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[Neonivek]

on the subject of the electoral system how exactly do you think it stops the "tyranny of the majority" because i don't see how it does. all it does is give arbitrary power to high population states!

It doesn't do that at all, compared to a direct election. Smaller states get more EC votes per capita than large ones. High-population states get more votes because they have more people. The Electoral College skews things in favor of low-population states.

Well sort of... at this point I think it is pretty token.

"Yep you get 3 seats even though you have a population of only a few thousand!"
State: "Yay! I am important! Does this mean the government will take us seriously?"
"HA HA HA!!! ohhh... Soo funny! Sorry unless your name is Florida, we won't even acknowledge you exist."
State: "Wait, I thought the entire point was to protect our interests so we can't be pushed around by the larger states"
"No, the point was to keep you placated so you believe you have more importance then you really have."

[UXLZ]

The larger states are also completely ignored in favor of the swing-states. The Electoral College is pretty dumb but the real problem is winner-take-all.

[TheBiggerFish]

Aye.

[Neonivek]

The larger states are also completely ignored in favor of the swing-states. The Electoral College is pretty dumb but the real problem is winner-take-all.

I consider "Winner-Take-All" to be a direct product of the Electoral College so I consider them the same entity.

While I am sure one COULD have a "Winner take all" without the Electoral College... I have a feeling if they did disband it the winner take all would go away.

[Reelya]

That downward slide. It doesn't exist. It's not happening.

If you keep up with what's happening on college campuses, I'd say it is, but it's limited to that slice of the population. We're seeing ever-increasing echo chamber mentality from a segment of those who buy into a liberal mainstream orthodoxy (it's certainly nothing really to do with any traditional leftist politics), and are increasingly intolerant of the existence of any viewpoint outside the "consensus" they've adopted. I'd argue that it's real, but it's also intimately tied to an environment that breeds a type of mentality that can't really survive outside the bubble of academia and/or related bohemia.

One humorous example was of where someone chalked "Trump 2016" on a footpath at a college, and people claimed to be scared for their literal lives because there was a Trump supporter somewhere at the same college. The mere existence of someone who supported the Republicans at the same college was enough to demand that the college become a "safe space" from such a dangerous thing as someone holding a contrary political opinion. And this from the people who claim that you need to respect diversity.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/24/someone-wrote-trump-2016-on-emorys-campus-in-chalk-some-students-said-they-no-longer-feel-safe/

[TheBiggerFish]

That downward slide. It doesn't exist. It's not happening.

If you keep up with what's happening on college campuses, I'd say it is, but it's limited to that slice of the population. We're seeing ever-increasing echo chamber mentality from a segment of those who buy into a liberal mainstream orthodoxy (it's certainly nothing really to do with any traditional leftist politics), and are increasingly intolerant of the existence of any viewpoint outside the "consensus" they've adopted. I'd argue that it's real, but it's also intimately tied to an environment that breeds a type of mentality that can't really survive outside the bubble of academia and/or related bohemia.

Aye.

[Neonivek]

That downward slide. It doesn't exist. It's not happening.

If you keep up with what's happening on college campuses, I'd say it is, but it's limited to that slice of the population. We're seeing ever-increasing echo chamber mentality from a segment of those who buy into a liberal mainstream orthodoxy (it's certainly nothing really to do with any traditional leftist politics), and are increasingly intolerant of the existence of any viewpoint outside the "consensus" they've adopted. I'd argue that it's real, but it's also a environment that breeds a type of mentality that can't really survive outside the bubble of academia or bohemia.

Ahh yes intellectual inbreeding.

A lot of this intolerance can also be considered a reaction to... well... past discretions. A lot of great evils occurred on American Soil because people were willing to sit back and let it happen.

So people get up on their high horse and start the mighty moral crusades

--

On a more serious note there is a very well pronounced need for America to change in both attitudes and orthodoxy... But people don't really have good ways of doing so.

[EnigmaticHat]

re: EC, It also has the side effect of just making things weirder.

For example, many states in the EC are winner take all.  That means that if you're in a state that's 80% red/blue, your vote almost literally doesn't matter.  If you're in a state where exactly 50% voted each side, your one vote could be the vote that literally decides the election.  An extreme example but you get the idea.  It makes swing states matter a lot more.  Hence why they are greatly more pandered to.

Well I have some good news for you! It never existed!

What exactly should be done in order to stop this BIG PROBLEM? And what is causing this BIG PROBLEM?

(And also apparently SJW are the new Other.)

was this directed at me? i dont follow. what never existed?

as for SJWs, they are the poster children of what haens when you embrace divisive tactics.

So me saying religious fundamentalists can suck a dick = othering, divisive, what is wrong with America. (I will freely admit that it was at least one of those things, but I'm not the one talking about the paranoia spiral)

You saying SJW are the problem, need to be stopped, ect. = not othering, not divisive, you fighting what is divisive in America.

Fail to see the difference there.  Seems like we both have a group of people we have a problem with, and are expressing that problem.  You can argue specifics but categorically we are doing the same thing.

[wierd]

the difference is that I dont tell sjws to "eat a dick"

I want them to put down the weapons of hate and division, and come out of the echo chamber, and live healthy lives with the rest of us.

[Neonivek]

The problem with the label of SJW EnigmaticHat is that it has been used to the point of meaninglessness without a firm definition rising above all others.

If you are talking about people who preach segregation under the guise of cultural appropriation? Sure... Yeah that needs to stop.

If you are talking about people who harass others for not conforming to a very strict code of ethics? Sure also a problem.

But those are the "acceptable" definitions. Which one are you using? and even then should we propagate a word that has pretty much been butchered to meaninglessness?

[Rolepgeek]

Wierd, how do you propose it ends?

Further, please describe for me the scenario you believe will occur from there on once the mechanism of ending it is enacted. I will try to do the same, from my own perspective, and we can compare our different viewpoints and levels of understanding of various parts of the issue. From there, perhaps, we might be able to achieve consensus.

From my perspective and experience, safe spaces, as they are meant to be used, are precisely that. They are areas where people who have been harassed or abused in the past can relax, their shoulder down rather than by their ears. A place where they do not have to watch over their shoulders for people who might throw a bottle at them from a pickup truck. Safe spaces are intended to be places where people can talk about their experiences and worries and fears, and be assured in the knowledge that no one there is going to judge them inappropriately for such. For the record, I've had something similar to that bottle-throwing thing occur to me, personally, biking home from school. Honking at someone in the middle of riding on a bike, while traffic is going by, is an unsafe idea, for the record, and please don't do it. When people yell 'faggot!' in the middle of it, it really doesn't help matters.

That is the purpose of them, as originally intended. It is sometimes (no implication of frequency is being made here: it is not all of the time; it is not none of the time) twisted to justify other behaviors. These behaviors usually include forcible expansion of safe space practices with the idea in mind that proximity, whether social, academic, or physical, to individuals with opinions or beliefs that one finds offensive and frightening, is itself harmful and must be prevented to ensure people's continued safety and/or mental health. It is used to ensure that only people with the appropriate ideas are allowed to disseminate or discuss them in semi-public forums such as universities (yes, they are technically private, except that the whole point/concept of the university is free speech 'n open communication for the purpose of learning and discovery 'n shit). That is an abuse of the concept and one I dislike.

If you want to refer to the second type of behavior, please use a term other than safe space, which grants it some modicum of legitimacy and reason, and allows them to be conflated with actual safe spaces, which allows for them to be defended on a moral ground they do not deserve. If someone else tries to use the term, just use a different one in response, and if questioned about it, bring up actual safe spaces and the way this is different and you would rather not conflate the two.

And that is why I do not believe the rise of safe spaces are a problem. Bubbles and demand for adherence to specific ideology, yes, that is a problem, and that is not limited to the left by any means. But you can't force someone out of an echo chamber if you're not in it to begin with. Trying to do so is rude and not your job, in the first place, if they don't want to leave.

[smjjames]

-snippety snip-

I've been linking that several times already, although indirectly as I've been linking to an article that discusses it.

re the whole safe space and SJW stuff: I get the supposed intent behind a safe space, but the safe space thing was taken to really absurd poportions where entire classrooms would be considered safe spaces to not discuss something, If anything, the poportions that it was being taken to was fostering the same kind of 'my way or the highway' thing that Republicans are so fond of doing and just stick their fingers in their ears and go 'la la la la' instead of listening to other peoples arguments and counterarguments and, well, you know, actual debate.

[wierd]

RPG:

there is no final destination. there never is. culture is always moving, always chnging the best we can have is harmonious coexistence.

to that end, we need to look at ourselves as a species in a critical and decidedly not rosecolored hue.

as I pointed out to Frumple when they stated that my drawn connection was my imagination-- this is simply not the case, and i linked to an article from a psychologist and from a scientific journal, how that connection works.

to avoid falling in that direction, we must resist the instinctual urge to ostracise that which we disagree with, dont understnd, or find repulsive.

we need to appreciate that which we disagree with. (I appreciate sjws, but see how they do harm, and wish they could see it too.) we need to want to understand that which we find inexplicable. and we need to find reverence in that which we find distasteful.

my personal approach, which will probably not work for others, but here it is anyway, is to see all these things as carnival mirrors.  there is a little bit of ourselves in all of them, because we are all human, and have the same base failings, and strngths.  when one fails to denounce as other, but sees as self, harmony is possible.

a safe space, to me, is "a comfortable place, away from all those scary faces in the twisted mirrors"

it is a false refuge. a retreat into the citadel of hate. just inside the door, but there it lies.

[Criptfeind]

i reserve the pejorative only for the second and third of those.

To wind this conversation back to the start by like eight pages, you called out the entire "lgbt crowd" on being hypocritical losers making sandcastles around themselves and saying that them asking for safe spaces is the equivalent of outlawing   homosexual behavior followed by demanding areas where such behavior isn't allowed (by the way, that hypothetical doesn't really make sense if you think about it. If it's outlawed, certainly everywhere would be illegal... And also the parallel here would be what, safe spaces from hate speech and violence or whatever is actually illegal... Honestly that sounds pretty fine to me, I think the whole metaphor was a bit of mess to be honest.)

If you want to retreat back from that to just people that use social issues to harass, you'll probably find more agreement. But I think you might also find out why people have been disagreeing all this time?

[Reelya]

-snippety snip-

I've been linking that several times already, although indirectly as I've been linking to an article that discusses it.

re the whole safe space and SJW stuff: I get the supposed intent behind a safe space, but the safe space thing was taken to really absurd poportions where entire classrooms would be considered safe spaces to not discuss something, If anything, the poportions that it was being taken to was fostering the same kind of 'my way or the highway' thing that Republicans are so fond of doing and just stick their fingers in their ears and go 'la la la la' instead of listening to other peoples arguments and counterarguments and, well, you know, actual debate.

Also, categorically, the whole campus SJW thing is now causing research not to be done, if any of the questions, let alone the conclusions of the research could upset some group or other. That to me is the most dangerous situation here: "safe spaces" includes the intellectual and research. You often cannot even ask research questions where the potential conclusions you could come to might offend some protected group. There is either funding or political pressure not to research potentially challenging issues, and if not overt outward pressure, researchers are self-censoring their research topics due to the political climate at colleges. And that fear of doing actual research is actively preventing us answering the very questions that divide people on these issues.

If you want someone who eloquently discusses these issues, look for Jonothan Haidt's videos (warning this video is long, but worth it if you're interested in the issues).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8