Safe spaces for everyone?

[Oerdin]

Moderates say this, but when push comes to shove, they seem to behave like anyone else, shutting down debates and even misappropriating terms like "mansplaining" to mock and shame the people they are debating. Hell hath no hypocrisy like moderates who are convinced they are right.

So excuse me if I don't buy that statement.

You sound like a person who is frequently wrong, who can't win debates, and so who wants a safe space where no one else is allowed to speak.

Do you need your safe space, bro?

 

[Archon_Wing]

Safe space? I demand a kingdom where disagreement is punishable by death or failing that, flatulence in their general direction.

 

[bernie14]

safe spaces for everyone (as long as you can afford them)

 

[caketastydelish]

The only safe space I need is a safe parking space. I'm not even sure what that means, but it sounded too funny to pass up.

 

[Commodore]

I think everyone should be woken up at 3AM by a loudspeaker that spouts the slogans of their political opponents.

Run on that platform and you will have my vote. Not for president, but for Dictator for Life.

 

[aelf]

It is an interesting discussion strategy to make up a straw man in your head, and then when the person does not actually try to argue for that straw man that you've made up in your head, you completely ignore their actual argument on the basis that they did not defend the straw man that was only in your head to begin with and completely ignore their actual argument.

You said this:

I love how your posts read like something a racist would say about races

I didn't know "read like something a racist would say" refers to text where the content has been significantly changed from mine. I suspect if there's dishonesty in this exchange, it was yours right there.

You sound like a person who is frequently wrong, who can't win debates, and so who wants a safe space where no one else is allowed to speak.

Do you need your safe space, bro?

Actually, that sounds more like you and your moderate comrades, who I was describing.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

We should definitely do away with moderates. The world would be a so much better place if everyone ascribed to various competing extremist philosophies with no desire to even attempt to compromise. Man doesn't that just sound like heaven to live in.

 

[aelf]

I guess, unsurprisingly, you can't differentiate between a label and the substance underneath. I mean, the DPRK is not actually democratic, nor is National Socialism socialist. Many moderates talk a good game about the virtues of moderation, but they often fail to uphold these virtues, just like the people they look down on.

 

[Traitorfish]

Why does the "compromise" of the moderates always have to be enforced from above by a centralised, bureaucratic state? If political outcomes were the genuine result of a process of consensus-building, there should be virtually no coercive apparatus required.

I think that moderates have a process of confusing process with outcome, when it comes to "compromise". They imagine compromise in terms of a lack of dissent, rather than in terms of universal participation, and that a quiet and harmonious public sphere is both the goal and the proof of a functioning system of consensus. It's not a big jump from there to interpreting any expression of dissent as a rejection of compromise and therefore of the entire democratic process, that is to say, as extremism. It's the cargo cult version of a democratic republic, and tends to install in otherwise reasonable and sober people from some unsettlingly totalitarian attitudes towards political dissent.

Sure.

"Black people always act like they're the victims, but then they behave like thugs, robbing stores, getting in trouble with the cops, and then when they're shot because of it, they all rally together and go like "Black Lives Matter!" Hell hath no hypocrisy like Black Thugs who are convinced they're victims."

Really easy to see how your statements that generalize ideological groups as if they're all the same matches how racists generalize races as if they're all the same. Of course doing it with ideological groups isn't as bad because you choose to affiliate with them, but it's still very interesting to see how well your way of thinking matches that of racists.

Yes, but that statement is offensive not because the structure of the sentence is intrinsically malevolent, but because, when applied to black people, it is untrue and slanderous.

I could also say that black people have eight legs, an exoskeleton, and a triple-segmented body; that this statement is absurd and reasonable when used to describe black people does not mean that it is absurd and unreasonable when used to describe spiders. Truth is not simply a question of the structure of the statement, but of the accuracy of the statement.

edit: wait dang it spiders only have two segments.

 

[Yeekim]

Why does the "compromise" of the moderates always have to be enforced from above by a centralised, bureaucratic state? If political outcomes were the genuine result of a process of consensus-building, there should be virtually no coercive apparatus required.

Because the crazier someone's position, the less likely they are to engage in any "consensus-building" at all, never mind actually giving ground.

but that statement is offensive not because the structure of the sentence is intrinsically malevolent, but because, when applied to black people, it is untrue and slanderous.

I'm pretty sure there are some black people described accurately by Valessa's statement.

 

[Narz]

I need a safe space from boring threads.

 

[caketastydelish]

I guess, unsurprisingly, you can't differentiate between a label and the substance underneath. I mean, the DPRK is not actually democratic, nor is National Socialism socialist. Many moderates talk a good game about the virtues of moderation, but they often fail to uphold these virtues, just like the people they look down on.

A view held by the vast majority of people is moderate. It means nothing more than that or nothing less. If you think moderates are evil that's fine, but that doesn't make them any less moderate. Another problem I have is the right wing extremists can also say "the moderates are closet left-wing extremists" just as much as you say the opposite, and many right-wing extremists already say that now.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I guess, unsurprisingly, you can't differentiate between a label and the substance underneath. I mean, the DPRK is not actually democratic, nor is National Socialism socialist. Many moderates talk a good game about the virtues of moderation, but they often fail to uphold these virtues, just like the people they look down on.

Well "moderate" seems to be a label which is applied from outside, to anyone who isn't an aspiring revolutionary, by aspiring revolutionaries. That definitely seems to be how you're using it. Not wanting to blow things up, smash things up, and tear down "the system" makes you a moderate, and moderates are to be despised.

 

[Hygro]

It would make sense that to have the certainty to act you would want your beliefs and worldview socially reinforced. It is also true that crowd wisdom depends on diversity of perspective. Perhaps a wide scope of echo chambers or safe spaces harboring different viewpoints and understandings of reality is optimal.

 

[Akka]

It is also true that crowd wisdom depends on diversity of perspective. Perhaps a wide scope of echo chambers or safe spaces harboring different viewpoints and understandings of reality is optimal.

Unless it's subtly parody, I don't really see how the first sentence and the second can work together...

 

[aelf]

A view held by the vast majority of people is moderate. It means nothing more than that or nothing less. If you think moderates are evil that's fine, but that doesn't make them any less moderate. Another problem I have is the right wing extremists can also say "the moderates are closet left-wing extremists" just as much as you say the opposite, and many right-wing extremists already say that now.

Well "moderate" seems to be a label which is applied from outside, to anyone who isn't an aspiring revolutionary, by aspiring revolutionaries. That definitely seems to be how you're using it. Not wanting to blow things up, smash things up, and tear down "the system" makes you a moderate, and moderates are to be despised.

Nope, self-professed moderates are a different breed. You can find them here and anywhere else.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Nope, self-professed moderates are a different breed. You can find them here and anywhere else.

But isn't anyone who espouses anything other than an "extremist" point of view a de-facto moderate? Most people fall into that category, so if they're not classified as moderates then what are they?

 

[Lexicus]

But isn't anyone who espouses anything other than an "extremist" point of view a de-facto moderate? Most people fall into that category, so if they're not classified as moderates then what are they?

Aelf is not talking merely about people who "fall into a category," but about people who self-describe as "moderate".
There is a big difference between these.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Okay, so how do you distinguish between the two groups? It seems as though they say the same things and profess to hold the same views, only for the "moderates" you somehow know that they're lying? How? What do they actually want then?

 

[Traitorfish]

Because the crazier someone's position, the less likely they are to engage in any "consensus-building" at all, never mind actually giving ground.

Chalking any irreconcilable ethical or political difference up to the other party being insane is also a hallmark of totalitarian thinking.

I'm pretty sure there are some black people described accurately by Valessa's statement.

I really don't see how that's the point?