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Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

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Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#881

Post by Yeask »

snapdeficit wrote: post #662
trow232134 wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have harder lifes than others. Saying everybody has a few things that they struggle is kind of offensive. I struggle because my parents were drug addicts and my father tried to kill us all when I was 5.

Somebody ALWAYS has a harder life than you.

Those are not mutually exclusive.

You can have a life harder than most and at the same time not having the worst life in the world.

17% of children experience violence at home. The fact that 5000k away there are other kids dying in wars is the consolation you think it is.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#882

Post by austinjp »

snapdeficit wrote: post #658
hibikir wrote: post #58

I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for the…

“Smart kid” who did “poorly at school” is a fascinating doublespeak. School is where you demonstrate you are smart. Skilled is different from smart btw. Not being able to do an integral but being able to tune a holly four barrel carb are not the same thing. It’s just baffling that you would make this claim.

An example from my personal life: I aced many academic tests without effort, but couldn't remember which lesson was in which building on which day. I was often late, and discovered many distractions that were far more interesting than school, leading to truancy. So I was indeed a "smart kid" who "did poorly at school".

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#883

Post by LiKao »

darth_avocado wrote: post #447
wisty wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people think a test should measure one thing (often under the slightly "main character" assumption that they'll be really good at the one truly important thing). Tests usually measure lots of things, and speed and accuracy / fluency in the topic is one. It certainly shouldn't be entirely a race either though. Also if a test is time constrained it's easier to mark. Give a failing student 8 hours and they'll wr…

Well that’s the core of the problem. Either you’re measuring speed on a test or you’re not. If you are, then people with disabilities unfortunately do not pass the test and that’s the way it is. If you are not, then testing some students but not others is unfair. At the end of the day setting up a system where different students have different criteria for succeeding, automatically incentivizes students to find the e…

Tests usually do measure the speed. And often they should. But the question here is "the speed of what?". And how do you measure the speed without also measuring the speed of something else as an error?

If you just want to measure speed, we should clock the time the student gets up, until they get to the room where the test is, get's out his pen etc. So students get the same time to do all this.

We are now measuring the speed at which the student is able to do the test material including all the preparatory steps. Students who live further away or have slower cars will get worse grade, but we are just measuring speed, aren't we?

That is a deliberately stupid example, but it shows that is important to ask "speed of what?". When doing a physics exam, what do we want to include in our measurement? The time it takes the person to read an write? Or just the raw speed at which physics knowledge can be applied? What is error and what is measurement?

You can see it as measuring based on different criteria. Or you can see it as trying to get rid of sources of errors that may be vastly different for different students.

It would be great if we could reduce the sources of errors down to zero for everyone. But unfortunately humans are very stochastic in nature, so we cannot do this. But then there has to be an acceptable source of measurement error (typical distribution) and an unacceptable source of measurement error (atypical distribution) and to actually measure based on the same criteria, you need to measure differently based on what you believe the error to be.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#884

Post by bArray »

In Universities in the UK, and likely elsewhere, you get extra time during an exam if you have a qualifying disability.

As said by Charlie Munger: "show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome". In the UK, 23% (and climbing) working age adults are now registered as disabled [1]. For a qualifying disability you can claim personal independence payment (PIP) that gets you between £73.90-£110.40 for living plus £29.20-£77.05 for mobility, which is not means tested [2]. That's up to $249.98 USD a week untaxed on top of your regular income - you can imagine why people may be incentivised. Worse still, Citizens Advice which is 60% taxpayer funded [3], actively tell people how to fill out the forms to guarantee a positive outcome.

I have no idea why people would want to register as disabled though... /s

[1] https://www.scope.org.uk/media/disability-facts-figures

[2] https://www.gov.uk/pip/how-much-youll-get

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Advice

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#885

Post by austinjp »

isolli wrote: post #851
vl wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything can be abused or used incorrectly. If you drink too much water you remove salts from your body and get sick. With Adderall (or Vyvanse) good protocol is to get small dose, like 5-10mg early morning once every one or two weeks. Then you’ll get boost when really needed and feel uplifting for few more days. Taking it every day is insane, ADHD or not.

Is this the way it is usually prescribed, a small dose every few days?

Nope, typical dosage is daily.

https://www.drugs.com/adderall.html

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#886

Post by elsjaako »

polotics wrote: post #877
Spooky23 wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just operate so that everyone gets the academic benefits. My roommate in the 90s was ahead of the curve, he memorized the Cosmo quiz “do you have ADD” went to the student center, got a script that he sold or snorted, and got to take his test in a comfortable room at a time scheduled centrally. Just randomize assignments to rooms all over campus.

Oh wow snorted? Did you keep in touch how well is he doing now? I suspect he's not doing so well with the brain damage and the likely switch to other substances.

Why would snorting be so much worse than just swallowing the pill? The goal is to get the chemicals in the blood. Snorting apparently works quicker, giving you a stronger but shorter lasting effect. But the difference is not night and day.

A lot of people do recreational drugs while at college and go on just fine. George W. Bush, for example, is alleged to have taken cocaine.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#887

Post by 7speter »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #738
Terr_ wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My logic is that I just assumed a bit of water in advance would prevent toothpaste from directly/easily adhering to the bristles, keeping more of it "in useful circulation" as it were. > kinda gross A few months back I needed some hydrogen peroxide, but the available bottle was more than I was likely to use before it degraded into H20... So, naturally, I started messing around looking for other applications. (It wo…

Hey, interesting idea using it against the shower gunk. Definitely going to try it. And, yes, definitely water first. It's sitting out there exposed, rinse it off!

You can use baking soda and hydrogen peroxide for a whole range of cleaning applications, as well as clearing a stopped up toilet.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#888

Post by mapt »

FireBeyond wrote: post #811
koolba wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are now also online telehealth services that don't hide the fact that this is one of their services. You pay their (cash only, please) fee and they'll make sure you get your letter. The same thing is happening with "emotional support animal" letters. This used to be a thing with medical marijuana as well (maybe still is?). The answer is for schools to grab their share of this money by selling each of these ac…

> This used to be a thing with medical marijuana as well (maybe still is?). Yup. A few years ago in California, go to a weed store in Napa. "Oh, you need a medical card" "Oh, sorry". I get handed a business card, no worries, just call this doctor here, it'll be $x (can't remember) and you can get a medical card and just come back in. I had my medical card within 5 minutes on the phone on the sidewalk outside the stor…

Conversely, you get the cancer patients like my mother, who waited until her second cycle of chemo to explore cannabis, which is apparently the best antinausea medication we have, with the right strains embarrassing the best that the pharmaceutical industry has to offer. She was told that medical card approval needs to go before a state board and it takes 1-2 years; She's be dead or off chemo by then, so we gave up. It ended up being the latter.

A few years later, we've got a "walk-in clinic" a neighborhood over which advertises how easy/fast it is to get cannabis cards specifically; By this time there is no approval wait.

A few years later, recreational is legal.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#889

Post by djohnston »

All around us a societal contract is disintegrating. It's unsurprising to see the same with faked disabilities to gain an academic edge. It was the case years ago but it seems like there's a more formalised industry to support such endeavors now.

These days you can assume any loophole must be exploited by people who not only are unashamed in doing so, but rather proud of their prowess to exploit. It is an ADD diagnosis for extra time, a disabled placard for better parking - hell the new meme is motile people pretending to need wheelchair access for priority boarding at airports.

It is the metastatic presentation of a society too fat, gluttonous, and imbalanced to function in the face of any actual adversity.

I don't blame anyone - American society is cruel, untrustworthy, alienating, and unforgiving. Spoils are awarded to the least scrupulous actors and all negative outcomes are externalized. Take what you can and fuck everyone else, right?

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#890

Post by dev_l1x_be »

It is a pattern. If you make it beneficial to declare some status (there is a fine distinction between conditions that a person was born with vs just declaring something) more people are going to declare that. This happened in my country when we introduced preferential treatment for certain minorities and there was a huge uptick in people declaring being part of that minority group. This was for claiming a university benefit.
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