
Sexual paranoia on campus: Laura Kipnis, the professor at the eye of the storm - jseliger
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/02/unwanted-advances-on-campus-us-university-professor-laura-kipnis-interview
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mc32
This is most ridiculous. Writing opinion on something like this in what some
consider bastions of free speech and then having some of the student body
wanting to censor said speech is unbelievable.

It's understood sexual assault is an issue at campuses --focus on that. Focus
on providing guidance to new arrivals, acceptable sexual behavior, etc. But to
censor opinion on the subject in institutions of high learning is ridiculous.
It's unfortunate that some faculty as well as student bodies have been
complicit in the new baseline for what consists of harm --it's no longer
bodily harm or physical assault but rather ideas and opinions --this is very
sad. I can only think back to my days in Uni. What a strange unrecognizable
world it has become.

~~~
remarkEon
At a graduate program right now, ~5 years after finishing undergrad. The
evolution is absolutely astounding and, frankly, frightening. There's new
"administrators" charged with, though not explicitly in their job title,
policing language and, yes, thought on campus.

One of the most effective essays I've read on diagnosing the problem is this:

[http://thesmartset.com/free-speech-the-modern-
campus/](http://thesmartset.com/free-speech-the-modern-campus/)

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Pica_soO
I wonder why some STEM universities not separate themselves from the whole
social mafiosi bedlam.

I mean, the actual cause they claim to fight for or against, doesn't even come
up anymore. Its all about testing social nukes. Yes, we can bundle together
and silence that guys opinion (we never really read his book, or provided
valid counter arguments), yes we can ostracize that woman for taking our
claims apart in public. Is that all?

Los Alamos for the social media version of Lord of the Flys? Honestly, the
first develop/her who welded a camera to a cellphone, did more against police
violence against minorities, then three generations of social justice warriors
combined. So why not close the talk-shops and force those hick-up-hikikomorito
to actually work for social causes ? Write a Email-Correcter, that takes slang
out of a business Email? Fight centralized identities, which put a face to
everything on the web. Implement a fake news detector - filter the web for
click bait, by replacing links to the original paper/blog post/cause. Your
absence has been noted.

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probablah
There's got to be some way of predicting which people will transform
themselves into the shittiest assholes, and put them all in the same shitty
school, so that they can all burn it to the ground together, and we only
sacrifice one worthless safety school, rather than 40 or 50 valuable
institutions.

This is probably unrealistic, since one person's enjoyable experience is often
in direct conflict with another's misery.

Maybe it just needs to to go down so that all the noisiest, most adversarial
assholes, likely to compliment each other's misery land in the same place,
make the most noise, and it looks like a huge, ridiculous disaster, but
through this, 99% of everyone else's time at school goes smoothly, far far
away from the well-isolated, planned demolition of losers.

Is this how wars start?

~~~
dexen
>There's got to be some way of predicting which people will transform
themselves

It's predictable to a large degree. Between moral foundations ( Jonatan Haidt,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI1wQswRVaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI1wQswRVaU)
) and hormone levels (IIRC Gad Saad, can't locate specific video right now,
some example articles below) there is growing body of scientific research
relating to how much moral and political alignment is function of our body and
brain.

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2015/08/05/politic...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2015/08/05/political-
beliefs-genetic/)
[http://www.unl.edu/polphyslab/polpsycharticle.pdf](http://www.unl.edu/polphyslab/polpsycharticle.pdf)

~~~
JakeAl
Just have to point out as Haidt says, predisposed does not mean predetermined.
Our ability to control and choose our individual behavior is what
distinguishes us from animals as a species.

