111–120 of 402 posts
I spent 3 years living in one of the co-ops briefly mentioned in the article ("In 2013, the administration took over the student-run anarchist house and painted over the old murals."). I wouldn't call it an "anarchist house" but it sure as hell was a lot of fun to live there. I painted some of those murals that are now apparently gone. We built a giant illegal loft in our room to make it two stories (which we would d…
“Stanford's new social order offers a peek into the bureaucrat's vision for America. It is a world without risk, genuine difference, or the kind of group connection that makes teenage boys want to rent bulldozers and build islands. It is a world largely without unencumbered joy; without the kind of cultural specificity that makes college, or the rest of life, particularly interesting.” This is true at MIT as well. Ca…
pour one out for senior house.
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Is it possible this is a consequence of proportionally fewer economic opportunities (i.e. increasing income/wealth gap)? Maybe the combination of low hanging fruit having been picked, and automation and technology allowing for massive economies of scale inevitably lead to a “big getting bigger” scenario. And because the lower hanging fruit has been picked, the risk and hence barrier to entry is very high for non conv…
I think there's a really interesting question in there of "is it a cause, or an effect," that I honestly don't have a strong opinion on currently. I would lean towards cause instead of effect, though. So where you say, "low hanging fruit has been picked resulting in high barrier to entry," I say, "this zero-sum-game of maximizing academic profiles starting in preschool has resulted in higher barriers to entry because…
Whereas before, there were regional arbitrage opportunities due to difficulties in scaling, these arbitrage opportunities are greatly reduced because information flies fast and far, and bigger players can take advantage first.
In a situation like this, people may notice that the decreasing probabilities of “getting ahead” via non traditional means and stick to obtaining the “elite” signaling and joining the big entities that are growing.
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Please read your sources, Turner did not carry out the assault at KA. He and the victims met at a part at KA and Turner assaulted after leaving the fraternity. The article writes that it was "just outside" but it was out of sight of the fraternity house, some ways away.
This is a distinction without a difference.
Imagine someone says, "a man was murdered at your house and you did nothing!" when in reality the murder took place a couple minutes walk away, where you had no ability to observe the crime. Seems like a very big distinction to me.
Why would you make your housing or social life, or indeed your weird edgy experiences of whatever kind, dependent on the same institution teaching your classes? That's the actual root cause. And I understand that some of these institutions require living on campus, at least in the first years, which is absolutely insane.
Lots of these colleges require students living on campus for money for inflated rent, b/c students rent money can come from student loans (It's guaranteed income.). Same with mandatory dining plans.
My college particularly hated cheaper dining options that opened up around there and used the local govt to try and shut them down, b/c it made the rent for commercial properties less desirable and made students switch off the uni plan lol.
Sometimes they even engage in mutually beneficial arrangements with development companies like American Campus which will build a building, that the college then forces students to live in!
Since the Uni owns the land that building is on it is tax advantaged. Rent money goes to American Campus so they build the building for cheap since it's guaranteed income. I believe they even give the building over to the college after X years.
This was standard in all the colleges in that area btw, no escaping it.
I spent 3 years living in one of the co-ops briefly mentioned in the article ("In 2013, the administration took over the student-run anarchist house and painted over the old murals."). I wouldn't call it an "anarchist house" but it sure as hell was a lot of fun to live there. I painted some of those murals that are now apparently gone. We built a giant illegal loft in our room to make it two stories (which we would d…
This was wonderful to read. I lived in a similar beautiful mess, but it still exists! https://pika.mit.edu/
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I've seen a quiet but persistent thought pattern that outdoor / nature activities- hiking, camping, etc- are endemically white and that any attempt to organize around it without making overt, aggressive attempts to include minorities is a sign of white supremacy. This is the main thrust of the "anti-racist" movement. If you aren't talking about being inclusive in every aspect of any social interaction you partake in,…
Nature activities are "endemically white"? Is this a serious comment? Even if we buy into the ridiculous naturalistic fallacy here, it's completely ahistorical: our modern history is primarily the history of white countries colonizing and industrializing nonwhite countries and alienating them from nature in the process. Suburban white America is arguably even more alienated from nature than city dwellers, in its rede…
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The universities seem to have forgotten that there role is to teach and educate, not overreach into their student's lives. College is about learning to cope and manage on your own, as well as learn. Having a different helicopter parent at the university (compared to home) won't help that development.
While it is tempting to blame universities entirely for this, and I can go on all day about it, students culture has changed a lot too. I'm not sure what has caused it.