But hey, they're "just "trying to get away from people who were obsessed with themselves."".
Very good TV show on right now about this premise. I didn't think it was real.
It was looking good until I got to the 3 drinks per week maximum. Oh well.
No clothes costing more than $500? Do the pants and jacket of a suit count separately?
OK, this isn't the normal sort of hateable Silicon Valley thing. I'm not sure what sort of stereotypical person we're imagining living in this house. Recent immigrants? People who never want to say a single word to each other? Right-wing red pill fans?
I sort of agree with 5. Would have been more hateable if Burning Man were involved, this just seems bizarre. Also, 15 hours of exercise a week is a shit-ton. That's more than 2hrs/day.
I guess you can lie about what a suit costs as easily as you can lie about drinking.
Owning a suit is a sign that you're obsessed with yourself, Moby.
Also you can totally get a suit for less than $500 from, like, H&M.
Yeah, I mean Woodside is clearly on the Peninsula, not in Silicon Valley.
It's also a huge hassle to get to/from Woodside without a car. It's just such a bizarre collection of characteristics, it's like they're trying to exclude specific people.
The last time I bought a suit, I never heard of H&M.
6.last- depends if they let you count the bike commute.
That list looks to me to capture a very specific kind of nerd-asshole.
The makeup, and owning clothes over $500 look like the sort of thing they think will discourage girly people which is important because blah blah blah sexism. I'm guessing "is a woman" would probably be an unofficial deal breaker.
The drugs/alcohol/tattoos/dates bit is a pretty clear "socially ostracized people are purer!" thing, which I certainly remember seeing in people I knew (mostly in high school before I decided that stuff was nonsense). Sort of a combination of high (five factor model) conscientiousness* and resentment of other people for being more popular/glorifying whatever they were too afraid of putting themselves out there to do.
A lot of the other stuff just sounds like preening self reliance nonsense that you get from people who've probably done all of those things themselves but aren't willing to admit it/somehow don't think of it that way because their case was special
*This being, to my eyes, the single most unfair label imaginable since it means, mostly, 'teacher-pleaser', or people who are highly responsive to/strongly desire external validation.
I guess you can have an Apple Watch, but only the cheapest model, and no extra bands.
I assume that's an offer to buy MHPH a watch.
Pretty sure I got a suit from Banana Republic for less than $500 a few years ago. I've worn it once, to an all day interview.
All my suits are more than ten years old. Fortunately, fashion hasn't changed enough that I need to consider buying a new one.
I'm guessing "is a woman" would probably be an unofficial deal breaker.
I was going to say "Actually it's about ethics in videogame journalism" but apparently they don't let gamers in their castle either.
"and a "generosity kitchen" stocked with free food'"
So the tooth fairy provides free food? I think she wears makeup ALL THE TIME. These people do not seem particularly bright.
Their webpage claims one of the principles they live by is "Transcendance." What kind of dance is that?
It's also a huge hassle to get to/from Woodside without a car.
I was about to say!
Those requirements are probably a good description of the whole group of people I get along with, but I doubt any of us fit all of them. Certainly I don't.
It seems a little unlikely that well-off bike commuters don't own a few technical garments over $500.
These aren't the oddest techie group house I know of, bit most of the collectives recruit among their friends.
It's a fun game to figure out how few words need to be changed to turn this into a plausible recipe for a Weather Underground cell.
Bart conductor just now near w oakland, to entire train:"Look at all the traffic to the left. That sucks."
The ad sounds like there were a few principled exclusions and a lot of past roommate-based exclusions. I have a tough time mustering hate for anyone who self-segregates so explicitly and effectively. I will never have to deal with these people! Awesome. GRATITUDE.
I'd hate to ruin the building. Can we use a neutron bomb to take them out?
To really get into it, you need to look at their website. They have ultra-luxury rooms for visiting investors and you can pitch to their angel community and they have team rooms (?) with beds and charity galas and ... it's like some kind of weird Frankenstein monster of the Greek system and startup hype. It definitely feels like some late-bubble-era something and like a good sign of a crash about to happen.
Their motto is "BE YOUR BEST SELF. LIVE WITH JOY. SAVE THE WORLD."
That's absurd. You can maybe do two of those if you're the right sort. But doing three isn't possible.
"Ultra-luxury room" seems to mean "small room with a real bed instead of little dorm-room-style bunk beds."
What if you're Superman and you've dumped Lois to hook up with the award-winning author of Obasan?
I dunno, I'm pretty committed to Silicon Valley hatred, but now I feel bad for these guys (and I agree it's almost certainly all guys). They feel like the guys in college who have joined the lamest fraternity on campus. Trying too hard to be cool (admittedly, Silicon Valley cool, but that's what they're going for) in a system that will inevitably reject and crush them. I guess if their castle-designed apps rise up to world domination I'll feel differently, but I'd also bet pretty heavily that the next Zuckerberg isn't coming from this place.
And apparently "SAVING THE WORLD" is not consistent with taking time off work when you have a new baby.
30: For more money than a house payment.
Who doesn't get regular gifts from their parents?
You don't even get your own room. It looks like boot camp. For UMC douchebags.
I want to go interview and call everyone "brah."
Borked the link: http://www.startupcastle.org/2015/05/castle-dormitories.html
Wow so they sleep in shifts, sequentially sharing beds? I think I'd prefer to go full 18c slum and have my own private cupboard on the landing.
Makes me wonder what it's going to be like when the kids of the "we could be in Napa" guy and his ilk graduate from college and are unleashed on society at large. Unless that's what this is.
Following the links, looks like two of the residents are women, guessing they're all grad student/postdoc/new faculty agex.
If someone leaves a sock on the dorm room door, does it mean do not disturb, I'm coding?
Shit. AgeX is my new anti-aging startup. Now you all have to sign nondisclosure agreements.
I totally want a M-O-N-K L-I-F-E knuckle tattoo now. But save "startup castle" for my buttcheeks, when I'm ready.
Like I say, I'm betting heavily that this crew is a loser crew, and I therefore feel bad for them. I think 39.1.last is probably wrong. But maybe I'm wrong.
Many years ago, two of my friends who were then (extremely low level) NYC finance guys and for-real frat bros lived in this amazingly horrible living situation known as the "men den." It was a small one bedroom in midtown which they'd arranged 7 bunk beds so that 14 guys could live there. The residents would rotate in and out. You had room for a trunk for some stuff, but no other storage space. Of course, everyone tried to find a girlfriend ASAP just to have another bed to sleep in; after one of my friends broke up with his girlfriend, he would desperately try to pick up a different woman literally every night after work (generally very late), not so much for the sex but just to have a comfortable bed outside of the men den.
If you have to bike to work and back, that's probably 5 hours of exercise a week right there.
47: So, a drummer, but one tied to a desk for 12 hours a day?
M-O-N-K L-I-F-E
Everybody needs a cowl.
Everybody must have left to go get one.
Things I would put in a roommate ad, if I were ever going to advertise for a roommate:
1. No 5 hour crying jags.
2. No rabbits
3. No quitting your job and going to Wisconsin for a month for a med study without telling anyone.
4. No wallowing in filth and empty PBR cans for weeks on end.
5. No building a tiny house and leaving it sitting in the backyard for over a year.
Sadly, no. I mean, not horrific, but not great either.
But it wasn't made of PBR cans or anything?
Nope, just regular wood. I do have a few plans for completely free tiny houses that I'd like to build someday, some of which might incorporate cut and flattened aluminium cans.
If they used actual lumber and put on some paint, that's not really something that ranks with filth and rabbits.
Inside of a rabbit it's too tiny to live.
It's more the "structure I have no use for is cluttering up the yard" aspect that is bothersome.
Perhaps not as acutely annoying as spending three days cleaning dried rabbit shit off hardwood floors, but of longer duration.
If life gives you rabbits and a small house in the yard, make a rabbit hutch.
I like the tiny houses. But rabbits are just "meh." My mom kept rabbits until we moved in with her parents and had to put them down. That was... dark. I was 5.
In college my neighbor's pet rabbit tried to jump down from our walkway level to the floor below. It suffered a compound fracture. She took it to the vet and got the thing surgically repaired. It survived for quite a time thereafter adn she never let it go free outside again.
I honestly can't imagine ever taking a rodent for medical care that I had to pay for.
I get this vibe that one of the rules is probably "must identify as straight but like to give a bro the occasional handjob."
I've never raised rabbits, so I don't know.
Rabbits are lagomorphs now, not rodents.
This whole castle seems like a really weird cult. If the cult is that weird, the cultists better be pretty okay at handjobs.
Soft Quaker Dairy Product, surely there's a moment in some opera where God and the Devil contend for some schmo's soul, right? Can you think of one?
67: Is that Latin for something related to hand jobs?
At that age I'd have met all the criteria, even the weirder ones, except for the computer-specific ones that wouldn't apply.
And I'd have wanted nothing to do with a houseful of such people, nor thought their self-assessments attractive.
69: Faust sort of. God is kind of implied. Are you looking for something more specific than that? Lots of people set it. Gounod's is a little treacly; Boito's is weird and wonderful; Berlioz' is...weird and wonderful.
Their receiving roommates wanted ad has brief descriptions of current residents.
If you are willing to stretch to gods there's Orfée aux Enfers, certainly includes lots of bickering. But you know operetta so I'm once again just betraying my low tastes!
"Serial entrepreneur, world traveler, cyclist"
DIAF.
73: I guess the "Startup" aspect of the Castle is more aspirational than anything else.
76: Cycling around the world is a pretty impressive achievement, admittedly.
I don't care if I'm p0wn'd, I'm posting thirst link
"Former startup CEO, extreme connector, house manager"
I've never understood "serial entrepreneur" as a marketing thing unless you're already rich. If you're not it either means short attention span or repeated failure.
A serial killer has more commitment to killing than other murderers.
81: it is confusingly high status in startup land to have started a string of failed businesses.
I thought it was a thing to make a startup and then sell it to yahoo or facebook or whatever and then move on to the next startup.
It's possible I don't really understand what "startup" means.
The link in 79 is amazing/terrible. Have we had a post about the whole OBL/conspiracy/journalism fracas?
I thought it was a thing to make a startup and then sell it to yahoo or facebook or whatever and then move on to the next startup.
Sure, but short of that making a startup that eventually dies for lack of funding and then moving on to the next is generally considered nearly as good.
84.last: no, but we've mentioned it in the David Brooks thread below. And that Q&A link is extraordinary.
85: Everybody hates venture capitalists.
I just know that those dudes have rockin' late night conversations about anarcho-capitalism.
Also 81 is spot-on.
83: I understand how having a business failure under your belt could be helpful in avoiding future failures, but more than one starts to look like a pattern.
86 Q&A link? (asking for a friendwho's too busy to find it because he's waiting for the Spacing Guild Navigators to arrive and take away his several boxes of books and Buffy DVDs for shipment to Arrakis).
IIRC all sorts of interesting things start to happen just as you're packing up to move to Arrakis. If you have to do the gom jabbar test, liveblog it with your free hand.
"You are human, young lordling librarianling, but your attention span sucks."
If you killed all of them that failed the test, I wonder how long it would take to evolve a breed of dogs (for example) that would leave their paw in the pain-thing.
Probably should start with mice, to keep the necessary funding levels low enough to attract venture capital.
Guild Navigator must have been on a lot of spice. He arrived a half hour before schedule.
(I saw my paperback copy of Dune when I was carrying out the boxes to him and that was the absolute last thing to go in.)
87- Pretty much- I'm working on a startup now on the side (maybe I can go live in the castle!) and for all the pitch decks and applications we've put in to startup competitions, the scientists and manager reviewers say that it's a great idea that would be really useful for a lot of researchers and the investors say- well, here's a quote: " I don't see any technology or value add here." Compared to the stupid shit they run up there as examples of past winning teams I think the problem is we're actually solving a real-life research data problem instead of creating some gimmicky bullshit market like yet another exercise tracking app.
89. The culture is pretty accepting of the fact that most things fail and that there's a lot of randomness behind the projects that succeed. The presumed skill is being able to come up with and prototype ideas on a reliable enough time table that you can play the lottery more times than the competition, marginally increasing your chance for success.
89: a pattern of risk-taking and going for it, brah.
98: we lost one thing we entered because they said we only had a technology and not a business case. The next round we came up with a basically bullshit business case and won, despite the fact that the judges didn't like our business case and thought we should have come to them with a pure technology play. Who knows.
I guess I'm on my way to being a serial entrepreneur!
Randomness is the style of the aleatoric entrepreneur.
the style of the aleatoric entrepreneur.
I'm investing here, and I don't know why!
28: I am intrigued that their commitment to world-saving seems to exclude going to protests and participating in online activism. Perhaps it's more of a "save the world for myself, don't waste it on others" thing.
I will also be super, super interested in how this pans out - how will all these people develop habits that are simultaneously within the rules and deeply annoying to each other? Who will the rules be enforced against and how? (Everyone always thinks that having clearly written rules means that they will be enforced, and enforced evenly.)
More, will it somehow go Lord of the Flies? Will someone develop a mental illness and refuse treatment in order to avoid breaking the rules, then kill themselves or someone else? Will people try to hide their noncompliance?
My bet is that there will be a honeymoon period (assuming that there isn't a discrimination lawsuit/terminal embarrassment) which will be taken by the residents and possible local media to prove something and then it will fall apart spectacularly. It's basically back-to-the-land for tech sexists, or that Gant Gulch thing, or seasteading.
On another note - I feel like there's a big divide between[straight] tech sexists who want to use their money and power to obtain conventionally hot women who do all the makeup/maintenance/fashion stuff and [straight] tech sexists who, despite having money and power, still basically hate women and want to drive them away. There don't seem to be very many straight tech dudes who want regular, normal relationships with women based on mutual liking and respect.
In a way, I am kind of impressed by the tech sexists who are so committed to their hatred of women and femininity that they are basically willing to forgo female company and partnered sex. At least they believe their beliefs.
Maybe they'll find a way to get along by hating women but not trying to drive them away.
|| Remember when those Stanford/Dartmouth professors thought it would be cool interesting and informative to find out if they could manipulate turnout in our Supreme Court election? Turns out they broke the law. Referred for prosecution. |>
There don't seem to be very many straight tech dudes who want regular, normal relationships with women based on mutual liking and respect.
I'm #notalltechyguys'ing here, but while that's certainly a reasonable impression from online, I've really never gotten a real world impression that techy/nerdy guys were systematically any worse at all than anyone else on that front, and I know lots who are just fine. There just doesn't seem to be an online presence for it as a part of a techy identity.
The couple things I googled yesterday, plus the link I posted, suggest people might have been living there for at least a year already. My guess is it's far more boring than us haters imagine.
Actually, if I were doing this kind of thing, I would run it a lot more like a real dorm - I wouldn't just have a "house manager", I'd have actual house administration. I'd hire someone who didn't live there and wasn't friends with these people and give them the power to make certain financial decisions and enforce clearly defined rules - preferably two part-time people, or one full time and a couple of consultants.
The thing is - leaving aside the stupidity and emotional poverty displayed in the actual "nobody who had a couple of prescriptions for depression as a teen and no one who works in a job where women are penalized for not wearing make-up" bit - this sort of thing could work if you had some relatively impartial mechanism for enforcement.
But what just occurred to me is that I would never, ever want to take a class from Stanford faculty member Mark, the leader of an 'innovation lab' - I would be worried that he would discriminate against female or disabled students. In fact, if I were Mark's department head, I would be having a teensy chat with Mark just about now.
110: I think the problem is that we're using "tech" to mean many things. That statement is probably not remotely accurate for the huge set of industries involving programming or engineering work on a computer, but it becomes increasingly valid as you move into the Silicon Valley venture capital brofest.
Fair enough -- that's a world I'm completely isolated from. I was thinking of 'programmers I know', which is different.
I was agreeing with you, but trying to moderate it because I'm more susceptible to #notalling--I'm isolated from it, too, but I'm in "tech". But there must be a core where that sort of bogus male preening must be the norm or close to it. It's probably small and not representative, but we overfocus on it like it's the New York Times editorial page. Like that Facebook engineer in that article we talked about who thought he could impress the female journalist he randomly ran into in a coffee house with a helicopter ride to Napa.
Actually, if I were doing this kind of thing, I would run it a lot more like a real dorm - I wouldn't just have a "house manager", I'd have actual house administration.
They don't think they're a dorm, though, they have the strange belief that they are just fun-lovin' roommates with a sweet set-up.
Oh, no, I'm totally wrong! Missed that link.
Also, you know what I bet - most of these people couldn't tell if someone was wearing mascara. I mean, I usually can't. I bet they have some kind of misogynist caricature in their heads (and the usual division between "cool girls" and "other girls") where they think that most women who wear mascara have it just caked on in clumps and probably wear fake tanner, etc. I bet they couldn't pick out women who dye their hair, either, except for women who have really dramatic dye jobs.
The tanning salon by my house is so busy. Or was, back when it was cold last month. I don't get it. Hardly anybody in my family has lived past 70 without getting skin cancers cut off. I'm thinking of getting a really stupid hat.
113: except even there it's only sort of vaguely accurate. White Stanford techbros in their twenties, while they may be overrepresented in the kinds of horror stories which reach our attention, and heavily overrepresented in the portfolios of the kinds of VC firms that like to give money to 22-year-olds, are not any kind of a majority even at the techiest of tech firms.
106: honestly well over 50% of the straight guys I know who are in respectful, happy LTRs with women they regard as equals and friends work as devs (or put in years in that role), as do some of the partners. I won't claim a bimodal distribution, but lots of personality traits lead people to want to spend 8+ hours a day with computers, and I suspect you would find a lot of them sympathetic and familiar. No?
I think "tech sexists" is the operative part of my comment - unless we want to argue that all men in tech are sexist, which was not what I intended.
I am just constantly amazed at straight guys who are so invested in sexism that they are willing to forgo, like, sex. Usually you get guys who kind of hate women but try to do various things to keep them around for status and to get laid. It is, as I said above, kind of impressive.
Judging by the pictures and links, it looks like the people in this particular place are only barely majority male and probably not majority white.
There are two women residents of seven (at least, all the names seem really clearly gendered - I wouldn't expect "John" or "Mark" to be women.) "Cool girls", no doubt.
But the pictures of "castle life" suggest that galas and angel meetings are attended by...the sort of women who wear makeup more than twice a week. I guess their money spends just like anyone else's.
I think "tech sexists" is the operative part of my comment - unless we want to argue that all men in tech are sexist, which was not what I intended.
Alternatively:
There don't seem to be very many straight tech dudes who want regular, normal relationships with women based on mutual liking and respect.
122.2: Sometimes, a cigaroppression is just oppression.
125: Oh, you're right. But when I was writing the comment, I was trying to distinguish between the tech dudes who are actually invested in misogyny (of whom there are so bizarrely many! I actually know a feminist tech guy who knows a bunch of those gamer gate people and used to move in those circles, and it's bizarre.) and the ones who either don't especially care or are not misogynist. I think I wanted to avoid another use of "tech sexists" because it was both repetitive and kind of a dumb phrase (albeit more precise than "tech bro", I think).
Mark's innovation lab seems to be a lot of bull.
I am just constantly amazed at straight guys who are so invested in sexism
While I'm happy to hate on techbros (especially those working in edtech, who should all be fed to sharks immediately), I wonder if the real correlating factor is libertarian/randroid leanings, and a propensity to work in tech is carried along.
Ga/mor/gat/ors are plenty invested in their sexism, but they don't seem to be in "tech" unless playing computer games qualifies. A lot of them seem to be self identified libertarians, though.
I am just constantly amazed at straight guys who are so invested in sexism that they are willing to forgo, like, sex. Usually you get guys who kind of hate women but try to do various things to keep them around for status and to get laid. It is, as I said above, kind of impressive.
I dion't believe in this -- they aren't so committed to their sexist philosophy that they are willing to forego sex. The sexist philosophy is a cover for something else-- most likely, fear.
"Mark focuses on designing, catalyzing, incentivizing, and generating resources to scale up collective positive human behavior change."
The lab has a game designer on its central "team".
"Former relief-worker, investment banker, and social entrepreneur, Mark Nelson is a founding member of Stanford's Peace Innovation Lab, where he researches mass collaboration and mass interpersonal persuasion. Mark's mission is to create an entire new, profitable industry, where positive peace is delivered as a service."
It is far from obvious that Mark is actually entitled to call himself a "professor".
He has described a functional, quantitative definition of peace, in terms of technology-mediated engagement episode quantity and quality across social difference lines; he has identified innovative, automated ways to measure peace, both at the neighborhood and global level; and he has developed a formal structural description for Peace Data.
I reject your formal structural description of Peace Data unless it can be used to produce a DTD or a LALR parser.
Mark's mission is to create an entire new, profitable industry, where positive peace is delivered as a service.
Oh. My. God.
I just - if there were a chance in hell that it would work, this dude would be evil. But as it is, it's just marketing babble. Unless "positive peace" really means "private security firms" or something. Maybe it does - I don't move in these social circles.
The gam/er ga/te people I know at second/third hand are tech people - there are some involved.
Isn't there some Gene Wolfe story where "Peace" is the name of the right-wing counterterroism effort?
(Is google-proofing of this term a serious enough concern that one should ask the mods to fix my earlier comment?)
(Is google-proofing of this term a serious enough concern that one should ask the mods to fix my earlier comment?)
I doubt it?
The peace innovation lab operates under this group, apparently; I just wrote a concerned email to the addresses listed there.
Uh, maybe? It has died down some, admittedly. I'll try it out on twitter and see if anyone bites.
134.last: If the thread is swarmed with new commenters insisting that it's actually about ethics in games journalism, we'll know who to blame.
I would say I'm disappointed in my graduate alma mater for hosting this ridiculous boondoggle, but … well, even though it is par for the course, I find I'm disappointed afresh anyway. Jesus Christ, Stanford.
Ite gets better if you follow some of Marks' links:
Peace is often seen as a non-profit or policy-related goal, but the significant financial returns from urban conflict reduction and peace-building mostly accrue to private actors. We are creating a Reward-Per-Action platform to buy and sell peaceful actions at a granular level. By establishing a marketplace for peace at the neighborhood level, Urban Innovation creates value for banks, insurance companies, property owners, governments, and, of course, entrepreneurs - all while providing local economic stimulus and better living conditions for the citizens.
Think of how much trouble Baltimore could have been spared if only they had one of these neighborhood peace marketplace thingamawhazzits. Value could have been created for banks and insurance companies!
Mark's mission is to create an entire new, profitable industry, where positive peace is delivered as a service.
Oh. My. God.
I just - if there were a chance in hell that it would work, this dude would be evil.
Sounds pretty good. Set up an industry which actually profits from promoting peace and cross-border understanding? If it works, it'd be great!
141: But the point is that "positive peace" [whatever the hell that is] is "delivered as a service". That's not "promoting peace" or "cross-border understanding", and it's pretty clear that he's referring to "urban peace". In my neck of the woods, that basically means "making sure that rich people don't encounter anything (like poor people, or people of a racial background that the rich consider undesirable) which disrupts their enjoyment/spending, and dressing that up as a social good".
He's explicitly saying that we have this outdated understanding of peace as a social good/nonprofit issue/collective issue, when really it is mostly for the benefit of capital and should be understood/"delivered" as such.
I tend to suspect, as well, that the kind of "peace" which can be bought and sold isn't really "peace" as most people understand it. Pacification, perhaps.
Buying and selling peaceful actions at a granular level sounds great—the poor can sell peaceful actions to the rich, and the rich can do whatever they want, because they have no need to sell peaceful actions to the poor.
(Actually, isn't there a canonical way to sell a peaceful action to someone already? I think it involves the phrase "your money or your life".)
significant financial returns from urban conflict reduction
Reading that I can't help thinking of the sleazy scientist in Alien: Resurrection singing the praises of the aliens to Ripley: "The potential for this species goes way beyond urban pacification..."
Also, "mass collaboration" is a particularly tone-deaf choice of phrase.
(Although the sciences are the same way - I seem to end up talking about collaborators an awful lot given that I'm not in, say, France in 1947.)
Or, possibly, not.
Their previous work :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Loves_Iran
Their next projects:
The Stanford Peace Innovation lab is seeking entrepreneurial solutions for reducing negative engagement and increasing positive engagement across a defined conflict boundary.
The targeted behavior needs to address an identified conflict boundary (some examples include nationality, geography, religion, politics, race, gender, class, ethnicity, language, and so on)
Games for Peace
Can Facebook social games be used to teach non-violent communication? Can mobile iPhone Apps teach children anti-bullying interventions? Let us know what you're developing and the results you're getting from your applications.
ResilientAfrica Network
...an international partnership that will apply science and technology to improve the resilience of African communities against natural and political stresses. ResilientAfrica will unite 20 African universities in 16 countries, representing over 300,000 students and faculty members, to form a network to empower African communities.
I don't know, sure it sounds a bit Orwellian, but your response reminds me of the Black Helicopter crowd saying that the wording in the declaration of independence inoculates us from Agenda 21 and the secret UN plot to confiscate all our golfs (to borrow a phrase)
They hide this stuff away on their website and you have to really dig deep to find it, though.
http://peaceinnovation.stanford.edu/projects/
136 followup: one of the addressees responded to me and the other two addressees saying that one of them needs to talk to the dude and asking which of them should do it.
"Peace delivered as a service" is also known as a protection racket. It was Tony Soprano's business. Pay up and your inner city business operates in peace; don't pay and we'll break a few windows or kneecaps.
"Peace delivered as a service" is also known as a protection racket
Or "a government".
As nosflow points out the mechanism here is for money to flow FROM rich powerful people TO poor people, and in a protection racket the money flows the other way.
The "Israel Loves Iran" link took me to a website devoted to the fabulous nightlife of Tel Aviv.
Never mind that it's totally dehumanizing and distasteful and gross!
153: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Loves_Iran
peace as a service
I think it's meant as a contrast to the old days of shrink-wrapped peace.
It's like you all don't even care about technology-mediated engagement episode quantity and quality. You know who ELSE didn't care about that?
Slippery slope, guys.
it all sounds incredibly stupid. someone's money is being stolen, that is forsure
Further to 156: http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/XaaS-anything-as-a-service
I must say, that does seem like an unusually high degree of bullshititude even for Silicon Valley and even for Stanford. A little surprising that it's hosted on a university campus -- it's so clearly bullshit that it's pretty much like Stanford hosting an alchemy and phrenology lab.
146: Okay, in fairness those only sound potentially-pointless, not sinister. To me, they sound like tech "fixes" for actual structural inequality, imposed from the outside by well-paid change agents, etc. But yes, not quite the justification for heavy urban policing that the dude's bio seems to suggest.
But there's something really weird about being all "let's bring peace between Israel and Iran and use Facebook to stop bullying" and still defaulting to this very, very creepy corporate-speak about paying for peace and how the benefits of "urban peace" accrue to banks and so on. In real life, I can accept that he is quite likely s a great guy if you actually know him, and maybe when he meets women who wear a lot of mascara he judges them as individuals first, etc - but I am always really, really disturbed by people who have ostensibly progressive goals wrapped up in really creepy corporate biz speak. At best, they're just not very attuned to language or didn't want to spend much time on their front page material; at worst, their core belief really is that "peace" ought to be marketized.
Never mind that it's totally dehumanizing and distasteful and gross!
Compared to war?
155: If that worked, would it be peace or the beginnings of an anti-Arab coalition?
But there's something really weird about being all "let's bring peace between Israel and Iran and use Facebook to stop bullying" and still defaulting to this very, very creepy corporate-speak about paying for peace and how the benefits of "urban peace" accrue to banks and so on.
Pied Piper isn't some bloated corporation with a pretentious mission statement about "making the world a better place." We are a small, focused, business-facing compression company intent on providing the absolute best in
data-management solutions. As such, we are in the process of deploying an integrated, multi-platform functionality of all applications of our algorithm intended to provide a suite of compression services across diversified market segments. In this way, we hope to positively impact our planet.
The problem is its all about gamification and markets and shit, and not about actually resolving conflicts, which is the bit that makes peace building difficult.
Compared to war?
Compared to, say, trying to improve the material conditions, education, general quality of life, etc., affecting the urban poor? I mean sure, if you squint really hard you could construe something like a guaranteed basic income for all as the (coarse-grained) sale of peaceful actions by the poor to the government (assuming we only took on such a policy out of fear of peasant revolt), but you don't need to and even there I think it's pretty uncharitable. But abandoning even the pretense of civic life together for a view in which nothing's to be done on a large scale so all you can do is pay people to treat you nice?
Also, if you build a market predicated on the existence of a conflict, you've just created a financial incentive to prolong conflict.
Why are you guys even kind of sort of taking this bullshit seriously?
I though the target audience was Mormon techies.
Particularly interesting when one considers the "marketized peace" bit together with the house prohibition on going to protests. There are lots of useless protests out there and god knows I would never blame someone who categorically didn't want to go to protests, but...let's just imagine that you are some young tech genius who has been active in anti-police brutality work. No castle for you! Peace never comes from protest!
it's so clearly bullshit that it's pretty much like Stanford hosting an alchemy and phrenology lab.
Universities will do a lot of really crazy bullshit stuff if it means money. When the only thing stopping it is the conscience and integrity of university administrators....
I was tempted to try to complete my phd supporting program over there. I didn't because I knew myself well enough to know exactly how long I could have lasted in one of their courses on energy healing or therapeutic touch or whatever without exploding at them.
I must say, that does seem like an unusually high degree of bullshititude even for Silicon Valley and even for Stanford.
More or less bullshit than the Hoover Institution?
I feel like it's even more transparently bullshit (though probably less evil) than the Hoover Institution -- it's like these guys are not even trying. But also, I'm wondering where the money is from. Startup guys trying to University-wash an obviously bullshit idea and funding it themselves with Stanford's connivance? Grifters taking advantage of some "peace research" pot of money from a rich, stupid person or foundation, with Stanford's permission?
167 is spot on.
Given recent events here in the US, I find using for-profit games to indoctrinate structurally oppressed children into passivity particularly revolting.
Grifters taking advantage of some "peace research" pot of money from a rich, stupid person or foundation, with Stanford's permission?
That's frustrating. There are institutions engaged in actual legit peace research that could use that money, and its not like there is a hell of a lot of it going around. Certainly not compared to the big bucks you can make from war research.
all you can do is pay people to treat you nice?
We've agreed on what you're doing, now we're just haggling about the price.
Certainly not compared to the big bucks you can make from war research.
But you never know when a computer designed for war will become self aware and teach us all a lesson about peace!
We've agreed on what you're doing, now we're just haggling about the price.
Well, no, we haven't agreed on that, actually.
This seems apropos - surely it's come up here before: BusinessTown!
Is the misogyny determination based entirely on the mascara condition?
That's pretty much enough, no? Something harmless that a large majority of women do and only a very small minority of men do is unacceptable?
I would add "- Own any clothing, shoes, watches, or handbags costing over $500" as a disqualifying condition (handbags, now?) and the "getting away from people who are obsessed with themselves" explanation. Right, no mascara, but 15hrs/week of exercise?
I think it's not just that women often wear make-up (and the actual ad says "make-up"); it's that we know that women are taken more seriously at work if they wear "the right" amount of make-up than if they wear none. And there's already a really extensive discourse about beauty and make-up that puts women in this really unenviable position of being supposed to maintain "natural" beauty while keeping its maintenance a secret. (You can't tell me that in a house where people are expected to exercise fifteen hours a week, a girl is going to feel good dragging around looking like a sick cat; no, the expectation will be "natural" radiance as an outward sign of grace.)
And they're not saying "no make-up because we believe that it's bad for your health"; they're saying "make-up-wearing is a heuristic which reveals that you are self-obsessed".
Again, I bet most of the people who live in this house can't spot the makeup on any woman with a "natural" look.
I don't wear make-up, for the record, and I exercise a lot - I could probably bump it up to fifteen hours as long as mere casual biking counted and I had a home gym.
The founder of Startup Castle is an ex-Chippendale's dancer and reality TV "star". Here's the justification for the no-makeup condition:
The no-makeup rule was meant to attract outdoorsy people like herself, not to rule out women. Frisch says she only wears makeup once a month and doesn't want the pressure to put it on every morning at home.
that a large majority of women do and only a very small minority of men do
As Frowner suggests, they may not know this. I was and probably still am very makeup-unaware. Ignorance and inexperience.
As Frowner suggests, they may not know this
I'm skeptical of the possibility of this, tbh; I know there's a lot of stress placed not obviously maintaining your looks generally but I doubt this can extend to thinking that most women don't wear makeup.
The thing Otto quotes in 185 is risible given the fact that one can be outdoorsy and also wear makeup and evidently they don't mind the pressure associated with exercising as much as they do. (I mean, ok, I guess they don't feel that pressure because they like exercise that much anyway, but … come on.) If you want to attract outdoorsy people you could say that rather than saying "no makeup", a condition that may not actually net you an outdoorsy person.
And people who constantly post to social media lack a "higher motivation," they agreed.
Uhhhhhhhhhhh huh. That might be true of some of the people they know who post constantly to social media, but the most prolific facebook user I know, J/son St/nley, sure doesn't lack for high motivations.
Further confirmation that these people are doofuses, I guess.
186: I think the larger point LB was making is that "no mascara" is going to disqualify a lot more women than men. And even men who may not be able to guess whose hair color is natural do recognize that, right?
Frisch says she only wears makeup once a month and doesn't want the pressure to put it on every morning at home
This is so weird to me, but it does seem more like her motivation. She wants her own behavior to be the baseline and having a roommate with more exacting grooming standards would mean she felt compelled to step up her game. Therefore nope. WTF, though?
As Frowner suggests, they may not know this.
I am with nosflow in saying this is implausible (and I don't think Frowner meant to suggest that the writers were unaware than most women wear makeup and most men don't). And it's a lousy proxy for outdoorsiness. I'm about as indoors a human being as there is, and I don't wear the stuff myself. (I used to at least have a couple of lipstick kicking around somewhere for when I was trying to look formal, but Sally seems to have melted them or something.)
Sally seems to have melted them or something
Say more.
To clarify - I think that most people know that "most women" in the abstract wear make-up. I think that a lot of people - especially men - imagine that "make-up" is bright colored and very visible, so it's easy to tell when women are wearing it. But actually, unless you wear make-up regularly it can be really difficult to tell - I don't wear make-up, and I was just realizing the other week that a good friend has in fact worn mascara and light eyeliner as long as I've known her. I've looked at her face a lot, but she has dark hair and eyelashes, and I never really realized that she amplified that by make-up. Also, it's almost impossible for me to spot lightly-applied bb cream/new-model foundation.
In my experience, a lot of guys expect women to "naturally" look like they do when they're wearing quite a lot of makeup.
I had a very enjoyable lunch last week with a colleague in his early- mid-60s, super smart lifelong Bay Arean, deadhead in his day, who completely unselfconsciously did the full "women are always so much more beautiful without makeup!" schtick, it was hilarious. Hmmm dude - odd audience to pick! This somehow segued into a discussion of how much fun nail color can be, particularly in non-standard colors, so he's consistent in his inconsistencies.
I asked where they were, and got a confused response that seemed to include the word 'melted'. I try and maintain a steady supply of rocks that aren't worth looking under, and I figured this was one of them. (To the extent I have a theory, it's that she was trying to repurpose lipstick as some other kind of makeup -- in a little container as lipgloss or blusher?)
"Left it on the stove while applying makeup and making tea at the same time" is also the kind of thing that might have happened. Knowing the details would only worry me.
196: "I stole it and hid it under the radiator so you wouldn't find it" has the same outcome, FWIW.
Well, "stole it" clearly fits in there somewhere. Not a major issue, considering that it took me months to notice that I didn't seem to have lipstick anymore.
I suppose I could buy another, but I'd have to pick a color. Feh.
Something in the red spectrum, rather than a green or lilac, probably, yes. There's a Sephora literally a block away -- I suppose I could go in and buy something that doesn't look immediately hideous.
196: Replacement for a nose cone on an ill-fated model rocket.
Let's not be so quick to dismiss the appeal of green or lilac lipstick.
I feel that Nars lipsticks, as stocked by Sephora, are both long-lasting and reasonably subdued, plus they have a good range of reds. I haven't actually worn any in years and years, but I was in a Sephora a few weeks ago with some friends and took the opportunity to look at the make-up that I used to wear in, like, 2002. Also I got some nail polish, but it's a fairly butch color so that's all right.
195: Way back when I was married to my 1st wife, I remember this conversation with this very intensely political graduate student in sociology (my ex-wife's cohort) and he was going on about how weird and reactionary it was that my wife dyed her hair (she had started dying it blonde in high school and had continued this ever since) and that he didn't know any other women that dyed their hair....And I thought about this for a moment and said, "Ummm.. your girlfriend?" -- just about every time I saw her, her hair was a different color. To the guy's credit, he laughed at himself.
When I was even more ignorant and inexperienced than I am now, if a woman in my circle had made the declaration attributed to Frisch, I'd have thought it sounded like a good idea, especially since it was a woman making a freedom argument.
The thing I remember about Bonfire of the Vanities was the one attorney who falls for a juror that wears brown lipstick. He keeps on swooning over her BROWN LIPSTICK! If you've ready any Tom Wolfe you know about his subtlety.
The image of LB in NARS Schiap or Funny Face is cracking me up.
Everyone's seen the Amy Schumer "Girl, You Don't Need Makeup" skit, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyeTJVU4wVo
208: That conversation did not take place in Larry's. I was in Larry's on numerous other occasions.
On googling, Schiap no, but Funny Face is a possibility -- hard to tell with monitor colors. I do tend to go for fairly bright, on the grounds that if I'm wearing lipstick, it's because it seems as if it's an occasion where I should, so I'm by God going to get credit for it.
Clinique had a color called "Earth Red" decades ago that they stopped making, but I liked. No confusion whatsoever about whether lipstick was happening. Definitely lipstick.
If memory serves, I had Pigalle (which everyone had) and that blackberry-red one and a slightly transparent medium red that lasted really well. I would have loved Schiap because I adore Schiaparelli (the person - is the house still a going concern?) but sadly even in youth my complexion was not up to it.
I also had a really terrific metallic blue-purple from Urban Decay that was extremely unflattering and didn't last well but was the most beautiful color.
Funny Face quite vibrant. If you like a warm, versatile red that is definitely "yes I am damn well wearing lipstick", sits comfortably and lasts reasonably well, check out Nude by B Brown. Soft Rose also, maybe more wearable in a place with actual summers rather than grinding months of thick marine layer and piercing Pacific winds.
I'm trying to figure who shocking pink lipstick would work on. Someone with a nice tan, maybe? I get as far as "not me", but can't quite visualize who.
I have several of the Cover Girl crayon-like things that are apparently balm gloss liners because I wanted to support the company using Queen Latifah and Janelle Monae as models and several of them actually look okay on me and work as chapstick. Lee would like me to wear makeup regularly but it seems like so much work and I'm not sure I want to look different or better. Plus more makeup would mean more makeup for the tiny makeup fan to steal and melt, which is also not how I want to spend my money.
214: I think that if you were either a vampire-pale white person or a person with either a warm brown or very dark complexion it would work well. Like, Alek Wek could probably wear a shocking pink lipstick and look good, or maybe one of those grunge era models, um, the one who shaved her eyebrows?
Frowner has it exactly right to my mind - some colors you wear because they are beautiful to you and give you pleasure, not because they "suit" you in some, eg, complexion-enhancing way. The effect may or may not end up as aesthetically successful within typical frameworks for judging women's appearance, but that's not really the point.
I would totally wear lilac lipstick. Maybe green. Not shocking pink.
I'm trying to figure who shocking pink lipstick would work on.
Lady Gaga garishness.
I had some very good conversations in Larry's, with students and professors and just people drawn into a conversation.
But I was probably last there about 1978. It's good to know it's still the same kind of place.
This conversation is making me remember a roommate for one semester in college. Nice person, some distant relative of Cindy Sherman? I think? Much outdoorsier and generally butcher than I am (had a union card as a housepainter, and made bank in the summers doing it). Didn't look as if she wore much makeup at all, but had a serious half-hour makeup application routine every morning: a literal fishing tackle box (well, it was pink plastic rather than olive plastic, but the size and structure of a tackle box) full of different products. Multiple layers of foundation, several shades of eyeshadow/blusher whatever. And the ultimate effect was very, very hard to distinguish from no makeup at all.
I never really got it, but it wasn't my business, so I mostly didn't worry about it.
a literal fishing tackle box (well, it was pink plastic rather than olive plastic, but the size and structure of a tackle box) full of different products.
A kaboodle.
When I was even more ignorant and inexperienced than I am now, if a woman in my circle had made the declaration attributed to Frisch, I'd have thought it sounded like a good idea, especially since it was a woman making a freedom argument.
Feminism was so much older then. It's younger than that now.
220: It was the same kind of place in the 1990s. It's been closed since 2008.
That sounds off to me as even a 2d wave feminist argument. "I don't wear makeup and you shouldn't either because it's oppressive", sure, possibly. "I don't want to be around women wearing makeup because I don't want the pressure to match them" doesn't sound like someone arguing for freedom.
I would totally wear lilac lipstick. Maybe green.
♥ u, Thorn.
Bra burning is second wave feminism. Bra burning plus wearing a thin shirt is third wave.
What if you burn the bras to generate enough heat to melt your lipstick?
Agree with 226, I find most folks that agree with the "argument for freedom" position have cramped and unexamined thoughts on human self-manipulation of appearance.
It's nail varnish, not lipstick Thorn but this is what I snagged yesterday: https://us.nailsinc.com/nail-polish/bruton-mews_49/ it's an awesome green!
Didn't say it was a good argument, only that that's how it would have sounded. And it would have been an argument from authority, which I'd have been reluctant to challenge even if it had seemed implausible, which I wouldn't have been sure of anyway.
I might have thought of it as over-restrictive, but if the notion was the presence of makeup wearers would change the dynamic, because patriarchy, I wouldn't have felt I knew enough to challenge it, and that I'd be showing that I was not listening, not taking her seriously if I did.
Is the tattoo restriction (less than or equal to 1) similarly gendered? I don't see many young people, but I think more of the women I see have tattoos than the men. Possibly I'm just paying more attention or the men are covering more of their skin.
A total of 14.5% of respondents had ever been tattooed, and 2.4% of respondents had been tattooed in the year before the interview. Men were more likely than women to report a tattoo, but the highest rates of tattooing were found among women in their 20s (29.4%). Men and women ages 20-39 were most likely to have been tattooed, as were men with lower levels of education, tradesmen, and women with live-out partners. Tattooing was also associated with risk-taking behaviours, including smoking, greater numbers of lifetime sexual partners, cannabis use (women only) and ever having depression (men only).
I mean, I think the presence of make-up wearers does change the dynamic, especially if the make-up wearers are really heteronormative, etc. And I think that women who don't perform femininity in the most socially-expected way do experience unspoken and unintended pressure. I think you could conceivably decide as a group that no one would wear make-up at home for that reason.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to minimize your interactions with beauty culture. I think that some women who wear make-up can be vapid and self-absorbed about it.
But I also think that this argument puts a lot of weight on the individual when we're really talking about social norms and pressures that different women need to negotiate differently, and I think the unintended harm that it does in terms of shaming, misogynist double-binds, obscuring non-heteronormative beauty cultures and just generally trying to create a single acceptable feminism far outweighs the harm of the social/unspoken pressure to wear make-up.
I also think that there's a lot of ways to get at undesirable behavior that work better rather than coming up with these bonkers heuristics.
Understood, idp. Obviously there is tons and tons and megatons of evidence that women have been and are being oppressed by Big Mascara et al. But given the worldwide/through all the ages human impulse to manipulate one's appearance I find it pretty amusing to here both the unexamined "so much more pretty without makeup" schtick (to me! during a tête à tête lunch!) and the Freedom tm arguments nowadays.
Does application the the house require a full body review by existing membership?
I read the "no make-up" preference as a reference to the reality that putting on makeup takes up a whole lot of bathroom time, which is an annoyance to many young men when they find themselves cohabiting with a makeup-wearer. Or so I have heard.
240 might be a factor, I guess, given that there are shared bathrooms and bedrooms.
Then there should be a rule about the amount of dietary fiber you consume. Not too much, not too little.
Apropos of nothing, I have been going through the dried peaches lately like nobody's business. Those things are really tasty. Arguably weird timing on my part since fresh peaches have arrived also but w/e.
As long as you have your own bathroom.
236 is clear and kind, as usual.
The "don't want the norm competition at home" argument is odd several times over... If you're a Stanford hard-charger, is it safe to turn down a challenge like that? Also, isn't it the same argument made for dad-bod? Are the young women of SoCal finally cracking under the strain? (No wonder.) And isn't it sort of... Socialist? The swedes had actually-enforced sumptuary laws for a long time.
Yes I've long thought that the real estate consumed by my brother's shot filling, knife sharpening and fly tying activities could be an impediment to his achieving domestic bliss, but he has a roommate now and they seem to be able to negotiate space/time constraints just fine.
But if this were really about bathroom use, it would make sense to say "because bathrooms are limited, the house prohibits baths, long showers, shower sex, make-up wearing, haircuts in the bathroom, etc"....My house has three people, none of whom wear make-up, and that does not mean that the bathroom is always free. Or, alternatively, it could be a house rule that you need to negotiate stuff like long baths and regular protracted make-up application with your roommate.
Again there are lots of ways to address house behavior that are not structurally discriminatory and fucked up. They are not as streamlined as just saying "only people who share my values and are in perfect physical health can live here" but they are....less fucked up, and less likely to make you look like a douche on the internet.
I didn't realize makeup application required a sink. Isn't a vanity the gold standard? With some warm damp washcloths?
I wonder if boardinghouses should come back. I would allow them iff the owner-manager lived onsite (this may be nutty). Laundry, cleaning, group meal by appointment, someone to manage the "generosity kitchen", dB recorders in the hallways to make some of the arguments objective.
The swedes had actually-enforced sumptuary laws for a long time.
Since it's a castle, they should institute rules based on medieval sumptuary laws.
218 - They're still around, if a bit rare. I lived in one a while back when I was living off of about $6600 a year because it was about what I could afford (barely).
"The little old MHPH who lived in a lilac, possibly green, but not shocking pink lipstick container"
I blame bad reading and typing, not, um, never mind.
250- interesting, where? Seattle made them illegal in the 1960s during a lull and is now awkwardly developing micro housing and cohousing and fully supported living instead. Which amuses me because boardinghouse life was called particularly American for a generation or two - I think both Twain and two Trollopes talk about it so, and it supported a lot of widows and grass widows into the 1960s.
Very pale Asian complexions often look smashing in Schiap pink. Am now wondering how I'd look in lilac. I had my face done in the run-up to our wedding but never liked anything but the mascara - kept getting painted orangey-pink.
128 et seq.: Wow, I know that guy (and the #2 person on the Peace Innovation Lab personnel page) from conferences. They, um, sound much less BS-y in person?
Cosma, stop injecting actual experience into our fact free condemnations!
253 During much of the Marshall era, the entire Supreme Court lived in a DC boarding house. When the Court was in session.
Resilience is pretty bullshitty, I have to say.
Update! The innovation labs guy was out of town and apparently had nothing to do with the ad, and is ticked about it!
That as like 12 hours ago. Get a real time zone.
Dude, take it easy: it isn't as though he wrote a crappy limerick!
Hey now, it takes a while for the news to filter up to Alaska.
