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Stanford’s war on social life

palladiummag.com

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Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#331

Post by bluGill »

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.

What Ford got from his well paid people is they didn't quit. Even though assembly lines are easy to train, he still was losing a lot of people because working the same station for months is boring, and so he was constantly having to recruit and train people.

Don't let the above take away from the other factors you mention. The total situation is complex.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#332

Post by javajosh »

beefman wrote: post #231

In fairness, this sort of transformation has taken place in every station of American life. My dweeb chemist parents regularly hosted and attended parties with their dweeb chemist colleauges. My wife and I have hosted 3 parties in the last 17 years. We had to fight for the modicum of freedom our kids had growing up. Our oldest now has a car but his licence forbids him taking friends along.[1] Our youngest built his f…

Freedom is wonderful because you can go out and build what you want to see more of in the world. Chances are, if you're missing "third places" in your life, then other people are. Or, just as likely, there is a reason you gave it up, and maybe you weren't aware of the trade-offs at the time, and now it's time to correct it. Universities are (somewhat) unique in that they are microcosms, with very central control over a relatively small population. But the public, the world at large, is far more chaotic and free.

The problem is, as usual, a fundamentally corrupt justice system that serves only the parochial, low-intelligence, low-curiosity instincts of it's law enforcement officers ("that don't look right. Time to put a stop to it, and if they don't stop I'll beat and arrest them under one of the many pretexts available to me." Lots of things don't look right when your IQ is 90.) Time, of course, is the enemy, since the court defaults to "no". The court is not interested in speeding anything up. Ever.

Still, scrappy entrepreneurs hanging a shingle and offering a "third place" for profit are somewhat respected by the establishment. Hence 3rd wave coffee shops with live music, microbreweries, and so on. Otherwise the need to keep a low profile with physical exploration puts a serious damper on real world experimentation, much to the detriment of society as a whole. This is, perhaps, the most positive light in which to see the conservative side of the gun debate: if dying kids isn't enough to motivate gun control, then its also not enough to prevent them from launching rockets or mixing up explosives in their kitchen for fun, or working on cars in their front-yards. At least if they die doing one of those things, they'll die happy. And if they don't die, they'll know something about the world.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#333

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

rbanffy wrote: post #275
trh0awayman wrote: post #270

Earlier 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.

I heard a cybersecurity instructor remark once that “the more complete surveillance tools are, police become wardens, crimes become infractions, and citizens become inmates.”

His previous job was as a guard at a federal prison.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#334

Post by datavirtue »

sanderjd wrote: post #326
jessriedel wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not. Stanford and other elite schools know their brand name is immensely valuable and students will keep enrolling even if campus social life is bleached of all fun. The only real force pushing back at all are alumni whose donations fall (briefly) when a university squashes something too explicitly that had an unusual amount of sentimental value. But that just slows things down a bit.

Oh I don't mean at Stanford specifically necessarily, I mean backlash in the culture broadly.

"Hold my beer" -- The people who never went to college.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#336

Post by oneplane »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #162
codefreeordie wrote: post #133

Earlier 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…

Most people aren't successful for the reasons they imagine, but more importantly - most people aren't unsuccessful for the reasons they imagine. The increasingly democratic views of what is and isn't successful are our society's greatest I'll, as much as I do hope people keep supporting the things they love and wish to be.

I wonder what those 'democratic views' are where you live.

Here, there are many distinct views by the many political parties that are part of the democracy and can't really be lumped into one 'view'. The few commonalities between them (here) seem to be around the concept of "bad situations in life shouldn't mean you're screwed forever" and "if we work together when we can, it generally turns out better for everyone". I don't think those concepts (which might also be views) generally dictate the value of success, or describe what that success must be.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#337

Post by datavirtue »

asdff wrote: post #229

I think what gets missed about greek life in general is that its just a group of students. It's not inherently more dangerous or not than any other group of college age students. In my experiences in undergrad, organizations like club rugby or even the marching band were where you seriously got hazed or had risky partying going on. Greek parties in contrast were regulated. Representatives from the interfraternity cou…

I think they call it: "throwing the baby out with the bath water." Jaw dropping incompetence caused by corporate Woke panic.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#338

Post by unethical_ban »

Reading these comments and the article, I have to wonder if the Internet and social networks are to blame.

So much of what we do described here is about skirting the rules in a healthy way, in doing things everyone knows happens but can allow to keep happening by plausible deniability.

Now, everything is online. Not only is everything documented and shared, but Twitter et al amplifies anything that any aggrieved and motivated group doesn't like.

It seems impossible to have any kind of semi public organization "just do fun things" any more, because some rule jockies or outsiders will scream about it, making it impossible for councils and administrations to turn a healthy blind eye.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#339

Post by efields »

derevaunseraun wrote: post #176

> 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…

We moved early-covid to a neighborhood in my wife's hometown. Got twice the space inside and outside for the same price we sold (moving from major metro -> minor metro). In a few short months, our bff neighbors were gone, meeting new neighbors was hard, bars closed and spontaneity was gone, so we settled into Covid life. I was watching a lot of Monty Don and so I did the most logical thing to do to a new backyard: I ripped up a huge chunk of grass on the southern side of the house, built soil with lasagna gardening techniques, and hand-laid a bluestone path.

Sure, gardening is some privileged shit in this day and age, but I basically put myself down a 5 year path determined by seasons, weather, microbiology and how much I was willing to learn in my spare time. It's beautiful chaos half the time, but it's starting to surprise and delight everyone who visits.

It's also a place to be less serious about life. You need some humility. Sometimes being off by two weeks can ruin a plant. LOL let's try again next year. No biggie.

Americans need more of that. It doesn't have to be gardening of course, but please go out of your way to find something that can introduce more surprising and rewarding variables into your life that you enjoy figuring out.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#340

Post by xbar »

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…

Perhaps Stanford was culturally co-opted.
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