I live over by MIT at northeastern(go ahead, make fun of me for not getting in), and all my life I've dreamt of being part of the MIT "hacker" culture. It simply does not exist at northeastern, as I know of only 4 people or so who share in the ethos I know of. Also of note at my wonderful college are the police around every corner, with their cars parked everywhere watching us, the massive network of security cameras, and the insane access control. To give you the idea of what it's like to come home after classes, I walk towards the lobby of my building, with a camera facing outwards, it sees me and unlocks door 1. Then I scan my card and a guard sees my face and door 2 unlocks. I walk under a camera which looks at my face. I then tap my keycard on my lock and punch in my code. This lock is also inside of my room, and I have been locked out of my room, while in my /own/ room twice. Back to the beginning of the digression, I am part of my university's radio club, and the MIT hacker scene. From what my friends say, MIT clamps down more and more by the day. Increased cameras, draconian universal keycard systems and obstructive bureaucrats galore. Additionally, the alumnus among them are now seen as weird outsiders ever since the pandemic shifted the access norms on campus(it used to be open and now everything is keycard controlled). I can certify I would have gone absolutely _bonkers_ without knowing these people, I can say with certainty that before I knew them it was perhaps the most miserable year of my life. I hope in the future we can be kept even safer, perhaps in little cubes with cameras on all the walls and a little screen and keyboard to take classes with. I think that will lead to a healthy dialogue on global inclusion themes and mindful wellness.
Stanford’s war on social life
351–360 of 402 posts
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#352Sometimes it feels like we're living in the second Victorian age. Living sanitized lives and speaking sanitized language, with recurring bouts of moral panic. Even in the early 00s when I was in college everything seemed to have become lamer than it was just a decade prior. 20th century libertinism peaked in the 70s and has been in retreat since then.
I dunno, I think the 90s were pretty great.
but were you a social actor(above age 18, etc.) in the 80s or 70s? I'll agree, it could've been pretty great but perhaps not as free as beforehand. I'll invoke the allegory of the cave
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#353> 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 init…
Interesting aspect of this is that in Stanford survey, overwhelming majority of students (83%) want to see Greek life reformed, de-housed, or abolished. This is not administrators against students in general issue. This is administration doing moves that are broadly supported by majority of students.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meritocracy isn't real. It's a nice ideal but it isn't real.
Can you describe what you mean by that in more detail? Are you claiming that each individual's capabilities are the same as everyone else's?
Not op, but I interpreted it as the fact that world is not fair. People dont go up purely on merit, skills, talent, you name it. As in, the nepotism described and defended in these threads is not the only kind of merit breaking factors.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#355The amount of control American universities exercise over their students is mind-boggling to me. I went to Uppsala University in Sweden, which has a rich and varied student life. But none of that has anything to do with the University (any of them, there are 3 in town). The universities provide education, period. Housing is not run by the University, and it certainly has nothing to do with student social life. What s…
> What stops a bunch of Stanford students from starting whatever club they want in their spare time? Nothing, but greek system was advantaged over random non-greek friends groups or clubs. If you start own random non-greek club, the university wont guarantee or give you house for it. For the record, Standford always had plenty of students who were not members of Greek clubs. They created and participated in own spare…
> Nothing, but greek system was advantaged over random non-greek friends groups or clubs. If you start own random non-greek club, the university wont guarantee or give you house for it.
For what it's worth, the university I went to (UT Dallas [0]) didn't provide on-campus housing to any organization, including the greeks. I had a friend who was in a frat, and I didn't realize it for a long time because he just lived in an apartment on campus like anyone else. Some of the greeks bought off-campus houses, and the rest didn't have any housing at all, just an office somewhere on campus.
The only privilege I remember the greeks having was they were the only organizations who were allowed to post up flyers advertising their events anywhere on campus, while non-greek organizations could only advertise in spaces relevant to whatever department sponsors them and a couple of shared spaces (which is something I remember clubs I was part of being really grumpy about).
[0] caveat: I graduated 15 years ago, so for all I know things may have changed since
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#356It 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…
Aside from the factual problems here, which others have pointed out, I can't help thinking that the unfocused, angry, self-righteous tone of this post is related to the problems described in the article. It's as if people and organizations have bent over backward to appease the loudest, most furious, least reasonable zealots. I mean, OP has been made fucking sick ! How can we not listen? To be explicit about this: I…
Agreed, OP's comment is a perfect example of moralizing that saps energy and interest from generic everyday life, the exact type of conservativism that would rather live in a safe, boring world than an interesting but flawed one.
Even if OP's comment is made in good faith (which I don't think it is), it shows a growing trend in the position that everyone shares collective responsibility for all wrongs committed.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because of the things you said: the amount of control American universities have over students. At many universities, the rules apply to you even off campus.
The US is one of the most intensely policed societies I’ve ever observed. It’s easy to miss that when you live inside it.
What I've concluded over the years is that this is actually what the American people want. In other words, the policing is not "happening" to us - it is requested by us. The same way people like to watch those viral videos of monkeys being bullied.
Even here on HackerNews, you can see this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26624920
It only takes a few of these types of people in a community to make it feel policed (and that overall, people are neutral towards this happening).
Also, I want to point out it's not just in the US. I live in Germany now, and it's far worse here (people are seriously out for blood regarding minor indiscretions), but the legal system is more neutered/fair. You can see this in threads where people will post a cool thing they built, and people will chime in reminding them that they are breaking the law by not having an impressum (in Germany and Austria you're forced to put your name + address on almost everything):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30952084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30708217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31364983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26469343
Imagine doing the same thing for people talking about smoking pot on HN: "Just so you know, marijuana is illegal... so yeah, I'm gonna report you, sorry to ruin the fun".
My main point is that it often feels like the policing institutions exist outside of us, but in reality it's just our next door neighbors.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What stops a bunch of Stanford students from starting whatever club they want in their spare time? Nothing, but greek system was advantaged over random non-greek friends groups or clubs. If you start own random non-greek club, the university wont guarantee or give you house for it. For the record, Standford always had plenty of students who were not members of Greek clubs. They created and participated in own spare…
> Nothing, but greek system was advantaged over random non-greek friends groups or clubs. If you start own random non-greek club, the university wont guarantee or give you house for it. For what it's worth, the university I went to (UT Dallas [0]) didn't provide on-campus housing to any organization, including the greeks. I had a friend who was in a frat, and I didn't realize it for a long time because he just lived…
Stanford did provided housing to them. Not just office, but they had reserved dorm houses in best part of the campus. The loss of those houses is what article complains about when it complains about "generic, unmarked houses". The house used to be reserved for fraternity members only. Now, the unaffiliated students can be assigned to live there too. Alternative spin is that fraternity does not get to decide who lives in those dorms nor what rules should they follow anymore.
Also related, Standford did survey over what students think about Greek life on the campus and its future. Most students 83% preferred to reform, de-housing them, or abolishing it. Two articles about survey:
- https://stanforddaily.com/2021/09/28/official-greek-life-sur...
- https://stanforddaily.com/2021/11/04/abolish-stanford-greek-...
> The only privilege I remember the greeks having was they were the only organizations who were allowed to post up flyers advertising their events anywhere on campus, while non-greek organizations could only advertise in spaces relevant to whatever department sponsors them and a couple of shared spaces (which is something I remember clubs I was part of being really grumpy about).
Isn't this pretty large advantage if the topic is social life? As in, when it comes to events and social life, this is University giving them pretty massive advantage.
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#359Sometimes it feels like we're living in the second Victorian age. Living sanitized lives and speaking sanitized language, with recurring bouts of moral panic. Even in the early 00s when I was in college everything seemed to have become lamer than it was just a decade prior. 20th century libertinism peaked in the 70s and has been in retreat since then.
But the big difference is this time the country is more secular than ever before
Re: Stanford’s war on social life
#360I 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…
My wife and I met over 4 decades ago here [1]. She was the food buyer and I a weekly dinner chef... [1] https://collegehouses.org/listings/21st/
Collegehouses is still going strong, 21st went through some renovations a couple years ago :)
Something different from what is mentioned in the article is that the Austin co-ops are not owned by alumni orgs and are not officially affiliated with any school or university.