The latest manifestation of the conservative targetting of academia is the Professor Watchlist, created by the "activist organization" Turning Point USA, founded by rising star Charlie Kirk. It's stated purpose is to "watch" professors "who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom"
Of course, this is not new. David Horowitz has written a book called The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America . HeterodoxAcademy.org has rational articles discussing the liberal slant to modern college campuses. Nicholas Kristoff writes an interesting piece on the same topic. However, with the election of President Trump, the stakes may have been raised. A professor in California has gone incognitio after criticizing Trump in the classroom and receiving death threats.
But more important is how the attempt to blacklist liberal academics has actually backfired. George Yancy [not the George Yancey from the Kristoff piece above] published a response, "I Am a Dangerous Professor" in the New York Times, and since then it seems to have become de rigueur for all academics to get their name on the Professor Watchlist in order to cement their tenure. An entire hashtag on Twitter has taken form: #trollprofwatchlist! People have taken to mocking the list by suggesting candidates such as Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, and Jesus, not to mention Socrates, who obviously belongs.
Charlie Kirk may not be dangerous, but he did start this list. I am watching him now.
[Editor note - This story was substantially rewritten for balance. As always, the original submission is available at the link below.]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:46PM
This backlash from the "anti-left" didn't come out of nowhere.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:12PM
So I trust you won't complain when the inevitable anti-anti-left backlash commences?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:34PM
Context matters. I (not same AC) would not complain if the backlash consists of a moderate response in which people who object to this list explain why and how the concerns outlined are not truthful or the reaction is not reasonable.
However, both me and you know that the response will be is to liberally (no pun intended) mis-interpret all of their actions as racist/sexist/homophobe/whatever based on the most contrived "evidence", while dissmissing their points without addressing them.
Not all protests are equal.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:59PM
But what about the big, swinging pendulum?
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:19PM
It's not swinging freely. I put drawers on because it's Balls Cold outside today.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:08PM
However, both me and you know that the response will be is to liberally (no pun intended) mis-interpret all of their actions as racist/sexist/homophobe/whatever based on the most contrived "evidence", while dissmissing their points without addressing them.
So basically you require that "the left" to go high in response to "the right" going low.
Funny, I don't see your argument as a condemnation of "the left," at all.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:12PM
This is a natural and one of the few good parts of American society. A minority of one side or the other of the political spectrum goes full on bat-shit psycho radical, meets a backlash and we end up in a nice "real" medium.
Before the SJW insanity conservatives had dibs on being the morality police under the auspices of the "Moral Majority." Ironically they and the SJW types use the exact same sort of emotional catch as well. When anybody challenged the Moral Majority they called into question their character. Instead of calling them a racist or sexist or whatever else, they'd call them a pervert or a deviant. Critique the extremes of SJW land and you get called a sexist, racist, or various other ad hominem slurs that really have nothing to do with what's being discussed - but are used to conveniently dismiss otherwise valid issues.
Most people who think they're the moral crusaders of today just don't have the life experience to recall the Moral Majority and so the cycle repeats itself. Much as the conservatives who will become the new force in America won't have the life experience to recall the Moral Majority and avoid falling into the same extremes they did, nor will the far left liberals who will eventually replace this new conservative group remember the SJWs, and so on. It's just a vicious cycle of ignorance because nobody learns from what's happened before time and time again.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:03PM
+50 insightful
Yes, that so-called "moral majority" were some real sons-of-bitches. I hated them just as passionately as I hate today's SJW's. And, again, we see that today's left authoritarians are simply a remake of yesterday's right authoritarians. The message is exactly the same: FEAR MUh AUTHORITY!!! SUBMIT!!! If either the lefts or the rights ever really took control of this country, we would be indistinguishable from Islam. Maybe a few cosmetic differences, but it would authoritarianism, all the same.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:21PM
If either the lefts or the rights ever really took control of this country/quote.
Phew, good thing there's no chance of that happening any time soon, eh?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:14AM
I said this before here only and I will say it again - we need to divorce the words "liberal" and "left", and marry the words "conservative" and "power". Whoever is in power is conservative and gets the right to question other people's character, intention and to pass judgement without needing to provide a proof. Whoever wants to have more wiggle room is liberal. Left is the true conservative here and what we are seeing is that huge pendulum swing just starting to happen.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:55PM
Yeah, it came out of the hard right being ignorant shitbags who can't stand actual learning, just like they've always been.
The honest to god truth is you goddamn idiots will never learn your lesson until your subject to the kind of hate and violence you regularly subject harmless people to. It's a lesson you're going to have to learn every few generations until it really fucking sticks.
Make nazis bleed again.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:07PM
Wow, just wow. I guess there is some truth to Nietzsche's words after all, those who fight monsters might just end up becoming the monsters themselves.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:52PM
If the boundary on being a monster is hurting a few nazis, I'm willing to be a monster.
But come on, they're nazis
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:07PM
Stare into the abyss, and I'll be staring back at you.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:16PM
Well, now I'm scared. I mean, having the abyss stare back at me I might handle. But having Runaway1956 stare back at me from within the abyss? ;-)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:27PM
Runaway1956 as the bottomless pit of all evil. It all makes sense now.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:00PM
Don't confuse me with either of the Clintons.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:05PM
From Arkansas, they're all the same!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:30PM
So you're saying that Nationalism is bad? That makes you a globalist. Look around at a possible WW3 within reach. Yes, globalism is bad, it is unnatural and it does not work. The best thing about being a Jew is that you get goy to fight and destroy each other. And the Jew happily takes it all.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:56PM
I don't much care about your opinion; you're a nazi so fuck you. But I do wonder what people like Jmorris think when they see posts like this.
Elsewhere in this discussion he's saying that people are crying wolf about calling people nazis, and yet the boring old anti-semitism that defined the worst of the Nazi party is everywhere with even a casual glance. Does he look at that and say "Well that's not me so obviously it has nothing to do with this?" Or does he write it off as trolling(I mean, honestly who can tell or care at this point)? Do his eyes just roll right off the words?
How do people see that this stuff is appearing everywhere and go "Yep, the problem is definetly still calling people nazis unfairly"? Call it a curiosity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:42PM
But I do wonder what people like Jmorris think when they see posts like this.
I imagine the same thing as myself - "Really Ethanol? Try harder".
Elsewhere in this discussion he's saying that people are crying wolf about calling people nazis, and yet the boring old anti-semitism that defined the worst of the Nazi party is everywhere with even a casual glance. Does he look at that and say "Well that's not me so obviously it has nothing to do with this?" Or does he write it off as trolling(I mean, honestly who can tell or care at this point)? Do his eyes just roll right off the words?
Obviously neo nazis still exist and I don't think anyone would contest that. The problem most people have is when people are labelled as nazi when they obviously aren't, or when the evidence is not enough to clearly determine it.
Calling someone a nazi is a heavy allegation, it should not be thrown lightly.
How do people see that this stuff is appearing everywhere and go "Yep, the problem is definetly still calling people nazis unfairly"?
I doubt anyone here would object to classifying this particular comment as nazi sentiment.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:47PM
I think more people are unreasonably defended as "not 100%-sure, for-certain a nazi" when they are, than called a nazi when they're not.
At a certain point militaristic, cult-of-personality ethnonationalism looks like a duck, sig hiels like a duck, and walks like a goose regardless of whether they're actively matching every tenet of national socialism perfectly.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:53PM
uh, yeah, except anyone and everyone who simply disagrees with your diagnosis and prescription are 'nazis', the word has NO MEANING in the manner you use it...
i -an anarchist of no particular flavor- am a nazi, calling out zionists makes you a nazi, saying mean things about anyone (oh, except for -you know- nazis) makes you a nazi...
nazis abound in your eensy-weensy, teeny-tiny proscribed worldview...
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:04PM
Oh, bullshit, just the stupid-ass ethnonationalists who identify strongly with authoritarian ideologies all are.
The problem is that shouldn't be a lot of people, but it is. You're taking Godwin's law and using it to ignore that they're here, they're getting a lot of power, and doing shitty things with it.
As far as Zionism goes, it's about half and half people who genuinely care about a government receiving financial and military support from the US while remaining one of the latest remaining apartheid states in the world, and people who use that as a code-word for anti-Semitic ideas that tend to center on conspiracies about how "The Zionists" just happen to control everything. I can be a member of the former group and recognize the reality of the latter. I know I've been called anti-Semitic because of that, but you know what? I understand those charges and how it relates to the shitty people out there who are saying shitty things. I don't go out of my way to resent people who are concerned about it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @01:46PM
"Nazi" is not, and was not, an absolute. Using it as such is dangerous, too. It lulls people into thinking that they're not absolutely evil, so they couldn't possibly be called a nazi justly. They are just a little evil, so calling them a nazi is just hurtful hyperbole. Fascism in the Third Reich reached the extremes it did because people kept making those same little rationalizations.
We know that not even the guys tasked with carrying out the attrocities, the Einsatzgruppen, were absolutely evil. Their incidence of suicide, heavy drinking, mental breakdowns, and the like were so high Berlin kept trying to come up with ways to shield them from the psychological effects of what they were doing. That wouldn't have been the case if those guys didn't feel guilt for what they were doing.
The point is it's a lot easier for a society and individuals to cross the line into evil than most people now think it is. It is best to be vigilant, but also to call out people precisely on what they've done so that you don't rob more extreme labels of their meaning. If somebody does something foolish, call them a fool. If he kills a man in cold blood, call him a murderer. If he steals, a thief. If he expresses hatred or contempt for an ethnicity, a bigot. Save "nazi" for the people who want to round others up and march them into gas chambers, but also don't be afraid to level that charge when they purpose exactly that.
Soylent has a few bigots and some fools, but we also have a couple of real nazis.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:06PM
"the hard right being ignorant shitbags who can't stand actual learning"
Yeah - that's why all STEM research in this country comes out of liberal arts schools, like UCLA, right? Basketweaving courses and black history, and feminist agendas all contribute heavily to real science. Well, maybe they would if we were to redefine science.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:24PM
Yes, the overwhelming majority [people-press.org] of "actual scientists" (using whatever filter you feel like applying to make it "real" enough) doing real research are also incredibly left leaning.
You can continue to imagine a world where you're not completely full of shit, but... there's no factual basis for your beliefs.
And I'm glad you could show off how whiningly anti-intellectual you are is with your unprovoked hatred of an uncommon art class almost no one actually takes. Raise your hand if you think user Runaway1956 could assemble a wicker basket if sat in a room full of straw and sticks, and a whole day of free time. I sure don't.
"PEOPLE SHOULDN'T STUDY ART" screams the dimwitted boomer robot, "IT SERVES NO LOGICAL FUNCTION" beep boop. Go fuck your self, you complete moron.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:48PM
"Raise your hand if you think user Runaway1956 could assemble a wicker basket if sat in a room full of straw and sticks, and a whole day of free time. I sure don't."
How sad. My basket wouldn't be of the same quality as people who make them all the time - but I could produce a basket good enough to carry eggs in. If you want to carry grain, like wheat, you'll have to give a couple practice runs. WIcker baskets aren't complicated, after all.
Studying art? Hey, that's fine - study all you want. Just don't try to tell us that art is science.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:12PM
Who the fuck mods this shit insightful?
No, you goddamn manchild, I'm not a fucking artist, I do the same programming work you delusionally think makes you good at science.
"You think X has value? You must be X" is the most childish thing that only conservatives ever do. It's like the idiots who think I'm a woman because I'm a feminist, it's so intellectually vacant and unthinking I cannot imagine how you function in life.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:35PM
"You think X has value? You must be X" is the most childish thing that only conservatives ever do.
Let's look at the money quote again.
Studying art? Hey, that's fine - study all you want. Just don't try to tell us that art is science.
Runaway doesn't assume that you're an artist, much less assume that you're an artist because you sort of defended art.
If only straw man building was the most childish thing the new puritans do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:59PM
Ah, the foul odor of ad hominem - a pile of fecal matter on the floor. Perhaps you have lost yours, ikanreed? Here, have it back, along with a downmod!
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:54PM
Yay, babies first misapplication of a logical fallacy. You win the prize. The prize is smug condescension.
An ad hominenem, you dimwitted vagrant, is to deduce, from the qualitative or quantitative nature of the person making an argument, the factual validity of that argument. You utterly childish buffoon.
To inject asides, whether due or not, about how their argument reflects on their character, is not, in fact fallacious, and, indeed, you backwards bugbear from nowhere, if such a statement is follows from preceding statements, it's literally the opposite of fallacious: logically valid. You trifling thespian playing a logician
Is it okay to condemn Runaway1956 as a manchild for being dismissive of art and intellectualism that he doesn't personally consider valid for reasons, that are, at best, specious? It's definetly impolite, but I'd argue pretty due for being such a piece of shit.
Is it an ad hominem? No, stop learning cargo cult argumentation from the internet. Learn the details, you mugginly sapfool
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:37PM
I just don't understand the hatred. I've not badmouthed art. I've simply established that art and science are not the same thing. I have a prized painting. A woman in Corea, Maine painted it. It's of her granddaughter, showing off her new easter hat. The painting focuses on the straw hat, and only the lower half of the girl's face is visible. Jo wanted to give me a painting, and she pointed to dozens of paintings, told me to take the one I liked best. All of them were nice, all of them were attractive in one way or another. Sea scenes, beach scenes, meadows, children at play, downtown busy work, all sorts of subjects. That one painting, of her granddaughter, caught my eye. A demure little girl, tipping her head down, so that you could see the artwork in her new straw hat. To me, that was art, and I asked for that painting, ahead of other, more elaborate art. Art is good. But, Jo wasn't a scientist. Art is not science.
Oh my - I hope I haven't shocked anyone with the fact that I have met real artists in my life.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 21 2016, @12:06AM
You're right, inasmuch as I was putting you into a box that I should have known didn't really describe you based on what you said.
On the other hand, you're sneering disdain for non-STEM teachers was... pretty much out of left field and I still feel like everything I said about you came from a fair and reasoned place given that context.
You listed an arbitrary field of study, something that's not studied at college at all, and a minor elective art classes as the sole home for left-leaning thought in universities in a tone that implied your contempt(as if STEM was the only thing worthy of study and capable of real insight), and now, you're understandably hurt that I think so strongly that attitude reflects a certain class of anti-intellectualism.
So I know I'm supposed to act like it was okay to call you a manchild for you views, because defending what I've already said to the death is how internet arguments are supposed to work, and I know I went too far in impugning your character so directly. Sorry.
But dude, you were saying you think studying art is okay, when you pretty clearly implied you didn't think it isn't. That's not a contradiction I think you should let slide in your own belief system. Think about why you think, that of all people, only some arbitrary subset of scientists should be allowed political viewpoints informed by their expertise. And how that ties into the factually incorrect assumptions you made about the beliefs of those scientists. I think you've got some serious anti-intellectualism mixed into that.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @12:30AM
The problem is, the left is claiming that xx% of scientists are left wing, democrat, blah blah blah - and then they want to rewrite the definitions of science.
Of course those scientists who are getting grants from the US/UN/UK/other sources are going to speak out in favor of global warming theories. But then, every technician associated with that scientist's research and labs is promoted to scientist as well. Well, of course they all agree with the professor - publicly at least.
Professor watch list. We should have had a professor watch list decades ago. And we should have been watching the colleges and universities themselves. As evidence, I point to the surplus of "college educated" people who can't find a job today. People with degrees in black history, woman's history, and various almost useless degrees. Our liberal leaning colleges are failing us.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:26AM
Come on man, I linked my Pew study way back at the beginning. There's no definition fiddlyness at all. Research scientists are left leaning. In every field.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:34AM
I have two things to add here :- science begets multiculturalism and anti-establishment, and republicans are puritanical pro-christian anti-immigrant. And this has been so for so long that scientists have become democrat leaning. The use of word 'left' to describe liberal is an age old tactic of politics. Not to mention that there are multiple points of disagreement between different scientists who all call themselves liberal which such surveys purposefully reflect.
Second thing is that scientists in other countries don't reflect the same zeitgeist as american/european academia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @07:59PM
My dad could have done it. He got his PhD in microbiology.
He's super-conservative, though not a Bible thumper: wants more nukes, attended tea party events, thinks Obama is the worst post-WWII president, owns 15 guns, hates abortion, opposes same-sex marriage, wants lower taxes, wants welfare gone, supported Goldwater for president, liked Nixon, wants active searching for illegal aliens and fast deportation, opposes affirmative action, avoided living in or downwind of places that the USSR might nuke, stocked up on disaster food, stayed with one wife, owned houses, good credit score, does preventative car maintenance, etc.
He went into the food industry. This fits a conservative: It's steady work. It's productive. The pay is reliable. There is no screwing around with post-doctoral busywork, in poverty, hoping that just maybe a professor position might open up. There is no gambling on tenure. You just take a job and get paid to do useful stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:55PM
Not so fast.
The vast majority of social scientists are left-leaning. Arts professors and their fellows, likewise.
Professional courses do not follow the same pattern. If you want to find a libertarian, or a conservative globalist, or an evangelical christian? Your best bet is to poke around the back alleys of engineering, legal or medical departments.
And the one discipline with the widest, most balanced range? Economics.
But please, do go on patting yourself on the back about how smart people are totally in agreement about how to run society. It makes it easy to find brainwashed droids.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:02PM
Please do continue to share your hypothetical anecdotes with me when the link I shared was quite explicit about the kinds of science (and engineering) studied by the surveyed people. Smart people don't become conservatives for the most part, and when they do, I've noticed(*gasp*, I'm able to use unsubstantiated anecdotes too) a strong tendency for that conservatism to be tempered with respect to their own area of expertise.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:55PM
Yes, the overwhelming majority of "actual scientists" (using whatever filter you feel like applying to make it "real" enough) doing real research are also incredibly left leaning.
Let's apply the filter of petroleum and chemical engineers. Burn.
This ideological bias can be completely explained by self-interest. It doesn't take a PhD to figure out which side your bread is buttered on.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:50PM
Uh, still no when it comes to the people doing actual research, but feel free to say "Burn". Turns out when you have a useful science PhD, you're typically a rare commodity that you don't feel compelled to follow the implied ideology of your employers. Research engineering is still 51% liberal to 20% conservative.
Your beliefs are based on non-reality. There's no science field dominated by right-leaning researchers. None. If you isolated your population down to Liberty University, you'd get a right-leaning group.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:59PM
Turns out when you have a useful science PhD, you're typically a rare commodity that you don't feel compelled to follow the implied ideology of your employers.
It's just a curious coincidence that they have the ideology that happens to benefit them the most?
Research engineering is still 51% liberal to 20% conservative.
Where did that come from? The Pew survey didn't cover that group.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:14PM
Its telling that you interpret their beliefs as directly related to their "bread butter". A very typical conservative approach, self centered and ignorant.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:03PM
Its telling that you interpret their beliefs as directly related to their "bread butter".
It's true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:16AM
Uh huh sure buddy. You really are in some little universe to yourself. I don't doubt that it does happen, just like you shouldn't doubt that the same thing happens with private industry scientists. Except that the private industry scientists are under an even bigger "bread and butter" conflict of interest. Boss says make it read favorably, scientist obliges by stretching his scientific integrity to personal limits.
I 100% disagree that a relevant majority of scientists are under such influence, and the primary negative influence comes from the industries themselves.
But seeing your general post history I'd wager your pro-industry and against government funded research. The problem is industry has a financial motive for research to have favorable outcomes for their products / activities. The democratic party has nothing to gain from pro-climate change research, aside from your theory that they are some evil cabal making people afraid of pollution so that some oil barons have to jump through regulation hoops and do things the "hard" way.
Your theory just doesn't make sense, except as a false flag type argument to keep the conversation away from the real problem with current scientific research. Industry funded research is basically propaganda which confuses the less scientifically literate.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:05AM
But seeing your general post history I'd wager your pro-industry and against government funded research. The problem is industry has a financial motive for research to have favorable outcomes for their products / activities.
That's why in a nutshell. Industry needs research that is productive. Government doesn't give a shit as long as the checks get signed by the right people. And what's the better approach for the would-be researcher of dubious competence and diligence? They know how to sign checks so they're going to swing that way. Having to spend a good portion of their working day with grant application theater is just a cost of doing business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:56PM
That's why in a nutshell. Industry needs research that is productive
Even if it is fake research; in fact, especially when it is fake research! This is what happens when you define knowledge in terms of revenue. If they are so rich, why aren't they smart?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:20AM
If they are so rich, why aren't they smart?
That goes for everything else too. If they're so rich, why do they need anyone to clean the toilets?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:14PM
Your beliefs are based on non-reality. There's no science field dominated by right-leaning researchers.
Not quite true! Almost all of the professors of "White Studies" are right-wing nut-jobs. And then there is the David Duke Endowed Chair for the Study of European American Supremacy at the Ku Klux Klan Institute of Post-factual Studies.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:18PM
Wait, you think UCLA isn't crammed full of STEM activity? Go check out this chart: https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingBySource&ds=herd [nsf.gov].
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:26AM
UCLA ranking is 392. Got it. There are 392 educational institutions in the US that invest more into R&D than UCLA does. Obviously, UCLA isn't an MIT, or a Johns Hopkins, now is it? Not even a Penn State. Thank you for helping to make my point, I think.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Thursday December 22 2016, @04:44PM
And your citation? The one I provided of funding from NSF and NIH has UCLA 9th. I suppose we should be grateful the thousands of STEM people aren't aware of your alternate universe.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:48PM
The honest to god truth is you goddamn idiots will never learn your lesson until your subject to the kind of hate and violence you regularly subject harmless people to. It's a lesson you're going to have to learn every few generations until it really fucking sticks.
A good argument for longevity right there. No lesson will last every few generations because everyone who learned the lesson is dead.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:05PM
That's not actually true.
The notion of a democratic republic run for and by the people has become endemic to American society, and it was gradually developed from a weak-sauce British version of the ideology. The failures of fascism didn't stick the same way as the failures of hereditary monarchism did, but you put enough goose-steppers in shallow graves, it will. It might take another cycle of people outgrowing the lessons of last time and dying off or two, but that's no reason not to try.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:11PM
The notion of a democratic republic run for and by the people has become endemic to American society
You can't teach experience. Some things can only be learned by making the same mistakes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:12PM
> This backlash from the "anti-left" didn't come out of nowhere.
Its pretty clear that this "backlash" comes straight out of the right's butthurt of being exposed to smart people who disagree with them.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:09PM
LMAO - plenty of butthurt going around these days. Whose butt was hurting when someone or other went crying to the electoral college? "Oh, we don't like the results of the election, you guys have got to change how business is done around here!"
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:20PM
Well that is a really long stretch. Kinda feels like you are just lumping everything you disagree with together in one boat. Because either they are with you or they are against you and actual ideas don't matter, just tribe.
But since you bought it up... werent you one of those people saying the electoral college is legitimate despite the popular vote because the USA is a representative democracy?
Well, if they are just a bunch of rubberstampers, that's not how a representative democracy works.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:53PM
So, you're saying that O'bummer wasn't legitimately elected? Or Bush? Or Clinton? The same mechanism has been in place for quite a long while now. Although the mechanism has been tweaked a couple of times, the electoral college has existed since our first election. The college votes are assigned according to the rules established in each of their home states. It's how it works. You don't get sent to the college to vote your own likes and dislikes - there are rules to follow. Each electoral vote should be cast according to the rules of the people who sent them there.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:57PM
I'm saying that lobbying a representative in a representative democracy is the way representative democracy is intended to work.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:08PM
So now you are advocating the lobbying of electoral college voter? Look how well that has worked out in congress. Congress no longer represents the American people either.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:30PM
> Lobbying
You are easily triggered by words that confuse you.
Probably because your knowledge of practically everything is so shallow.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:00PM
Before I reply, let me just remind everyone that I've repeatedly argued here that, while I am no Trump supporter, the recent last-ditch effort to try to change the Electoral College outcome was a terrible idea. I still think so, and I think the efforts of the so-called "Hamilton electors" actually went against the spirit of the Founders in trying to collude to ensure a specific outcome (something the Constitution and the Founders explicitly tried to prevent).
However:
So now you are advocating the lobbying of electoral college voter?
I see nothing necessarily wrong with this, particularly in the large proportion of states which do not penalize "unfaithful" electors. Electors were originally specified in the Constitution as representatives of STATES, as you noted. But since around the 1830s, they have almost universally been PARTY-SELECTED state appointees. From my (and the Constitution's) perspective, they are first-and-foremost representatives of states, not parties.
Just to be clear, the way many laws are written is that the ELECTORS are awarded/allocated based on the popular vote outcome in states, not the VOTES of said electors. Traditionally, in most states you'd have a notice on the ballot at the election making clear that you were NOT voting for a candidate, but rather a slate of electors X, Y, and Z who declared support to that party (or something to that effect). Most states have done away with having that information on a ballot (which, from my perspective, is HIGHLY misleading, given who the Constitution clearly vests voting power in).
Anyhow, if a state legislature does not EXPLICITLY bind the votes of its electors (instead merely allocating electors based on the popular vote, as I believe is true of 21 states), I see nothing wrong with people contacting their appointed electoral representatives and making their case.
To my mind, the problematic aspect comes in the way the state governments choose to mislead the public by not putting electors' names on the ballot. If the state government is not going to ensure a vote is cast in a particular way by statute, then they should make clear to voters that their votes are merely cast for another set of voters, who can then make their own choice. The problem in this case isn't with the lobbying, but the misleading way that states now make people think they are actually voting for President, when Constitutionally, they are not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:31PM
So you're promoting a cultural witch hunt lime the McCarthy days? You don't mind constitutional violations as long as its against those filthy liberals? Its interesting to see how quickly conservatives will turn on their own values, or do you only care about the 2nd amendment since that's the one that guarantees your ability to invoke violence?
Keep on "winning" pal, you're doing a great job. Tremendous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:50PM
The edit is not only less ham-fisted, but also, and more importantly, much more readable.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:56PM
but it is not this.
The problem is they are awash in money from student loans.
This has caused gamour colleges with more interest in providing a great experience than an education leading to a productive life.
The better colleges still offer a great education, but this requires that the student be interested.
Instead of focusing on a conservative or liberal agenda, perhaps a college should spend it's extra cpu cycles getting students interested in something more practical?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:20PM
There can be more than one problem with something. With colleges today there most certainly is.
They were disgustingly left of center when I went to school, which is partly why I dropped out and taught myself what I wanted to know; the other part being they taught too slow but still required attendance and my ADHD simply could not abide that. Today they are so far off the scale that the scale no longer means anything to their insane positions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:34PM
Shame they didn't offer you a safe space back then.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:37PM
It's a safe bet that nobody on this site is interested in having a "safe space". Just saying...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:39PM
What do you mean? SoylentNews is the Mighty Buzzard's safe place!!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:12PM
Yeah, you lot should probably start saying something when you disagree with me instead of being all polite and restraining yourselves.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:31PM
So you're saying we should be nasty dicks who quit school because there no safe spaces for non liberals? Yea, you can go shove that pussy shit right up your ass. Grow a pair for christs sake.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:41AM
No, I'm saying colleges aren't worth the money outside a very few specialized careers. The liberal bullshit is just that, bullshit. Unless you're gardening, bullshit is not a valuable commodity. Universities are selling very, very little that's actually worthwhile nowadays.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:05PM
I don't know about that. It's worth something to have drunk in the span of the Western tradition, pored over its fine details, and see its effects played out in the world all around us. Without that the doubt that others know more than I do, or have some special knowledge I don't have, would blunt my edge.
I would say I didn't get that value from undergrad, though, having had to drink from the firehose in grad school with real professors, not teaching assistants, to get there, and it was not worth what they charged. But it was not bullshit, and not without any value.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Touché) by gauauu on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:40PM
the other part being they taught too slow but still required attendance
Using "they" as a universal complaint about colleges isn't fair here. Some colleges/programs/classes require attendance. Some don't. Attendance wasn't required in most of my university classes (I had a few classes that I skipped for months in a row, preferring to learn the material from other sources).
Today they are so far off the scale that the scale no longer means anything to their insane positions.
Are you associated with a college today, or are you making this based on what the media has reported to you? As an employee of a large state university, in a liberal town, I'd say: my university is a giant mix of things. Mostly liberal-leaning. But not entirely. And not "so far off the scale". Even our recent well-loved University President is a conservative Christian pig farmer. You're making a big blanket statement that isn't universally accurate, from my experience.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:38PM
I'm basing that on what the students and faculty have to say about themselves as well as the insane percentage of higher learning professors who self-identify as liberal or progressive. This is the only remotely political news site I frequent, so it has to have expanded well beyond anyone's narrative to even reach my notice.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:47PM
still required attendance
It disgusts me when I hear of colleges that require attendance for lectures.
How can an institution promote learning when they treat adults like irresponsible children who have no ownership over their education? Of course, promoting learning is not what brings in money.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:45PM
What are you talking about? If they don't require attendance, that would increase profit margins as they'd be able to cut down on the in person student services and there'd be less need for things like parking.
But, by the same token, you're talking about students that are coming in from the K-12 system typically and are needing to take breadth requirement classes so that the school isn't turning out people that are completely unqualified for anything. We've got enough dumbasses out there with college degrees, but no actual history of thinking as it is.
But, as far as attendance goes, that's mostly shitty colleges that do that, I'm not aware of any colleges in this part of the country that force people to come in other than on days with exams or projects due.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:19PM
Today they are so far off the scale
I like my "cultural escape velocity" idea / meme. Once any subgroup accelerates away from the main group fast enough, it keeps on going out into the universe never to return home. That's pretty much where the flakier left wing college stuff is today, so far away from mainstream it can't ever come back.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:35PM
...
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:35PM
They were disgustingly left of center when I went to school, which is partly why I dropped out and taught myself what I wanted to know; the other part being they taught too slow but still required attendance and my ADHD simply could not abide that.
One of those students, eh? This explains so much about the origins of the Might-be-a-Buzz. Remember, real dudes can abide.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:15PM
Was a simple bit of logic:
The comp-sci stuff I can learn quicker myself, so is the non-comp-sci stuff worthwhile enough to justify the time and money it's going to cost me?
No? Don't waste either then.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:10PM
Remember, The Big Lebowski [imdb.com] is fiction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @03:09AM
Because K-12 were decidedly RIGHT OF CENTER when I was in school. (20-30 years ago.)
I finally dropped out of high school 2 years early, then went off to college, where the ineptness, from both liberal and conservative professors made things unbearable, until I got into the bluecollar 'collegized' tradeskill programs, where I didn't fit in socially, but at least the teachers were practical.
Honestly if there was Wikipedia back when I was still in gradeschool I might have turned out quite different. Being able to feed my ADHD by jumping between subjects wasn't nearly as easy back in the days of books, where you might have to jump between dozens of them over the course of a half hour or hour to find further reading on subjects, rather than clicking a nice hypertext link and moving to something a few volumes over from your previous topic in the encyclopedia.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:57PM
The watchlist may be the wrong way to address the problem, but the problem is real: Academia, especially in the US and the UK, is utterly dominated by progrssives and SJWs. Just to take one recent example: Consider the "ze" movement at Oxbridge [thetimes.co.uk]. Microagressions. Safe spaces. Trigger warnings. This kind of stuff would be laughable, if it weren't so pathetic.
So: what is a better solution?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:18PM
> So: what is a better solution?
I dunno. But we could start with no longer blindly repeating fake news that makes us feel righteous.
No, Oxford University isn’t ‘banning’ the use of Mr and Mrs prefixes [thetab.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:11PM
Neither OP nor the Daily Mail article implies words are being "banned" in formal policy. This is a strawman rebuttal.
It advised that while the process of removing gender-specific titles is underway, people should be given the option of appearing without any prefix.
Emphasis mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:53PM
> Neither OP nor the Daily Mail article implies words are being "banned" in formal policy. This is a strawman rebuttal.
Except the "process of removing gender specific titles" is not "underway."
Strawman rebuttal indeed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:18PM
Neither OP nor the Daily Mail article implies words are being "banned" in formal policy
Dude, the word BANNED is literally right there in the title of the Daily Heil article.
Its even in the damn URL:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4043394/First-ze-Mr-Mrs-BANNED-Oxford-University-tells-colleges-remove-gender-specific-titles.html [dailymail.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:42PM
Read the whole thing. Despite the clickbait headline, the actual article doesn't leave that impression.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:54PM
Well, the article may be incorrect, but you can hardly blame anyone for believing it: it was published on numerous reputable sites. Second, this kind of thing has happened [telegraph.co.uk], and undoubtedly will happen again.
"Fake news" - can we drop this term already? I doubt that the Times, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and all the other sites that carried this article did so in some conspiratorial attempt to deceive people. If you read the actual statement by the Student Union, they deny producing such a leaflet, however,
"We believe the resources which are referred to within many of the articles could be support materials used by our student leaders and welfare representatives"
And further
"...the assumptions made may in fact refer to a policy used with the Students’ Union Council, where it is asked (for accessibility and minuting purposes) that everyone who speaks states their name, college and pronouns."
Which is even stupider than "ze" would have been. "Hi, I'm Ralf, College X, my preferred pronoun is 'grhmph'". Stupid, because pronouns are - by definition [dictionary.com] - not individualized words.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:26PM
I doubt that the Times, the Daily Mail ... did so in some conspiratorial attempt to deceive people.
Hahhahhhahhahhahah! hahahhahhahahahhhahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhahhahha!
Hahhahhahahha!
AHAAAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH!!! HAHHHA!
HAHHAHHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.....!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:33PM
> Stupid, because pronouns are - by definition - not individualized words.
Its like you put words together with correct syntax but the actually meaning of the words is beyond your grasp.
I shall now refer to you by the pronoun I prefer for you - zeithead.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:09PM
Stupid, because pronouns are - by definition - not individualized words.
Except they are (to a very limited extent), because English has no gender-neutral pronoun for people, forcing a speaker to choose a gender/sex when making a reference to a person, hence "individualizing" that person if only by gender/sex.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing for an arbitrary proliferation of random new pronouns, but it would be convenient to have a gender-neutral 3rd-person pronoun that we just go along with. Actually, we do have one ("it"), but it's perceived to be insulting if applied to a human.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:15PM
And by the way, I'm not just suggesting this for reasons having to do with transgender people or whatever -- I personally have a number of times made an unintentional faux pas in prose when I assumed the wrong gender based on a name (often an unfamiliar one to me, but from its general sound, I made a mistaken assumption). Luckily I've never actually published something with such an error in it, and nowadays I'm rather careful about such things. If I can't figure out the gender/sex for certain, I often have to resort to linguistic "hoops" to avoid needing a 3rd-person pronoun, which sometimes results in very awkward prose.
This could all be avoided if we just had a gender-neutral pronoun.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:43AM
I am a man who has a thin voice, and I live in a place where my name is frequently considered feminine. You know how many times people start their phone conversation with Madam? Everyday. It hurt me, actually, initially, but it doesn't anymore - because with time I became comfortable with who I am.
You know what's the funniest part? Nowadays people automatically correct themselves after I start speaking!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:14PM
You're not very creative, are you? I'm not either, but I was using "they"/"them" more than twenty years ago when I wanted to avoid specifying a sex.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:21PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:33PM
> Nowadays the new word for it is "fake news" which means "I disagree with the conclusions this writing wants me to hold."
Well, that's the reactionary definition.
The progressive definition of "fake news" is factual incorrectness.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:20PM
The progressive definition of "fake news" is factual incorrectness.
Correct. We've always been at war with Eastasia.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:00PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:46PM
Well, that's the reactionary definition. The progressive definition of "fake news" is factual incorrectness.
I see people of all sides declaring stuff fake simply because they disagree with the author. I see a bunch of people who never went through all the "fact or opinion?" lessons I had to go through in school.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:50PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:56PM
> And then right after I posted this I had an email from someone saying that a particular term is "fake news." How can a term be fake news?
Convenient that you neglected to mention the "term" or the context.
Seems to me you absolutely know your outrage is based on bullshit but can't stand the light of critical scrutiny.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:53PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:46PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @01:56AM
He's right. You are wrong. And that's because, despite your lies, he's talking about the context around the term "election hack." If that phrase had zero contextual meaning then you'd be right. But it is loaded with meaning that refers to the current election and what the russians did with respect to it.
So my question to you - where you deliberately lying and you really knew all this deep inside, or was your post really a confession of your own ignorance?
I'd like it to be the former because that would be proof you actually understood what people were talking about and actively chose to lie in order to persuade. It a shitty way to persuade but at least it means you are operating on the same cognitive level as most of us. But if it is the later, it means you believe your own bullshit and really aren't fit to comment at all. Which would mean that arguing with you is fruitless since these are topics that you will never really grasp. Like square trying to convince the other flatlanders there really are more than 2 dimensions.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:38PM
No, and I haven't stopped beating my wife, either.
I literally don't care if the election was "hacked."
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:09PM
Well, if I saw an article which made prolific use of the terms "thetan" and "Xenu" in a positive / non-ironic context then I could be pretty sure it was an article about how wonderful Scientology is, and so I probably wouldn't want to waste any more of my time on it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:20PM
That's a conceit. There are lots of facts in the world, and cherry-picking those which support your narrative is not the acme of truthfulness, either. The major complaint of those levelling the very double-edged charge of "fake news" is that they cherry-picked other facts that supported a different narrative. They're mad that their scheme to rig the outcome didn't work.
Trying to back-pedal now, to try to redefine what they meant by "fake news" as something legitimate, is transparent and unsupported by research or experience. Humans have always traded in rumor, and claiming that rumor altered the outcome is risible. Reading wild rumors in email chains from my looney tunes relatives did not sway my vote in the 90's, and they have equally negligible impact on my when they're delivered via social media.
It's also profoundly patronizing for the champions of the "fake news" to tsk-tsk, tutt-tutt about the poor little dears, the Independents, who were led astray by said rumors. They are not children, they're not stupid, and they don't need some self-interested sack of pricks to tell them how to think.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:03PM
No, fake news was(and continues to be) absolutely a thing. There's no need to inject opinion into it.
Idiots sharing and resharing their outrage about a protestor being paid to protest Donald Trump that was provably made up just for clicks that massively outperformed real news. Especially on the right wing. The only two groups I see whining about how the backlash against fake news are people who are stuck deep in a false-reality driven bubble and positively insane libertarians who value the right to deceive and see corporations bowing to public pressure as "economic terrorism"
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:52PM
Your precious "real news" stands revealed as utterly untrustworthy. Your precious legacy media have attained single digit trust numbers, comparable to Congress itself. And still you plow on ahead, oblivious to events in the real world, certain of the rightness of your Holy cause and sure that if you and your allies only yell "RACIST!" and "NAZI!" and such a bit louder you can still win.
May you languish in the wilderness for decades like the Conservatives did. They (until recently I counted myself in their number... sadly) too knew they were right and couldn't understand how they kept losing, how the country refused to see the wisdom in their policy prescriptions, how they, the Party of Abraham Lincoln, were now the racists.
I woke up, realized much of what Conservatives accept as absolute Truth is in error and, along with the whole Alt-Right, am embarked on a new journey to figure out what really is true and what is not. But just discarding a few of the stale dogmas of Conservatism inspired the country to not only give Trump a chance, they have given Republicans top to bottom a chance to prove themselves. Which of your most cherished ideas are you yet ready to question? The answer to that question, answered millions of times across the left will decide now long you stay on the outside howling in rage.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:02PM
And the exact unhinged response I was expecting. Lookit that.
You're insane. The fact that the media in general doesn't do a great job doesn't excuse you running off to fringe sites that utterly invent stories. I really do appreciate your motivation for intentionally misinforming yourself, but it doesn't make your worldview any less predicated on outright fabrications. You're full of shit, and the only excuse that your conspiracy-added mind can come up with is "You were unfair calling literal nazis nazis, WAAAH".
Fuck you Jmorris. You are absolutely part of what's destroying the country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:51PM
Found a jew rat.
How many Shekels do you get for your demonic work?
Its either that, or you're too young and naïve to know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:48PM
OK. You go ahead and take that long journey. Just so long as it takes you somewhere that you can't post here.
And my prediction is that buyer's remorse will set in within a year. Remember, you read it here first on SN!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:29PM
jmorris is a guard rail on the bounds of SN discussion. If he goes, then people could sail right over the edge of the cliff.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:54PM
No, fake news was(and continues to be) absolutely a thing.
I can't see where I said otherwise. That doesn't change the fact there are a lot of people crying "fake news" when they disagree with opinions.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:41PM
I acknowledge how I was unfair to your post. I've just already been sick of the level of genuine misinformation permeating society for about the past 3ish years.
I started feeling like conspiracy theorists were winning online spaces towards the beginning of 2014, and it's gotten worse and worse, and the bullshit surrounding the presidential election amplified it to an unreasonable and insane degree.
I know we saw the beginning of it it with 9/11 truthers in 2k4-2k5 and birthers in 2008, but the floodgates for just utter nonsense have really flung open and we get pizzagate, paid protestors bullshit stories, anti-semitic conspiracy theories, invented murder-suicides attached to the email thing, hillary sold weapons to ISIS, Pope Francis endorsing Trump, and so many more (I sincerely tried to look for a left-leaning piece of made up bullshit so I could pretend I'm balanced, and I failed. I know there were a couple)
Regardless of whether people shout it unreasonably to maintain resistance to cognitive dissonance, there's something utterly broken going on here, and it's way worse than it has ever been.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:49PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:56PM
Correct answer. 100%.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:34AM
I sincerely tried to look for a left-leaning piece of made up bullshit so I could pretend I'm balanced, and I failed
That's because you buy into the conspiracies. The Patriarchy. GamerGate. The 23% wage gap. MRAs. Trump. The Pink tax. Untested rape kits.
And of course, the current hot conspiracies: Russian hackers, and fake news.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:39PM
(Score: 4, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:56PM
Just to take one recent example: Consider the "ze" movement at Oxbridge
the [Oxford Students' Union] described the article as "a piece of misinformation" and said no such leaflet existed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-38318986 [bbc.co.uk]
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:57PM
Ding ding ding! The term"SJW" has used rendering the above post null and void. Please try again with a coherent and rational argument.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:23PM
Yeah, I'm starting to feel the same way about "safe spaces" as well. I'm sure the concept is rooted in reality, and maybe some rare people of a radical leaning do try to enforce such things[1] but the idea that everybody who is even vaguely left-of centre is running around shouting "SAFE SPACE SAFE SPACE TRIGGER WORD" at every opportunity in lieu of having a good argument is starting to sound like so much hysterical right-wing deflection/ projection.
[1] I'd also argue that in some contexts a "safe space" might be appropriate - for example a rape counselling centre or something like that. I don't know enough about rape counselling to say for sure, but it doesn't sound unreasonable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:23PM
Ding ding ding! The term"SJW" has used rendering the above post null and void. Please try again with a coherent and rational argument.
The specific wording does not invalidate the validity of a point. Please take your own advise.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:27PM
Fuck off you ignorant fascist cunt. And die in a fire while you're at it. Or gunfire from fellow red-blooded patriots exercising their "rights."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:12PM
You really should stop talking with that strawman of yours. It's not healthy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:30PM
I said fuck off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:53PM
Your reaction does a better job of making his argument than he does. Think about that a while.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:59PM
Why do liberal democracies not create overt watch lists of conservative educators?
It's always the far right that makes lists, it seems, or perhaps its the liberal news media that only promotes the far right's new lists.
Back in college, it was also what the professors told us students happened in the McCarthy era, where people were labeled as communist sympathizers if they didn't donate to a particular campaign, or wore the wrong clothes, and had little to do with communism other than it being an easy label to apply when seeking witches to remove.
Being the nerdy type, I checked out the story and it checks out... unless history was rewritten by the liberals.
Why do people keep using the term SJW? Labeling things like that just invites scorn. It's like an arms race. Certainly the creation of lists of progressive academics to target in order to clean up whatever problem is spouting-- is that not the result of warrior seeking to enforce social justice from his own perspective, or is there better term for the same thing? Does SJW only get applied to ideas one doesn't like?
Maybe a better solution is to stop targeting people that are not being overly harmful in their actions just because its different, and stop making up terms to label them as the enemy, and instead start working to resolve differences or establish a common ground or framework? That is harder, though, and I am no good at it. Compromise is hard, because it means you lose when the other person wins. Fortunately, they often feel the same way, so no one really comes out on top if you have a poor perspective on the process.
It's the true statesman that can make each group feel like winner despite giving something up, but polarization and name calling does not really help achieve that. I haven't seen many win/wins in politics lately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:40PM
I just put Charlie Kirk on my Whippersnapper Watch List.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:49PM
Why do people keep using the term SJW?
Because some astroturfing company hired by the Koch brothers or similar cooked it up and introduced the idea onto the alt-right "grass roots" websites. The idea spreads from there because it is designed to appeal to that demographic.
They invent this phantom bogeyman of a world-controlling conspiracy of "SJWs" and pin all the world's racism and bigotry and injustice on them. Then the people they want to influence can simply label their enemies with that term and no longer need to think of any reasons for their choices or consider any other points of view. For ultimate irony, they then accuse the other side of using derogatory labels to silence their opponents. It also gives all the racists and bigots and promoters of injustice a nice warm glowy feeling because they can now convince themselves that they are no longer the bad guys, and they can say and do and vote racist and bigoted things and not feel guilty about it, in fact, to feel proud for it. They also get to play at being the poor oppressed minority standing up bravely to the Evil Empire.
These terms are ephemeral, they come and go. SJW is about dead now. "Identity politics" is the new one, and now "Safe Spaces". If you watch you can see them come and go in waves - all of a sudden, a term that was used in every other post by every other poster disappears, and in its place a new one appears. It's like watching ideas flow through the Borg mind, except in this case the Borg mind is controlled by a few rich guys and their spin doctors. But whatever the term, it is always an attempt to externalize the self-loathing of the right and pin it on the left like a target, kind of like how repressed gays in denial are drawn to gay-hate organisations.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:36PM
Yeah I'd say that's not far from actual practice, having spent spans of time on Madison Avenue, and also in the presence of the power elites. The power elites are really bad at crafting those, by the way. They're quite tone deaf. They rely on the Madison Avenue guys to compose their messages for them.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:58PM
> stop making up terms to label them as the enemy,
The term SJW isn't about labeling an enemy, its about being able to dismiss ideas without critically evaluating them.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:51PM
Do we really need to evaluate ideas that are so far out of line with reality? At some point it becomes a complete waste of time to evaluate things that are so ridiculous.
If the SJWs want to be taken seriously, it would help immensely if they'd actually know what the fuck they're talking about. You can't negotiate with them, nor is there any basis in reality for their positions. These are not people that simply are advocating for an unpopular position, these are bullies that try to cut off other people's free speech so that they don't have to have their world view challenged.
That's not something that deserves the attention necessary to dispute it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:32PM
If the SJWs want to be taken seriously, it would help immensely if they'd actually know what the fuck they're talking about.
Et tu, Francii!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:02AM
You don't seem to be self-ware enough to realize this, but you just demonstrated the GP's point through your use of circular reasoning about "SJWs." Your declaration that they don't "know what the fuck they are talking about" is literally a dismissal of ideas without analysis or critical argument.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:02PM
Spoken like somebody who doesn't actually know what an SJW is.
You're neglecting the middle here. I've seen the arguments before over and over and over again, precisely how many times do you think I should debunk the same arguments? Precisely how much of my time should I waste on people that are gish galloping? Perhaps I'm that much smarter than you, but it doesn't really take much thought to see the fallacies in these posts. Most of which are effectively copy pasta of other people's poorly thought out and deluded world view.
We don't live in a rape culture, women do not make less than men for the same work, disagreeing with people is not wrong and I have absolutely no responsibility for other people's feelings. Those are just a few of the things that routinely come up from those sorts of posters. Oh, and cultural appropriation. Somehow that's wrong if white people do it, but when other groups do it they're being forced to do it. Never mind that the dominant culture isn't found anywhere else in the world and everybody else had to learn how it works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:05PM
Shut up, Francis!!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:58PM
It's always the far right that makes lists
Eeeh, about that [github.com]...
Why do people keep using the term SJW?
Because regardless of the word used, describing authoritarian cultural marxists will always acquire that connotation since the concept itself describes deplorable behavior. The only way not to have a negative word for SJWs is not to have a word for SJWs.
On the flipside, as a strongly liberal person myself, I've never been called an SJW by American conservatives. Have you ever considered that maybe the smoke is there for a reason?
Certainly the creation of lists of progressive academics to target in order to clean up whatever problem is spouting-- is that not the result of warrior seeking to enforce social justice from his own perspective, or is there better term for the same thing?
No, it's the result of trying to live in a society which condones biggotry against you.
Does SJW only get applied to ideas one doesn't like?
It applies to cultural marxist ideas. I don't like Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but I certainly wouldn't call either of them an SJW.
Maybe a better solution is to stop targeting people that are not being overly harmful in their actions just because its different, and stop making up terms to label them as the enemy, and instead start working to resolve differences or establish a common ground or framework?
They [professorwatchlist.org] are [professorwatchlist.org] being [professorwatchlist.org] overly [professorwatchlist.org] harmful [professorwatchlist.org]
These are just a few names I found by randomly clicking around the list, I'm sure there will be far more egregious examples if one was to look.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:00PM
> Eeeh, about that...
Wow, a twitter filtering tool to protect individuals from organized harassment. Totally the same thing.
> cultural marxist
Lol. Are we resurrecting that one now? Be sure to abbreviate it to make it faster to type over and over and over.
(Score: 4, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:16PM
OK, let's look at your examples shall we?
Dr. Charles Strozier : Oh noez! He believes that climate change is a factor in middle-eastern poverty, which in turn is a factor in jihadi recruitment! Quick, call the national guard! Save us from this terrible threat!
Darry Sragow : He's SUPPOSED to be partisan, [insidehighered.com] and for balance the university gives equal time to a Republican partisan. However your watchlist site somehow omits that detail. I'm sure that was just an oversight, and not glaringly dishonest.
Latham Hunter : Feminist who wrote an article about how Christmas is wrapped up a bunch of centuries-old patriarchal tropes. Well duh. But you believe that someone expressing an opinion about Christmas is "overly harmful", and worthy of being put on a watchlist? Did I get that right?
Peter Singer : OK, this one is a bit of a wonk. However I wouldn't be too worried about him brainwashing young adults - his views are so unpalatable that very few people would take them on board without opposition. He's a philosopher, so his job is to logically analyse the ethics and morals we take for granted, and it appears that has led him to some uncomfortable conclusions. The question is, does he bully and brainwash his students into following his own beliefs, or does he encourage them to argue, examine and criticise them? I don't know. Do you? The "watchlist" website certainly makes no effort to find out.
Selena Lester Breikss : Looks like someone who allowed her own gender issues to seep into her work. Oh dear. Note that the University told her she couldn't [nationalreview.com] classify words like "male" and "female" as hate speech.
So what do we have? A feminist and a history professor who hold some opinions on climate change and gender issues that those on the right might disagree with. A part-time non-lecturer whose job is to represent the Democratic side of a balanced lesson in political partisanship. A lecturer who made a professional slip up and got slapped back down by her employers, and one guy who holds some radical and somewhat disturbing opinions, but who may or may not try to impose them on his students. Is this really the best you can do? Remind me, just which side is it made up of crybaby pussies begging for a "safe space" devoid of opposing views?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:32PM
There's two problems with the people listed
1) Their opinions are kooky and not worth $30K/yr tuition in an era of internet and usenet where insane ramblings disconnected from all reality but amusing to think about are free and easy to find. Or more like, hard to avoid.
2) They got on the list for punishing critical thinking and dissent from their own views specifically committed against students to the right of Marx.
Maybe I'll try an analogy that should make sense to more left wing thinking people using their terms. They love talking about nazis, so I will too. Some nazis had really weird beliefs about the hollow earth under Antarctica and so forth. But lefties would see the problems with hollow earth theory are that it distracts from more significant areas of anti-nazi criticism such as ovening the Jews, the hollow earth is not important and more or less off topic and is useless in the sense of angels dancing on the head of a pin anyway. The hollow earth is not why nazis are declared problematic. The other problem with hollow earth theory is most lefties want to punish nazis for something other than very weird geological theories, like, say, ovening Jews, or killing all the commies they could find, things like that. They don't want to kill them right back for supporting hollow earth theory, they want to kill them for killing Jews, an eye for an eye until we're all blind etc.
I think I made a pretty fair analogy above. Or at least it would be hard to improve without changing all out of recognition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:59PM
1) Their opinions are kooky and not worth $30K/yr tuition in an era of internet and usenet where insane ramblings disconnected from all reality but amusing to think about are free and easy to find. Or more like, hard to avoid.
VLM, I gots a final solution for you! Just do not attend University! Worked for the Buzz! And what do you need that bit of sheepskin for anyway? Obviously college is not for you, if you think that you are paying for the "opinions" of the professors. I am sure you have your own opinions already, and that they are just as much opinions as any other opinions, so why pay money to change them for some other opinions you also do not understand? Cite: see above about the abyss.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:05PM
> 1) Their opinions are kooky and not worth $30K/yr tuition
whoa whoa whoa, what happened to all the free market stuff we all love to hear so much about? Surely if some people are prepared to pay 30k/yr, then those people are atomatically worth 30k/yr, right? Something something invisible hand something something market forces.
> 2) They got on the list for punishing critical thinking and dissent from their own views specifically committed against students to the right of Marx.
Citation needed. Only one of the ones listed threatened to punish students, as far as the watchlist website or a google search can tell me, and that was not for "holding opinions to the right of Marx" but for using words that she herself found objectionable.
I'm not sure I follow your analogy - you're saying that "lefties" are idiots for thinking that the hollow earth stuff was worse than the holocaust stuff?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:51PM
On the flipside, as a strongly liberal person myself, I've never been called an SJW by American conservatives. Have you ever considered that maybe the smoke is there for a reason?
You know, that is just what a flaming SJW would say! Your failure to insult gives you away, you SJW!!! Pretending to be a critic of Authoritarian Cultural Marxism (ACM) is the oldest trick in the book or ACMs who are also SJWs!! Your not foaling anyone, you SJW! (There, now you have been called a SJW, you SJW!)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:32PM
Thats the whole point. Its the propaganda techniques of labelling and demonizing the enemy (plus a lot more). It helps promote tribalism and non-thinking, which are the virtues of modern day fascists.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:19PM
The whole point of the SJW label is that there's nothing of value in the post. It doesn't take much time to figure out when you're dealing with an SJW after you see a few posts. There's a lot of people who conflate the term SJW with social justice advocate and the two are not even remotely the same thing.
If you're dealing with an advocate, they might be uninformed about something, but they'll generally be operating in good faith. SJWs are essentially trolls that lack the awareness of what's going on to even do that right. If you change your mind on the issue, they'll just come back with something else that's completely insane in the name of equality.
The good thing though, is that it's usually fairly clear cut what you've got and if it's not clear, then just don't bother to respond, it's not like opinions and posts are rare.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:04PM
The whole point of the SJW label is that there's nothing of value in the post. It doesn't take much time to figure out when you're dealing with an SJW after you see a few posts.
. . .
The good thing though, is that it's usually fairly clear cut what you've got and if it's not clear, then just don't bother to respond, it's not like opinions and posts are rare
Let me get this straight, Francis is accusing Francis of being a SJW? This does not help, it is not fairly clear, and quite possibly insane. I guess I just will not bother to respond with the obvious rebuttal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:25AM
I see Aristarchus thinks he's outwitted me again.
Pro-tip, paint chips are not potato chips.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:24PM
I… look. The premise is laughable. Why would somebody transgendered want to be referred to by an imaginary pronoun instead of an authentic one?
There again, maybe the answer key is this “gay rights campaigner” Peter Tatchell [petertatchell.net]. Let's take a look.
Hmm [petertatchell.net]
London & Belfast – 24 October 2016
The Appeal Court in Belfast has today ruled that a local Christian-run business, Ashers Bakery, was wrong to refuse to decorate a cake with a pro-gay marriage message.
“This verdict is a defeat for freedom of expression. As well as meaning that Ashers can be legally forced to aid the promotion of same-sex marriage, it also implies that gay bakers could be forced by law to decorate cakes with homophobic slogans,” said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation.
Wait. A gay activist taking a pro-free speech position on wedding cakes? It's almost as though some of faggots think that forcing somebody to produce work they object to is wrong. It's almost as though you right-wingers are assholes who always miss the target. Seems you have a lot in common with another group of people who absolutely hate male homosexuality and transgenderism.
Hmm [petertatchell.net]
London - 3 August 2007
Gender reassignment (sex-change) surgery is unnecessary and a form of body mutilation, according to Guardian columnist, radical feminist and lesbian campaigner Julie Bindel….
Ms Bindel is challenged in the BBC programme by a four-person panel: human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell; Professor Stephen Whittle, a world expert on transsexualism and the law who had reassignment surgery nearly 30 years ago; clinician Kevan Whylie, a consultant in sexual medicine and gender dysphoria specialist; and psychotherapist and transsexual Michelle Bridgman of the Gender Trust….
Ms Bindel proposes that transsexualism is a condition "created by reactionary psychiatrists in the 1950s" who promoted the false idea that it is possible to be born "trapped in the wrong body." She asks: "is it right to apply a surgical solution to what I believe is a psychological problem?"
…
Peter Tatchell defends transsexual people and gender reassignment surgery as an issue of "choice, self-determination and human rights."
He endorses Ms Bindel's criticism of "traditional male and female roles and the social pressure to conform to cultural expectations of how men and women are supposed to behave," describing these as "often profoundly oppressive." But he goes on to criticise Julie for "putting gender theory and ideology before the happiness of individual human beings who feel out of place and unhappy in their birth sex."
So, I don't get it. Once again we see the steadfastness of feminism with the right wing. The article you link is an outright lie as others have pointed out. Is just easy to blame the transgendered because there's so few of them they can't really stand up to you damned feminists and right-wingers?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:28PM
Sure, Kurenai, because every single feminist is a TERF. Just like every Christian is a member of Westboro and every single gay dude is a flaming cross-dressing showtune-singing glitterslut.
That is a helluva big brush and a lot of tar. Watch where you're swinging that thing around, lest you alienate your few remaining allies. I've already had it up to here with your bullshit.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:18PM
because every single feminist is a TERF.
It's like those M&Ms.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:00PM
Skittles, not M&Ms, and nice work; you just lumped yourself in with the neo-Nazis. Excuse me, "alt-right."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:45AM
No. I said M&Ms, and I meant M&Ms. Everybody knows that only Skittles are racist. See here now [slate.com].
Ok, I will admit that when I picked up on the M&M thing at first, I didn't realize the connection to Nazi propaganda. Of course, it was obvious that the statement was morally wrong, however one gets used to being an all-men after a few decades. When the Nazi connection came to light, I threw up in my mouth a little bit. Then I got over it because the irony was delicious. Here's the relevant tweet. I can't link it, of course, because TwitFace is an inferior medium, as I'm sure you're aware:
"UNFAIR! NOT ALL MEN!" Imagine a bowl of M&Ms. 10% of them are poisoned. Go ahead. Eat a handful. Not all M&Ms are poison. #YesAllWomen
— Martin Wagner (@wagnerfilm) May 26, 2014
(Score: 2) by mth on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:13PM
So: what is a better solution?
Protest whatever statement or action you disagree with. Don't disqualify the entire person.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:41PM
So: what is a better solution?
People leaving each other the heck alone.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:07PM
incognito has only 2 "i" in it.
I don't remember if aristarchus is greek or roman, so I won't dwell on it.
I enjoyed the original submission more, but that's probably because I don't actually care about being polite to people I don't like.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:20PM
I enjoyed the original submission more, but that's probably because I don't actually care about being polite to people I don't like.
Evidently conservatives would be offended by the original submission. They had to create a "Safe Space" where they wouldn't be triggered. So we get the sanitized, politically correct version.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:22PM
Would you prefer folks like me get their ranty goodness up on the front page as well? That's your only alternative.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:25PM
Actually, you sometimes do get your "ranty goodness" up on the front page. And it doesn't get edited much, if at all. Imagine that!
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:34PM
I dunno what site you've been reading but I almost never get more than one or two sentences dedicated to my own views. If the story gets accepted at all.
Fact check that if you like, I'll wait...
Now apologize to the community for lying to them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:49PM
A sentence or two. I bet I can find some TMB articles that are paragraphs of rantiness. We could even compare the original submissions to the posted one and count the differences. Smart money says there aren't many.
I am at work, if you want me to and if you promise to apologize yourself if I can prove that your articles fairly sail through approval compared to this one then I will look when I get home. I of course will post the results either way, and apologize if I am wrong.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:13PM
I of course will post the results either way, and apologize if I am wrong.
The obvious rebuttal is that this isn't much of a wager for an anonymous coward. You're attempting to stake your reputation on your claim. But being an AC (or at least the usual kind without any sort of identifying characteristic), you don't have a reputation to win or lose.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:04PM
The obvious rebuttal is that this isn't much of a wager for an anonymous coward.
Khallow!!! Do you expect us to start drinking this early in the morning?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:25PM
The obvious rebuttal is "YES... YES!" Drink up like everyone else.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:41PM
Do you expect us to start drinking this early in the morning?
If you're going to ride the khallow booze train, you'll need to get your alcoholism on. I would have thought that was obvious by now.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:37PM
Do you expect us to start drinking this early in the morning?
If you're going to ride the khallow booze train, you'll need to get your alcoholism on. I would have thought that was an obvious rebuttal by now.
FTFY
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:55PM
Ahh yes, attack me because I am at work and don't log into social media at work. You stay classy khallow.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:07AM
Ahh yes, attack me because I am at work and don't log into social media at work.
Then just tell us that you'll give a name when you're not at work. Assuming generously, that you planned anything of the sort.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:32PM
I don't gamble but that's not a gamble. I know for certain that you'll find no such thing.
As for minor to no differences, that's precisely what you'll find on my accepted stories. I don't like my posts being heavily edited, so I stick to a formula that the eds mostly just pass through. It goes like this:
Someone from somewhere brings us this adjective noun:
Some paragraphs of quoted article.
One (almost always) to three (rarely if ever) sentences of my personal views and/or snark.
The only exceptions are the site update posts and those have nothing argumentative in them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:57PM
The problem though is your articles tend to be nothing but rantiness. I don't care if someone else said it first, if you submit BS you own it, even if its in quote brackets.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:38AM
Does that apply to ignorant responses as well?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by charon on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:09PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:51PM
GP here. I'm not sure how serious I was about liking the original submission more, and I'm too tired to think about it too hard.
But... I did want to point out (and someone who replied to me said it explicitly) that there are sensitive snowflakes among the people who say there's no need for safe spaces and other nonsense.
the point of keeping conversations polite is so that the conversations do take place.
otherwise we'll just gather in small groups to badmouth the others, and prepare for battle the following day.
when you laugh at the lgbt for requiring certain language and behavior, you're cutting off the conversation.
if you do it, you should know and be sure that you want to do that.
for instance, I won't make any concessions on language/behavior to religious fundamentalists, and I am fully aware that means that I have to be prepared to defend myself against physical asault, and I am fully aware that I cannot visit a whole bunch of the world because I would be in serious trouble.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:19PM
That is the absolute opposite of the truth. The entire reason for requiring certain language and behavior, and changing it every so often, is to be able to stop a rational conversation that you're going to lose. No other reason.
It needs to be mocked so that others will be ashamed to buy into it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:31PM
1
safe space
A place where college students can go if they have been subjected to ideas that differ from the progressive narrative. These safe spaces have pillows, soothing music and an understanding, sympathetic staff. Presumably, this allows them to recover from the trauma; free from any lasting damage resulting from exposure to ideas that conflict with their leftist professors.
I attended a talk by Hirsan Ali, who was critical of Islam's subjugation of women. Fortunately, the school provided a safe space for me to recover.
#political correctness #pc #leftism #leftist #progressive
by PBSPinchback April 25, 2015
2
safe space
A place where cowards with cultural authoritarian and pro-censorship leanings go to in order to evade criticism and calling out of whatever absurd ideas they may express, as well as ideas that are even slightly opposed to the safe space dweller's ideas. These are labelled as whatever kind of bigotry would make the safe space dweller look like a victim the most.
Colleges are supposed to be safe spaces! Why is someone like Christina Hoff Sommers allowed to talk in them?
3
safe space
An imaginary place where overly-sensitive twats retreat to, when they are "assaulted" with ideas that contradict the narrative that was ingrained into their feeble minds.
Chelsea had to retreat to a safe space, when a free-thinker bombarded "her" with the fact that transgender people are suffering from a mental illness called gender dysphoria.
4
safe space
A place where liberals who think their victims of marginalization by systematic oppression go to seek shelter from non-liberals. Somewhere that provides authoritarian censorship of non-liberal ideas and speech that are enforced by the PC Police. The PC Police use imaginary phrases and terms about race, sexual orientation, religion and opposing political beliefs to bully, shame and guilt trip other people into complete submission to keep their space safe.
I can't live in a world where people have different beliefs from me that are outside my imaginary bubble so I go to the safe space to calm down from my daily micro-aggressions.
5
Safe space
A pussy in which pussies to hide from reality
College boy 1: milo is coming to UCLA today to speak
CB2: QUICK! run to the safe space!
6
Safe Space
A special area located with a College/University where groups of easily offended melts meet up to have their asses talcum powered by staff hired to babysit them.
'That professor told me third wave Feminism is a joke, that shitlord triggered me so hard I'm going to the safe space'
7
safe space
A mythical place just south of Never-Never Land and nestled securely between Oz on the east and Utopia on the west. Self-absorbed, overbearing, weak-minded college students seek "Safe Space" when they encounter an idea, concept, or most especially, an incontrovertible FACT that cannot be shoe-horned into their minuscule progressive minds.
You can't come in here with a recording device! This is a Safe Space! I need some muscle over here!
8
Safe Space
A room or area where left wing people can go to cry about politics. Commonly used by socialist collage students after elections they did not win. Inside a modern safe spaces are typically service dogs, free hot chocolate, therapy, counseling and pillows and couches. Some safe spaces are so pampered that they allow occupants to say for days at a time. Although unnecessary, safe spaces cost schools thousands of dollars, and sometimes are even fully governmentally funded.
Rick: What the hell is up with all the wailing over there?
Tommy: Some pussy collage kids are crying over at the safe space.
Rick: Why?
Tommy: There professor raticalized them in the way of socialism. They are crying because Mr. Trump won the election.
Rick: That's Bullshit.
9
safe space
A Safe Space is a place where anyone can relax and be able to fully express, without fear of being made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unsafe on account of biological sex, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, cultural background, religious affiliation, age, or physical or mental ability.
Wow, I can actually go to a safe space to talk about my controversial views about something without being told that I'm a faggot! Incredible!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:34PM
Greek. I'm going to guess "arista" (excellence, best) and "archos" (ruler/prince).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:31PM
" ἀρχή" can also mean origin, beginning, "principle" or "principal", so "archon" is the first, a prince? But correct, East Leaf Moon.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anne Nonymous on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:31PM
> [Editor note - This story was substantially rewritten for balance. As always, the original submission is available at the link below.]
That's it; you're on the list.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:23PM
On which list? The list of editors doing their job?
(Score: 1) by OrugTor on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:15PM
Thank you ed for doing a good job rebalancing the submission. It's a difficult and surely thankless task but I for one appreciate not having to wade through troll-eds and flamebait that rightly belong in the comments.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:28PM
Thank you ed for doing a good job rebalancing the submission.
Yes, thank you, eds. But, one quibble, if I may?
HeterodoxAcademy.org has rational articles discussing the liberal slant to modern college campuses. Nicholas Kristoff writes an interesting piece on the same topic.
This is not what I wrote, yet the header says "aristarchus writes"! Editing is one thing, but introducing entire new sentences is putting words in someone's mouth. Yes, the editorial notice at the end, and the link to the original submission might counter this, but at a certain point, "balancing" means replacing the author.
.
Besides, my point in citing Horowitz is that he is bat-excrement insane, and Kristoff is along the same lines, and Heterodox Academy seems to be whiny conservatives being oppressed. I would not have included them. Eds are free to do so, but please distinguish this from what I wrote.
(Score: 2, Informative) by charon on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:53PM
A fair point, I apologize for putting words into your mouth. I am always wary about doing so, but in my mind it was not possible to be fair to the issue without changing things up.
To wit: your sub mentions Horowitz and "several other 'efforts' along these lines," but Horowitz is the only example you give. I felt it was important to flesh out other examples, as well as noting that the people on the other side of the argument are not all as irrational and dishonest as Horowitz and Kirk are.
Believe it or not, my own personal viewpoint is reasonably close to yours on this issue. My job, though, (unpaid, mind you) is to make this site welcoming to discussion, not an echo chamber.
Thank you for bearing with me on this story. --Charon
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:57PM
Fair enough!
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:30PM
If you want to see a professor totally at the opposite of the "safe space" spectrum, lookup Professor Gad Saad on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLH7qUqM0PLieCVaHA7RegA [youtube.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:53PM
Surprise, he's an evolutionary psychologist. That's a "field" that epitomizes reductive thinking. Its about two steps up from phrenology. Of course he would revel in being a dick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:41PM
You know, this could be incredibly clever satire which mocks the kind of intellectual poverty exhibited through othering someone (itself a reductive thought process) whilst criticizing them for being reductionist.
Then again, I'm going to shave with Occam's Razor on this one, you are probably a fucking moron.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:48PM
You know, this could be incredibly clever satire which mocks the kind of intellectual poverty exhibited through othering someone (itself a reductive thought process) whilst criticizing them for being reductionist.
Or, he really could be an evolutionary psychologist!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:35PM
So you don't actually dispute the conclusions, just the form.
Kind of par for the course isn't it?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by jmorris on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:37PM
Making a list of these idiots is pointless. Easier would be a list of known good professors who don't try to punish dissent.
But lists won't fix this problem, we have to attack the roots. First off have Congress (or start at State Legislatures) declare Cultural Marxism a religion. It meets every dictionary definition of the term so anyone who objects is arguing in bad faith and can be ignored. Once this is done apply the logical consequences. You can no more qualify for government aid than somebody going to any other religious seminary. Government employees can't teach the courses, government owned institutions can't host the degree programs, etc. Add a rider to clarify that if a current professor is only credentialed to teach religion they can have their tenure revoked to prevent the taxpayers having to carry dead weight for decades.
Make the enemy live up their own book of rules. If universities are desegregated then make them actually live by that rule, one they made themselves and imposed on the rest of the country while exempting themselves. No more [ethnic/gender/whatever] segregated dorms, classes, study groups, etc. Live your sermons about celebrating diversity. Now take the obvious next step and declare viewpoint discrimination a thing exactly like the others and open the gates of hell as the lawsuits fly. Make it clear no debate will be entertained on this topic, it being so self evident that it really can't be debated. The entire purpose of the University is ideas, punishing opponents flies directly in the face of that concept. While they bleat about the benefits of a diverse student body, the actual benefit of learning along with drones who look wildly different but think alike is a perversion of the concept, it is diversity of thought that a university should be looking for; if those minds come in bodies who look different that can only be a minor bonus.
Third, severely curtail the government sponsorship of the university system in general in favor of vocational training. Dry up the money, dry up the excess funds that allow universities to hire endless professors to teach 'popular' but useless classes, hire a never ending stream of diversity coordinators, build safe spaces, etc. Establish credential granting authorities who aren't part of degree granting traditional universities and push to remove the requirement for a university degree as a condition of employment to the absolute maximum possible. Yes this will require clearing the legal minefield around employer based tests.
None of these will fix the problem, but it would keep them occupied on defense for a few decades while we build out new institutions of learning to replace them. Once an institution becomes SJW converged, history records to successful efforts to cleanse it as the SJWs themselves will destroy it before surrendering control. The root of most of the problems of the 20th Century sprout from Harvard University; In this, Moldbug was dead on target. So the war to save Western Civilization doesn't end until Harvard lies in ruin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:24PM
> No more [ethnic/gender/whatever] segregated dorms, classes, study groups, etc
Same sex dorms aren't a product of the left.
And all those other segregations only exist in your imagination.
> Now take the obvious next step and declare viewpoint discrimination
You declaring that the "obvious next step" says everything about who you are, and nothing about who they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:02PM
The reason there are no decent jobs for American workers is because of all them SJWs in the MSM and elite liberal universities, I tell you! And the MSM just lies about employment numbers!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:23PM
Such a great post that truly shows off your person all character. For all the hate you spew about SJWs and how they are anti white males etc.; it is funny to see you labeling your fellow citizens as "the enemy". Its a little odd to be on the peaceful side and realize we may have no choice about fighting since you and your comrades are so bent on killing / subjugating the "damn liberals". People like you are why so many people are worried about a trump presidency, "can't happen here" is a bunch of bullshit as you are making abundantly clear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:02PM
There really is no point in making a list of you idiots, right enough, since you so readily and frequently present yourselves for public ridicule of your own volition.
(Score: 1) by tr077hunt3r on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:03PM
To say "criticize" implies an opinion with some resemblance of a factual basis. This professor did not simply "criticize Trump" as the article suggests. Rather he equated Trump supporters to terrorists. Terrorists drive trucks through crowds, blow up spectators at marathons, shoot ambassadors in the back, and shoot up night clubs and office parties. Where is this professors "facts" to compare people with a political opinion that simply differs from his and the monsters that commit atrocities? I have no problem with people expressing opinions and forming arguments from factual premises. If he is going to blindly equate a group of people, who simply disagree with him to violent murdering terrorists, and do so from his position of authority as a professor, then he should absolutely expect a backlash in kind. As a father who pays to have my child go to university, I would definitely want to know which faculty teach critical thinking based in fact and which professors proselytize with extreme hyperbole.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:27PM
Trump supporters pulled the pin out of a hand grenade, dropped it in a crowd and ran away. It's about to go off Real Soon Now(TM). Same as the deluded fools who supported Farage's Brexit folly. Let's just hope the French don't do the same and vote for Le Pen.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:59PM
... pulled the pin out of a hand grenade? Presumably, you mean by electing Trump. What the hell was the great alternative? I mean, I don't even like Trump at all, but I'm capable of recognising that Hillary "more of the same" Clinton wasn't offering anything that wasn't discredited by the practice of years. Bernie? Effectively sidelined (justly or not - hardly relevant) by the democratic establishment. Stein? Johnson? Where were they supposed to cast their votes?
"...and ran away." Really. They ran away. They're not living in the USA any more, they just cast their vote and headed for ... Siberia, or Canada, or some place. Who even knows? Wait, hang on, that's not right. They stuck around.
I think it's understood that you disagree with them. But let's not equate a vote for a major party candidate, founded in some well-established grievances (dismay at the implementation and/or effects of globalism, perceived corruption in the political centre, regulations spinning out of control, government becoming too intrusive, encroaching dictatorialism by the incumbents) with violent terrorism. There are marked differences.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:26PM
See, Americans were faced with two choices, neither of which was ideal. Those choices were more of the same (Clinton) or change (Trump). British voters do this too and they call it, "Time for a change." And that's as far as their reasoning goes. American voters, by the narrowest of margins (just like the Brexit loonies) voted for change, apparently not realising that there can be "good" change and "bad" change. See, they were labouring under the misapprehension that all change is good. So they made the wrong choice.
Trump is a monster and an idiot.
Is that clear and simple enough?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:06AM
Obama's slogan: Hope and Change
Trump's slogan: Change and Despair
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:43PM
Hillary's slogan: In place of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen! Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Treacherous as the sea! Stronger than the foundations of the earth!
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:09PM
Farage's slogan: Spare any change (for a can of beer)?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by tr077hunt3r on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:03PM
Thank you. You just helped make my point about people who launch opinions in the total absence of facts. The second point you have helped demonstrate is the very dangerous precedent that was set in America's recent election. In their history, both sides have launched vicious attacks against the opposition candidates. And their "free" press has refereed. However, this time the leftists in America went after the voters, and the liberal press piled on.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:20PM
Go and play with the trains, sonny.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:40PM
As a father who pays to have my child go to university
You monster! University is for adults! Why are you sending an innocent child? And why are you such a sucker and cuck that you pay for it?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday December 21 2016, @01:50AM
HiRez [facebook.com]
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:43AM
Totally didn't troll that tip submission.... I guess its good to know thy enemy, the conservative racist leaning tendencies are not gone from the world and we would do well to keep an eye out in case the crazy level really goes through the roof.