Social Justice Warriors Thread

[Speaker to Animals]

Professors like that are the ones who will make you into a great engineer or scientist. My advice: give up the boos and partying and listen to the guy.

[de officiis]

Terror survivor's call for open speech on extremism

Bjorn Ihler read Anders Breivik's book only a week after jumping into lake Tyrifjorden in Norway to escape the terrorist's bullets.

Bjorn was one of the survivors on Utoya island where Breivik killed 77 people in July 2011.

What Bjorn found in the far-right "manifesto" surprised him.

"His worldview was not purely driven by hatred," he says. "It was much more about fear of what was happening to his society.

...

Since this experience, 26-year-old Bjorn devoted his life to trying to keep other young people from following a similar path to Breivik.

He has scoured the internet and seeks out extremists and former extremists to understand how they came to their views.

...

And he is now one of the leaders in a project talking to students in UK schools about extremist ideas.

... when Bjorn saw Breivik in the dock, he realised he was no longer at risk from him.

"I decided that the problem to address right now is all the people who share his mindset," he says.

Bjorn is part of an initiative called Extremely Together, a partnership involving the Kofi Annan Foundation, One Young World and the European Commission.

Bjorn's main recommendation for schools is that they teach students that people are allowed to hold very different ideas and opinions.

"I would like to see a class teaching critical thinking or philosophy in every school," he says.

"Students need to learn to analyse the information they receive, and to understand that there are many ways to interpret information, rather than see the world as black and white."

He is concerned that many education systems are "shutting down critical thinking and teaching propaganda".
Bjorn says teachers should encourage students to share ideas in the classroom, however unpleasant some of the ideas might seem.

He says the mentorship of his old philosophy teacher helped him get through a difficult year following the attack.
"I was all over the place, I couldn't make sense of anything, so I decided to call my old high school philosophy teacher," he says.

"He had taught me that people can see the world in different ways. If Breivik had had him as a teacher, I think things could have been very different."

Bjorn says the trend towards safe spaces in educational institutions is "extremely destructive" because it means teachers are hesitant to allow discussion of sensitive subjects.

"I've probably met more former extremists than anyone else, and one thing they all shared was that no one outside of their group would listen to them," he says.

"They never felt they were valued as human beings, they said no one would listen to their ideas.

"The only way to stop people from believing these ideas is to build a culture in the classroom where they can be discussed, analysed and criticised."

He says this feeling of alienation is a "driving force" for why people turn violent. "If they cannot promote their worldview through democratic means, they do it through violence."

...

Bjorn warns that too much interference in schools could "backfire" - if students feel they are being unfairly targeted, they will feel targeted and be more prone to radicalisation.

He argues that trying to ban access to extremist material online is "not a solution".

"Educational institutions should be places where you are allowed to have weird ideas and discuss them without being reported to the police or have it show up on your record," he says.

"There is a difference between security and safety, and schools should not be places where ideas and opinions are policed."

He raises an interesting question about how a society can effectively respond to people who are prone to develop extreme views: allow their ideas to be aired through open forums and healthy debate, or shut them down so they can ferment in isolation? The answer seems fairly clear to me, but no one has asked me to run a college or university.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Why do you support ISIS, DeO?

If we let that kind of wrong-think out into the society, we'd have millions of new terrorists next week. Jesus man, do you think our culture could withstand citizens actually discussing things in public? Who's going to obsess over our incremental technology upgrades, if they have actual issues to think about?

[Okeefenokee]

Why do you support ISIS, DeO?

If we let that kind of wrong-think out into the society, we'd have millions of new terrorists next week. Jesus man, do you think our culture could withstand citizens actually discussing things in public? Who's going to obsess over our incremental technology upgrades, if they have actual issues to think about?

The people pushing that agenda don't have a problem with terrorism. That's their go-to tactic. They, and you, openly support the use of violence to suppress ideas.

You fail.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Why do you support ISIS, DeO?

If we let that kind of wrong-think out into the society, we'd have millions of new terrorists next week. Jesus man, do you think our culture could withstand citizens actually discussing things in public? Who's going to obsess over our incremental technology upgrades, if they have actual issues to think about?

The people pushing that agenda don't have a problem with terrorism. That's their go-to tactic. They, and you, openly support the use of violence to suppress ideas.

You fail.

Never once have I supported any government suppression of ideas. However (for the 800th time), the Constitution does not protect me from kicking your ass when you say something stupid. You can sue for damages, or I can be arrested for assault, but it’s not a “free speech” issue.

[Martin Hash]

Why do you support ISIS, DeO?

If we let that kind of wrong-think out into the society, we'd have millions of new terrorists next week. Jesus man, do you think our culture could withstand citizens actually discussing things in public? Who's going to obsess over our incremental technology upgrades, if they have actual issues to think about?

The people pushing that agenda don't have a problem with terrorism. That's their go-to tactic. They, and you, openly support the use of violence to suppress ideas.

You fail.

Never once have I supported any government suppression of ideas. However (for the 800th time), the Constitution does not protect me from kicking your ass when you say something stupid. You can sue for damages, or I can be arrested for assault, but it’s not a “free speech” issue.

Yeah, it's a 2nd Amendment issue.

[Speaker to Animals]

Damn. Okie got challenged to another duel. That motherfucker is like the Musashi of the Internet.

[The Conservative]

Damn. Okie got challenged to another duel. That motherfucker is like the Musashi of the Internet.

I'd be more worried if he was the Sun Tzu of the Internet.

[Speaker to Animals]

Damn. Okie got challenged to another duel. That motherfucker is like the Musashi of the Internet.

I'd be more worried if he was the Sun Tzu of the Internet.

No, that's Daralon. The Smitty screengrab was epic.

[DBTrek]

Okee is a regular Andrew Jackson around this place. Apparently he’s developed a knack for triggering people’s “fight me” reflex.