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[Urist McScoopbeard]

You're right, but the concept of explicitly saying 'you cannot do this in this private space' deserves recognition.

I guess, but this is a thing that has been commonly understood for hundreds of years. Your land, your rules as long as they don't break the law.

So my question is, I suppose, how do "safe spaces" do anything to provide an actual safe space for people who desperately need a respite? It's just a relabelling of something that you always had open to you.

@Dozebôm,

but if a safe space is inherently private property, then you already couldn't do that stuff. I don't understand MOST why people have created this term. I think that it will lead to a defense against harassment that leans more on the fact that you can't do something because I'm in here and pushes the fact that it's wrong to do something to the side.

EDIT: Furthermore, I think that it is going to lead to unhealthy mindsets.

Two things we know today. 1.) it's okay to be A/B/C ANYWHERE. 2.) You can't do X/Y/Z.

If you teach people that it's okay to be A/B/C IN HERE, you're also going to teach them that it's not okay to be A/B/C ELSEWHERE. Likewise, if you teach people you can't do X/Y/X HERE, you'll teach them it's okay to do X/Y/Z THERE.

[TheBiggerFish]

Explicitly saying it is more final than implicit definition.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Explicitly saying it is more final than implicit definition.

EDIT: Furthermore, I think that it is going to lead to unhealthy mindsets.

Two things we know today. 1.) it's okay to be A/B/C ANYWHERE. 2.) You can't do X/Y/Z.

If you teach people that it's okay to be A/B/C IN HERE, you're also going to teach them that it's not okay to be A/B/C ELSEWHERE. Likewise, if you teach people you can't do X/Y/X HERE, you'll teach them it's okay to do X/Y/Z THERE.

Then this is what you start teaching people.

[TheBiggerFish]

There are situations where you cannot be an A/B/C elsewhere.

There are situations where you can do X/Y/Z there.

Depends on the A/B/C/X/Y/Z, but they exist.

[Rolan7]

[drinky]
It's not about violence, it's about feeling safe...
So yeah, feels I guess.

Look I GET the idea that feeling threatened constantly could be positive -
wait maybe I'm taking this too personal.
I actually do get the idea that people will grow stronger from adversity.

But I'm pretty sure, not positive (no sarcasm), that healthy development involves having a place where you can actually relax- and be *honest*.
Nowadays maybe we take this for granted, since it's relatively easy to find an online space that's mostly protected (ignoring trolls which inevitably and creatively lie past any filter)
But even so, I think...  Guessing, really... that being able to be honest with other people in person, is particularly healthy.  Even for an hour a week, or whatever.

Well, the internet wasn't like this when I was young.  It was newsgroups and MUDs and IRC, once I was allowed IRC.
I remember confusedly propositioning an online friend...
The rejection hurt a lot.  And I had no idea why I even suggested it.  Nobody was giving me hugs and suggesting - I didn't know what gay MEANT, much less that it was at all okay!

I shouldn't complain too much, I had and have a very close connection with my brother.  I can't imagine what I'd be like if I didn't at least have that...

Okay here's the final word from me, personally, in this incredibly off-topic discussion:  I wish I had a fucking safe space, and some support, and I think I'm fucking broken because of it.
I got harder and harder and then I just snapped.
Is this really the right thread for this stuff??

[TheBiggerFish]

*hugs Rolan just in case*

Yeah, this isn't a polthread thing.

[Lagslayer]

The point is that we can't change what was the legit winner of the EC, even if it doesn't feel right.

@lagslayer, I'm just wondering out of curiosity on what's your opinion or the conservative opinion on the ranked voting experiment that Maine is doing? It could pave the way for getting out of the FPTP mess and would certainly require a change to the EC or abolishment.

edit 9 new replies, ow.

been working all night, and wow did this thread move fast. Sorry for the delay.

Anyways, I doubt the ranked system wouldn't make much difference at this point, given the already established powers and the mindset that comes with them. The conditioning is too great, and the powers-that-be would be in prime position to poison any newcomers, or snuff them out. Propaganda, ideas, can be a very sinister thing.

It would make even less of a difference on a national scale, even if every state adopted it. On the position of POTUS, of which there can only be one, a third partier would have no chance against the manipulation of the established powers, adduming they weren't just some sort of controlled opposition in the first place.

On that note, I sincerely hope Trump isn't some unusually elaborate plant by the establishment. As unpleasant, perhaps even improbable as it may sound, the global shadow government is a real thing, and what it has done, and in fact, continues to do, completely under the nose of everyone, in plain sight, is terrifying. I would not have believed most of this a year ago, but instead of turning from a harsh reality, I embraced it. I have become even more bitter and paranoid, but I believe I am a better person for knowing it.

[Rolepgeek]

It's a place where it is continually enforced, not responsively enforced.

It is a place where if you try to follow after someone, someone will be there to immediately respond and tell them to fuck off, not take ten minutes to get there.

They'll listen because there's a bunch of you and they're all telling you to get lost, or they'll call the cops.

And no, Urist, it's not just a relabeling, because those places have not always been open to you. That is, in fact, the point. You saying that we don't need a new term for it seems like a pointless protest, akin to saying we don't need the word church when we already have the perfectly serviceable word temple, and that therefore churches are pointless. Providing a name for something makes it a distinct thing. Sometimes those are necessary.

You aren't teaching people 'it's okay to be X in here', or 'it's not okay to do Y elsewhere'. You're telling them 'nobody is going to do Y to you for being X in this location, we've made sure of that'. Usually, those people have first-hand experience with that not being true in other places. The police cannot respond instantaneously. Court cases are expensive. Not all private spaces are willing to be a safe harbor.

You're saying that this all already applied. But if the term was created anyway, that means that that was not, in fact, the case. It's not private property inherently, it's private property because that's the only way to have a means to enforce those boundaries. It is a specific type of private property, used for a specific purpose, much like we have a word for meeting room, even though it is, yes, just another room in the office building.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

There are situations where you cannot be an A/B/C elsewhere.

There are situations where you can do X/Y/Z there.

Depends on the A/B/C/X/Y/Z, but they exist.

This is true, and we CAN'T stop people from being dicks from each other. Again, I really wanna stress I DO think it's good thing for people who face discrimination or hate to have a place where they can unwind. I'm not discriminated against to the level that a lot of people are, but as someone who DOES spend time around people who either discriminate against people, including in my own family, and people who get discriminated against, including my friends, I don't want "safe spaces" to become these arguments or reasons for hatred or to say hey you can't do that to me because I'm HERE, instead of that's wrong.

[drinky]
It's not about violence, it's about feeling safe...
So yeah, feels I guess.

Look I GET the idea that feeling threatened constantly could be positive -
wait maybe I'm taking this too personal.
I actually do get the idea that people will grow stronger from adversity.

But I'm pretty sure, not positive (no sarcasm), that healthy development involves having a place where you can actually relax- and be *honest*.
Nowadays maybe we take this for granted, since it's relatively easy to find an online space that's mostly protected (ignoring trolls which inevitably and creatively lie past any filter)
But even so, I think...  Guessing, really... that being able to be honest with other people in person, is particularly healthy.  Even for an hour a week, or whatever.

Well, the internet wasn't like this when I was young.  It was newsgroups and MUDs and IRC, once I was allowed IRC.
I remember confusedly propositioning an online friend...
The rejection hurt a lot.  And I had no idea why I even suggested it.  Nobody was giving me hugs and suggesting - I didn't know what gay MEANT, much less that it was at all okay!

I shouldn't complain too much, I had and have a very close connection with my brother.  I can't imagine what I'd be like if I didn't at least have that...

Okay here's the final word from me, personally, in this incredibly off-topic discussion:  I wish I had a fucking safe space, and some support, and I think I'm fucking broken because of it.
I got harder and harder and then I just snapped.
Is this really the right thread for this stuff??

I feel for you, good sir, I do. Please, don't think I want people to feel bad about themselves or that they deserve to be subjected to brutalities of the average American idiot--because they don't. I want bigotry to go away as a whole, but I think saying we'll be here you'll be there only does more to drive a wedge between two communities where none should exist. I've been trying to say that people should be respected everywhere.

EDIT: I'm done. If people don't wanna talk about this any more, all fine by me. I've made my point, if you don't think it's polthread worthy whatever.

[Rolan7]

Totally!  I only mean that people should have a place to retreat to and contemplate, and compare notes with others.

I know it's bad to have such a place, and spend too much time there.  That leads to ever-more-intense tribalism.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Totally!  I only mean that people should have a place to retreat to and contemplate, and compare notes with others.

I know it's bad to have such a place, and spend too much time there.  That leads to ever-more-intense tribalism.

It's not bad to have such a place. Everyone has such a place. It's bad to define yourself by that place. I think. Which is why I get so angry about it. Most people do exactly that, they go there to escape a little bit and then back to face the world, but you can't live there. Not yet anyways, only once society has matured enough to hate people because they're shit people and not because they look different or have differences that have no effect on anyone else.

EDIT: Also, once again cheers to everyone being an adult in this thread recently and actually having good discussions and presenting fairly logical arguments.

[Rolan7]

Yeah I shouldn't have put a comma there.  Spending too much time in a safe echo chamber is bad.  Having a place to regroup and be honest with other humans isn't, inherently.  But it's tempting to spend too much time there, so yeah.

Okay, I'm done.  Likewise, I feel like this discussion has been very productive and civil (:

[Sensei]

People have been going out of their way to spend time in a private setting with other people who share and respect their values and opinions since the beginnings of society, and of course the term 'safe space' was coined only recently. Maybe at first 'safe space' was used as a means of signalling to others, who felt persecuted, that your space was somewhere they could express their unpopular opinion/identity/values without fear. However, I would say that as soon as those ideals became relatively popular rather than a persecuted minority, everyone still saying 'safe space' was doing it to exclude people who so much as expressed a different opinion from semi-public or entirely public spaces. See 'the Sword' as others have said.

I propose the notion that the term 'safe space' is already so tarnished that if you want a means of signaling that your space is somewhere people should feel safe to express certain ideas without being criticized, you ought to find a new term.

[Guardian G.I.]

Not sure if this was said here before over the past 80 pages, but it's a shame that mainiac wasn't here on Election Night. We would be buried beneath a kilometre-high layer of NaCl, though.

Spoiler: Also, here's a meme I've found (click to show/hide)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Only now to I realize how much falling down the stairs looks like a swastika.