Michael Bloomberg Criticizes Safe Spaces, Gets Booed - Polidicks

[quote]Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a commencement speech at he University of Michigan that drew mixed reactions from students,[URL="https://www.michigandaily.com/section/news/bloomberg-talks-microaggressions-safe-spaces-spring-commencement-speech"]The Michigan Daily reported.[/URL]During the speech on April 30, Bloomberg voiced his perception that college students are overly sensitive and shouldn't need safe spaces to deal with difficult situations. “The fact that some university boards and administrations now bow to pressure and shield students from these ideas through ‘safe spaces,’ ‘code words,’ and ‘trigger warnings’ is, in my view, a terrible mistake,” he said, to some applause. But when he waded into the territory of microaggresions, students did not react positively. “The whole purpose of college is to learn how to deal with difficult situations — not run away from them. A microaggression is exactly that: micro,” he said amid a chorus of boos. Some students also shouted epithets at him during the speech, The Daily reported.[/quote] [URL="http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-bloomberg-booed-during-speech-2016-5"]Source[/URL] I'm not a Bloomberg fan, but good on him for saying this. This safe space/trigger warning shit needs to end.

The people trying to be this type of arbiter, especially in metal health are all far from qualified from doing so. It's like scientology having their war against psychiatry. In fact psychiatry would had picked up on microaggressions a long time ago if they truly are influential to a healthy mind. Seriously, the entire medical field needs to put their food down hard on this.

Video from source: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i23pD38lpE[/media]

Safe space / trigger warnings are such a awful thing that need to stop existing I actually find the idea that I'm not allowed to speak my mind more offensive than blocking out certain conversations around certain people obviously certain jokes shouldn't be said around some people but fucking come on, I'm not 12 years old. if you need a safe space to deal with emotional stress then you're only creating an even greater problem. You're effectively doing the same as bottling anger, and that kind of lifestyle is actually fairly dangerous for your mental well-being.

Honestly, I'd understand safe spaces and trigger warnings [I]if it was for actual issues.[/I] For example, I wouldn't want to cause some issues for another sufferer of hallucinations, either from health issues or traumatic injuries(one in the same??). The latter of which I'd actually see some justification as some things can make some people relive a really bad moment in their life or be forced to witness some really screwed up shit. On the other hand, I cannot find myself ever cuddling people because they cannot handle reality. The second you are incapable of handling reality, and you have no-sort of medically diagnosed issue or traumatic injury, you need to grow up or take your pick of putting yourself either at your local mental asylum, outdoors area, or walking off to whatever part of the map you need to find yourself in. Forcing people to adopt your dogmas or be called offensive for triggering them is not fucking okay. It's straight up authoritarian.

I'd like to blame this all on the massive stress college students are put under, I for one probably had an ulcer last year from just the stress, but then I also know people who sit around all day playing dota and consider going to class, and still pass. Certainly there is a cause to be concerned about rampant microaggressions, but it's like radiation, you will be bombarded by a background amount of it anyways, prosecuting every percieved injustice gets us tumbling down a slippery slope.

[QUOTE=Sableye;50247759]I'd like to blame this all on the massive stress college students are put under, I for one probably had an ulcer last year from just the stress, but then I also know people who sit around all day playing dota and consider going to class, and still pass. Certainly there is a cause to be concerned about rampant microaggressions, but it's like radiation, you will be bombarded by a background amount of it anyways, prosecuting every percieved injustice gets us tumbling down a slippery slope.[/QUOTE] Bullshit. Why have college students in the past century not had these problems? If a student gets a stress related disease that's one thing, but this has nothing to do with that.

What the hell is a micro-aggression anyway? I get that its meant to mean something like 'subtle signals' meant to elicit some sort of negative reaction, humans definitely do that. But to me it looks like these certain foreigners inflate the definition to cover pretty much any human interaction, and pick and choose at their leisure. The term is made to be so broad that its meaningless.

[QUOTE=Pantz Master;50247790]Bullshit. Why have college students in the past century not had these problems? If a student gets a stress related disease that's one thing, but this has nothing to do with that.[/QUOTE] The load on certain degrees have increased while I found good study groups to be a unicorn, (cheating is a factor). I went to a university with a high suicide rate for a certain degree. While the place had lack of places to escape to (middle of nowhere), that BS required 5 years to finish if you got all the classes you needed for each semester. A big reason why people joined frats was to get study groups and an answer database. This being in the "stem" field, the humanities and social science had it easy. And they still cheated. I wouldn't be surprised this is just mostly people working the system and don't give a shit if it makes things worse. Heck C's are a F if you want a job now, gotta get that 3.0 plus internship while going to school. I've heard a few times, "You'll learn on the job once you get it".

[QUOTE=J!NX;50247520]Safe space / trigger warnings are such a awful thing that need to stop existing I actually find the idea that I'm not allowed to speak my mind more offensive than blocking out certain conversations around certain people obviously certain jokes shouldn't be said around some people but fucking come on, I'm not 12 years old. if you need a safe space to deal with emotional stress then you're only creating an even greater problem. You're effectively doing the same as bottling anger, and that kind of lifestyle is actually fairly dangerous for your mental well-being.[/QUOTE] Well, they are both valid things, but the only problem is it's been overtaken and overused by special snowflakes, rather than the people who actually really need it with things that seriously impact them, like actual impact rather than holier than though aghast offence.

[QUOTE=Sableye;50247759]I'd like to blame this all on the massive stress college students are put under, I for one probably had an ulcer last year from just the stress, but then I also know people who sit around all day playing dota and consider going to class, and still pass. Certainly there is a cause to be concerned about rampant microaggressions, but it's like radiation, you will be bombarded by a background amount of it anyways, prosecuting every percieved injustice gets us tumbling down a slippery slope.[/QUOTE] As a college student in a very high octane, high workload course, I have yet to see the degeneracy that seems so prolific in American colleges. It's not an excuse.

[QUOTE=Mr. N;50247901]As a college student in a very high octane, high workload course, I have yet to see the degeneracy that seems so prolific in American colleges. It's not an excuse.[/QUOTE] It will come to your university, don't worry. It started in North America and it has started to infect Britain, Ireland won't be long.

[QUOTE=Mr. N;50247901]As a college student in a very high octane, high workload course, I have yet to see the degeneracy that seems so prolific in American colleges. It's not an excuse.[/QUOTE] Just because you are not yet exposed to it does not make it a problem that you can simply hand-wave away. There are a lot of things wrong with American higher education that probably also exist in higher education programs worldwide. I think there is a very real problem with college education right now which emphasizes the regurgitation of textbook information over true educational value, on top of increasing pressure from the working world for highly educated workers. Increasing costs of education and decreasing avenues of income for college students. A strong divide between the intent of a college education and the training and readiness requirements of the working world. These problems and more agitate all sorts of college students and the symptoms manifest differently.

Mirco aggressions. Well let me see, when I was in high school, I was paranoid and very in secure. I was hyper sensitive to any thing that could be interpreted to a sign of rejection. One girl had a tendency to twitch on her face. Mini seizure or something. Whatever. I was talking to her and her cheek had a small convulsion. To my hypersensitive mind, it was a sign that she was rejecting me and I got really mad. The point of the story is a person who is emotionally sound would not take mirco-aggressions so seriously. It is the mentally unsound mind that will be looking for any sign of rejection and will react harshly just like I did.

[QUOTE=Daysofwinter;50249050]Mirco aggressions. Well let me see, when I was in high school, I was paranoid and very in secure. I was hyper sensitive to any thing that could be interpreted to a sign of rejection. One girl had a tendency to twitch on her face. Mini seizure or something. Whatever. I was talking to her and her cheek had a small convulsion. To my hypersensitive mind, it was a sign that she was rejecting me and I got really mad. The point of the story is a person who is emotionally sound would not take mirco-aggressions so seriously. It is the mentally unsound mind that will be looking for any sign of rejection and will react harshly just like I did.[/QUOTE] That's not the problem, though. There are some seriously sick and twisted people that jump for any reason to further their agenda. This whole microaggression and safe space culture is 100% the result of a load of immature, fucked up people taking a very real, but ultimately small problem, trivializing it and riding the coattails of controversy to their destination.

[QUOTE=Ithon;50247883]The load on certain degrees have increased while I found good study groups to be a unicorn, (cheating is a factor). I went to a university with a high suicide rate for a certain degree. While the place had lack of places to escape to (middle of nowhere), that BS required 5 years to finish if you got all the classes you needed for each semester. A big reason why people joined frats was to get study groups and an answer database. This being in the "stem" field, the humanities and social science had it easy. And they still cheated. I wouldn't be surprised this is just mostly people working the system and don't give a shit if it makes things worse. Heck C's are a F if you want a job now, gotta get that 3.0 plus internship while going to school. I've heard a few times, "You'll learn on the job once you get it".[/QUOTE] I really don't get this sentiment. I did a full electrical engineering BS in 4 years taking an average of ~20 units and, while tough, it definitely was't insane. Hell, I even worked part time the first couple years. I really think this whole stress thing is more weakness with our modern generations as opposed to life actually being harder.

[QUOTE=Pantz Master;50247790]Bullshit. Why have college students in the past century not had these problems? If a student gets a stress related disease that's one thing, but this has nothing to do with that.[/QUOTE] I think it might have had to do with college students being older in the past, like the current pipeline from HS to college really didn't exist in my grandparents time, both of them didn't enter college until they were in their mid 20s because of the draft and being able to afford to go with a family Also the stakes were a lot less. Students today are taking on tremendous loans, and now parent+ plans can tie your debt to your parents which is absolutely terrifying Additionally some degrees have gotten significantly harder, mine for example has had quite a few extras piled on since my professor graduated in the early 90s, it's really hard to finish mine in 4 years, its like 18 credit hours every semester for 4 years [editline]3rd May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Ithon;50247883] I wouldn't be surprised this is just mostly people working the system and don't give a shit if it makes things worse. Heck C's are a F if you want a job now, gotta get that 3.0 plus internship while going to school. I've heard a few times, "You'll learn on the job once you get it".[/QUOTE] Ya the creep of internships as well as high GPA in stem fields is worrisome it's really hard to get that internship if you don't have a high GPA then it's that much harder to land a job without the internship and for what it's worth most jobs don't require nearly as much theoretical understanding that you need in college

[QUOTE=Sableye;50249450]I think it might have had to do with college students being older in the past, like the current pipeline from HS to college really didn't exist in my grandparents time, both of them didn't enter college until they were in their mid 20s because of the draft and being able to afford to go with a family Also the stakes were a lot less. Students today are taking on tremendous loans, and now parent+ plans can tie your debt to your parents which is absolutely terrifying Additionally some degrees have gotten significantly harder, mine for example has had quite a few extras piled on since my professor graduated in the early 90s, it's really hard to finish mine in 4 years, its like 18 credit hours every semester for 4 years[/QUOTE] And, as an anecdote, quality of education varies wildly in college programs. I have been in the lectures of various teachers of differing quality. I have been in lectures that were engaging and insightful. I have also been in lectures where the teacher was unable to answer any questions presented, the content from the presentation was stolen from outside sources without attribution, and as a result there was hardly ever a cohesive thought on any one slide. Point ultimately being that there are a lot of variables in education.

[QUOTE=sgman91;50249407]I really don't get this sentiment. I did a full electrical engineering BS in 4 years taking an average of ~20 units and, while tough, it definitely was't insane. Hell, I even worked part time the first couple years. I really think this whole stress thing is more weakness with our modern generations as opposed to life actually being harder.[/QUOTE] Lets go over your logic. 'Hmm I did fine in school it wasnt hard for me' > 'Therefore everyone who is stressed by college must be weak if they cant handle it' Look dude, I'm a double major in a superb school and college was easy as fuck for me too, even when I was working (full time in certain years) at the same time. BUT, instead of judging vast swaths of other peoples experience based on our subjective, limited experience, we could instead try to imagine why it might be that people nowadays are having such stressful and difficult experiences in the college world. Its no secret that the world of higher education has some deep and profound problems. It's also no secret that there has never been a time where students have had to take on this much debt. Our high school system does little to actually prepare students for a rigorous college education. There are many factors to this, saying that our generation is "just weak" is a cop-out answer imo. Too easy of an explanation and you hear it so much these days BECAUSE its a scapegoat to avoid solving the real problems, even if there is some truth to it(debatable).

[QUOTE=Sableye;50247759]I'd like to blame this all on the massive stress college students are put under, I for one probably had an ulcer last year from just the stress, but then I also know people who sit around all day playing dota and consider going to class, and still pass. Certainly there is a cause to be concerned about rampant microaggressions, but it's like radiation, you will be bombarded by a background amount of it anyways, prosecuting every percieved injustice gets us tumbling down a slippery slope.[/QUOTE] Stress is a part of life. You learn to cope and deal with it in healthy ways. All the stuff people have been complaining about have nothing to do with stress or college life. It is stupid shit about gender, race, and other stupid stuff. Most of it does not even deal with college, it is just special snowflakes throwing tantrums and the people in charge are so politically correct and spineless they give into it. Not saying that college can be stressful for some people. However, we need colleges to help students with that in the proper way. Safe spaces, trigger warnings, and stupid shit like that isn't the way to do it. It does not rectify the problem, it simply ignores it. Why do you need a safe space in college anyway? College is about learning new people, challenging your own ideas and learning new information. If you're going to hide and ignore the world you better off just staying at home.

[QUOTE=Protocol7;50249077]That's not the problem, though. There are some seriously sick and twisted people that jump for any reason to further their agenda. This whole microaggression and safe space culture is 100% the result of a load of immature, fucked up people taking a very real, but ultimately small problem, trivializing it and riding the coattails of controversy to their destination.[/QUOTE] That what I meant. I was fucked up. I am saying this is the root of the problem. People who are emotionally fucked up.

[QUOTE=RayvenQ;50247898]Well, they are both valid things, but the only problem is it's been overtaken and overused by special snowflakes, rather than the people who actually really need it with things that seriously impact them, like actual impact rather than holier than though aghast offence.[/QUOTE] I can see it being a powerful method to combat depression. remove the person from stressers and let them slowly overcome it. It's a shame that giant oversensitive adult-babies are using it because they can't handle emotions.

[QUOTE=J!NX;50250016]I can see it being a powerful method to combat depression. remove the person from stressers and let them slowly overcome it. It's a shame that giant oversensitive adult-babies are using it because they can't handle emotions.[/QUOTE] Honestly seems like it's used by those who really shouldn't be using them in the first place.

[QUOTE=J!NX;50247520]Safe space / trigger warnings are such a awful thing that need to stop existing I actually find the idea that I'm not allowed to speak my mind more offensive than blocking out certain conversations around certain people obviously certain jokes shouldn't be said around some people but fucking come on, I'm not 12 years old. if you need a safe space to deal with emotional stress then you're only creating an even greater problem. You're effectively doing the same as bottling anger, and that kind of lifestyle is actually fairly dangerous for your mental well-being.[/QUOTE] I understand that not everyone agrees with their implementation, but are people seriously against the core concept of trigger warnings and safe spaces? I strive to be considerate to other people and respectful to them. People on Facepunch always get very angry when something is banned or censored because a person or group does not agree with it. Well, trigger warnings get around that - the content is there but people decide for themselves whether or not to engage and that's a fantastic system. For example, TV shows let you know if they've got violence or sex in them. If you're against trigger warnings, what are your thoughts on spoilers? [quote]I actually find the idea that I'm not allowed to speak my mind more offensive than blocking out certain conversations around certain people[/quote] I've heard people say this sort of thing before. My perspective is - imagine if you told, say, a rape joke (substitute this for another dark/sensitive subject if you'd like) in front of your friends. One of them comes up to you and says 'hey, can you not make jokes about that? x was raped and it's kind of a personal thing to me'. You could easily tell them no, fuck off, free speech, which you are perfectly allowed to do. However, that friend is 100% in their right to think you're an asshole and not want to be around you anymore. In this situation, I want to be kind to that friend because their feelings and comfort are more important to me and if that's the case - is it really that much harder to extend that compassion to people you don't know? I'm aware I sound naive here - that the world is full of bad people and difficult situations, but also know that a lot of people growing up with mental illness are in an environment that doesn't fully understand what they're going through. Totally support free speech 100% but to me, being considerate to other people isn't censorship?? it's just being polite in my eyes Basically my core point is just, don't be an asshole tbh like it's not cool or edgy to be apathetic

[QUOTE=NiandraLades;50250173]I understand that not everyone agrees with their implementation, but are people seriously against the core concept of trigger warnings and safe spaces?c[/QUOTE] I am. Being able to deal with hearing opinions that you find offensive should be a basic expectation in society. Doing absolutely anything that enables people to ignore and hide from difficult opinions does nothing but hurt them and society as a whole.

[QUOTE=sgman91;50250212]I am. Being able to deal with hearing opinions that you find offensive should be a basic expectation in society.[/QUOTE] In addition: Unless you have a legit traumatic experience, then safe spaces just leads to further disconnect from the world around you, and thus results in a distorted world view. There's more than enough people with a wonky view of the world, who's deeply entrenched and refuses to hear the reasoning of people who doesn't blindly agree with them. So lets not encourage even more to become like that 'kay? Let's have a talk like adults instead, because atleast there's a sliver of hope that'll lead to actual changes instead of wallowing in your own opinion.

[QUOTE=Van-man;50250230]In addition: [B]Unless you have a legit traumatic experience[/B], then safe spaces just leads to further disconnect from the world around you, and thus results in a distorted world view. There's more than enough people with a wonky view of the world, who's deeply entrenched and refuses to hear the reasoning of people who doesn't blindly agree with them. So lets not encourage even more to become like that 'kay? Let's have a talk like adults instead, because atleast there's a sliver of hope that'll lead to actual changes instead of wallowing in your own opinion.[/QUOTE] I think she's referring to traumatic experiences when talking about the core concepts of TW and SS. At least that's what I gathered from the example given.

[QUOTE=_Axel;50250251]I think she's referring to traumatic experiences when talking about the core concepts of TW and SS. At least that's what I gathered from the example given.[/QUOTE] I have total empathy with a person who went through a traumatic experience, but if you can't even hear something similar being talked about in an academic setting without becoming emotionally unstable, then you've got real mental issues that you need to go get professional help with. Letting you hide from them isn't going to help anyone.

Well, I understand what was meant - obviously there's a huge scale of severity when it comes to these subjects Apologies if I was unclear/ramble-y at all - sometimes struggle to word what I'm thinking :v:

I don't disagree with the idea of not talking about things that offend people when the time is appropriate, like I said, certain jokes shouldn't be said around some people. I disagree with the implication that TW/SS's are used to effectively censor speech that people disagree with, or simply to suppress speech. I disagree with people acting like stupid [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY1H1rZL53I"]children [/URL]and trying to completely block things out of existence. I'm not going to go up to a group of people talking about gay marriage bans and tell them they aren't allowed to speak their mind on a lighter use of it, too, it just further disconnects you from reality when you use it to block 'stressers' out when you weren't actually affected by anything. I feel there is a huge difference between kindly asking because something may be a touchy subject to someone, and suppressing/blocking that subject completely. Trigger warnings seem to be used as ways to block it out, rather than lightly ask over it.