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Stanford’s war on social life

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Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#281

Post by watwut »

imgabe wrote: post #257
julianeon wrote: post #19

I think I'm close to an outside observer - I didn't go to Stanford and don't have a dog in that fight, as the saying goes. I don't trust the conclusions of this article. It starts with a story about a frat which filled their building's first floor with sand, so much that they had to rent a bulldozer to relocate it to the campus lake. Then they call the Stanford admins killjoys for not supporting it. But... of course…

> What kind of impact does dumping all that sand have? The sand gets wet and sits in the water. It's sand, i.e. dirt. In case you weren't aware, there's already dirt at the bottom of all lakes. > What about running the bulldozer over the Stanford campus? The ground would get slightly compacted and maybe some grass torn up. That's why they got clearance from the person responsible for that, the groundskeeper. > What i…

> The sand gets wet and sits in the water. It's sand, i.e. dirt. In case you weren't aware, there's already dirt at the bottom of all lakes.

Obvious much of it is there matters. This does not sound like serious argument at all.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#282

Post by cs137 »

ryandrake wrote: post #195
cs137 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in college in the 2000s and this bureaucratization was starting already. The class of 2006 having cell phones was a minor scandal--college students were no longer exploratory rulebreakers, but rich kids (back then, the assumption was that someone with a cell phone had money) with helicopter parents. I don't know how much there was an actual change, but the feeling of a shift from a cool Gen X to a decidedly les…

I had the opportunity to go back and visit my undergrad (not Stanford) university recently, where I spent much of the 90s as a student in various states of mischief and sobriety. Maybe I am just remembering things with nostalgia-colored glasses, but it just seems so different now. So bland and vanilla. Everything that was quirky, silly, grimy, dangerous, weirdo, degenerate, beatnik, or irreverent is now gone. Every b…

This makes sense, and I imagine I'd have the same feeling if I went back.

The stakes may or may not have been lower, but they felt lower. Today's world is one where if you make a mistake at 18, you're stuck with it for life, and it's not because the university administrators will be out for your head (they probably won't be) but because the internet never forgets. The regulatory apparatuses we need to put between employers/governments and all the information (unreliable as it is) about us that's out there is... 20 years, at least, behind where it needs to be. You can't burn down your past and create a new story anymore, and there's a sense among the young that every minute not spent "hustling" (whatever the fuck that is) is a minute in which the competition is getting ahead and they aren't.

The change of attitude is definitely noticeable. Whether it's a change of social actuality is leass clear. The thing is, bad things still happened to young people who made small mistakes, if they were of low social class. They just disappeared and fell (back) into regular working-class oblivion. And today, the rich kids are still invincible because they'll hire PR firms to fix up their reputations if things go against them. The "feel" (for lack of a better word) of our society is distinctively more oppressive, but I'm not sure if the thing itself has actually changed that much over the past 30 years. I suppose I'd need more data.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#283

Post by dr_dshiv »

watwut wrote: post #271
dave_sullivan wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was more along the lines of "While you are at an elite school you should socialize and build your social network. That social network will become your starting professional network after school. Less opportunity for socialization will reduce the potential size of this network." Seems reasonable to me.

> Communal living houses (“co-ops”) encouraged casual nudity, while fraternities threw a raucous annual “Greek Week” If the access to professional social network requires participation in the above, then I see why people see issue with that. In an ideal world, your professional future would not be dependent on your willingness to walk around naked or your enjoyment of raucous party. (Neither should damage your future…

I think being “fun to hang out with” is part of what makes a person have merit.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#284

Post by watwut »

csdvrx wrote: post #10

> Lake Lagunita was closed to student activities in 2001, ostensibly to protect an endangered salamander that had taken up residence in the artificial waters. Eventually, Stanford let the lake go dry. Simple: Stanford should be held responsible for the impact their actions, that here directly caused harm to an endangered species. Either they did lie before, about the salamander (then they're on the hook for lying for…

Based this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=31733773&goto=item%3Fi... and its parent https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31733298 the whole salamader story is not that simple. Basically, what happened in the meantime was draught not caused by university. University actually allowed some water in so that salamander can breed and relocate upstream.

Also, if you dig down to other events mentioned in article, what article calls spontaneity involved actual documented pretty heavy issues like sexual harassment and violence. And some of the events even as taken exactly as written in article strikes me as "I totally get why other students and people don't want to put up with this".

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#285

Post by watwut »

fallingfrog wrote: post #178

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…

You would not be allowed to make a hill out of sand or use bulldozer in national parks. In national park, salamander habitat takes precedse over your wish to swim. Loud parties are not allowed either.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#286

Post by watwut »

hemloc_io wrote: post #33

This highlights something I feel like most older people on Hackernews, and generally don't know about modern student life! the amount of university involvement in what's going on in everyone's personal lives has increased substantially from when you were in school, much to the adulation of a portion of the student population. Unis now focus on "student welfare", which really just means expanding the universities reac…

Tho, Greek life could exist only inside universities, because it was facilitated by universities. Actual university uninvolved life would had students renting flats and houses from homeowners around (which would not be bad at all). It would had street numbers on houses and no one would treat it as insult. If you made sand hill in house or in someones garden or wherever, owners would take issue with it.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#287

Post by silvestrov »

astrange wrote: post #197
philwelch wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> adding more workers to a field increases the supply of workers and thus reduces the market value of their work This is the lump of labor fallacy. If you don't have "enough" software engineers, then adding more makes them all more valuable; some of them can work on productivity tools for the rest, some of them can attract new customers, some of the juniors are needed to turn into senoirs, and so on. It's similar to…

> afford to buy the cars

Maybe that is a red herring and what Ford got from higher wage was workers that cared about the work they did and made sure the quality was good, as the workers would otherwise end up in a lower-paying job.

When you make "revolutions" such as the first good assembly line, workers that care make a big difference. Faults on assemble lines can be much more expensive than high wage.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#288

Post by [deleted] »

insightcheck wrote: post #224
the_only_law wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little past college age now, but even people I know in their late 20s have given up on dating and such. I won't pretend to know all the reasons, but I find it funny how much every one I know hates dating apps for good reasons, but always comes back to them.

> "A little past college age now, but even people I know in their late 20s have given up on dating and such." A major reason is that romantic relationship experience compounds, and so it's difficult to start with relationships later in life. For many people, it's much harder to start a first romantic relationship, than it is to develop subsequent ones. Multiple rejections early on, especially when other people seem t…

[deleted]

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#289

Post by watwut »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #283
watwut wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Communal living houses (“co-ops”) encouraged casual nudity, while fraternities threw a raucous annual “Greek Week” If the access to professional social network requires participation in the above, then I see why people see issue with that. In an ideal world, your professional future would not be dependent on your willingness to walk around naked or your enjoyment of raucous party. (Neither should damage your future…

I think being “fun to hang out with” is part of what makes a person have merit.

This "merious" definition of "fun to hang out with" is exactly the problem. It selects normal and non jerks who are plenty of pleasant and fun to hang around with, but avoid puking after parties and nudity.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#290

Post by MomoXenosaga »

watwut wrote: post #271
dave_sullivan wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was more along the lines of "While you are at an elite school you should socialize and build your social network. That social network will become your starting professional network after school. Less opportunity for socialization will reduce the potential size of this network." Seems reasonable to me.

> Communal living houses (“co-ops”) encouraged casual nudity, while fraternities threw a raucous annual “Greek Week” If the access to professional social network requires participation in the above, then I see why people see issue with that. In an ideal world, your professional future would not be dependent on your willingness to walk around naked or your enjoyment of raucous party. (Neither should damage your future…

Yeah I never joined one of those bro clubs at university. The hazing humiliation is not my thing. There are 3 people who get to yell at me for no reason and one of them is a cat.

I have to admit that university was a bit of a let down. Supposedly the best young elites society had to offer? Oh boy.

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