MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges • Hacker News Board

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#171

Post by neurotech1 » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:21 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #123

neurotech1 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 18, a "child" can enlist in the military without parental consent. There are fighter pilots younger than 25 who are entrusted to fly SOLO in a $180m F-22 Raptor with live missiles. How do these so called High school administrators justify protecting "children" from every theoretically possible harm? While forgetting that in less than 2 years these same students might be going into combat as a member of the armed f…

> How do these so called High school administrators justify protecting "children" from every theoretically possible harm? While forgetting that in less than 2 years these same students might be going into combat as a member of the armed forces. Helicopter parents [1] and freely available student loans subsidized/backed by the federal government. The child/parent are the consumers of the service, but the negative exte…

This is tangentially related to why Elon Musk[0] likes to ask potential interns and employees how "they" solved a particularly difficult problem[1]. If they personally solved the problem, they are going to know the details of the solution. A student who relies on a "helicopter parent" is significantly less likely to understand the details of how to solve difficult problems.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/paularmstrongtech/2017/06/19/th...

[0.1] (archive/no adblock) http://archive.is/RxqQg

[0.2] (archive/no adblock) http://archive.is/uJmoD

[1] https://www.inc.com/anna-hensel/the-1-incredibly-detailed-jo...

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#172

Post by mobilefriendly » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:22 PM UTC

op00to wrote: post #150

tosser350 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People really do need to get some perspective on real problems. The safe spaces and coloring books for students after Trump got elected was pathetic. 18 year olds stormed Normandy, now they are crying over the democratic process. I say this as a college student myself. People will always find a reason to be miserable, so now that almost every major issue has been taken care of we have increasingly small things being…

> The safe spaces and coloring books for students after Trump got elected was pathetic. 18 year olds stormed Normandy, now they are crying over the democratic process. Isn't the sensitivity of the next generation a positive, and not a negative? I wish my father had emotional awareness instead of being part of a generation that customarily hid or pushed emotions away. The march of social progress is a good thing, not…

The problem is that "mental security" usually means denying actual truths. As Orwell put it, 2+2 = 5

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#173

Post by tosser350 » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

op00to wrote: post #150

tosser350 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People really do need to get some perspective on real problems. The safe spaces and coloring books for students after Trump got elected was pathetic. 18 year olds stormed Normandy, now they are crying over the democratic process. I say this as a college student myself. People will always find a reason to be miserable, so now that almost every major issue has been taken care of we have increasingly small things being…

> The safe spaces and coloring books for students after Trump got elected was pathetic. 18 year olds stormed Normandy, now they are crying over the democratic process. Isn't the sensitivity of the next generation a positive, and not a negative? I wish my father had emotional awareness instead of being part of a generation that customarily hid or pushed emotions away. The march of social progress is a good thing, not…

The stronger, more confident civilization and culture wins, not the most progressive or sophisticated. Rome was wiped out by barbarians and the dark ages followed. Western civilization is weak and divided, some don't even think it's worth defending. This is mainly due to outside influences intentionally creating division to weaken the United States from within.

Western civilization is far from perfect but I think it's preferable to any alternative I've seen.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cy2XPPUXcAACD43.jpg

edit: As far as what people are entitled to, I feel I'm entitled to nothing, not even the air I breath, unless I'm willing to work for it or fight for it. Most of the human rights we take for granted are only there because our ancestors fought to defend them. If you sit on your ass and feel entitled to something because you exist don't be surprised when someone takes it away.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#174

Post by afarrell » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:24 PM UTC

rothbardrand wrote: post #94

mhalle wrote: post #26

As a Senior House alum and former instructor at MIT, what bothers me the most is how MIT is teaching horrible standards of ethical behavior through their actions. Improper use of metadata to track down individuals in a confidential survey about mental health and substance abuse would end a scientist's career. MIT did it. Collective punishment of a group for the actions of a few is an educational and social antipatter…

What happened to the MIT Administration? Ever since Aaron Swartz death, it seems the administration of the school has been corrupted by some influence. My guess is that, like so many universities in this country, the administration is not answerable to students or even alumni.

The legal doctrine under which the MIT administration feels pruessure to do these things is called In Loco Parentis and its incarnation at MIT is particularly influenced by the death of Scott Krueger[1]. MIT has to at least appear[2] to be taking issues of student safety and the use of intoxicating substances seriously.

[1] http://news.mit.edu/1998/da-0923 [2] In the aftermath of a GHB overdose incident at Senior House's annual party Steer Roast in spring of 2008, there were rumblings that Steer Roast would be prohibited. I was part of a group working with the administration to allow Roast to continue. Rather than being just a CYA, The members of the administration whom I worked with appeared to genuinely and sincerely care about safety in this domain.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#175

Post by staunch » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:24 PM UTC

forgottenpass wrote: post #122

anon853941 wrote: post #92

Senior House alum here... You are load balancing 5 servers. One has a latency issue that causes response time to be 2x the others. What do you do? You wait, it goes to 4x. Now what? You take it offline, spin up a new instance and investigate. MIT put them on notice (a year earlier), there was no attempt to improve and the bluff was called. I wish this wasn't happening, but sometimes you have to actually DO something.

Considering that students are more akin to customers than worker bees, the obvious questions to that line of reasoning are: What is the MIT administration attempting to measure by using graduation rate as a metric? Why has the administration chosen to optimize for graduation rate? And the more general elephant in the room: What does/should a research university in general, and MIT in particular, seek to accomplish? A…

All of the exclusive universities sell degrees for a fortune. Their delivery rate is their graduation rate.

The admissions process is gamed to hell by wealthy people and the graduation rate is still 95%+. Hmmm...

The whole thing is a scam where the truly deserving students are a cover for the majority.

It's the same reason they don't worry about giving away online courses. Education isn't their product. Their product is a piece of paper that ensures your child won't be serving burgers alongside Will Hunting.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#176

Post by throwaway2048 » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

BoorishBears wrote: post #63

andrewflnr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're looking at it wrong... You're completely missing GPs point, which is specifically about politics. Talking about an "interesting SaSS" is a red herring.

I didn't think it was meant to be a political post. The entire thread is about a purported cultural shift that's starving out the environment that people like Steve and Woz thrived in. In fact, I would be disappointed if it was meant to be about politics because it'd come across as an attempt to shoehorn politics into a discussion about much broader social trends

What exactly do you beleive politics to be?

This sort of thing is a prime example of politics, the failure to recognise that is harmful to your understanding.

Politics isnt just voting for congress-critters and presidents.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#177

Post by throwaway2048 » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:29 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #118

dublinben wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be wrong. The Free Software movement predates the "Open Source" movement by 15 years or so.

The BSD license predates the GPLv1.

GNU as an organization pushing the idea of free software long predates the GPL. The people creating the BSD licensed BSD NET/2 explicitly aknowledged the GNU influence on their decision to release.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#178

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

bjl wrote: post #145

throwawayjava wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because Senior House was full of Trump voters /s

The most cogent criticisms of liberalism come from the left, not the right.

x2.

The most meaningful change comes from within.

There's a reason dictatorships spend a lot of effort trying to stamp out internal enemies.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#179

Post by tosser350 » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

mobilefriendly wrote: post #172

op00to wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The safe spaces and coloring books for students after Trump got elected was pathetic. 18 year olds stormed Normandy, now they are crying over the democratic process. Isn't the sensitivity of the next generation a positive, and not a negative? I wish my father had emotional awareness instead of being part of a generation that customarily hid or pushed emotions away. The march of social progress is a good thing, not…

The problem is that "mental security" usually means denying actual truths. As Orwell put it, 2+2 = 5

This, some people prefer sweet lies to bitter truths

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#180

Post by mrgordon » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

Stranger43 wrote: post #56

Once could argue that it is a good thing that old rebel spaces are closed as those places have a tendency go stale and turn into a cargo cult shadow of itself the more it's legacy is celebrated. The world don't need more safe-spaces where a bunch of well of kids can pretend they are changing the world, without having to deal with the fact that the movement's they pay homage to have been pacified and subverted since a…

From your comment, you appear to have no personal experience with Senior House. Your comment thus comes across as incredibly misinformed and naive. Senior House was not a place where people pretend they are changing the world as the article made emphatically clear. Many of the world's greatest technologists were taught and inspired at Senior House to pursue their life's work. This has absolutely nothing to do with Hillary Clinton despite the tired attempt to frame everything as Trump vs. Clinton. You are minimizing the loss of a truly creative and ingenious community in an attempt to advance the same old political argument.