In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas • Hacker News Board

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#71

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #39

eigenvector wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who graduated from university in the last few years and has observed the drastic and gaping difference between school and workplace environment, people adapt to their new circumstances pretty quickly. Keep in mind that 99% of the "trigger warning" generation is just following along with what is presented to them in university as unassailable orthodoxy. When they get to the workplace and are presented with…

Don't worry. The coddled masses are slowly changing workplace culture to suit them...at least up until the point it affects a business' bottom line. I feel like we're approaching some sort of new, self-imposed dark age.

>I feel like we're approaching some sort of new, self-imposed dark age.

What's the statistical rate at which incitements to moral panic turn out to have been correct?

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#72

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:35 PM UTC

ObviousScience wrote: post #65

oulipo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it is the problem of a culture treating children particularly -- I think it has much more to do with the fact that: - in America you can sue someone for almost anything - universities in the US made students pay so much for their educations, that basically they got fucked up because students now ask to be the boss since Universities would be at a loss without them, so they must comply to their every dema…

Then why did several examples come from UK universities?

UK universities have been transformed into businesses just as aggressively as American ones.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#73

Post by lnanek2 » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:36 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #28

logn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link, I think the author nailed it. The fear is that the current leftist ideas are tomorrow's mainstream ideas and tomorrow's left will be more extreme. The reality is that tomorrow's left will have opinions like the NYT writer. You can see the inverse of this on the right, too: Rand Paul has surpassed Sarah Palin; Alex Jones surpassed Glenn Beck. Edit to add: So the progression of political trends isn't li…

Yup! That idea gives me hope that we are not in an inexorable decline of intellectual thought. Fashions, including intellectual ones, are both faster to appear and slower lived than actual ideological shifts. I think it's telling that while political and ideological fashions fall in and out of favor, actual policies tend to progress towards effectiveness.

What makes you think polices get more effective? The F-35 is a laughing stock. Surely most effective wouldn't be an overbudget, past deadline, aircraft with a host of problems. Surely most effective would mean avoiding things like that with government purchases.

Taxes get more complicated every year. I have a whole extra set of documents and fines to deal with because no health insurance is punished now, for example. Surely more effective would be least overhead to do taxes possible and least burden on the poor people without insurance.

The goal of many politicians is to increase pork barrel spending in their state, so it isn't like they are even trying to be effective for many policies, just to try to wrest the most money and support from the others. So if you mean most effective at making deals with businesses, maybe you are correct.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#74

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #57

logn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link, I think the author nailed it. The fear is that the current leftist ideas are tomorrow's mainstream ideas and tomorrow's left will be more extreme. The reality is that tomorrow's left will have opinions like the NYT writer. You can see the inverse of this on the right, too: Rand Paul has surpassed Sarah Palin; Alex Jones surpassed Glenn Beck. Edit to add: So the progression of political trends isn't li…

> The fear is that the current leftist ideas are tomorrow's mainstream ideas and tomorrow's left will be more extreme. I see a lot of evidence on the right but not much on the left. E.g. The people saying they support gays but are against gay marriage are the same ones helping African governments pass laws enacting the death penalty for homosexuality. But I don't really see any evidence that, say, what the folks lobb…

Also, if the Left always gets more left-wing over time, while the mainstream always moves leftward, leaving nobody but a lone batch of online hyper-reactionaries defending decency and normality, where's my Communism? Worker-owned cooperatives? Commons trusts? Basic income? Only the last of those is even under the remotest mainstream consideration!

And how is it that we've got the most hegemonically capitalist system the world has ever seen, with self-professed right-wing nationalists or cultural conservatives running most of the planet's governments, and I hear that what we really need to worry about is college students being dirty hippies? After all, college students have always been dirty hippies, and the world has yet to die of it -- unlike, say, global warming.

Tempest in a teapot !

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#75

Post by facepalm » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

isthisacult2 wrote: post #48

>>>Safe spaces are an expression of the conviction, increasingly prevalent among college students, that their schools should keep them from being “bombarded” by discomfiting or distressing viewpoints. Think of the safe space as the live-action version of the better-known trigger warning, a notice put on top of a syllabus or an assigned reading to alert students to the presence of potentially disturbing material. The…

What do you mean by safe space? I think traditionally people just formed meeting groups of like minded people? But does every opinion or interest need it's own fluffy room with puppies? I think not. It certainly wouldn't be practical, especially if you want to account for possibly infinite new interests and ideas that might emerge over time - so you would need thousands or even millions of safe rooms for all variations of interests.

Typically people also have a home which should be a safe space for whatever they want to do/be, and also of course their mind, in which they are free to think whatever they wish.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#76

Post by twoodfin » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:43 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #68

fennecfoxen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people saying they support gays but are against gay marriage are the same ones helping African governments pass laws enacting the death penalty for homosexuality. I'm curious what this alleged political process actually looks like -- are people writing checks to re-elect Robert Mugabe? -- and the extent to which "people saying they support gays [etc]" here in America actually are participate in that sort of pro…

> are people writing checks to re-elect Robert Mugabe? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-peron/whos-helping-finan... > Also, way to go easy on the left. I mean if you actually read DailyKos or whatever it's clear that a lot of the people there are batshit crazy. But as far as I can tell it's one level of crazy, I'm sure there are exceptions but for the vast majority of people I don't think it goes 10 levels deep. W…

Whereas on the right it seems to be the rule that when people are fighting against the public option for healthcare what really want is to genocide minorities, rather than the exception.

I think you've been reading too much Daily Kos if you think it's an exceptional right-winger who doesn't want to genocide minorities.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#77

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:51 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#78

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:53 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #68

fennecfoxen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people saying they support gays but are against gay marriage are the same ones helping African governments pass laws enacting the death penalty for homosexuality. I'm curious what this alleged political process actually looks like -- are people writing checks to re-elect Robert Mugabe? -- and the extent to which "people saying they support gays [etc]" here in America actually are participate in that sort of pro…

> are people writing checks to re-elect Robert Mugabe? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-peron/whos-helping-finan... > Also, way to go easy on the left. I mean if you actually read DailyKos or whatever it's clear that a lot of the people there are batshit crazy. But as far as I can tell it's one level of crazy, I'm sure there are exceptions but for the vast majority of people I don't think it goes 10 levels deep. W…

>I mean if you actually read DailyKos or whatever it's clear that a lot of the people there are batshit crazy. But as far as I can tell it's one level of crazy, I'm sure there are exceptions but for the vast majority of people I don't think it goes 10 levels deep. Whereas on the right it seems to be the rule that when people are fighting against the public option for healthcare what really want is to genocide minorities, rather than the exception.

I don't think comparing crazy blog commentators is a fair standard for either side. I'm going to come up with something I think is a bit more fair: compare the intellectual component of each side.

* Left intellectuals (ie: writers at the Guardian, Jacobin, etc.): tendency towards hero-villain thinking in domestic policy/class struggle, a tendency to apologize for violent regimes that purported to be engaged in class struggle. Occasional cultural silliness, and fairly commonly prone to apologia for anything a perceived "underdog" does whatsoever. Otherwise, generally quite cogent and able to come up with extensive critiques of the status quo and platforms of action.

* Right intellectuals (ie: the National Interest, The Economist): tendency towards hero-villain thinking in foreign policy, leading to support for violent regimes purporting to "keep the damn dirty Leftists out". Large amounts of cultural silliness, especially prone to believing that hierarchies of authority just are morality, especially prone to tribalism and a bizarre fixation on people's recreational proclivities, especially sexual ones. Often cogent, but not actually consistent in platforms and critiques: usually more focused on rationalizing the existence and actions of some power-hierarchy to which the intellectual is loyal than with establishing any universal moral principle at all (other than hierarchy itself).

It's pretty damn clear which side I'm on, but I also can't think of any facts I've neglected at the moment. Worldwide, the separation between Left and Right seems to really be about principles versus hierarchy.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#79

Post by Alex3917 » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:54 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #76

Alex3917 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are people writing checks to re-elect Robert Mugabe? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-peron/whos-helping-finan... > Also, way to go easy on the left. I mean if you actually read DailyKos or whatever it's clear that a lot of the people there are batshit crazy. But as far as I can tell it's one level of crazy, I'm sure there are exceptions but for the vast majority of people I don't think it goes 10 levels deep. W…

Whereas on the right it seems to be the rule that when people are fighting against the public option for healthcare what really want is to genocide minorities, rather than the exception. I think you've been reading too much Daily Kos if you think it's an exceptional right-winger who doesn't want to genocide minorities.

> I think you've been reading too much Daily Kos if you think it's an exceptional right-winger who doesn't want to genocide minorities.

I mean you could just watch Fox news or whatever and see what they say they want in their own words. It's largely not social liberals who are supporting the war on drugs, war in the middle east, privatized healthcare/water/education, climate change denial, etc.

Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

#80

Post by fennecfoxen » Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 1:54 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #68

fennecfoxen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people saying they support gays but are against gay marriage are the same ones helping African governments pass laws enacting the death penalty for homosexuality. I'm curious what this alleged political process actually looks like -- are people writing checks to re-elect Robert Mugabe? -- and the extent to which "people saying they support gays [etc]" here in America actually are participate in that sort of pro…

> are people writing checks to re-elect Robert Mugabe? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-peron/whos-helping-finan... > Also, way to go easy on the left. I mean if you actually read DailyKos or whatever it's clear that a lot of the people there are batshit crazy. But as far as I can tell it's one level of crazy, I'm sure there are exceptions but for the vast majority of people I don't think it goes 10 levels deep. W…

According to this piece:

(a) Miscellaneous fundamentalist elements of the Christian right who clearly don't support gays have been doing miscellaneous agitation through their missionary arms; African churches have been lobbied (in the passive voice) "to drop ties with mainstream Christian groups." I'm not sure who these shadowy figures are, but it sounds like they're not mainstream.

(b) Everyone is helping support the death penalty for gay people because the Obama administration gave the Museveni regime cash and military aid.

This situation seems problematic. However, notably absent is commentary about people who "say they support gays but are against gay marriage" lending any form of material support through their actions. Is it possible you have conflated several of your political enemies? It's an easy mistake to make, we pretty much all do it from time to time...