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The only problem with this article is that it tries to tie the loss of culture and fun with increasing diversity or something. As if including black people is

The only problem with this article is that it tries to tie the loss of culture and fun with increasing diversity or something. As if including black people is gonna make it less fun? No, the loss of fun is due to financialization and lawyers getting involved with everything and trying to make everything about maximizing profits and fear of lawsuits. Got nothing to do with equality. The DSA for what it’s worth, throws great parties.

ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
On the other hand, I would not be surprised if (lack of) diversity is being used as an excuse/cudgel to shut down student orgs.
- fallingfrog 4y ago
  It’s a totally cynical excuse though. Just a cover for their real goals, which is to have less liability and a more reliable profit stream. The problem with this article is that it seems to take everything these administrators are saying at face value, as if they genuinely are shutting down campus life in retaliation for black people not getting invited to the parties. I mean come on. Here’s the Stanford board of directors: https://boardoftrustees.stanford.edu/board-members/ https://boardoftrustees.stanford.edu/board-members/ You think any of these people actually care about diversity as opposed to money?
barry-cotter 4y ago
Diversity is not anti fun. Black people, Hispanic people, Asians, everyone else, lots of them are fun. Judgmental people are not fun. Woke scolds are not fun. People who get diversity jobs are not fun. The same personality type that were judgmental Christian censorship happy party haters in the 1950s are judgmental censorship happy party haters now. Let us hope that just as the 1960s followed the 1950s or the Roaring Twenties followed Victorian prudishness these people see their values trampled underfoot. Let freedom reign.
querez 4y ago
To be honest, I often felt that a lot of Diversity and Equity campaigns lead to more sterile environments: when I (Not American) joined my current (American) corporation, DEI training hammered down the point to cut out any type of joke and remark unless it was super sterile. This was definitely not something I was used to before. I can see that such things are a necessity unless you want to end up in litigation all the time, because a joke or prank that might seem harmless to 99.9% of people will still offend that one outlier, and at the scale of huge corporations (or huge college campuses) you will find that one person who perceives this as yet another micro-agression at their expense. So everything that isn't bland and non-offensive gets increasingly outlawed, or at least discouraged. It definitely leads to a lot of self-censoring. Am I even allowed to poke fun at my own geekness, or make fun of stereotypes of my own nationality (obviously I wouldn't make fun of other people's traits these days), or will that offend any bystander that also shares these features with me? Of course, the end result is what you pointed out: in a litigation-happy place (like the US) everything that offends people is going to be dragged into the courts by someone, and is going to cost actual money, and everyone wants to avoid that.
- galoisgirl 4y ago
  > because a joke or prank that might seem harmless to 99.9% of people will still offend that one outlier Are you sure about that 99.9% figure? I think not. Also part of the problem is that when you're that outlier, it's not for one joke, it's for a whole category of jokes. That gets tiring, to say the least.

ravel-bar-foo 4y ago

On the other hand, I would not be surprised if (lack of) diversity is being used as an excuse/cudgel to shut down student orgs.

fallingfrog 4y ago
It’s a totally cynical excuse though. Just a cover for their real goals, which is to have less liability and a more reliable profit stream. The problem with this article is that it seems to take everything these administrators are saying at face value, as if they genuinely are shutting down campus life in retaliation for black people not getting invited to the parties. I mean come on. Here’s the Stanford board of directors: https://boardoftrustees.stanford.edu/board-members/ https://boardoftrustees.stanford.edu/board-members/ You think any of these people actually care about diversity as opposed to money?

barry-cotter 4y ago

Diversity is not anti fun. Black people, Hispanic people, Asians, everyone else, lots of them are fun. Judgmental people are not fun. Woke scolds are not fun. People who get diversity jobs are not fun. The same personality type that were judgmental Christian censorship happy party haters in the 1950s are judgmental censorship happy party haters now. Let us hope that just as the 1960s followed the 1950s or the Roaring Twenties followed Victorian prudishness these people see their values trampled underfoot. Let freedom reign.

querez 4y ago

To be honest, I often felt that a lot of Diversity and Equity campaigns lead to more sterile environments: when I (Not American) joined my current (American) corporation, DEI training hammered down the point to cut out any type of joke and remark unless it was super sterile. This was definitely not something I was used to before. I can see that such things are a necessity unless you want to end up in litigation all the time, because a joke or prank that might seem harmless to 99.9% of people will still offend that one outlier, and at the scale of huge corporations (or huge college campuses) you will find that one person who perceives this as yet another micro-agression at their expense. So everything that isn't bland and non-offensive gets increasingly outlawed, or at least discouraged. It definitely leads to a lot of self-censoring. Am I even allowed to poke fun at my own geekness, or make fun of stereotypes of my own nationality (obviously I wouldn't make fun of other people's traits these days), or will that offend any bystander that also shares these features with me? Of course, the end result is what you pointed out: in a litigation-happy place (like the US) everything that offends people is going to be dragged into the courts by someone, and is going to cost actual money, and everyone wants to avoid that.

galoisgirl 4y ago
> because a joke or prank that might seem harmless to 99.9% of people will still offend that one outlier Are you sure about that 99.9% figure? I think not. Also part of the problem is that when you're that outlier, it's not for one joke, it's for a whole category of jokes. That gets tiring, to say the least.