Stanford’s war on social life • Hacker News Board

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#371

Post by laverya » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #35

“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.” This is true at MIT as well. Ca…

https://imgur.com/gallery/YiqlS

There has to be an age at which we learn risky lessons. For a while, that age was college. (It used to be younger than that)

What age are we supposed to learn now?

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#372

Post by philwelch » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #287

astrange wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Paying your own employees enough for them to buy your product is the perpetual motion machine of business models in the sense that it doesn't actually work. You need other sources of revenue to survive.

Cars used to be luxury goods and the idea of common people like factory workers driving cars absolutely blew people's minds, even if they were the best paid factory workers. The majority of Ford's innovation here was in reducing the cost of manufacturing rather than by paying his workers more. Another point is that assembly line work can be alienating, and being able to own the finished product is probably a decent remedy for that type of alienation.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#373

Post by asdff » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #279

asdff wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hazing happens anywhere in college. Your own roommates could haze you in your dorm, you don't need a student org or an off campus house. I'm not sure there is much of an easy solution. You ban all the student orgs you want and force people to live in a dorm for 4 years, and people will still party and get drunk and do stupid things and be terrible people at times.

This is not true. I was in college and there was no hazing. Your own roommates could bully you and then you can ask to change rooms. You might not be able to get new one, but it is not nearly the same institutionalized hazing.

You could also willingly leave any fraternity whenever you want even easier than the room change process. You just walk out and never show up again. Hazing can happen in all sorts of student orgs, thinking its limited to greek life is shortsighted. I've heard stories from everything from club sports to professional organizations. There was even a religious cult that arranged marriages between members all living in the same overcrowded home.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#374

Post by 0xLaMDA » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:41 PM UTC

> "The official explanation from Stanford for eliminating the house was that the Outdoor theme “fell short of diversity, equity and inclusion expectations.” The building formerly known as Outdoor House was added to Neighborhood T.

> Next year, Outdoor House will be reinstated, but only because house members promised to refocus their theme on “racial and environmental justice in the outdoors.” Upholding diversity, equity, and inclusion is the first of four “ResX principles” that now govern undergraduate housing."

This stuff is a cancerous cult.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#375

Post by 0xLaMDA » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:52 PM UTC

BonoboIO wrote: post #28

What a sad story. I can really imagine being there and have fun, be creative and „grow up“ to be an adult with a purpose in life. But now, this sounds like a soulless place, replaceable, replaceable like myself. Every student should be the same, no variations ... for what. I don’t get it. This makes me very sad.

> "Every student should be the same, no variations ... for what. I don’t get it."

Because the DEI cult said so.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#376

Post by astrange » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #298

astrange wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It is not related to either the lump of labor fallacy, nor how Henry Ford payed his workers. It’s simply the laws of supply and demand. If you increase the supply of something, the equilibrium prices decreases. This is true in basically all cases, except where there are highly unique confounding factors. If your argument is based on the premise that the laws of supply and demand are wrong, then you can pretty much gu…

They aren’t useful for analyzing labor as if it’s an inanimate object. Labor is what produces demand in the first place, so you get partial equilibrium results if you don’t acknowledge that.

It’s very common to do it wrong, it’s one of the most common excuses people have for saying immigrants take your jobs. Strangely, they don’t say having children takes your jobs.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#377

Post by quantified » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 8:12 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #60

pigscantfly wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a (possibly-overly-blunt) attempt to tie this cultural shift to outcomes the bureaucracy cares about, but absolutely the biggest loss is to the undergraduate culture and future students' experiences. Both future grads and the university will obviously be fine financially.

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…

I put it up to the helicopter-parenting mentality on the part of administrators. Make things safe and predictable, treat 18-22 year olds like either children or 50-year olds

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#378

Post by brailsafe » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 11:02 PM UTC

brailsafe wrote: post #291

carapace wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about something else. OP's referring (I think) to how black people in the USA were discouraged from "white" recreational activities like camping, hiking, skiing, and beach-going. (FWIW, back in high school a black friend of mine explained to me one day that black people don't go skiing, etc., because their lives are so dangerous already that it doesn't make sense to go do dangerous things for entertain…

The financial aspect seems much more plausible. I have to imagine that for skiing in particular, the most likely demographics are going to be whoever happens to grow up near mountains and have very high amounts of disposable income... not just for the equipment, but also to take the financial risk of recovery in the U.S. We could maybe afford some second hand cross-country skis, but we didn't live near mountains eith…

I forgot to add here that if danger itself was the factor, you probably wouldn't see many black skateboarders, but you do, and causally or not skateboarding isn't on the same level of cost as skiing

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#379

Post by lmm » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 12:19 AM UTC

tsol wrote: post #365

lmm wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kind of impact does dumping all that sand have? What about running the bulldozer over the Stanford campus? What if someone is injured by the bulldozer? I wouldn't trust teenagers renting an after-party bulldozer who never cleared that with anyone, never notified anyone, and have no proof of training. That's exactly the attitude that causes this problem - there's always a reason to say no. These are supposed to…

Okay so then can I have some fun driving a bulldozer on your property, or are you no fun too?

If you can physically manage it I'll be impressed (it's not easy to get to, and I hope you'll understand I'm not going to doxx myself by giving details). Don't damage anything, don't make noise after 10PM, leave it as you found it. Other than that knock yourself out. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the local kids already do tbh.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#380

Post by philwelch » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 12:25 AM UTC

astrange wrote: post #376

AmericanChopper wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not related to either the lump of labor fallacy, nor how Henry Ford payed his workers. It’s simply the laws of supply and demand. If you increase the supply of something, the equilibrium prices decreases. This is true in basically all cases, except where there are highly unique confounding factors. If your argument is based on the premise that the laws of supply and demand are wrong, then you can pretty much gu…

They aren’t useful for analyzing labor as if it’s an inanimate object. Labor is what produces demand in the first place, so you get partial equilibrium results if you don’t acknowledge that. It’s very common to do it wrong, it’s one of the most common excuses people have for saying immigrants take your jobs. Strangely, they don’t say having children takes your jobs.

> Strangely, they don’t say having children takes your jobs.

Because if you have children, you have about 20 years to progress far enough in your career that a brand new hire isn't going to take your job. Also, as a society, somebody needs to be working after the old people retire.

Immigration is more complicated, but it is possible for immigration to depress pay or even deprive people of jobs, if you had enough immigrants with all the same qualifications. In the early years of Israel, for instance, Israel had far more physicians per capita than they actually required and many of them had to take other jobs.