The Rise of the College Crybullies | Hacker News Reader

The Rise of the College Crybullies

wsj.com

30 pointslarrys35 comments

Honestly, the college admissions application should come with a single trigger warning that covers all possible inconvenient ideas you might encounter in a university setting. Uncomfortable with that? Then don't attend. Were I entering college today, I would consider all this a reduction of what I would be exposed to in a university setting. If I'm paying for an education, I want a full education, not just the parts no one is protesting.

So you have no problem trying to exclude people based on their opinion as long as it is one you don't agree with? That seem quite hypocritical. Similar to how those who supposedly value diversity of opinion have no problem trying to dismiss other peoples opinions by calling them "crybullies".

Voicing a different opinion is different than demanding someone be punished because they have a different opinion.

Maintaining diversity of opinion is a two-way street that requires tolerance from everyone. Refusing to invite intolerant people is not hypocritical; it ensures the culture of spirited debate is preserved for all comers.

That is the exact same argument that the people you are opposing are making, just that you differ in opinion what is considered intolerant.

And saying that you should try to exclude people who don't agree with you seems very much like "demanding someone be punished because they have a different opinion".

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not being intentionally obtuse.

How would you design a system that is supposed to foster debate and differing opinions such that people don't shut it down because they cannot tolerate those differing opinions?

You're the one not responding to my arguments, how am I the one being obtuse?

How is excluding people you think are intolerant any better then they excluding you for thinking you are intolerant? How is calling people "crybullies" and implicitly "indoctrinated" instead of reviewing and arguing against their arguments being tolerant? How is it not you that don't tolerate people when you think it's a good idea to try to exclude others from college based on their opinion?

I think everyone has the right to campaign for their cause regardless if that cause is to stop someone else from doing something. I think it's up to the other party to argue their case as best as they can on their own merits instead of trying to shame the other group that are expressing their opinions. People who support free speech should celebrate the outpouring of free speech happening on campuses right now and they should form their own groups arguing for their causes rather than thinking they are morally superior even though they really just disagree since they want the same thing they are accusing their opponents for.

> How is calling people "crybullies" and implicitly "indoctrinated" instead of reviewing and arguing against their arguments being tolerant?

By "intolerance" I mean "having consequences beyond having people disagree with you," for example, making you lose your job.

> I think everyone has the right to campaign for their cause regardless if that cause is to stop someone else from doing something. I think it's up to the other party to argue their case as best as they can on their own merits instead of trying to shame the other group that are expressing their opinions. People who support free speech should celebrate the outpouring of free speech happening on campuses right now and they should form their own groups arguing for their causes rather than thinking they are morally superior even though they really just disagree since they want the same thing they are accusing their opponents for.

That's not the issue here. If this were all that were happening, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The issue is that speech is now being suppressed in higher education settings -- a place where (otherwise lawful) offense is expected to be tolerated -- by students who don't respond to offense with the sort of counterargument you're proposing. Instead, they are making demands for resignation or other forms of retribution, and these are starting to bear fruit.

> The issue is that speech is now being suppressed in higher education settings -- a place where (otherwise lawful) offense is expected to be tolerated -- by students who don't respond to offense with the sort of counterargument you're proposing. Instead, they are making demands for resignation or other forms of retribution, and these are starting to bear fruit.

Yeah, there's not much point in continuing this discussion. I don't see how you can in one sentence claim that "(otherwise lawful) offense" should be tolerated, but in the next say that calls for resignations or retribution (like boycotts) shouldn't be? Those aren't normally unlawful. Isn't that literally "lawful offence except those I disagree with like calls for resignation"?

Let's stop speaking in abstractions. Look at the Silliman situation. Erika Christakis was persecuted not for anything she said, but for merely suggesting that the best way for students to deal with insensitive actions is to confront them directly instead of expecting the administration to do it for them.

If only more people behaved is way in the workplace.

It's not about disagreement. It's about the institution. If you don't agree with one of the main purposes of the institution -- to inculcate tolerance of differing views -- don't go there.

Meanwhile, the rest of us think this institution as it stands today still provides an incredibly valuable function in society. We make better decisions as a result because we're able to digest more opinions without vomiting all over ourselves.

> By "intolerance" I mean "having consequences beyond having people disagree with you," for example, making you lose your job.

Does institutional racism and sexism and homophobia - which prevent some people even getting a job - count?

In many cases, sure, they do. It's pretty much the textbook definition of intolerance. But this is not the issue before us.

Here, the students were admitted, presumably with knowledge of these facts, and don't yet have a credible claim to any effect other than hurt feelings.

Re: the above post:

> I don't see how that isn't institutional discrimination.

Discriminating against people who get offended isn't unlawful. Not every instance of discrimination deserves to be righted. (If I kick you out of my perfume store because you smell like a distillery, the law does not, and should not, protect you.)

> What if it included writing an essay on "why bullying nerds are good for them" and people who've benn bullied couldn't do very well on that assignment, because they obviously took offence, is that not discrimination?

No, it is not. Again, there's no right to be protected against assignments that conflict with your upbringing. (In fact, one of the main goals of higher education is to make you see things from other points of view, even if they disturb you.) If you were offended by it, you'd be well off to still do the assignment but provide a strong counterargument instead.

> and don't yet have a credible claim to any effect other than hurt feelings.

You appear to be saying that it's okay for people to call black colleagues niggers, and for the college to do nothing to support that black student because fuck them, hurt feelings, and that the long history of brutal racist treatment of black people in America should be ignored by any black people when someone calls them nigger.

Is that what you're saying? Because I can't find another interpretation.

Of course not.

First, none of the situations discussed involve the N-word, so what you're describing is a hypothetical example, and a very special one at that. I think it's expected that a professor or staff member would be fired for hurling racial epithets.

Students, on the other hand, are a different case. For them, it's the institution's duty to intervene and help resolve the conflict, educate the speaker about the historical background, help instill empathy, and counsel the victim. Academic probation is often a tool that can be used if the problem cannot be resolved, but expulsion is typically the second or third step, not the first.

The argument in the top of this thread was that people who are sensitive to certain things should be filtered out of the admissions process based on that. I don't see how that isn't institutional discrimination.

What if it included writing an essay on "why bullying nerds are good for them" and people who've been bullied couldn't do very well on that assignment, because they obviously took offence, is that not discrimination?

Then they're not very good learners. Learning to see both sides of an argument is part of what education is about.

The debate team doesn't get to choose which side they argue. It's assigned randomly. More people should do that because it actually increases empathy.

He's tolerating your argument right this moment. He's not agreeing with you, but he's not asking you to be fired or kicked out of this forum either.

To get past the paywall:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

Just the same social justice warriors who attack tech companies and want more females and minorities in STEM, but they don't take STEM classes they take classes in the liberal arts instead.

I encourage females and minorities to take STEM classes for STEM jobs and challenge themselves.

Calling racism or sexism esp when almost none exists, there has been no evidence of racism on MU campus for six months. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/confirmed-there-is-a...

So what is the deal? If there was racism there'd be some evidence of it.

I like the litmus test that only someone with a github profile with projects of their own and commits to any projects in broad use are privvy to an opinion about tech culture.

When I see an SJC opinion on identity politics and tech, my first instinct is to check github to see if the author has ever contributed to open source or has any sizable projects of their own published. I'd guess that 99 times out of 100 they don't.

There are a lot of loudmouthed people with lots of opinions and no street cred.

Pretty much every scandal over the past few years have involved someone with little to no content in their github profile. I encourage anyone with a particular scandal in mind to go find the github profile of the person at the center of the scandal and see if they've accomplished much if anything as software engineer.

This is a bit divergent but GitHub alone is a bad litmus test to determine if someone as accomplished anything as a software engineer.

Many talented engineers are precluded by their contracts from contributing, use other channels to do so, or simply don't work on open source projects. Dismissing someone because of an empty github profile seems like a bit of a hair trigger reaction.

It's a bad litmus test if there is no github account or the github account is completely empty, but you know for certain someone is actually in a position doing real engineering. Every example where I've looked up an SJW's github account, they have had some content on it and it's been very little of very poor quality (typically some HTML and CSS and poor quality jQuery JavaScript or a remarkably trivial Ruby on Rails project). The only example I recall ever encountering where there was an SJW article where the person was quite accomplished was from an MtF trans engineer. That was also the only SJW article that I remember being pretty solid and found myself agreeing with a lot of it. That article was the only decent one I've read on Model-View-Culture.

The two most prominent examples where the SJW had a remarkably unremarkable github account both worked at companies with a very very strong open-source contribution culture because they quit or were let go.

Agreed but the SJWs will always make an issue with a project on a political thing and ask for a code of conduct. It seems to be an annoying pattern of behavior.

You have to remember that SJWs have declared a war on hackers and people in STEM. Trying to find something wrong with them to make them lose their jobs or be kicked out of open source projects.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918

ESR has an opinion on it that SJWs need to be kicked out of open source projects. Most of them can't even code properly and submit buggy code that gets rejected, and then they claim discrimination.

Nowhere in that post did I see the opinion that good patches be rejected on the grounds that the author is an SJW — ESR appears to say he's quite happy to accept good contributions from anyone. What am I missing?

Good patches should not be rejected by the ground that anyone is anything. What matters is code quality.

ESR was talking about the issues the SJWs make wanting a code of conduct and other political things. That they should be kicked out of projects when they do that sort of thing.

If they submit good patches, it should be accepted. If they cause a political issue instead of a coding or debugging one then they are just stirring up trouble.

In the example the POC (People of Color) submitted several patches but only one or two got accepted because they were good enough. The SJW got upset over the fact that not all of them got accepted. Called the project leader a white straight male, and project leader replied back he was a Latino and accepted a few patches from POC and goes by quality not race to accept or reject a patch.

Really hard to tell a SJW from a troll pretending to be a SJW, Poe's law and all of that.

Any point you might have loses all credibility when you quote ESR.

For this particular post: if you read the linked django thread it's clearly started by a troll, not an actual "SJW". And ESR's previous posts are mixes of overt racism and sexism with bizarre fantsy stirred through.

Some of the best programmers I know avoid open source. Partly because of the drama. But mostly because if you spend you days working on "qualified" things (business systems, simulation, robotics etc) in a demanding environment with, at least help from, highly educated people it's just not that fun to patch JavaScript frameworks on GitHub with the "just fork it" crowd.

There's a lot more to tech culture than programming.

Over time I've become fond of the phrase "show me the code" (obviously stolen from the film).

> there has been no evidence of racism on MU campus for six months

Your own citation:

> The Student’s Association President Payton Head said he was called the n-word.

> A group of black students said they were called the n-word by some guy in a car.

In what context is someone saying "a thing happened to me" not considered evidence that the thing happened?

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