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Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

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Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#41

Post by allwein »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #32
gjm11 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, of course the relics that we've discovered were safe while they were lost. Because otherwise we wouldn't have discovered them. That doesn't mean that being lost is safer than being in a museum. (Perhaps it is , but where's the evidence?)

>(Perhaps it is, but where's the evidence?) The relics that were safe through social meltdowns and other problems are the evidence. There are pretty safe assumptions that lead to that position too - museums will get destroyed just as other municipal buildings would in a period of societal collapse. Imagine you're uneducated, living in what was a museum and need to build a fire ... If the artefacts are still safely en…

"If the artefacts are still safely ensconced in a not yet rediscovered cave then they're relatively safe."

His point is that if a colony of insects happened into that cave a month after they were "safely ensconced" 500 years ago, then they wouldn't be there for us to find. Basically you're falling for survivorship bias.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#42

Post by raghava »

I studied in a JNV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawahar_Navodaya_Vidyalaya), from class 6th till class 12th; those were the best days of my life. All that I am today, is because of my stay in the vidyalaya. I guess the article linked above speaks of a similar life in an institute, but for higher education.

Such a model would only work if the students in that place are of such ideological disposition that they do not find all the fancy stuff fun.

I was once asked what I'd do if I had a 100 million, by some sheer luck or something. My answer was that I would anonymously buy a huge stretch of land in a remote area somewhere near the Western Ghats/Himalayas (India) and start a zen monastery type of institute for sciences; frugal(with Internet/infrastructure) in nature but strict in admissions, with no age limit for members. No fee whatsoever for the students, boarding and lodging included. A centre for higher education in science and technology, modeled after JNVs. And I would try joining that institute as a student, taking admission tests.

Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#43

Post by pbhjpbhj »

allwein wrote: post #41
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(Perhaps it is, but where's the evidence?) The relics that were safe through social meltdowns and other problems are the evidence. There are pretty safe assumptions that lead to that position too - museums will get destroyed just as other municipal buildings would in a period of societal collapse. Imagine you're uneducated, living in what was a museum and need to build a fire ... If the artefacts are still safely en…

"If the artefacts are still safely ensconced in a not yet rediscovered cave then they're relatively safe." His point is that if a colony of insects happened into that cave a month after they were "safely ensconced" 500 years ago, then they wouldn't be there for us to find. Basically you're falling for survivorship bias. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

>Basically you're falling for survivorship bias.

Yes some artifacts will be destroyed in caves. But we also know that artifacts won't be preserved in museums. Hence I said relatively safe. Clearly not all artifacts survive but we're sure that no artifacts remain in the Library of Alexandria (whether scrolls from there were saved or not, they weren't saved in the library).

Yes I see that you can also argue that items in caves/other caches are also eventually removed or destroyed in situ but it is the preservation against rampaging hordes and systematic destruction that I was targetting.

>That doesn't mean that being lost is safer than being in a museum. (Perhaps it is, but where's the evidence?)

Obviously this is circumstantial evidence but I think that museums are simply too obvious to protect against certain things like looting in war or social collapse scenarios.

Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#44

Post by joshkaufman »

stcredzero wrote: post #28
granite_scones wrote: post #8

I think there's some merit to this proposal, but it's too riddled with an infatuation with a certain brand of Christian monasticism for me to separate out what is good and what is bad. "As we all know, for the virtuous student, college life has become a variation on The Temptation of Saint Anthony—a never-ending assault by the demons of gluttony, envy, sloth, lust, and pride." That's confusing "virtue" with something…

I agree there's a lot wrong with the current system, but it's not that students are having too much sex From what I saw, it's not that students were having too much sex. It's the combination of a lot of undirected lost souls who are not committed so something substantive (like learning/research) with a pervasive atmosphere of bacchanalia. I saw people go through many emotional wringers in school. Once again, we have…

The positive aspect of asceticism: such a place would have far less overhead.

Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#45

Post by bitwize »

hugh3 wrote: post #17

I have, on occasion, wanted to start a monastic order of really well dressed physicists. So many scientists are so poorly dressed, I just want to start an order where you must be impeccably dressed in an expensive suit and tie at all times.

If you're that smart, and have to go around in a suit, why not ditch physics and get into finance?

Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#46

Post by aphyr »

jrmg wrote: post #37
aphyr wrote: post #10

When would I have had time for significant manual labor in college? Ask a grad student working 72 hours a week in the lab to grow their own food instead of snarfing down ramen at their desk, and see how much research gets done. :/

Part of his proposal is that people would never be forced to leave. I suspect that many grad students would trade a year or two longer researching at a more relaxed pace, combined with some less intellectually intense manual labor, for how things work now.

Ah yes. Five to eight years of phd and another three of postdoc was just getting me to the nonexistent job market for scientists too darn fast. ;-)

Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#47

Post by blahblahblah »

icegreentea wrote: post #9

...good luck? Engineering school makes even the most dedicated student wonder why they're even bothering at times. And now you'll take away getting laid, fucking off, bitching, and Starcraft. And you'll have them do additional manual labor on top of that. I think part of the reason these monasteries have such sterling reputations is cause we never hear about the failures. No one really bothered recording the number o…

Engineering school makes even the most dedicated student wonder why they're even bothering at times. And now you'll take away commiserating with your friends about how none of you are getting laid because of the school's abysmal male-to-female ratio, fucking off, bitching, and Starcraft. And you'll have them do additional manual labor on top of that.

There. Fixed it for ya.

Sincerely, The Engineering School Truth In Advertising Committee

Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#48

Post by blahblahblah »

cafard wrote: post #39

Are we talking about the nominal regulations, or the way things actually ran? Cf. Chaucer, Rabelais, and the Goliardic poems for some information on the latter. Gutenberg's version of Rabelais is a very old translation, but I append a sample anyway: Going from Bourges, he came to Orleans, where he found store of swaggering scholars that made him great entertainment at his coming, and with whom he learned to play at t…

Very good point. This article fits quite well in the category of "nostalgia for a simpler age that never really existed."

Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#49

Post by hugh3 »

bitwize wrote: post #45
hugh3 wrote: post #17

I have, on occasion, wanted to start a monastic order of really well dressed physicists. So many scientists are so poorly dressed, I just want to start an order where you must be impeccably dressed in an expensive suit and tie at all times.

If you're that smart, and have to go around in a suit, why not ditch physics and get into finance?

I've thought about it, but I don't wanna live in New York. :)

PS. Attention California-based hedge funds with strict dress policies! I am available! My email address is not in my profile but if you're that smart you can probably figure it out!

Re: Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?

#50

Post by hugh3 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #31
hugh3 wrote: post #17

I have, on occasion, wanted to start a monastic order of really well dressed physicists. So many scientists are so poorly dressed, I just want to start an order where you must be impeccably dressed in an expensive suit and tie at all times.

>you must be impeccably dressed in an expensive suit and tie at all times Why? What is it about this attire that makes you want to do that. All I can see is that such dress is an attempt to feel superior over others and that your belonging to such a group would allow for the feeling of superiority without the effort of intellectual advancement?

Not really, I just like nice clothes. And I like to wear nice clothes. And I feel silly wearing nice clothes when surrounded by others who aren't wearing nice clothes.

One could, however, think of it as a discipline thing. If you wear a perfectly pressed suit you're less likely to slouch. And if you're less likely to slouch, maybe you're less likely to be sloppy in your thoughts, so your research might be better.

Then again, maybe your research would wind up being worse because a suit feels so conformist. Who knows? But it would be a worthwhile experiment.

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