They’re showing no appreciation at all for the benefits of open discussion.
Yes, creating a safe space does prevent an entirely open discussion. So downvoting to oblivion people to talk about the merits of killing everyone in Asia, or the validity of Christianity. As a community, we have decided that there are certain discussions we don’t want to have, and certain topics we don’t want to discuss.
Not all safe spaces are equal. A safe space for a support group for trans folk would have a different meaning for a safe space for African Americans. I think Less Wrong could have its own version of a safe space, with the spirit behind the rules being something like “don’t say/advocate for violence against others, don’t be needlessly rude, don’t use personal attacks.”
1) We already do have a kind of safe space in theory, it’s mostly the name “safe space” that turns people off more than the actual idea.
2) We’re doing part of that wrong, because it was people advocating ideas that would be dangerous to the OP that turned her off from LW in the first place.
I think you are covering a lot of distance by stretching “don’t advocate violence” into “don’t say anything that someone feels the widespread adoption of could be potentially dangerous.”
Actually, this is something I’ve been a bit confused about the whole time. What posts is she talking about? The OP says Yvain’s posts, but from the substance of the article the article it sounds like she’s talking about reactionaries.
Considering the much higher than average rate of homocide towards trans people based on todays standards, a reinforcement of gender roles would almost certainly increase that rate.
Yes, creating a safe space does prevent an entirely open discussion. So downvoting to oblivion people to talk about the merits of killing everyone in Asia, or the validity of Christianity. As a community, we have decided that there are certain discussions we don’t want to have, and certain topics we don’t want to discuss.
Not all safe spaces are equal. A safe space for a support group for trans folk would have a different meaning for a safe space for African Americans. I think Less Wrong could have its own version of a safe space, with the spirit behind the rules being something like “don’t say/advocate for violence against others, don’t be needlessly rude, don’t use personal attacks.”
But those already are the rules on LW......aren’t they?
Yeah, in theory. This leads to two things:
1) We already do have a kind of safe space in theory, it’s mostly the name “safe space” that turns people off more than the actual idea.
2) We’re doing part of that wrong, because it was people advocating ideas that would be dangerous to the OP that turned her off from LW in the first place.
I think you are covering a lot of distance by stretching “don’t advocate violence” into “don’t say anything that someone feels the widespread adoption of could be potentially dangerous.”
Actually, this is something I’ve been a bit confused about the whole time. What posts is she talking about? The OP says Yvain’s posts, but from the substance of the article the article it sounds like she’s talking about reactionaries.
Considering the much higher than average rate of homocide towards trans people based on todays standards, a reinforcement of gender roles would almost certainly increase that rate.