred wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poor peoples campaign was one. They demanded an economic bill of rights. Martin Luther King was the founder of it, he believed that poverty the main issue in America at that time. A month later he was assassinated and the whole thing fell apart. "The Poor People’s Campaign was motivated by a desire for economic justice: the idea that all people should have what they need to live. King and the SCLC shifted their f…

I had no idea! Thanks! This looks interesting to look into. Too bad it's a was . Is there anything like it today?

Not that I'm aware of. I watched Occupy Wall Street for a while and it fragmented into a million subgroups without a leader. It seems you really need a Gandhi or MLK type to keep movements on track.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#104

Post by yareally »

mistermann wrote: post #82
yareally wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps someone should start such a site? I fear if you let that kind of discussion on HN without any curation, it will just become like every other site that allows full scale political discussion. Pretty much a fire hose.

You might be right in that there isn't a good place to discuss it, but I don't think HN is the the solution for it.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#105

Post by Zikes »

Zikes wrote: post #88
mLuby wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I apologize for the snark at the end. I am easily goaded.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#106

Post by prodigal_erik »

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.

Everyone routinely despises the president and blames him for things far outside his power. 9% of them have been murdered. If that's safety, I'll pass.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#107

Post by mistermann »

yareally wrote: post #104
mistermann wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Perhaps someone should start such a site? I fear if you let that kind of discussion on HN without any curation, it will just become like every other site that allows full scale political discussion. Pretty much a fire hose. You might be right in that there isn't a good place to discuss it, but I don't think HN is the the solution for it.

Political discussion in non-political threads could be very damaging to HN overall, I'd be fully supportive of a very short leash outside of threads that aren't explicitly political, but we should be able to have political threads, I can't see how that is harmful at all. If HN can't have these discussions then god help us all.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#108

Post by cam_l »

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…

Are you offended by the idea of safe spaces? (you have no right to this)

Are you offended by people acting on their ideas? (you have no right to this)

Are you offended by people acting on their ideas impacting other people? (you have no right to this, umm.. wait, maybe you do)

Would you prefer that people carefully segregated their ideas to certain places to avoid impacting on (or being impacted by) other people? (oh fuck, the world is complicated eh?)

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#109

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

tormeh wrote: post #22
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…

>world citizen Unsure if I understood you right, but being a world citizen requires a thick skin. It involves, by definition, dealing with other cultures' nasty bits without complaining.

Basically, yes. But more along the lines of the terrible things that humans can do to one another and the possibility that those things are brought to us. We can't all just run to safe spaces and hide.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#110

Post by PKop »

makomk wrote: post #90
PKop wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Again, you can tell me till you're blue in the face that "debate of ideas, argument, and discussion", or "having you own opinion on an issue, that isn't popular or that offends" are some how equal to inciting violence, or threatening physical assault... but I won't accept it. Ever.

People are not buying this.. they are rejecting it soundly because accepting this premise gives tacit approval to regulate speech, something American culture will never accept, or should never accept in my opinion.

Liberals are willingly accepting this in many places, such as college campuses for example, where it seems harder and harder to avoid the safe space mandate to follow approved groupthink.

I'm not talking about banning free association for those groups that most desire the safe spaces. I'm saying.. those groups, or anyone shouldn't be allowed to deem the entire University (or other shared space) their private safe space and bar others from exercising their rights to free speech and free association.

If the left doubles down with this nonsense, they will push people further away.

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