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Stanford’s war on social life

palladiummag.com

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Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#161

Post by astrange »

fastball wrote: post #129
mint2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a peek into the bureaucrat's vision for America It’s not the bureaucrats vision. That attributes the individuals happily working myopically in their pigeonholes with far to much omniscience. Second, it’s not a future tense vision of America. It’s come to pass with single family zoning and rampant HOAs and sterile “luxury” high rises.

I'm a big YIMBY but the source of this problem is not NIMBYism.

Grandparent post can't be from a YIMBY if it's complaining about high rises. That's left-NIMBYism.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#162

Post by GauntletWizard »

codefreeordie wrote: post #133
majormajor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that the root cause is the financialization and rat-race-ification of everything. You gotta go to college to make a good living. You gotta go to a TOP college especially. You gotta work your ass off in high school to get in. And so everyone just is told their whole childhood to compete harder and harder in this race to the bottom and there's no more room for interesting experiences since a truly interest…

The funny/sad thing is that mostly our society doesn't actually work that way -- we just believe that it does. You can absolutely have a highly successful career and life, for a wide variety of definitions of successful, without attending a top college, and while having "interesting" life experiences for all sorts of definitions of interesting. There are many paths through life even in our current bureaucracy-ridden…

Most people aren't successful for the reasons they imagine, but more importantly - most people aren't unsuccessful for the reasons they imagine. The increasingly democratic views of what is and isn't successful are our society's greatest I'll, as much as I do hope people keep supporting the things they love and wish to be.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#163

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

ketzo wrote: post #43

It is absolutely impossible to take this article seriously, because the author refuses to acknowledge the un-fucking-believably fraught legacy that the Greek fraternity system has, at Stanford and at every other school. > Driven by a fear of uncontrollable student spontaneity and a desire to enforce equity on campus Oh, yeah, Stanford’s really afraid of “student spontaneity.” They’re definitely not afraid of organiza…

> 29 dead in the U.S. in the last 12 years.

That's less than 3 students per year, nationwide? If that's at all representative of the scale of the issue, universities would be better served promoting physical activities or healthy eating so as to reduce student fatalities due to heart disease (~2 deaths/100,000/yr in the 20 to 24 demographic).

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#164

Post by anarticle »

neilv wrote: post #135
mathogre wrote: post #125

It is a sad, soulless world in which we live today. I went to an otherwise anonymous state college on the east coast in the latter 1970s. One of the fun things I remember was picking up lunch from McDonalds using my former roommate's Ford Pinto. If you're not familiar with the Pinto, look it up. It was a "great" car. Yeah. Driving to McDonalds was fun and exciting! This Pinto was a 4 speed manual, where the shifter c…

I'm sympathetic to the idea of not infantilizing college students, but not to the anecdote of driving 5-10 miles to McDonald's in a Pinto without brakes. Sounds like it'd endanger others.

They didn't ask you :). EDIT: Sorry dad! If every decision was rational and safe we'd be a very uniform and good society. Surprised you did not see the irony, but I guess this is HN.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#165

Post by brightball »

ip26 wrote: post #146
avindroth wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point being made is not that the Greek system is being pushed out and that worsens the social atmosphere. It's that Stanford is losing its atypical social community (which includes not only the Greek system but also co-ops), and that will hurt the uniqueness and advantage of Stanford as a breeding ground for interesting thinkers. Not to mention these are just symptoms, there are more problematic things that are n…

Wait, people see Stanford as a hotbed of interesting thinkers? I didn't think that was their brand.

In the 2000s you constantly saw the Google connection talked about. NBC even made a TV show, Chuck, centered around a guy who got kicked out of Stanford unfairly so Stanford itself is a huge part of the show.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#166

Post by fallingfrog »

The same people who (rightly) criticize draconian campus administrators will go out and yell about “law and order” the next day. You can’t have it both ways. There’s a reason things have gotten like this, and it’s all those people who sue the campus every time someone breaks a finger and all those investors who demand maximum profits from the university. Those same people are the ones demanding more police, more cameras everywhere, and so on. That would be the wealthy and powerful. Got nothing to do with diversity, nor will having less minorities on campus make the joy come back- if anything it’s the parents of the rich kids who are the problem.

The insidious thing about an article like this is that it mixes truth with lies. And of course, the overpolicing not just on campus but all through our society is real! But it’s not caused by racial equity. That’s stupid.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#167

Post by mdavis6890 »

I wonder if this has anything to do with a difference in demographics and college selection behavior of applicants.

No data here, but maybe parents are taking an increasing roll in college choice, and the beaurocrats are simply catering to the wishes of those parents.

Do they get parents coming on college tours saying “hey look at that awesome anarchist house?” Or are they getting parents saying “wow, look at all the new, clean, fancy building conducive to studying?”

Honest question here. I’m can’t also help but think of Dead Poets Society. Which if you haven’t watched you should !

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#168

Post by chairmanwow1 »

SamBam wrote: post #139
neilv wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to the idea of not infantilizing college students, but not to the anecdote of driving 5-10 miles to McDonald's in a Pinto without brakes. Sounds like it'd endanger others.

Romanticizing pure stupidity is always one of nostalgia's greatest tricks.

You are exactly the problem OP is talking about

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#169

Post by xvedejas »

zbrozek wrote: post #149

My interactions with Stanford administrators convinced me that I didn't need a graduate degree and that I would never donate to the school. Beyond that, I also got totally fed up trying to figure out how to get definitive positive permission to do anything. At one point I asked facilities if I could build an oven to cure composites. They reviewed and approved the plans. But when some other group within the school saw…

There are hundreds of stories like this out of Caltech as well. Ultimately it makes one believe the saying that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, and that getting things done relies on this.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#170

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #59
dgs_sgd wrote: post #46

I can see why there's a push to eliminate Greek life given all the unfortunate events associated with it. But I'm extremely confused this example: > One such case was the end of Outdoor House, an innocuous haven on the far side of campus for students who liked hiking. The official explanation from Stanford for eliminating the house was that the Outdoor theme “fell short of diversity, equity and inclusion expectations…

>They can't even organize around a common interest unless it passes some bureaucrat's standard of diversity? At what point do we admit that the people who cried slippery slope and said this power would just be used as a cudgel for their bureaucrats to enforce whims they could not otherwise justify were right?

Does it matter? We’re at least a generation away from the pendulum swinging back.
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