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Stanford’s war on social life

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Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#381

Post by lmm »

watwut wrote: post #305
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…

Now do the consent of house owner and especially lake owner. And also, just because you convinced groundskeeper does not mean the ground-owner have to be agree with it too. Acting like adults involves also NOT dumping your trash in an artificial lake. And yes, that sand was their trash. Edited to add: That is what rubs me really wrong here. The only "crime" university committed here is that they did not treated the s…

> Now do the consent of house owner and especially lake owner. And also, just because you convinced groundskeeper does not mean the ground-owner have to be agree with it too.

The groundskeeper is their duly authorized representative.

> Acting like adults involves also NOT dumping your trash in an artificial lake. And yes, that sand was their trash.

Dumping would be if you leave it somewhere and never go back. They upcycled it into something positive (an artificial island that they apparently then enjoyed for many years), which is surely something we should applaud.

> The only "crime" university committed here is that they did not treated the sand hill as special thing worthy of protection forever.

No one is demanding that - I don't think anyone would be complaining if the next year's students had demolished the sand island so that they could have more boating space or whatever. The issue is that they took away an area that the students were able to use for unstructured fun, for the sake of something that was evidently not very important to them (they care about the salamanders enough to take away the students' lake access, but not enough to keep the lake filled), probably because they don't attach any value to students having unstructured fun.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#382

Post by astrange »

philwelch wrote: post #380
astrange wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 immi…

> 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.

That'd be a good problem for the US - we don't have enough of them because we restrict immigration and licensing so strictly. But yes, some of them do end up taking other jobs and starting businesses and it works out in the end. More people = more economy.

Of course, adding more of some inanimate objects can increase demand for them because of things like network effects, and there's nothing surprising about that. A phone or a gold bar isn't very valuable if there's only one of them in the world; nobody's going to want it.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#383

Post by philwelch »

astrange wrote: post #382
philwelch wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 immi…

> 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. That'd be a good problem for the US - we don't have enough of them because we restrict immigration and licensing so strictly. But yes, some of them do end up taking other jobs and starting businesses and it works out in the end. More people = more economy. Of cou…

> That'd be a good problem for the US - we don't have enough of them because we restrict immigration and licensing so strictly.

As a consequence of regulatory capture by the AMA, who don't want their pay to go down. Which furthers my point that their pay would go down, assuming that the AMA aren't total idiots ;)

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#384

Post by watwut »

lmm wrote: post #381
watwut wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now do the consent of house owner and especially lake owner. And also, just because you convinced groundskeeper does not mean the ground-owner have to be agree with it too. Acting like adults involves also NOT dumping your trash in an artificial lake. And yes, that sand was their trash. Edited to add: That is what rubs me really wrong here. The only "crime" university committed here is that they did not treated the s…

> Now do the consent of house owner and especially lake owner. And also, just because you convinced groundskeeper does not mean the ground-owner have to be agree with it too. The groundskeeper is their duly authorized representative. > Acting like adults involves also NOT dumping your trash in an artificial lake. And yes, that sand was their trash. Dumping would be if you leave it somewhere and never go back. They up…

> Dumping would be if you leave it somewhere and never go back.

This is not true. It is dumping trash whether you go back or not.

> The issue is that they took away an area that the students were able to use for unstructured fun,

This is astonishing entitlement. No, just because you used something for fun does not mean the owner can't start using it differently. In particular, it does not mean owner can't start protecting animals there.

This level of entitlement is probably one of reason why majority of Stanford students 83% were for abolishment, dehousing or at least reform of these groups.

> for the sake of something that was evidently not very important to them (they care about the salamanders enough to take away the students' lake access, but not enough to keep the lake filled),

This is both lie and manipulative. It was massive California wide draught. There was also restauration of biome upstream going on (biome better for salamanders). They did periodically let some water in to allow them breeding, it was not good for people.

But, even if the salamanders became victim to that drought, that would not imply what you said.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#385

Post by dash2 »

tsol wrote: post #364
dash2 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

From what I've seen a lot of this comes from two trends; a fall in popularity of frats and sororities, and a sharp rise in reported on campus rapes. I don't know if you recall, but there were stories about this just about every week a few years ago. If your biggest argument is complaining about that makes me sound shrill and self righteous, then I guess that's what I am. But there are some real problems that have for…

If you'd written in this tone originally I wouldn't have complained. I have zero knowledge about the prevalence of campus rape and no experience of frats - I'm in England and there were similar things called drinking societies, but much less developed. So, you may very easily be right. I absolutely wouldn't dismiss campus rape, and I'm pretty sure that there has been a lot of obnoxious, entitled behaviour by rich young men over the past many years.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#386

Post by samovar_booth »

Wow, this reads just like the story of the internet. And even California itself.

Started out as a strange, insular place that attracted a bunch of exuberant people who cultivated a unique and highly creative culture.

But once the capital class realized that all of these clowns created a huge opportunity, the place was occupied by powerful and unaccountable players who choked all of the joy and creativity out of it in their quest to transform it into a finely tuned and perfectly predictable money making machine.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#387

Post by Dan_Sylveste »

claytongulick wrote: post #349
Dan_Sylveste wrote: post #272

Earlier 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?

>Are you claiming that each individual's capabilities are the same as everyone else's?

What aspect of my comment made you think I was claiming that?

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#388

Post by lmm »

watwut wrote: post #384
lmm wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now do the consent of house owner and especially lake owner. And also, just because you convinced groundskeeper does not mean the ground-owner have to be agree with it too. The groundskeeper is their duly authorized representative. > Acting like adults involves also NOT dumping your trash in an artificial lake. And yes, that sand was their trash. Dumping would be if you leave it somewhere and never go back. They up…

> Dumping would be if you leave it somewhere and never go back. This is not true. It is dumping trash whether you go back or not. > The issue is that they took away an area that the students were able to use for unstructured fun, This is astonishing entitlement. No, just because you used something for fun does not mean the owner can't start using it differently. In particular, it does not mean owner can't start prote…

> This is astonishing entitlement. No, just because you used something for fun does not mean the owner can't start using it differently.

If your logic is "the university is the owner and can do whatever they like", pretty soon students will be living in pods like one of those Japanese hotels. The university supposedly has the welfare of its students as one of its priorities (and gets tax breaks and donations on that basis).

At the very least people applying to universities on the strength of their reputation deserve to know the extent to which Stanford has destroyed the student experience that built that reputation.

> There was also restauration of biome upstream going on (biome better for salamanders).

Then why was it necessary to close the lake to students in the first place?

> But, even if the salamanders became victim to that drought, that would not imply what you said.

Yes it would. You can say that water in a drought would be a bigger expense and only allocated to the highest priority uses, but per this thread they apparently found it worthwhile to keep the golf course sprinklers running.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#389

Post by watwut »

lmm wrote: post #388
watwut wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dumping would be if you leave it somewhere and never go back. This is not true. It is dumping trash whether you go back or not. > The issue is that they took away an area that the students were able to use for unstructured fun, This is astonishing entitlement. No, just because you used something for fun does not mean the owner can't start using it differently. In particular, it does not mean owner can't start prote…

> This is astonishing entitlement. No, just because you used something for fun does not mean the owner can't start using it differently. If your logic is "the university is the owner and can do whatever they like", pretty soon students will be living in pods like one of those Japanese hotels. The university supposedly has the welfare of its students as one of its priorities (and gets tax breaks and donations on that…

> Then why was it necessary to close the lake to students in the first place?

To protect salamanders who at the time lived in the lake. Even during draught, the university did periodically filled water in to keep them alive. That biome upstream got restored between original closing is super cool, but does not negate anything.

Also, students are not 2 years old. Overwhelming majority of them is able to process the above without having emotional meltdown over sandpit.

> If your logic is "the university is the owner and can do whatever they like", pretty soon students will be living in pods like one of those Japanese hotels. The university supposedly has the welfare of its students as one of its priorities.

This is quite massive logical leap from "university is entitled to close lake or part of campus despite single fraternity having made sand hill years ago". Students wont and did not had any lasting trauma from not having lake accessible.

> The university supposedly has the welfare of its students as one of its priorities (and gets tax breaks and donations on that basis).

This is in no way contradictory with single fraternity loosing their sand hill or artificial lake not being available to students in general.

> Yes it would. You can say that water in a drought would be a bigger expense and only allocated to the highest priority uses, but per this thread they apparently found it worthwhile to keep the golf course sprinklers running.

The complain that university should have stop wasting water on golf course is perfectly valid. They should. That does not imply that closing lake for salamanders or during that draught is an outrage.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#390

Post by carapace »

brailsafe wrote: post #378
brailsafe wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Skateboarding too. When I was a kid black skateboarders were hella rare. To the point where today when I see a black kid skating I think, "Hey! We're making progress!"

I just did an image search for "skateboarding" and every skater on the first three pages (that's as fer as I looked) was white, except for one who was a bulldog.

- - - -

Not to spell it out, but the "danger" my friend was talking about wasn't just the danger of the sport itself. It was also the danger of getting beaten, robbed, or killed for being black. Black Americans published a guidebook for themselves the Green Book, to help each other avoid violence at the hands of racists.

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