This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University • Hacker News Board

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#471

Post by forgetsusername » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:01 PM UTC

maaku wrote: post #21

lagadu wrote: post #3

I find it baffling that there are people, in the real world, who somehow think that for unexplained reasons they have the right to not be offended or be made to feel uncomfortable. Somehow they believe that their feelings are the responsibility of everyone else.

While I sympathize with your viewpoint, perhaps I can shed some clarity on the other side. The concern is not feelings getting hurt, but rather physical security as a person of minority status. This is something that a white heterosexual middle-class male (such as myself) can probably never fully appreciate, but I try to sympathize. Imagine what it is like to be black in a country where just a few generations back yo…

>This is something that a white heterosexual middle-class male (such as myself) can probably never fully appreciate

Why not? What exactly is "white" anyway? The reality is, you can come up horrible historic circumstances for pretty much any human division. Sure, some have had it worse than others, but where do you draw the line? I have Irish ancestors; they weren't exactly well treated.

>Imagine what it is like to be a woman on a college campus where statistically 1 in 3 suffer sexual assault over the course of a 4 year education

You have to really stretch the definition of "sexual assault" to arrive at that metric.

If people actually consider a University campus "unsafe", then the world at large is going to feel unsafe. What is the plan to deal with that?

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#472

Post by collinmanderson » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:02 PM UTC

markmcdonald wrote: post #462

Are there any evangelical christians that have a critical assessment of this piece? I'm no longer a part of the church, but a few phrases strike me as strange ("An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad. It is supposed to make you feel guilty."; "The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self-actualization."; "Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them “f…

"The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession" - Yes, that seems a bit extreme. (Though I'm Catholic, not "Evangelical" in the sense you mean). Offending people is ok, but I hope the _goal_ isn't to make people feel guilty. :)

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#473

Post by merpnderp » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:02 PM UTC

ahtierney wrote: post #390

afarrell wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Learning only happens when there are consequences for being wrong If I'm writing a toy project to teach myself WebGL, what are the consequences for doing something incorrectly and later having to debug it?

I would argue the act of debugging it is the consequence. You assume something to be correct (or make a stupid mistake), you face the fact that it's not, you adjust your behavior and gain insight into facing the problem again. Same thing applies to social experience, the difference is in WebGL there is something approximating a 'right way.' I never thought Yoga would be contentious, some people do, now I'll think abo…

It is impossible to prove a yoga class at a university harms a culture. It is easily provable that forcing these people not to meet on campus as a group does real actual harm. And I don't care about their feelings, I care about fairness and justice.

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#474

Post by vlehto » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:02 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #212

It doesn't help that campuses increasingly operate like day cares: they treat adult students like children. A great example is orientation. Throughout the US, until fairly recently (at my Alma Mater, SUNY New Paltz - it was 1973), orientation was 100% run by students with no state or 'administrative' involvement. And it was an adult event. It involved camping, orienteering, and serious discussions about the life ahea…

I had completely opposite experience in Aalto uni. Practically 18 year old kids coming fresh from high school. I was participating as student to decide on teaching practices.

I suggested that deadlines would be systematically in the afternoon. Maybe 17:00. Some teachers had had problems when not assigning clear time, plain date means significant percentage of students turn in their assignments in the following day. But currently the time is often 8:00 in the morning. Which encourages some portion of the students to stay awake all night writing that assignment. Which reflects to all other studies they have that week.

The response was "You're adults now, deal with it."

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#475

Post by nightspirit » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:02 PM UTC

intortus wrote: post #445

aggieben wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a stark difference between a free and voluntary association of like-minded people and a so-called "safe space", which uses a pretext of "victimization" to capriciously thought control others who simply committed the offense of disagreeing or criticizing. If you hate Christianity, why would you go to this school? If you aren't willing to follow behavioral rules, why would you go to this school? If you think ph…

> "Safe-spaces", on the other hand, are cudgels of fear, handed to anyone claiming "victimization" to be capriciously used against people with whom they simply disagree and want to shut up. Oh please. Now who's fear-cudgeling whom? You're being extremely melodramatic in reaction to a questionable anecdote.

"Safe-spaces" are practical application of the principle, accidentally unearthed by xyz-equality movements of the 20th century, that people generally don't like hurting others and hence you can control them by appearing to be hurt, whether you are or not.

People modeling victim behaviors to remove everything that causes them discomfort aren't something to be afraid of, but also their cries for attention aren't something to be treated too seriously. Allowing them to get their way just reinforces further learning of this silly strategy.

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#476

Post by ant6n » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:03 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #408

SeanDav wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little research will produce a vast number of examples of political correctness with real consequences and not just "straw-manning". Here is a recent example: A Canadian university cancels a yoga class because yoga comes "from a culture that “experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy,” In a world that can do that, I don't find it surprising that a student could…

For every example of absurd political correctness - of which there are many, particularly in universities - there's an equal and opposite example of absurd bleating about political correctness from somebody upset that a private website barred them for sending out racist memes. I would throw it out there that Evangelical Christian university with rigorous behavioural standards are on average considerably less likely t…

I'd even say that for every example of absurd political correctness, there are many examples of the absurd bleating about political correctness.

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#477

Post by nickbauman » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:03 PM UTC

aggieben wrote: post #411

lghh wrote: post #199

I have a friend who attended OKWU a few years ago. She shared this piece on Facebook in approval. From what I know from her education there, this place is essentially a "safe-space" for Christians. If you say anything negative about the religion or its teachings, you are kicked out. If you don't follow its rules, you are kicked out. If you drink, smoke, have premarital sex, are lgbtq, don't follow their strict ethics…

There's a stark difference between a free and voluntary association of like-minded people and a so-called "safe space", which uses a pretext of "victimization" to capriciously thought control others who simply committed the offense of disagreeing or criticizing. If you hate Christianity, why would you go to this school? If you aren't willing to follow behavioral rules, why would you go to this school? If you think ph…

The real question is how could such a university like OKWU get and keep accreditation with this kind of regime? OKWU is essentially a religious commune masquerading as a university.

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#478

Post by dsr_ » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

jccc wrote: post #419

joeclark77 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't contain the word "Creationism". The word "Creation" simply means "the universe", i.e. that which is created.

Fair enough. What then does "Integration of the Biblical Principles into life sciences" mean?

It means that science will be interpreted to support the current religious-political conclusions of the administration.

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#479

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #449

cthalupa wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a logical fallacy that is unfortunately rampant on here. It's an ad hominem - the source may be a bunch of shitty people, but if we're arguing that we shouldn't accept something, attack the actual content of the message. It's generally quite easy to do so when the source of information is biased, so dismantle the message if you want to argue about how it's incorrect. It looks like these numbers posted were ve…

It's not entirely an ad hominem. The original claim contains an implicit appeal to authority in citing the link to the blog. Saying that the authority cited is not actually a valid authority (due to a known bias) is not quite the same as ad hominem. We resort to reputation to calibrate the burden of proof. If the source cited is not a valid authority, that doesn't make them wrong, but it does make it harder for them…

I'm not appealing to authority at all. The article reproduces verbatim a table from the DOJ, then does multiplication.

I reproduced the multiplication myself, since so many people seem to think the white supremacists can't multiply.

Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

#480

Post by intortus » Tue, Dec 01, 2015, 5:07 PM UTC

nightspirit wrote: post #475

intortus wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Safe-spaces", on the other hand, are cudgels of fear, handed to anyone claiming "victimization" to be capriciously used against people with whom they simply disagree and want to shut up. Oh please. Now who's fear-cudgeling whom? You're being extremely melodramatic in reaction to a questionable anecdote.

"Safe-spaces" are practical application of the principle, accidentally unearthed by xyz-equality movements of the 20th century, that people generally don't like hurting others and hence you can control them by appearing to be hurt, whether you are or not. People modeling victim behaviors to remove everything that causes them discomfort aren't something to be afraid of, but also their cries for attention aren't someth…

This dismissive explanation doesn't account for why stories like this are so attractive to the population of sites like this. It's like people are getting off on superficially demonstrating how emotionally robust they are (I'm not convinced).