Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat • Hacker News Board

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#351

Post by ziggysak » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 12:44 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #339

metaphorm wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

humor with the intention of ridiculing something by using its own tropes to the point of absurdity to show the wrongness/badness of the thing is a well-established form of satire and commentary. a satirist is emphatically NOT in concordance or agreement with that which they are satirizing. I find it unreasonable that you are arguing against this basic premise. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. I hope I am because If I…

You're assuming the people employing that black humor don't believe what they're saying. I, and I expect the person to whom you reply, don't adhere to that assumption. I think that "just a joke", in this context, is the exhibition of profound naivete. And even if the speaker realizes it's a joke--the listeners often don't. See the /pol/ commentary elsewhere in this thread; /pol/ was "just joking" until those jokes we…

This is simply incorrect. /pol/ has never attempted to be "ironically" fascist. Its memes have always been a true reflection of sincere fascism and racism.

/r/dankmemes has similar subject matter but it's clear that it's ironic and it's black humor.

They are two fundamentally different things. Nobody is being indoctrinated into being a fascist from the latter. The former is actively attempting indoctrination.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#352

Post by pvnick » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 1:09 PM UTC

maxwin wrote: post #342

pvnick wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignore it. How is that even up for debate?

Apparently, you have never been the target of hate speech. I mean as an organization or platform, hate speech is gonna cause serious damage. You can't just tell individuals in your community or organization to ignore it. For example, in my country Myanmar,we just got free speech. But now we are dealing with hate speech which actually lead to hate crimes. The spread of religious hate speech causes one community of peo…

Target the violence, not the speech. Perhaps it is a cultural thing. Being an American, we have a bit of a libertarian underpinning to our culture, so maybe it is different.

You use the term "hate speech" as if it is a definite thing, but the phrase is nebulous and can very easily be used to target expressions of an undesired ideology in the case that the authorities have an agenda to push (e.g. certain religious authorities may target another religion's evangelization efforts as hate speech; communists might target people trying to spread Western values of free enterprise; etc.).

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#353

Post by geebee » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 1:30 PM UTC

somecontext wrote: post #327

geebee wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an aside, but I don't entirely agree. The tax exemption Harvard receives on its massive endowment is, per undergraduate, worth much more than the direct government subsidy public universities receive per student. UC Berkeley alone enrolls more low income students than the entire Ivy League combined (this is true of several UCs). Harvard also gets a monumental amount of funding directly from the federal govern…

> UC Berkeley alone enrolls more low income students than the entire Ivy League combined (this is true of several UCs). Some context for those interested: Berkeley enrolls approximately 30k undergraduates; the Ivy League combined enrolls approximately 60k. The most commonly cited cutoff for "low income students" is recipients of federal Pell grants, which are (roughly speaking) available to US citizen or permanent re…

Thanks for your reply. It sounds like my claim about Berkeley may be a bit out of date. Close, but no longer quite the case.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#354

Post by eropple » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 1:53 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #347

eropple wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't! But if I did something shitty (let's be real here, you're not offended, you're upset at the notion that words have consequences), it would be entirely within your rights to react to what I did. And mine to defend myself, and my employer to decide whether the cost of being represented by someone with my views was commensurate with its return.

Look, nobody is arguing that Harvard is doing something that is literally illegal. But that is their only defense. What we are arguing is that the Harvard administration is full of terrible people who can go F themselves. Because they do not care about students and they do not care about freedom of thought. Maybe they are just going to start expelling people because they publicly disagreed with them about tuition hik…

The claim that Harvard "doesn't care about students" is reality-denying. Harvard has students who these people, with their racist propaganda, would do harm to (and if you don't understand that we're dealing with literal and concrete racist propaganda, you are naive or dissembling). Should Harvard not care about those students (and faculty, and staff, etc. who would similarly be affected)? There's nothing sacrosanct about racist propaganda that deserves to be defended at a private institution--and Harvard refusing to make their community worse is commendable. It's not comparable to complaints about university policy at all to a degree that is not merely ridiculous but actively malicious on your part.

I don't particularly care about, and it sure seems like Harvard doesn't either, students who, after being found out and asked to explain their super gross actions, didn't. Didn't present what they'd done (as they'd been asked to), didn't explain, didn't apologize. This group had over a hundred members. About ten decided not to own up to what they'd done and were shown the door for it.

Trying to hang the consequences of racist behavior on the institution that refuses to put up with racist behavior is head-screwing. Maybe...don't be racist? Or at least not openly? And then you can go to Harvard like Mommy and Daddy wanted instead of having to explain why you're not. Harvard's in my own backyard; I'll applaud them doing what they can to keep my backyard free of racist propagandists where they can.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#355

Post by bradleyjg » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 2:19 PM UTC

a_puppy wrote: post #337

bradleyjg wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's at least a little more defensible when you narrow it down to universities but even there it is a) not that old, emerging after the Vietnam protests and b) is more focused on free inquiry and the flow of ideas than free speech in the sense the government uses it. You say "controversial ideas" but the memes are linked on this page. They aren't advancing ideas controversial or otherwise--they are simply offensive f…

I agree that dank memes in particular aren't particularly important, but I'm worried that the same attitudes and policies that lead to dank memes being banned are also leading to serious political speech being banned. Do you agree that Harvard should not punish students for offensive political speech, if it's meant sincerely and advances an actual idea?

That's closer to the free inquiry norm, but better yet would be some connection to some intellectual pursuit.

"All Mexicans should be deported" expresses an idea -- it isn't offensive for the purpose of being offensive like the image macros, but it doesn't propose, advance, or engage with any kind of plausible research program or existing intellectual tradition. "Mexicans are genetically inferior to Americans" is more offensive, but at least it is the kind of statement that is plausibly connected to something that could be studied and dissected at a university.

That said, even for the first statement, were I leading Harvard I'd say it ought not garner any official response.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#356

Post by WalterSear » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 3:04 PM UTC

metaphorm wrote: post #229

vinceguidry wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but they are saying that it's a free speech issue. It is a free speech issue, but not in the way they are saying. Your anger is misplaced if it's directed at Harvard.

who is "they" and what did "they" say, specifically? can you quote someone? the discussion of speech issues is often about culture and norms rather than about legal statutes.

> the discussion of speech issues is often about culture and norms rather than about legal statutes.

While it may be something that many people make a lot of noise about 'respecting', freedom of speech, tolerance of discourse, and a willingness to listen to others are not deeply held social or cultural norms I have witnessed in the US.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#357

Post by filoleg » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

throwaway91111 wrote: post #256

xienze wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you knowingly and publically associate your name with something offensive But the article says it was a private group chat, not public.

Private from other users, not to facebook or the university. I mean, c'mon. Just because something says "private" doesn't mean it is.

It was private from the university. The only reason Harvard administration found out about the offensive stuff was because some student in that private chat screenshotted and sent it to them.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#358

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 4:24 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #334

stcredzero wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly agree that fear is not the best motivation, nor is it ideal. But it is not the job of every last person in society to exercise the patience of a saint and try to fix such problems on an individual basis A government that is ruling through fear has lost its moral justification. That you'd just say it's not the best nor ideal -- I find this highly suspect. You'd really take a grudging, fake consensus, over…

In the first paragraph of your response, you've already gone far beyond the bounds of any reasonable discussion. The rest of your post is answered in my response elsewhere in the thread, and I'm done putting energy into this discussion.

The philosophical grounding is the same. If the progressive left were wholly on the side of right, they wouldn't have to throw things like free speech under the bus, or vilify things like the values of the founders of the US. Authoritarians like that would rule by force and shame rather than the consent of the governed. Many under the "progressive" flag have dehumanized their opponents in their hearts, and so have lost the true philosophical grounding of justice.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#359

Post by misingnoglic » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 5:00 PM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #292

misingnoglic wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that standards should be lowered for high school seniors. These are people who are legally allowed to vote, join the army, buy guns, etc.., and for these people it's go to Harvard. They should know that it's unacceptable to share memes about sexual violence, racism, and whatnot, especially on Facebook. When I was in 6th grade (I'm 21 now), my school gave us the talk about the internet, saying that whate…

When I was graduating high school not long before you, it was still socially acceptable to use gay slurs. The social change happened fast, and not evenly in all places. Society needs to have some grace of we aren't too have a huge group of people bitter about being punished for breaking a new social rule. Besides that, we have a tendency to oversimplify and assume every race-related thing is racism, so I don't trust…

For the record, here are the memes: https://thetab.com/us/2017/06/05/harvard-memes-rescinded-694...

You can't tell me this is at all equivalent to calling someone "gay"

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#360

Post by weberc2 » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 7:24 PM UTC

misingnoglic wrote: post #359

weberc2 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was graduating high school not long before you, it was still socially acceptable to use gay slurs. The social change happened fast, and not evenly in all places. Society needs to have some grace of we aren't too have a huge group of people bitter about being punished for breaking a new social rule. Besides that, we have a tendency to oversimplify and assume every race-related thing is racism, so I don't trust…

For the record, here are the memes: https://thetab.com/us/2017/06/05/harvard-memes-rescinded-694... You can't tell me this is at all equivalent to calling someone "gay"

There are more offensive slurs than "gay", but my point wasn't to make an equivalence, only to say that punishing someone in accordance with a relatively new social norm isn't a universally good idea.