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Stanford’s war on social life

palladiummag.com

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Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#171

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

fallingfrog wrote: post #152

The only problem with this article is that it tries to tie the loss of culture and fun with increasing diversity or something. As if including black people is gonna make it less fun? No, the loss of fun is due to financialization and lawyers getting involved with everything and trying to make everything about maximizing profits and fear of lawsuits. Got nothing to do with equality. The DSA for what it’s worth, throws…

On the other hand, I would not be surprised if (lack of) diversity is being used as an excuse/cudgel to shut down student orgs.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#172

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #138
MikeTheRocker wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this? How do you think culture has changed?

One factor might be the ubiquity of recording devices. It seems reasonable that people behave differently if they think their spontaneity might expose them to liability down the road due to a recording of it.

There’s also something about dating. The kids I know in college right now have no interest in dating or love or romantic involvement.

I don’t know how that applies here, but it’s a big change from when I was in college.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#173

Post by curiousllama »

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.

No - but it once was.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#174

Post by philwelch »

astrange wrote: post #157
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…

Most people in the US don't go to college. If you believe the theory that jobs get less valued by society when women join them, this is going to happen here as well, since college is increasingly something women do more than men.

> If you believe the theory that jobs get less valued by society when women join them, this is going to happen here as well, since college is increasingly something women do more than men.

I don't believe that theory, but I do believe a theory that has similar results: adding more workers to a field increases the supply of workers and thus reduces the market value of their work, and the main way that new workers have been added to existing fields in the past 100 years is to encourage women to join those fields.

Edit: Actually there are two theories that explain this pattern. The other theory is basically that feminism encourages young women and girls to pursue glamorous, high-status careers, but if you're choosing a career based on how glamorous it is, and it takes a long time to get into it, by the time you're there, the glamor has moved on. This also explains why low-status male-dominant careers can remain male-dominant for just as long as they remain low-status--these fields are consistently even lower status than fields that are predominantly female.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#176

Post by derevaunseraun »

> Stanford students live in brand new buildings with white walls. We have a $20 million dollar meditation center that nobody uses. But students didn’t ask for any of that. We just wanted a dirty house with friends.

From my experience, covid exacerbated this significantly. I don't know if it's just the universities or a broader cultural shift. And as the article says, the administrators introduced more "community initiatives" to exonerate themselves of gleefully destroying campus life and letting it atrophy for two years straight (while making students pay in person tuition for online school)

It feels like in the past couple years we've gone from a culture of spontaneity and grassroots initiative to one of bitter obsequiousness that's obsessed with taking itself seriously. The only way to subvert it is by turning it into one big joke

edit: thanks to OP for posting this magazine, it's the first thing I've seen in a while that actually has something to say

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#177

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#178

Post by fallingfrog »

Some of the last places where there is real freedom are public places, the commons- national parks. Wild places. There are trails I’ve climbed where I had to drag myself over a ledge next to a 200 foot drop. And you feel alive. Imagine if that was privatized, how fast they’d put a barbed wire fence around that spot. Freedom is found in the places where money hasn’t infected yet- sadly that’s not college campuses, not anymore. We need to reclaim freedom, and taking risk, as a left wing value- something you are left with when the cops and bean counters go away. Those nude houses and communal parties were common spaces- where people could be free without anyone being in charge. That’s the beating heart of anarchism. Again, you can’t have both freedom to experiment and also demand law and order at the same time.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#179

Post by steve76 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #159
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…

And we're told the reason China is rocketing ahead is because of IP theft. Meanwhile, we can't train competent engineers, technicians, and tradesmen, in the West, because everyone is too caught up in this type of gatekeeping and pigheadedness.

[dead]

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#180

Post by curiousllama »

closeparen wrote: post #136

UChicago also set to bulldozing the fun and quirky parts of its undergraduate residential life towards the tail end of my time there. A very similar sense of nostalgia, loss, and rage at the anonymous administrators hell-bent on whitewashing everything pervaded the campus. Perhaps it’s a phenomenon of our cultural moment. Or perhaps, like with Burning Man, it’s just part of the way that the communities of these insti…

Oh man - those satellite forms closing was just chaos. At least when Pierce closed we got exploding toilets out of it.

I was always disappointed at the sanitization of anything involving more than a half dozen people. Even lascivious ball was just tame

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