Nothing could possibly elicit less sympathy from me than forcing frat bros to follow the normal rules that everyone else already lives by. The entire institution of college Greek life exists to enable and conceal sexual assault and unmeritocratic career networking. If you need that kind of toxic infrastructure to feel like you have a social life then that's pretty pathetic.
Stanford’s war on social life
311–320 of 402 posts
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course, we should never do anything beneficial unless there is an explicit moral duty to do it. In this case, all that Standford had to do was nothing and let the emergent social life continue uninterrupted. Did they have a moral duty to interfere with the students' right to free association?
> In this case, all that Standford had to do was nothing and let the emergent social life continue uninterrupted. And keep watching as students were routinely subjected to hazing, excessive drinking and sometimes outright criminal behavior such as overt discrimination, hate crimes, sexual assault up to rapes? Fraternities had more than enough chances to rein in the worst of the bad behavior and they failed ridiculous…
Nobody is subjected to hazing or “excessive“ drinking. These are voluntary activities you can choose to engage in or not. For criminal matters there’s the police.
It was not limited only to fraternities either.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#313Seems like MIT's crackdown on Senior House.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#314I 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…
I was in the co-ops and also a frat in the early 2010's. I knew about XOX, SAE, and KA but not theta delt or sigma chi -- let alone french house, slav, haus mitt, or casa italiana. Aside from undergrads, the school will miss out, too -- my pledge class founded thirteen companies in the few years after graduation, and I hired several friends from EBF for my own -- but the administration will probably never realize wha…
At this point they are trying to "program" in Woke. That's why they are shutting this stuff down.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#315Earlier 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 agree.
If you are extroverted, you DO NOT need a curated or arbitrary system to social network - you are simply going to do it anyway.
If you are introverted, you WILL NEVER take advantage of even a curated system to "create" a social network - it's simply not in you to do that.
So that leaves a tiny domain of people for whom it might help. But the reality is that it's the peak of the Bell curve but it's also the peak of mediocrity which is antithetical to startups or creativity. Yet unexpected and creative connections are supposed to be the point.
Cheaper to buy a golf club membership quite honestly.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#316It 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…
> You lost your privileges after killing a fucking kid.
If a person is in a frat and did none of these things you mentioned, then that person can absolutely not be held responsible for any of the ACTUAL COGNIZABLE IN LAW CRIMES that you have mentioned no matter how dramatically. "You lost your privileges?" WHO the F are you?
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
pour one out for senior house.
I was just out rafting in California last weekend with a dorm mate from señor haus… we’ve known each other 40 years. Destroying it was a tragedy,
yeah. I hung out there in the early 2000s, but was never a resident. Roommates with the head RA’s younger brother.
I was very jealous :)
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - forced people to consume dangerous amounts of drugs and alcohol Forced, really? > Yeah, sorry, you don’t get to pull Animal House-style pranks any more. You lost your privileges after killing a fucking kid. > > https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Family-sues-Stanford-ro... Hmm, did they kill a kid, or did the kid OD'ed THEN declined medical attention? > According to Weiner’s family, the sophomore overdosed two d…
> Forced, really? Lol. No friends at SEC schools, huh? Do we really need Lord of the Flies to tell us that in certain environments, at certain ages, around certain people, people can be pressured into doing things that they would never do otherwise?
You’re ultimately responsible for your own actions. Blaming the people who told you to is scapegoating at its finest.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#319> 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. Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeo…
Though ironically the rate of young people dying in the US is considerably higher than most developed countries. I guess drugs, guns etc. https://www.prb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/population-bu...
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It really depends on your definition of success. If you know enough Stanford grads - you’d know that many of them will consider themselves failures in life if they haven’t founded and IPO/sold a company for $100m+. I know quite a few like this… I also know quite a few who did it and only think they’re a success in life because of said event.
There is in fact a quite famous example of this, involving some kind of medical device. I blame Stanford/SV culture for that one.