This Is Not a Day Care. It's a University - <AUTHOR> http://www.okwu.edu/blog/2015/11/this-is-not-a-day-care-its-a-university/ <comment><USER2> I think the world would be better if, before you're allowed to respond to someone being wrong, you have to first be able to express their position in a way that they agree represents their view.

Because 'political correctness' isn't the cancer at the heart of social politics, it is straw-manning. On both sides of every issue.

I'd be surprised, perhaps even amazed, if Dr Piper had represented the complaint in any way recognisable to the person who'd made it. This just smells of tendentious reporting.

<comment><USER3> A little research will produce a vast number of examples of political correctness with real consequences and not just "straw-manning".

Here is a recent example: A Canadian university cancels a yoga class because yoga comes _" from a culture that "experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy,"_

In a world that can do that, I don't find it surprising that a student could express the view in the original article and actually mean it.

<comment><USER4> Just to add some more info; it was the student union that was running the yoga class and cancelled it, the university administration had no part in its cancellation. This was wholly done by students.

<comment><USER5> That doesn't seem to change how ridiculous it sounds, does it?

<comment><USER4> Nope, it's more ridiculous, I think. I'm used to misguided administrations; that's par for the course. But students policing themselves, and it's worse than any misguided administration could do? Unbelievable.

<comment><USER6> For some reason I am strongly reminded of the book "Interesting Times"

"The Empire's got something worse than whips all right. It's got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone different."

― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it baffling that there are people, in the real world, who somehow think that for unexplained reasons they have the right to not be offended or be made to feel uncomfortable.

Somehow they believe that their feelings are the responsibility of everyone else.

<comment><USER8> While I sympathize with your viewpoint, perhaps I can shed some clarity on the other side. The concern is not feelings getting hurt, but rather physical security as a person of minority status.

This is something that a white heterosexual middle-class male (such as myself) can probably never fully appreciate, but I try to sympathize.

Imagine what it is like to be black in a country where just a few generations back you carried at all times in mixed-race race situations the possibility of being assaulted without recourse or lynched, or in present times accused and convicted of a crime you didn't commit or shot on sight for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Imagine what it is like to be Jewish and have 85% of your relatives systematically wiped out in living memory.

Imagine what it is like to be a woman on a college campus where statistically 1 in 3 suffer sexual assault over the course of a 4 year education, almost always with the assailant getting off without charges.

Most times such people take offense it is not about feeling uncomfortable, but rather feeling _unsafe_. It is about fear that what starts with words will inevitably turn to, or enable, or justify actions.

<comment><USER9> Why has all the hyper-sensitivity only come to the forefront over the past few years then?

<comment><USER10> Why do you think it's only been the last few years? It's always existed. The internet allows people to now convene to discuss these issues and establish acceptable behaviors.

<comment><USER9> I don't know how much actual discussion (vs preaching to the choir) occurs on the internet when anyone with a remotely differing view is immediately told that they are wrong for not agreeing 100% and shortly after has a Twitter mob doxing them.

<comment><USER10> It seems there isn't a twitter mob doxing you right now for having this view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Gift of Insults, an old zen tale:

There once lived a great warrior. Though quite old, he still was able to defeat any challenger. His reputation extended far and wide throughout the land and many students gathered to study under him.One day an infamous young warrior arrived at the village. He was determined to be the first man to defeat the great master. Along with his strength, he had an uncanny ability to spot and exploit any weakness in an opponent. He would wait for his opponent to make the first move, thus revealing a weakness, and then would strike with merciless force and lightning speed. No one had ever lasted with him in a match beyond the first move.

Much against the advice of his concerned students, the old master gladly accepted the young warrior's challenge. As the two squared off for battle, the young warrior began to hurl insults at the old master. He threw dirt and spit in his face. For hours he verbally assaulted him with every curse and insult known to mankind. But the old warrior merely stood there motionless and calm. Finally, the young warrior exhausted himself. Knowing he was defeated, he left feeling shamed.

Somewhat disappointed that he did not fight the insolent youth, the students gathered around the old master and questioned him. "How could you endure such an indignity? How did you drive him away?"

"If someone comes to give you a gift and you do not receive it," the master replied, "to whom does the gift belong?"

<comment><USER12> I had not read this before, but I really like it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my takeaway is that since the old master did not accept the young warrior's insults, the insults remained with the young warrior, almost as if he was insulting himself.

In relation to the article, those who blame others for their victimization are in fact pointing out their own flaws.

<comment><USER13> It's something I call creationism. You give something a name ("insults"), ask some grammatically-correct questions about it ("where did it go?", "to whom did it stick?") and now you _created_ this magic, metaphysical _thing_ which you feel really exists and needs to answer your questions one way or another.

While in the mundane everyday world, the young warrior simply made a fool of himself.

<comment><USER11> >I must state clearly that my teaching is a method to experience reality and not reality itself, just as a finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself. A thinking person makes use of the finger to see the moon. A person who only looks at the finger and mistakes it for the moon will never see the real moon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It doesn't take long watching social media trending tags - particularly on Twitter to notice that there is definitely a trend of this kind of sentiment among the demographic of the social media outlets. While the article may (or may not be, I really have no idea) a fabrication, my observation is that the sentiment towards playing the victim and labeling others as haters and bigots is extensive.

Being brought up Christian, I also have no argument that many of the "Christian" religions, Catholicism in particular, do seem to favour guilt as the tool of choice to manipulate their congregations into toeing the line - it's one of the many reasons I shunned the church at a fairly young age. I have no interest in spending my life feeling guilty for not living up to an unreasonable expectation of a collection of long dead ancestors that have little (if any) bearing on today's society. What happened to just treating others as you wish to be treated in return?

There is guilt on both sides of this argument and neither one can stop to address their own shortcomings before judging the other.

On the other hand, I have little to argue with the content of the article. If you're not equipped to deal with how the world around you treats you, you will forever be playing the victim card. Is that what you really want for your whole life? or are you ready to take charge of yourself, responsibility for your own emotions and behaviour? or would you prefer to be treated as a child for the rest of your life, protected from reality by 'yes' men, validating you because you haven't learned to deal with your feelings of a lack of validation?

Nobody ever accomplished anything without dealing with the discomfort of the world around them.

<comment><USER15> _What happened to just treating others as you wish to be treated in return?_

You just made me feel bad about all the times I wasn't empathetic. Not really, but witness how deeply ingrained our ability to use and feel guilt is.

<comment><USER14> LOL, I actually didn't say that as a thinly veiled guilt trip... it was a genuine question... what happened to it? Where did this notion fall by the wayside and get replaced with a more narcissistic attitude that appears to be more prevalent now?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is really fantastic. While I don't agree with religion in university (but if it works for you great!) I completely agree with the gist of her argument. Students are coddled too much. If you're not uncomfortable then you're not paying attention. If you need "trigger warnings" or "safe spaces" at a university then you're not ready for university, or at the very least, you have a lot of growing up to do.

This may sound harsh but it's reality, and the real problems in life won't be at university, they'll be out in the real world. There are no safe spaces and trigger warnings in the real world.

<comment><USER17> The defense to "you're being a jerk" can only be "I'm not".

This article says "I am, but it's okay, get used to it". There's a huge difference between telling someone that their beliefs are wrong to telling them that they are bad and should feel guilty, especially if the doctrine says that everyone is bad and should feel guilty all the time.

<comment><USER18> > The defense to "you're being a jerk" can only be "I'm not".

No, because the response is going to be "Yes you are", and we descend into a shouting match. The reply is "What is your standard for 'being a jerk', and is that standard a reasonable one?"

> There's a huge difference between telling someone that their beliefs are > wrong to telling them that they are bad and should feel guilty, especially > if the doctrine says that everyone is bad and should feel guilty all the > time.

That seems like a fair description of how "victimhood culture" treats the rest of us.

<comment><USER17> _No, because the response is going to be "Yes you are", and we descend into a shouting match._

I don't mean literally, the words you say must be "I'm not a jerk." I mean the defense must consist of a denial that the behavior was jerkish. If that's achieved by laying out standards for jerkishness, that's fine.

The OP read to me as not even achieving that. It wasn't "we aren't jerks, because what we did wasn't jerky", it was "we're going to be jerks, tough on you, shut up".

>That seems like a fair description of how "victimhood culture" treats the rest of us.

I'm not discussing victimhood culture. I'm discussing a specific defense to a specific complaint, which I think lacks value. The specific complaint was not trying to make people feel bad, it was to make themselves feel good. The response explicitly acknowledges that they're trying to make people feel bad.

<comment><USER18> > The response explicitly acknowledges that they're trying to make people feel > bad.

Let's start here: The point of Christianity is to make you _holy_ , not to make you _happy_.

When you teach something like I Corinthians 13, if it's going to help anyone's life instead of being merely an academic exercise, you wind up saying "Yes, you really are supposed to love like this. Do you?" If that makes someone feel bad, well, that's not actually the point. The point is that they recognize that they don't love in the way that they should, _and therefore see the need to change._

And if you're going to say that changing your life in that way isn't the job of a university, well, this is a _Christian_ university, and they think it is exactly their job. And if you're a student there, then presumably that's what you wanted, too.

You (ikeboy) seem to want this Christian university to be a secular one. That is not a reasonable expectation.

Now, I recognize that there are lots of ways that "making them recognize that they don't love in the way that they should" can be manipulative and even abusive, but it is not inherently so. And the fact that people feel bad (guilty) along the way isn't a flaw, if in fact they are guilty in terms of the biblical standard. To repeat, the point of Christianity is to make you holy, not to make you happy.

<comment><USER17> Saying something is Christian does not imply it is fine. The proper response to "I'm a jerk because I'm Christian" is "fine, be Christian, but you'll face the consequences of being a jerk, one of which is public shaming for being a jerk".

There was a valid point made that the student chose to go to a Christian college. But note that the logic that that implies is precisely the logic behind trigger warnings: that people can _choose_ what to associate with. Clearly, the student did not anticipate the content of the sermon, despite knowing it was a Christian university. So in that case, a warning for that lecture would have let the student know whether to go, and, depending on how important it was to them, possibly drop out.

Deliberately not having trigger warnings is deliberately deceptive.

<comment><USER19> > Deliberately not having trigger warnings is deliberately deceptive.

 _facepalm_

<comment><USER17> That's not an argument. Could you explain why you disagree?

It seems that in the absence of a warning, there is no informed consent; asking for a warning allows for freedom of association.

If the OP had said "being open to guilt etc is an integral part of our university; as such, anyone refusing to go to this talk will be expelled. However, we will tell people in advance, so they can choose not to go, and then leave." I would support him. To specifically say "I'm not telling people about what will happen" means you don't want people to know in advance. How is that not deceptive?

As I noted above, the argument that the student chose a Christian college and therefore should know about it falls flat, because the student did _not_ know about it. And if knowing was a good thing, then so would a trigger warning on the talk; it's literally accomplishing the task of making sure people know.

<comment><USER19> How does one argue with someone that has irrational and illogical views?

> If the OP had said "being open to guilt etc is an integral part of our > university; as such, anyone refusing to go to this talk will be expelled. > However, we will tell people in advance, so they can choose not to go, and > then leave." I would support him. To specifically say "I'm not telling > people about what will happen" means you don't want people to know in > advance. How is that not deceptive?

The mere thought that this is what you expect says, "I'm not a rational person."

How does anyone respond to that? There's nothing to be said to you. You've made no indication (from the many comments I've read) that you're prepared to have your mind changed or that you're open to other points of view.

You have come to an irrational conclusion and that's it. You're finished. Everyone else (that doesn't agree) is a "jerk" and can take a hike.

<comment><USER17> I'd be interested in a robust defense of the claim that refusing to have a trigger warning, in the context of this post, is not deceptive.

The arguments I see for not having one are: too few people would care so it's not worth inconveniencing the many for the few; there's already informed consent and so it's useless; and the talk is not harmful to anyone. (I think I had another minor one in mind but can't recall right now.)

1 is possible, but is not the one made by OP. I've argued against the premise of 2 (which the OP did make); if you have a more deontological worldview, you might want to frame this as the student's "own fault" for not realizing, but I generally don't blame people for being dumb (in the sense of insisting on them bearing the consequences of being dumb), instead asking which course of action yields the best consequences. In this case, if we assume informed freedom of association is a value, then adding information is a benefit.

3 would be a good defense if done well, but again, isn't the OP. It would actually be the best example of "I'm not a jerk"-type answers. But it's not immediately obvious how we can view something that bothered someone as not harming them. At best, you'd probably need to invoke Christian beliefs and go back to "informed consent" as above. Presumably you concede that Christians shouldn't do this to outsiders, and so the issue is about what counts as informed consent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "I like to offend people, because I think that everyone who gets offended, should be offended." \-- Linus Torvalds

<comment><USER21> One takes offence, one does not give it. It's an idiopathic condition.

I'm a white male, but I grew up being called Gwailo, Gaijin, Auslander, and when I finally returned to the anglosphere in my early teens, I was still an outsider as I spoke with a weird accent and was by that point a through-and- through third culture kid. I got the crap bullied out of me, and eventually figured out that it only hurt if I took it to heart. I learned to pity those whose worlds were so small that they could only take satisfaction from being cruel to me. It was their problem, not mine.

Folks need to have thicker skin, and realise that not everything is about them. In fact, very little is ever about you, most of what people say and do are manifestations of their own thoughts and emotional issues. Physical violence is of course something that needs to be fought against (and this is why we have criminal justice systems which typically take this sort of thing perfectly seriously), but you can only be the victim of "verbal violence" if you choose to take the position of victim.

<comment><USER22> > Folks need to have thicker skin

Why?

Congratulations on being such a paragon of excellence. Why should we require such virtue of all humans? Instead of expecting you to develop a thick skin (are you sure this is a good thing?), why can't we try to reform your aggressors in the first place?

<comment><USER23> Because reforming all possible aggressors ever is an uphill battle you'll never solve.

Imagine you have an API that receives a POST with some JSON. Every time your API receives a malformed POST, your application crashes or hangs. Do you a) try to do your best to make sure no one ever POSTS to your uri with malformed data, or do you b) rewrite your API to be more robust and send back an error code when malformed input is received rather than crashing?

Does that analogy make any sense or is it too far fetched?

<comment><USER22> > Because reforming all possible aggressors ever is an uphill battle you'll > never solve.

I don't believe this is true. Human behavior can change. Relative to its levels 500 years ago, we've all-but eliminated physical violence in first- world countries. I don't think it's much of a stretch to believe we can all- but eliminate emotional violence as well.

We're dealing with human beings, so I didn't read your JSON analogy, sorry.

<comment><USER24> > We're dealing with human beings, so I didn't read your JSON analogy, sorry.

Unreliable, unpredictable, illogical, making no sense and you never has exact idea which rules they obey at the moment and what output they will generate.

So human beings indeed sound like Javascript or PHP ... [1]

[1] 10 years experience with php and JS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> _" Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a "safe place", but rather, a place to learn"_

Exactly, I don't get why people are trying to make universities, workplaces, clubs, or anywhere else "safe places". They should not be safe places, they should be places where you feel confronted, challenged and threatened by different ideas and points of view.

<comment><USER26> While I agree with your fundamental point, I'm pretty sure that Everett Piper's Oklahoma Wesleyan is a _very_ safe space for a particular kind of hard-shell evangelical. You don't go to that kind of school to be "confronted, challenged and threatened," but to have your worldview confirmed.

<comment><USER27> That will means that there is 1 single theological theory, because then everybody that goes there will have their worldview confirmed since there is only one. Unfortunately, looks like it is also what the student in the article expected.

My experience shows me that there are as many theological points of view as believers. Everybody gets their own personal variety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "If you're more interested in playing the "hater" card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn ..."

I agree with the fundamental point about mistaking being offended (or made to feel guilty) for victimization, that being said:

There _is_ such a thing as opression and the sidelining of the concerns of groups within society that are already marginalized. This veers dangerously close to being dismissive of that fact, and the author seems to nearly (if not outright) mock perceived "political correctness" and a set of working vocabulary that has been established around speaking about such marginalization.

I'm not sure that's particularly humble or self-reflective of Dr Piper. Although I'm also sure that such language can be abused (just as any discourse can be misused in favor of the person weilding it). "We don't believe that you have been victimized every time you feel guilty" may be true, and may even be particularly true for the group of people he is adressing (OKWU students), but I hope it is tightly coupled with a belief in and an understanding of the very real forces of inequality that exist in society today.

<comment><USER29> This needs to be said more often, and louder. Myself, I find it disconcerting that the only counterweight to the "Friendly Spacers" are found on the far right.

<comment><USER28> To be clear: I am not in any way opposed to the creation of safe spaces and contexts where people can be free of the shit that is heaped upon them by the culture at large.

The fact is, the world can be pretty freaking hostile if you're gay, trans, a woman, from a minority ethnic group, or otherwise part of a group that is not mainstream. The hair-raising experiences related to me by friends of mine have made it utterly clear to me that I live an awfully privileged life in that regard (specifically, going about my daily life never for a moment worried that I would be sexually harassed or discriminated against).

There are people that mistake "not being pandered to" with "being victimized", but there are also a lot of people who experience these things in an absolutely genuine fashion.

So I'm not trying to act as a "counterweight" to anything, except the extreme cynicism of the author, and people who mistake being challenged in their views for being attacked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This seems to be thrusting in two directions. One about trigger warnings and safe spaces and so on, and one about sermons and guilt.

One common narrative re safe spaces seems to be: "if something makes you uncomfortable, you should suck it up instead of trying to force everyone else to accommodate you". I think this is somewhat missing the point, but I can relate to it. I feel like this is the dominant narrative in this thread.

But the narrative in the article seems to be: "if something makes you uncomfortable, good! It's because you're a bad person. You should be a better person instead of asking us to tell you you're not bad".

And I pretty strongly disagree with that.

For example, if the sermon was all about how gay people are going to hell, and that made a student uncomfortable, that's not because the student is a bad person. That's because it was a terrible sermon.

From the description, this sermon was not obviously terrible. But that still doesn't make the student a bad person. Not everyone experiences or expresses emotions in the same ways. That's fine. When people start speaking about experiences as if they're human universals, and if you don't share those experiences, that can make you uncomfortable. That's fine too. It doesn't make the speaker a bad person, but it doesn't make you a bad person either.

<comment><USER31> I pretty strongly disagree with that "because you're a bad person" too, if it were that.

But what I read in the article is more "because you're not perfect, as neither one of us is, so show a little introspection about you before complaining about others".

And... it's about 1 Corinthians 13. See [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+1...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13) Seriously, go read it, it resonates in quite a peculiar way with this whole discussion.

(edited for missing word)

<comment><USER30> > An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad. It is supposed to make you > feel guilty.

Maybe that's not quite "you're a bad person". But I feel like your reading is missing the "you should feel bad" aspect.

That chapter resonates with me too, because it's pretty much exactly the sentiment I'm disagreeing with. Supposedly it doesn't matter what you _do_ , it matters what you _feel_.

No, that's exactly wrong. If you do the right thing, that's good. If you do the wrong thing, that's bad. It doesn't matter what you were feeling when you did it.

Love makes people do some really shitty things. "I love you and I want you to not go to hell, so I'm going to beat the gay out of you", for example. That love is genuine, and it doesn't redeem the action.

The opposite is true as well, where people do good while hating it every minute. (No good example comes immediately to mind, and I'm spending too long on this post.) They don't lose points for having unvirtuous emotions. They did good, and that's enough.

<comment><USER31> > Supposedly it doesn't matter what you do, it matters what you feel.

I think I see what you mean. But this is not how I read Corinthians; but I agree that this may not be shared either, and I won't make this about religion, I'm really talking about the text itself.

First, it does not put love before actions. It says actions/qualities (or that most of life, actually) is meaningless, nothing, without love (as an attachment to God/Truth)

Second, it defines what is definitely not "love", so one may not use it as a pretext for wrong doing (at least).

Third, it says that we will never see things fully, neither at once, until, that is, the end (provided it's not an ellipsis, he! :) ).

Plus, "love" as expressed in this text is not Philia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philia)) but from Latin Caritas ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_%28virtue%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_%28virtue%29)) (or Greek "agape"); which is not about a feeling, but about something way deeper, transcendant and, although not quite the right word, respectful, for one to an other. It's love as one of the three Christian theological virtues (fides, spes, caritas), that is, in an intimate relation to the Christian God (in this context) as a guide, a goal, an ideal for love/Philia too.

> That love is genuine, and it doesn't redeem the action.

I see your point. That love is, actually, deeply misled. Actually, that's not love, that's fear that supersedes love ("I fear that you [x] and I don't want to because this makes me [y] and I freak out and I don't think you can decide for yourself, so I'll do it and [z]").

Love (be it eros, philia or even agape) is no excuse to abuse. Good intentions don't make an excuse for incompetence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "As an evangelical Christian university of The Wesleyan Church, Oklahoma Wesleyan University models a way of thought, a way of life, and a way of faith. It is a place of serious study, honest questions, and critical engagement, all in the context of a liberal arts community that honors the Primacy of Jesus Christ, the Priority of Scripture, the Pursuit of Truth, and the Practice of Wisdom."

This sounds to me more like a church than a University.

<comment><USER33> If nothing else, it sounds like it's definitely a safe space for mythology.

<comment><USER34> This made me laugh. Well played.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Oh man, the amount of times I told students that maybe they don't belong in university is quite high. I used to teach (alongside a prof) Physics for Biologists. Constantly I'd get remarks like: "But what are we supposed to do all these hours between class and homework guidance hours?" (What am I, your entertainer??), "Why can't I use my graphical calculator, this is bull shit!", This is not why I choose biology!", and my favorite "Why won't you just let me fill in the formulas and work with the intermittent numbers?"

I'd tell them: You are an electron in it lowest possible energy and you want get to your highest excited state without adding energy. That simply does not work. If you can't handle it, perhaps you do not belong here where you are actually challenged and are required to meet that challenge.

It was also crazy how often they complained but turned out not to have even tried the homework on their own.

</comment><comment><USER36> Outstanding article on many counts. It also reminds me of a recent article I read on Psychology Today [1] that talks about fragile students:

"Students are increasingly seeking help for, and apparently having emotional crises over, problems of everyday life. Recent examples mentioned included a student who felt traumatized because her roommate had called her a "bitch" and two students who had sought counseling because they had seen a mouse in their off-campus apartment. The latter two also called the police, who kindly arrived and set a mousetrap for them."

[1] - [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom- learn/201509/de...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom- learn/201509/declining-student-resilience-serious-problem-colleges)

<comment><USER37> Decades of pat advice to "seek counseling" rather than deal with it as the answer to every problem, from the schoolyard fight to any other kind of interpersonal problem, from "Dear Abby" and any number of more recent pop psychologists, helecopter parents, to school and workplace policies, etc. Funny to see that complaint in _Psychology Today_ , as they are probably as guilty as anyone in bringing about this state of affairs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> One thing I find very scary about this discussion is that in the past when we talked about helping the situation of minorities no one had a problem explaining what the issue is we are trying to solve. Now I'm very often hearing things like "you are a white heterosexual male you won't understand/have no right to talk about it". This is just more racism and sexism and no way to have a discussion or a good direction for a society. It seems irrational and hate driven.

</comment><comment><USER39> It doesn't help that campuses increasingly operate like day cares: they treat adult students like children.

A great example is orientation. Throughout the US, until fairly recently (at my Alma Mater, SUNY New Paltz - it was 1973), orientation was 100% run by students with no state or 'administrative' involvement.

And it was an adult event. It involved camping, orienteering, and serious discussions about the life ahead. Now that the state is involved, it's a cringey PG-13 experience that leaves students completely disoriented and feeling like children.

The same is true of the way Student Union buildings are run today. And residence life. And university police. And campus dining. And many other facets of student life.

<comment><USER40> I wonder how much this has to do with the general baby-ing of people of all ages. Kids don't play outside in the woods any more, parents pick up kids from their bus stops, etc. Is this because parents complained?

<comment><USER39> I can't speak, or at least not much, to the changes that occurred in the 70's.

But they are still happening today, and they are decidedly NOT in response to parents. At all. In fact, parents have very little power to effect change at a SUNY school as far as I can tell.

Rather, these seem to be directives coming from Albany (or beyond) and disseminated at conferences that are attended by Student Life "professionals."

For example, go to just about any state school (including a SUNY) and take a walk around the Student Union. I'll bet that you'll notice that it is swarming with state officials - typically students who work part time for the state in a "Student Activities" office.

Maybe you'll see one of their managers, a "Director of Student Union Services" or something similar. Ask how many people worked in that office 10 years ago vs. today, and I'll bet that, more often than not, you'll find that the size of these offices have increased by 50% or more during that time.

The consequence is that student governments, who traditionally ran all the operations of Student Unions and did a great job of it, are now pushed out of this function, in favor of state officials and state directives running them instead.

And these state directives almost always include infantifacation of events and decor in the Student Union.

I have observed this phenomenon at SUNY New Paltz, Binghamton University, the University of Connecticut, UMD College Park (although the food co-cop there is amazing and serves as a partial counter-example) and half a dozen other campuses.

Every time I ask about it, I'm told that it's part of a nationwide trend.

It's bullshit. It's _very_ expensive (compared to the shoestring 2.5-3.5 million dollar budgets that student governments typically work with) and it's making Student Unions spiritually and academically hollow.

<comment><USER40> Interesting, I have noticed the same at my university and frankly I don't see the point of those jobs. All they do is raise tuition.

<comment><USER18> I suspect that there are two points to those jobs. The not-really-stated point is that they keep the university from being sued for some student having bad judgment, by not letting the students have _any_ judgment. The absolutely-not- stated point is that somebody got a cushy, well-paying job.

<comment><USER39> I don't know the legal configuration of other states, but in SUNY, the SUNY administration is not liable for action or inaction on the part of student government.

Sadly, the SUNY administration is largely not liable for action or inaction on the part of state officials either, who, in my experience, make worse decisions than students or faculty 100% of the time.

(As some folks here already know,) I sued SUNY after being kicked out of school in an act of unambiguous political retaliation, and although I won an injunction, forcing my reinstatement, the state officials involved were granted complete immunity from suit.

These events are documents in a documentary, Campus Coup:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL11F04BB4661C2CC3](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL11F04BB4661C2CC3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I think that this article is fantastic. It highlights what is wrong with all the political correctness going on. To an extent, it is necessary. People shouldn't be made to feel bad about race, gender, or sexuality, but once you start to coddle them, you aren't helping them grow as individuals. People in the real world will treat you like crap, no matter what.

<comment><USER22> > People in the real world will treat you like crap, no matter what.

Why should we accept this?

<comment><USER42> We shouldn't and don't. In fact, if someone is making you feel unsafe at work (especially if it's because of your gender, race, etc), HR has a responsibility to address it.

<comment><USER43> > HR has a responsibility to address it

HR has the responsibility to protect the firm from legal dangers, so don't be surprised if their solution involves the plaintiff being fired.

<comment><USER44> > HR has the responsibility to protect the firm from legal dangers, so don't > be surprised if their solution involves the plaintiff being fired.

Retaliation in response to a complaint exacerbates, rather than mitigates, the legal danger to the firm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The President of Wesleyan University in Connecticut had a nice response to this kind of nannyish article.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer- sheet/wp/2015/11/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer- sheet/wp/2015/11/20/sick-of-hearing-about-pampered-students-with-coddled- minds-this-university-president-is/)

</comment><comment><USER46> We treat our universities like sanctuaries of learning, and the best ones shield their students from many of the uncertainties and dangers of life while they (ideally) spend their time learning to be valuable members of society.

Some of the cries of victimization sound way overblown. I would agree that shutting down the process of learning itself, such as when students attempt to stop professors or others from topical intellectual discussions, runs counter to the primary goal of universities.

However, many of the attacks on these students as a group looks like attempts to de-legitimize the victims of racism and bigotry. The minorities who have been revealing systemic bias, bigotry, and racism at these universities are the students who started and sustain the current protests.

Do not conflate the cause of those fighting against campus racism, bigotry, and bias with those who seek to shut down the the process of learning at the sign of the tiniest challenging or upsetting idea. The core group of protestors desire to be accorded the same protections and positive learning environment that white students have. That some have used this movement as a vehicle for lending power to their own neuroses and anxieties should not in any way detract from us from paying attention and doing something about the systemic bias that these protests and subsequent reports have revealed.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is known as the victim mentality, and it is not so strictly limited to higher education as is stereotyped.

The victim mentality is a social engineering tactic commonly used in mainstream media which has cascading effects on all levels of society and has been used for manipulative purposes by the ruling class, both religious and political, for ages.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_mentality#History_and_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_mentality#History_and_politics)

>Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.

-Epictetus

</comment><comment><USER47> Oklahoma Wesleyan is an "evangelical Christian university," and if it's anything like the other evangelical universities I'm aware of, it's not much better than a daycare. Institutions like this exist to isolate their students from the dangerous "secular" ideas they might pick up at a normal university. And many of the students going there, are there because their parents have refused to pay for a normal university. A friend of mine went to one of these institutions, and reported that one of the mandatory classes was a semester- long course in creationism.

Needless to say, I find this article pretty rich.

</comment><comment><USER48> I do find it a pity that people on both sides feel that their points are so "common sense" correct that they have no reason to educate, and that people who disagree are being somehow deliberately obtuse. I think sometimes they feel it justifies to people the use of strawmen, because it's almost not worth their time dealing with such obviousness.

The whole idea of "being yourself" has a lot of nuance that has been left unaddressed. Where do we draw the line between things that we should be expected to change, vs what the world must learn to accept? How much obligation does the world have on accepting us for who we are, and how much pressure are they allowed to put on us to change? Is "being yourself" even an ideal state vs chasing ones potential? How do you avoid crippling guilt if you're always chasing an elusive ideal? How do you learn to like yourself if you're never what you should be? If you aren't chasing improvement in yourself does it just end up turning into decay?

I think it's a really difficult subject while both sides are screaming "DUH!" at each other.

<comment><USER49> Of course every subject is incredibly difficult if you're drowning in moral relativism and are thus incapable of judicious thought.

This is not about "being yourself"-euphemism for doing as you please with utter disregard for everything including yourself-, this is about taking responsibility for your actions, about having the honesty and strong enough morals to judge.

The "being yourself" vs "chasing one's potential" you talk about is the difference between animal and human.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> >Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic.

I have to say I tend to agree with this statement. I feel like every day I see more and more of the younger generation (~25 and younger) acting entitled to everything. Even in elementary schools, it is no longer the child's fault for acting up, but somehow the teacher's fault, which is a complete 180 from what it used to be.

I have to side with Dr. Piper on this one. The student chose to go to this university, I assume the student also tries to adhere to the Christian beliefs. If this is the case then Dr. Piper is absolutely right. It's not his job to coddle these students and make them feel good. If they are there to learn about Christianity and follow the beliefs that go along with it then they should expect to be corrected when their actions contradict that of the religion they desire to follow. Being humbled is just a part of it.

If I may be bold enough to give this student another verse to look at:

Proverbs 13:10 "Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice."

</comment><comment><USER51> I call B.S.

I looked up this "1 Corinthians 13", and I have severe doubts that a "student came forward ... feeling uncomfortable" about this homily. By itself, I have doubts. But, the fact that a president of a university would call out a student on something like that? I severely doubt that this event had even happened.

It's easy to conjure up a unknown stranger to fit some stereotype that one wants to call out as a straw man. This is a pretty common (and shady) tactic.

More likely, this is just political propaganda. Or maybe C.Y.A.?

</comment><comment><USER52> "if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn"

If you want to do that, you gotta stick around long enough to get the title "President of Someplace Nobody's Heard Of" first.

</comment><comment> steve-benjamins This is just a rant. I would expect more from a University president.

</comment><comment><USER53> Being offended is not a condition imposed by another. It is a choice, and being offended is avoidable. My response to that student would be something like, "Isn't that great? Now you know how to repent." Might still warrant some research to see if the professor/preacher was overly harsh - I don't really like the emphasis on guilt, though it is important to recognize when you are wrong.

</comment><comment><USER54> Ignoring everything else about this article, its context, and my personal feelings about Christian "education," I can't help but feel like the author is not terribly professional.

Universities frequently forget that their instructors and their students have entered into a business transaction with them. Students expect to receive a useful education, and instructors expect to have their research and publication subsidized, and the university expects to receive payment from the former and quality of service from the latter.

Anything that disrupts that transaction - such as university presidents getting huffy that "kids these days are too sensitive" \- tends to cause a failure of the end result of all three components: education itself.

I wish more tertiary-institution administrators realized that they're operating a business, not some kind of wisdom dispensary that students should feel grateful for being allowed to attend.

<comment><USER55> Perhaps that missive will succeed tangentially, in making students think about why they are there. That's education too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> There is a lot of press about this "Yale problem" type of stories but I live in Europe where I find kids fearless and aggressive. I find this type of reasoning very hard to relate to.

Do you feel this type of behaviour is affecting a majority of NA youth ? Or is it more media looking at what could be the very beggining of a trend ?

<comment><USER57> There's a few examples in some of the London universities.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11573646/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11573646/Students- union-backs-excluding-white-people-from-anti-racism-events.html)

[http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/goldsmiths-student- div...](http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/goldsmiths-student-diversity- officer-bans-white-people-and-men-from-anti-racism-protest- meeting-10198693.html)

<comment><USER56> Thanks for the links! Indeed I missed that :D But Goldsmiths is an art school, and I guess it's fine if artists and creative have a more developed sensitivity and require more conforting environment. In the case of the Yale issue, I understood that about 740 people from very different background signed an open letter... I feel it's very different than a handful of Union representant in an Art School.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> If I can take a stab a summarizing the article: A follower of a religious organization disagrees with the message put forth, so an official from that organization condemns the follower's views?

Since there really isn't much more information than that, I can only guess that students at OKWU aren't expected to be critical of the curriculum, and that the administration isn't terribly willing to accept this criticism, possibly due to it's biblical emphasis, but I feel like many institutes, religious or not, have this problem. Take the case of Fullerton's Math department earlier this year.

Another thing that bothers me is that the story could be anecdotal -- the lack of detail makes me suspicious as to whether it's true, or just propaganda that the author is using to enforce that students should accept what they are taught without question.

</comment><comment><USER59> I wonder how "real" is this "safe space" trend that the US is talking about lately. Is it an actual thing or a passing trend which will be forgotten till summer?

In any case its one of the weirdest things ever, older generations accusing the younger of not being radical enough. Perhaps the youths are right though, some freedoms are just too much, we don't need to exert them, the same way we don't need privacy anymore. There is value in safety, familiarity, coziness, instead of being out in the open wind. It's perhaps some kind of alienation towards multiculturalism/multiethnicism, and the constant bickering that comes with democracy.

Safe spaces come at a cost though, as they inevitably turn to a form of terrorism, radical religious extremist groups for example begin with the formation of safe walled gardens in their communities.

</comment><comment><USER60> I think there is some irony in the title/content of that post and a particular verse in 1 Cor 13 (which was the referenced cause of the issue).

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." 1 Cor 13:11

</comment><comment><USER61> I don't live in the states, and this whole trigger warnings, safe-place and extreme sensitivity politically correct or otherwise that is being talked about all of a sudden was/is surprising to me. I didn't think The US is where something like this would take hold.

I've spoken to a few people who experience universities in the US recently and heard very different views. One was that young americans are more political than they had ever been. Another thought it was us peering into the world of internet thought bubble generations, people who "grew up" within one. Another thought it was plain intolerance in a literal sense, very little ability to tolerate others that they find in any way offensive..

Not sure what to make of it. Curious.

</comment><comment><USER62> When I was at university they had Prime Minister Farrakhan speak. Many people were very mad, uncomfortable, large protests ensued. Despite the protests it was packed. I was on the newpaper assigned to shoot the protest. There was also a debate about if a public university should pay someone that much who is that controversial (also brought up how much the basketball coach makes, often times they are the highest paid public employees in a US state).

It was a learning experience. Wonder 20 years later what would happen if they tried bring someone that controversial in.

</comment><comment><USER63> Couldn't (s)he have used Socratic discourse to show the complainant the absurdity of his point of view?

</comment><comment><USER64> I Corinthians 13 is indeed a great and laudable passage. But I suspect there was something more in the sermon that triggered the complaint.

As for victimization and oversensitivity, I agree that it's a good thing to be subjected to challenging viewpoints when you're at a university. It's also important to have a platform for responding to viewpoints you don't like. I suspect that attendance at sermons is required at Oklahoma Wesleyan, and I further suspect that students are strongly discouraged from publicly espousing views contrary to the content of those sermons. This doesn't make for a healthy university setting.

That said, writing childish outrage screeds lambasting "victim culture" is not exactly a noble or loving response to the student's complaint. This essay sounds like it was written in about five minutes while in full rage mode about the "kids these days".

The "victim culture" accusation alwasy strikes me as sadly ironic coming from a political wing that claims victimization of the overwhelming majority relgion and culture due to the design of Starbucks cups, the use of the phrase "Happy Holidays", or the existence of mosques. I think the word is "projection"...

Edit/Update: After browsing some other articles in the OKWU "News" section, I'm sorry to see this overtly political screed was posted to Hacker News at all. This university appears to be a branch of Fox News, rather than an educational institution.

</comment><comment><USER65> I parted company with the article at this line: "The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self- actualization." That's at odds with education, which should have a goal of assisting you in living up to your full potential. (Acknowledging guilt of wrongdoing can be part of living up to one's potential, but I don't consider it a primary goal of education.)

</comment><comment><USER66> 1 Corinthians 13 is a pretty uncontroversial passage. Hell, it's a favorite of mine, and I'm an atheist.

I'm a little curious about the actual complaint, and if Dr. Piper had any sort of productive discussion with the student. The standard "we're all sinners, but we must try" sort of thing seems the obvious starting approach.

<comment><USER67> In this particular instance, Dr. Piper may want to reference 1 Corinthians 14.

""" So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. Undoubtedly there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker is a foreigner to me. """

Dr. Piper has not reached this student, and I fear that his heavy-handed approach means he will not reach this student. Sad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Part of being an adult is realizing that you are powerless. It's a break from self-centered megalomania and "show" mentality. Part of being an adult is embracing suffering and pain. They are instructive. They are gifts. They teach us about ourselves and others and the world. Embrace them. Be grateful. Accept them humbly. Be humble. Only pride refuses pain and becomes indignant, says it is "too good" for it. Only pride boasts or complains about pain. Only pride conceals and deceives--itself!--at the altar of self. Only pride turns pain into some grandiose undertaking. Only pride wallows in self-pity. Only pride assaults others in self-righteousness and entitlement.

Life is the crucible in which pain and suffering are just another way you are made better...if you accept them and kill, and resolve to kill, your pride.

</comment><comment><USER69> > Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and > narcissistic

Actually, children are necessarily and healthily narcissistic. They need this to help them move from a codependent relationship with their parents to a more balanced one as the turn into adults. Blaming them for this trait is ridiculous.

<comment><USER70> You forgot about responsibilities. Being a little bitch isn't a trait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> The subject of the sermon to which the student objected was 1 Corinthians 13, about "love."

It would be helpful to know what the student was actually claiming made her/him feel victimized, because given the nature of the university it's easy to imagine how the talk might have included at least some implicit comment about sexuality.

[http://www.okwu.edu/blog/2015/11/pat-campbell-and-dr- piper-o...](http://www.okwu.edu/blog/2015/11/pat-campbell-and-dr-piper-on- gender-identity/)

EDIT: Point being that the story as told by the president is likely to differ from the reality. Could the student have simply come forward to say, hey look there are in fact LGBT students here, I don't agree with this interpretation of scripture, just want to make it known.

</comment><comment><USER72> I think this is an interesting side-effect of being hyperconnected: no matter what the position is, i's possible to find a group of people who will empathize with us and make us _feel_ right. I guess it goes back to the old saying of picking our friends wisely…

</comment><comment><USER73> Focus in safe spaces and crybaby students is very misguided. Anyone student can claim that they are victimized or feel "unsafe" for any reason, but these claims will be filtered through academics, media and the university administration, which will judge these claims based on a specific political ideology. Before there were "safe spaces", you could still fail a mandatory sociology class for disagreeing with feminism or anti-racism[0], or face disciplinary charges for the same reasons. And professors could be removed or disciplined for the same.

[0] by which I mean the narrative states that implicit racism is all around us.

</comment><comment><USER74> Are there any evangelical christians that have a critical assessment of this piece? I'm no longer a part of the church, but a few phrases strike me as strange ("An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad. It is supposed to make you feel guilty."; "The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self-actualization."; "Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them "feel bad" about themselves, is a "hater," a "bigot," an "oppressor," and a "victimizer.") I'd be interested in hearing your opinion.

<comment><USER75> "The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession" \- Yes, that seems a bit extreme. (Though I'm Catholic, not "Evangelical" in the sense you mean). Offending people is ok, but I hope the _goal_ isn't to make people feel guilty. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> The old word for "safe-space" used to be "mental hospital". Seriously, if you think you can hold the world hostage to your issues, you are sadly deluded, sadly arrogant, and sadly self-centered. It's worse than childish. It's crazy. And no amount of Oprah-style false compassion can conceal that.

As for the horrifying collectivism and grandiose, mobbish character of the comments, direct the dagger inward at your own pride, arrogance, self- righteousness, and depraved views, as a personal goal of your life. Mind your own business. There is no "we".

<comment><USER57> > The old word for "safe-space" used to be "mental hospital".

No it didn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> To be fair, delusions about a magic sky monster are infantile.

<comment><USER77> To be fair, delusions about climate change are infantile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> "The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self-actualization." That would be healthy if the confession were the _vehicle_ to self-actualization. Talk about confusing the means and the end. Too bad, because everything before that point was perfectly said.

</comment><comment><USER44> Regardless of the content, it seems to me that if someone came forward to complain to you, the time and place to deliver the message you had in response was when they came forward with the complaint. Yeah, it's a university, not a daycare, and as such a direct adult dialogue about the issue should be expected. A public letter like this from the university President is appropriate for a broad issue that goes beyond someone raising a personal complaint (which this letter provides no hint of), such as a public controversy directed at the university.

Given the scenario the letter itself lays out, the act of responding by such a public letter is at least as childish, thin-skinned, and inappropriate for a university environment where all participants (especially the administration) are supposed to be adults as the complaint it describes.

And given the specific subject of the complaint and response, it really sounds like the author could do with some of their own reflection on 1 Cor 13:4-5. As well as Gal 6:1 and Lk 6:42.

If you want to instill virtue, it is far more important to exhibit it than it is to lecture about it, though the latter has its place.

<comment><USER79> Why do you assume he didn't? It's quite possible to have this conversation one on one and then use it as an opportunity to address a wider audience. They are not mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER44> I conclude that he didn't address the student personally and directly with this message from the fact that he expressly framed the public response as a message intended for that student as well as others, rather than a public recitation for others of a message he had delivered to the complaining student in person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> This is not a day care! So sit down and feel guilty while I tell you about the invisible man who lives in the sky and judges your for touching your genitals. This 2,000 year old book is filled with magic recipes for living after you are dead, and you should grow up and listen to them.

</comment><comment><USER81> I find it fascinating that a university in the US can be so religious and yet have a curriculum in, say, physics. I hope they do not have conflicts of interest when it comes to use good and gravity in the same sentence.

<comment><USER82> FYI Newton was a very religious person. Wikipedia even has a whole article dedicated to his religious views.

<comment><USER81> Newton is from ca. 1700. I am taking about the world today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Facts of the underlying matter aside, this is an incredible immature piece that I expect from a young student who hasn't learned logic and rhetoric or didactics, not a University President.

</comment><comment><USER84> [https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/663481837197631488](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/663481837197631488)

</comment><comment><USER85> Your learning ends where my feelings begin. I'm so glad I wasn't in school when everyone was pandered to. This is the dumbing down of the American mind in process.

</comment><comment><USER86> Relevant article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10599513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10599513)

</comment><comment><USER87> Irrespective of whether you agree with the article, the tone is very condescending. Coming from a university president, it shows OWU in very poor light imho.

</comment><comment> a-saleh I am reading a response of a pastor to a students complaint on a sermon.

If I could read the sermon, or the complaint, I could comment on the response to the complaint.

</comment><comment><USER88> _The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession_

I was surprised to see this. Is that an evangelical Christian belief?

<comment><USER89> "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

That doesn't mean that these sins need to be confessed in the presence of a priest or something like that (as in the Roman Catholic Church), but given how God's forgiveness is what Christianity is all about, confession is a somewhat important corollary.

Assuming that God's forgiveness isn't something humans can produce while confession is, "primary objective" may be a pretty good description.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Not to be confused with Wesleyan University, N.B.

</comment><comment><USER91> Funny, here I thought a place teaching the story of Noah's Ark as literal truth _was_ a day care and not a university.

</comment><comment><USER92> Yet another post for HN to one-up each other decrying the "PC culture" with plenty of "kids these days" rants, while completely avoiding taking the charitable position and putting ourselves in their shoes.

The amount of hypocrisy that comes with the claims that these students should "learn to cope with uncomfortable ideas" is staggering. Guess what: these students are presenting us with an "uncomfortable idea" and the response has been nothing but knee-jerk.

Well done, everyone.

<comment><USER31> The idea that people's feelings should come first (especially before truth/understanding of reality) is not uncomfortable, but a dangerous, misleading, childish posture.

University is for adults, not toddlers.

<comment><USER93> >University is for adults, not toddlers.

Oh really, so university students are able to consume alcohol, right?

edit:

noun: adult;

\- a person who is fully grown or developed.

\- a person who has reached the age of majority.

edit 2:

"Longitudinal neuroimaging studies demonstrate that the adolescent brain continues to mature well into the 20s. This has prompted intense interest in linking neuromaturation to maturity of judgment."

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892678/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892678/)

<comment><USER94> So what? University still remains a place for adults. All sorts of odd laws and regulations pertain to institutions and other organizations notwithstanding.

<comment><USER93> University remains a place for adults who are not legally recognized as adults but are expected to fully act as adults. So consistent, much logic.

<comment><USER67> You're conflating a binary with a continuum.

The dominant American culture is not one with a single consistently-applied rite of passage to adulthood. Over about a decade, people go though multiple transitions (age of majority, voting age, drinking age---heck, a lot of people even recognize the age at which rental car companies stop applying a "You're probably a dangerous driver" surcharge, at 25 years old).

<comment><USER93> Yes, adulthood is a continuum. That's why it's wrong to say that college is for "adults". Some of students are very immature, some have more wisdom than older people. So I am not disagreeing with your point of view.

<comment><USER31> I see your point now, not disagreeing either.

Meant adult as a contrast to toddlers (whom feelings and sense of security we do care about, for good reasons) and as a status that you target, grow into and nurture, especially more at the university (and hopefully after as well).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Interesting read - there's a lot of back and forth between the so-called SJWs and the anti-PC crowd and it's becoming reminiscent of every generational battle I've listened to in my life.

Every adult has screamed about the "Next Generation" being softer or not as capable as the current. I think it's a lack of adults remembering how they were when they were young. I'm "Gen X", the naming of which was often (incorrectly) attributed to aimlessness: "The Unknown Generation" (the real naming reason has a much less arrogant reason).

I am concerned about the seeming "addiction to Victimhood" that appears[1] to be plaguing generations below me, however, I'm about as concerned about it as I would be any trivial thing. Success (however it's defined) requires one to figure out how to navigate the perceived injustices and figure out how to carve out a life. We did; they will, too. Hopefully it'll happen without a bunch of new legislation under the guise of Justice but with the result of further erosion of freedom.

There's one, key, difference between today's screaming and the screaming of generations past: Reach. Just like the current crop of over-protective parents dreaming that crime is so much worse these days than it was when we were kids (when in reality many crimes against children occur with half the frequency they did when we were young), the screaming about injustice is much more visible. This serves two negative purposes: we perceive that the entire generation of kids is a bunch of weak, whining losers based on a handful of folks with extreme positions and those striving for an identity see an opportunity to jump on the large (again, perceived) bandwagon and get some attention. Everyone has an opportunity to be heard and it's up to each of us to set our filters appropriately. Unfortunately, Critical Thinking is something that is often absent or ignored[2].

[1] "Appears" being the operative word. Though I've read many articles, I tend to surround myself with people who fit the age-range and socioeconomic status of the typical Victimhood addict and I don't see any of these traits in them. Anecdote, yes, but so many of the news stories are based on little more evidence.

[2] That sounds like a dig; it's not meant to be. I believe Critical Thinking is a fancy way of saying "wisdom" and is something that is acquired through experience, is rarely teachable (if it's even attempted to be taught) and is often forgotten in the face of highly-emotional arguments. It's the sort of thing that changes the phrase "Founders with heavy accents are rarely in the top 100 start-ups" into "I think people who don't speak English are dumb". Over time, and with experience at your back, you (hopefully) learn to be slow to ascribe malice to another's actions and give people the benefit of the doubt. Everyone communicates differently and I think most of us intend the best, not the worst.

</comment><comment><USER96> This is so useless. Why is it here?

</comment><comment><USER97> oh man - I thought this article might just break hacker news the minute I saw the title.

</comment><comment><USER98> Per Wikipedia, Oklahoma Wesleyan University serves about 900 students and is an evangelical Christian university of the Wesleyan Church located in Bartlesville, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Their motto is "A university where Jesus is Lord." In this article, conservative OKWU president Dr. Everett Piper seems to dismiss the concerns of one student, calling for more sermons full of guilt and shame, as a tool to get confessions of sins.

<comment><USER99> I honestly don't think he was being dismissive. I think he was acknowledging that the student's uncomfortable feelings were legitimate, even deliberately provoked, and offered a prescription for how to best handle them. This is (one) Christian message, and presumably one that the students at that school knowingly signed up for (well, their parents did, at any rate). I'm not a huge fan of self-blaming guilt, it tends to be just as self-indulgent as feeling violated by some sermon, but a sense of shame at one's shortcomings can be a useful guide for self growth and development. I am neither conservative nor a Christian but I find that I generally agree with his sentiment.

<comment><USER98> Thanks for taking the time to share these thoughts; I appreciate it. His comments resonate with a non-trivial number of people. Since they discuss human values we all share, that makes sense, to me. With respect to feelings of guilt and shame, I'm completely in agreement that they can represent a wake-up call to further self growth--but only insofar as we can link them to the human needs they are telling us to pay attention to. That's where the self growth occurs. I'm not in agreement with using guilt and shame, as tools to get people to obey or submit, because doing so focuses our attention on _what_ we want people to do, not _why_ we want them to do it. They're both important; without the latter, it's just obedience training. I think we're pretty close in our assessment, so I'll leave it, at that. Thanks again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> i thought this was hacker talk? can someone PLEASE talk about hacking ffs?!

</comment><comment><USER100> how is this hacker talk? can someone _PLEASE_ talk about hacking ffs?!

</comment><comment><USER101> I have a friend who attended OKWU a few years ago. She shared this piece on Facebook in approval. From what I know from her education there, this place is essentially a "safe-space" for Christians. If you say anything negative about the religion or its teachings, you are kicked out. If you don't follow its rules, you are kicked out. If you drink, smoke, have premarital sex, are lgbtq, don't follow their strict ethics code you are kicked out. Their philosophy classes are all Biblical, if you question them you are kicked out. Until a few years ago, you could major in something that amounted to being a 'preacher's wife' (I can't remember the name of the major, but that was its goal).

Isn't this just an extreme safe-space for Christianity? It's exactly what they're arguing against, but backs up their worldview so it's not an issue.

It's honestly baffling because I am sure there are hundreds of very smart people there who must realize this, including the professors and administration.

<comment><USER102> There's a stark difference between a free and voluntary association of like- minded people and a so-called "safe space", which uses a pretext of "victimization" to capriciously thought control others who simply committed the offense of disagreeing or criticizing. If you hate Christianity, why would you go to this school? If you aren't willing to follow behavioral rules, why would you go to this school? If you think philosophy should only be secular, then why would you go to this school? Schools like this generally make no secret of their expectations for students and faculty.

 _If you say anything negative about the religion or its teachings, you are kicked out._

Really? Citation please; I simply don't believe this. Most Christian universities that I have any knowledge of invite (or at least aren't averse to it) tough discussion, and allow for a pretty wide range of critical thought about interpretations of the Bible, how Christianity should relate to politics, culture, science, and many other subjects.

 _Until a few years ago, you could major in something that amounted to being a 'preacher's wife' (I can't remember the name of the major, but that was its goal)._

And this is evidence of what, exactly?

"Safe-spaces", on the other hand, are cudgels of fear, handed to anyone claiming "victimization" to be capriciously used against people with whom they simply disagree and want to shut up. The reason they're even a thing is because school administrators themselves are beholden to the same fear. That's not at all like free association.

<comment><USER103> There's a stark difference between what people who dislike the concept of "safe space" think a "safe space" is and what a "safe space" actually is.

A "safe space" is a place where you know you aren't going to be singled out and harmed (verbally or physically) by someone telling you that you're a queer faggot and deserve to die.

A "safe space" is a place where people can discuss the actual issues of hatred, bigotry and violence without fear of reprise for being the hated, the attacked, the marginalized.

There's a stark difference between "This isn't a place for saying hurtful things; this is a place for talking about why saying those things are hurtful. That's why we're not letting you in here while you continue to marginalize the oppressed. Let's talk about why you think the oppressed should be marginalized instead."

All the anti-safe-space discussion on Hacker News lately is truly, horribly, fucking disgustingly indicative of the inherent sexism and flat-out hatred that worms its way through developer culture.

They are absofuckinglutely not cudgels of fear. And people who claim they are need to take a real fucking hard look at themselves and their views on those who are verbally bullied, physically attacked, raped, and murdered for being who they fucking are.

<comment><USER102> _A "safe space" is a place where you know you aren't going to be singled out and harmed (verbally or physically) by someone telling you that you're a queer faggot and deserve to die._

FWIW, this concept of safe space isn't quite what I had in mind. I think, perhaps, what I failed to articulate is that the safe space concept that grinds my gears is the kind that is an expectation carried around by people who really do just want to shut other up. Professor said something they didn't like? "Waaah...this classroom isn't a safe space". Group-I'm-not-a-part-of says something they don't like? "Waaah...they're making my school a not-safe place".

I have no problem with the idea of a physically-located place with heightened expectations of civility.

<comment><USER103> The professor is the one who brought up the safe place terminology in this instance. Not the student.

One thing to realize, also, is the context of love (as the topic of discussion in the classroom was in 1 Corinthians 13) in many evangelical circles.

Love, defined in many conservative christian circles, is devotion to the Church, the Husband and God, to the exclusion of all else. Even when it hurts. It's about staying in an abusive relationship because you need to submit to your husband's wishes, no matter what. It is not the selfless emotional connection of one person to another. It is the subjugation of the self.

This student may very well have felt victimized for how love was being talked about. But all we know about the classroom discussion was that the topic was 1 Corinthians 13. Not what was actually talked about with regard to that chapter. I've heard 1 Corinthians 13 be twisted in some very evil ways.

<comment><USER104> "Love, defined in many conservative christian circles, is devotion to the Church, the Husband and God, to the exclusion of all else."

Please do not read any tone into what I'm saying here, because if you've gotten that message I honestly don't know how. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." \- John 13:34

The verse you reference above is in the context of marriage and you hear it a lot at weddings, but the context of love within Christian community is always going to go straight to the way that Jesus defined it. There's no part of the Christian community that is going to try to override what Jesus said. "Just as I have loved you" means unconditionally. It doesn't mean as long as they agree with you, have the same color skin as you, speak the same language as you or fit some specific stencil.

I realize this is a bit off-kilter for Hacker News but sermons that talk about how we are all sinners in need of forgiveness are there specifically for two reasons.

1\. No matter what you have done, God will forgive you. No matter what you have done, God loves you.

2\. Because God will forgive the worst of us who truly asks for forgiveness, we have no right to deny forgiveness to anyone who truly asks for it either.

I've visited a lot of different churches throughout the southeast in my life and I've never once heard a minister say anything that implies anything other than the above.

<comment><USER103> A lot of the very right-wing evangelical churches do.

I grew up in one. They use words that mean one thing to everyone else but mean (via subtext) another thing entirely to the in-group.

That's why I specifically called out that kind of church; I thought I was careful about that. I've been in many churches that are amazing, wonderful places. But I've been to other churches (usually PCA) that can be downright evil.

Edit: this wasn't about skin color, but more LGBTQ/nonbelievers. They're a very different breed of bigot than Those Who Wear Sheets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> At least someone still has a bit of common sense.

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm not religious, but this is spot on _slow clap_.

</comment><comment><USER85> This article's title should have trigger warnings.

<comment><USER105> what are trigger warnings? Clickbait warnings?</comment></comment>


The Thermodynamic Ice Bag - <AUTHOR> http://copsub.com/the-thermodynamic-ice-bag/ <comment><USER2> This is one of the most fascinating groups I've seen in quite a long time. Check out their YouTube channel too where they show details on the turbopump [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6BC1QfA0Ug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6BC1QfA0Ug)

<comment><USER3> I went to a lecture with one of the founders. They are indeed fascinating and quite capable people. Not only have they built an actively guided rocket and launched it up to 8km, nearly vertically, but before they started Copenhagen Suborbitals they had already built several submarines (including one that had a toilet _and_ shower) all of which where quite seat-worthy.

They built them using very little money, because they didn't have that much forexample to make the g-test for their rocket they borrowed a free fall attraction in a local amusement park.

Copenhagen Suborbitals truly have the hacker spirit.

<comment><USER4> Extra awesome bonus point: When they were first testing their rockets, they used their submarine as a tow/tug for their launch platform. Yeah, these guys are crazy awesome.

<comment><USER5> Since they had the submarine, rocket and it's perfectly legal to launch in international waters, they talked about just putting the rocket in/on the submarine and be done with it.

... until someone pointed out that building a submarine with ballistic missiles and playing with it in Russia's back-yard probably is a _very_ bad idea.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Theranos's Fate Rests with a Founder Who Answers Only to Herself - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/business/theranoss-fate-rests-with-afounder-who-answers-only-to-herself.html <comment><USER4> Theranos most valuable service to me was that they've shown me what a small man I really am, considering that I enjoy reading about their failure much more than reading about someone else's successes.

<comment><USER5> If they'd operated with even the slightest veneer of humility, and if the whole thing had not turned out to be such a house of cards, then you probably would not have such intense feelings of schadenfreude. I think it's pretty normal to feel some pleasure at the misery of others when those others have made themselves out to be such Paragons of Virtue, Captains of Industry, Movers and Shakers of 21st Century Health, and whatnot, and turn out to completely full of it.

And, just to make sure it's clear that I'm not exaggerating, we're talking about a company whose founder literally received something called the Horatio Alger Award last year:

        She was the youngest person ever to be awarded
        the Horatio Alger Award in recognition of
        "remarkable achievements accomplished through
        honesty, hard work, self-reliance and
        perseverance over adversity."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/business/the-narrative- fra...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/business/the-narrative-frays-for- theranos-and-elizabeth-holmes.html)

<comment><USER6> When you think about it though, it's unlikely she nominated herself for the award or asked for it. Can we really hold someone accountable for another group of persons' actions?

With that in mind, I briefly researched the 'Horatio Alger Award', it's being offered by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, a nonprofit organization. I checked their site and merit of any kind is only part of the story.

As I understood things, when you're awarded the title, you automatically become a member and it's not possible to gain membership otherwise. This prize ensures growth and continuity for the organization, along with potential funding.

I read the 'Become a Member' pdf document from their site and while it appears anyone can be nominated, as long as the nominee is 'on brand' with the organization's ideals of remarkable achievements, the new member/awardee will, in turn, have to support the association in as many ways as possible, either by contributing to the program (activities with an administrative or promotional purpose), AND/OR financially.

The form states that it 'must be completed and signed by the nominee and the nominator. If the nomination is confidential, the form may be completed and signed by the nominator only. By signing this form, the nominator and nominee acknowledge their understanding and acceptance of the responsibilities associated with membership in the Association.'

I think the more questionable thing here is possibly exploitation of the desirability of status and prestige.

<comment><USER7> Most little-known prizes are basically scams, offering gloss and publicity to companies in exchange for cash at one point or another (in Alger's case, after the award). Everyone with half a clue knows it, so you end up picking the awards that fit your particular agenda and the image you want to project. In this case, Theranos' management wanted to look saintly; hence inevitable schadenfreude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _" I think the board has complete confidence in Elizabeth Holmes as a founder of the company, as a scientist and as an administrator," he said._

A scientist?! Since when?

<comment><USER9> She dropped out of Stanford's chemical engineering program. Surely that should count for something!

<comment><USER10> All that says is she was admitted to Stanford as an undergrad, and lasted there till she was 19. That alone doesn't make someone a scientist.

<comment><USER11> Could anything she's done in the last 13 years qualify her as a scientist? What does it take to be one?

<comment><USER12> Only "official" per MW, but,

> a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the > natural or physical sciences.

Would she be able to test out of all her BA requirements from Stanford with what she's learned?

<comment><USER10> She might test out of all the BS requirements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's the really big kicker that hits me in the face as I look at the leadership team of Theranos.

It's a descriptive statement about the company:

Nobody on Theranos's board has a pharma, hematology, research, or diagnostics background related to the line of business of Theranos.

This makes it that much more difficult to get the bottom of what they've innovated, if anything at all.

<comment><USER14> They were all people with connections to the top of DoD. Presumably they were 100% aiming at a military contract?

<comment><USER15> This is the billion dollar question. Or at least was, before the company started going down the drain

The _only_ person that had some knowledge of biology on board was Holmes. Now, while the board usually doesn't deal with the technical minutia they should be definitely keeping an eye on possible regulatory needs and associated risks

</comment></comment></comment><comment> semi-extrinsic From TFA:

""For every Theranos, there's a Facebook," said Bryan Roberts, a partner at Venrock, a leading venture capital firm."

Really? I thought unicorns were called unicorns because they're, well, _rare_?

Also interesting that we're now at the point where Theranos == failure.

<comment><USER16> If we're at the point where Theranos == failure, then "For every Facebook there are 10-100 Theranos" would be more accurate.

<comment><USER17> You can keep going on the orders of magnitude. There are only 3 "Facebooks:" Facebook (market cap $318bn), Google ($504bn) and Amazon ($292bn).

<comment><USER18> I'd include Apple on that list. Sure, the company was founded a long time ago; but for practical purposes you might as well consider that Apple 1.0 (the computer company) died and Apple 2.0 (the iGadget company) launched in 2001.

<comment><USER5> I'd place the date for Apple 1.0's death at December 20, 1996, but agree with you 100% on the iGadget part. [http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-acquires-next- jobs/](http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-acquires-next-jobs/)

<comment><USER18> Right, I was taking the release of the iPod as the date that Apple 2.0 launched; we can certainly say that Apple 1.0 died five years earlier and it existed as a zombie company for five years.

<comment><USER19> The iMac was the first big hit under Jobs 2.0. Then iTunes. Then the iPod.

<comment><USER5> Absolutely correct. iMac proved to Apple employees, their investors, and their faithful, oft-curbstomped users that Apple could still make something really friggin' cool.

iPod changed the course of Apple's destiny. There's a reason that the company was renamed from Apple Computer, Inc to Apple, Inc., and the first step towards that transition was the iPod, not the iMac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Takeaway for future founders incorporating:

\- Own a majority interest in your company.

\- Be the company's chairman/woman and CEO.

\- Issue dual-class shares ("supervoting shares") where class B shares carry many more votes than ordinary class A shares so the board can't pull a Steve Jobs on you.

<comment><USER21> Founders that need money to execute or risk folding rarely get to set their conditions

<comment><USER22> What surprised me was that the company was founded 12 years ago. I had assumed that since people were commenting on the founder as a "young, didn't complete college, no real experience, etc" that the company was founded very recently.

Upon learning that, it seems to me that the company has grown more organically, more like a bootstrapped business of sorts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> i would argue that even by removing EH from the CEO role of T would not save T as:

1) its core technology is basically non-existed, non-proven, non-peer-reviewed and was never fully covered by its 20 or 30 something non-core patents. it seems its core tech is all inside EH's head.

2) their company machinery is not healthy enough that "could be run by a monkey" (quoting warren buffett, no offense to any one). even some guy hired by EH for their biochem had to killed himself.

3) EH is the only hub node for the vast politicians on its board and its political network.

<comment><USER20> "Non-peer-reviewed"? This is a private company with proprietary technology, not the New England Journal of Medicine. Proprietary and peer-reviewed are oxymoronic in this context.

<comment><USER23> in medical/scientific realm, claims are peer-reviewed to be valid.

<comment><USER24> Heh, this is, bluntly... untrue. In medicine, certain types of published studies are sometimes peer-reviewed, and sometimes people care about that, and that's about the extent of peer review as far as validity goes. _Drug studies_ are not peer-reviewed in any meaningful way, and that's about as statistically strong a claim as exists in most of medicine. Medtech (implants, mechanisms, Theranos-like processes, etc) are certainly never "peer-reviewed".

<comment><USER25> That's only true if you don't consider FDA approval to be a form of peer review.

<comment><USER26> Although in theory FDA approval should be equivalent to scientific peer review, in practice it doesn't seem to be.

It's not unusual for independent testing to show effects significantly smaller than those reported in the clinical trials that lead to FDA approval.

Sometimes the results approach placebo levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The fact a board of politicians shows "complete confidence" of EH as a founder, scientist and administrator means one thing. And that one thing isn't good, unless you're on that board.

I feel bad for anyone that got roped into this mess and tried to do right by it. That person(s) exist, and when this sideshow completes itself, they're looking at a sweet 60 Minutes segment that I'll gladly make some popcorn for.

<comment><USER27> That guy existed - his name was Ian Gibbons and he killed himself in 2013 apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Only Theranos insiders know if their technology is actually worth anything. But supposing it is, I do think there is a narrow path to success with a new CEO and a cultural reboot (including publishing their work this time). That said, there are external factors (e.g., regulators, legitation) that could sink them regardless of the best efforts of a new management team.

The need to clean house at the top to have any chance seems so obvious that I'm surprised the board hasn't resigned yet. I suppose they are giving Holmes the benefit of the doubt to come up with her own turn around plan first.

<comment><USER29> It doesn't help that one of the founders committed suicide, I believe there was a rumor stating the reason was because their product didn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> >Ms. Holmes, a 32-year-old Stanford University dropout, owns a majority interest in Theranos, a privately held company she founded in 2003.

So she was 19 years old when she founded the company? What was the product back then?

<comment><USER12> > So she was 19 years old when she founded the company? What was the product > back then?

What the product is now.

I don't know her personally, but from what I've gathered she's always had a very well-to-do network via her Father (?). Probably helped a bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> The product has actually changed quite a bit since Elizabeth founded Real-Time Cures, as it was called back then. The initial goal was to create a continuous, blood monitoring skin patch with a cellular connection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> J-dawg I remember reading a similar article about Hampton Creek, the food startup.

How do VC's end up investing in stuff like this? That's not meant to be a rhetorical question, I know nothing about investing. I'm genuinely interested in how very smart people end up giving millions of dollars to fund vapourware.

What is the due diligence process? Don't VC's hire an independent expert in the field to audit the core technology? I guess confidentiality is an issue, but we have NDAs for that, right?

<comment><USER31> The problem here is that if one investor is 'in' the rest will assume they did due diligence and will use this as social proof to invest as well, aka the herd mentality in investing.

Quite a few VC's would never invest these kind of funds without a full process DD (legal, financial, technical, commercial), but once you're vetted by one of the top flight VCs and have received an investment from them a lesser party could easily make a whole pile of (wrong) assumptions, especially if there are links between the parties outside of the VC circuit.

What should be done is definitely not always what is actually done.

A simple reason for this is that if the DD fails the investor pays for the DD from their own management fees, but if the deal goes through the company invested in usually gets the invoice from all the DD parties (as per the terms sheet, this is a very common clause). This puts a weird incentive on VCs to let deals go through, they can't have too many DDs fail during the process or it can actually materially impact their ability to work.

Imagine that if 2% (which is pretty much the going rate) of a small fund (say 50M) is what the VC company has to operate on for every year that it runs (so 1M) divided over all the partners and associates in the fund, renting a building in some prestigious place, travel and so on has to bear the additional load of several full process failed DDs (anywhere from 50K to 200K each) it can _really_ hit hard if too many of them fail.

So if there is a way to avoid doing DD because a larger party is already 'in' this is a quick way to validate and a very easy mistake to make. Of course - given that that is what I sell - I would very much prefer it if every round every investor would do their own due diligence but in practice you really don't see that. The most common format is that in every round there is some level of DD done (thoroughness roughly related to the size of the deal) and then all the parties involved decide to invest (or not...) based on DD done by one of them.

In the Theranos case I suspect the 'big names' blinded investors, which is dumb on a very basic level. But it's their money and if they decide to throw it away on a BS project that is their right. The bit that really bothers me is how many good companies you could have funded instead of this one too-good-to- be-true unicorn.

<comment><USER32> > _In the Theranos case I suspect the 'big names' blinded investors, which is > dumb on a very basic level. But it's their money and if they decide to throw > it away on a BS project that is their right._

It's funny that you yourself were very high on Theranos in early articles on this site, and specifically praised the obvious due diligence these companies must have done.

<comment><USER31> I wasn't high enough to invest money in them and I would not have invested money without doing DD (not that I would be let anywhere near that project anyway).

The main point is that I (and many with me) are quite shocked that this amount of investment was done without _anybody knowledgeable in the field_ apparently doing DD on the company. That there is a mechanism that explains this is what makes it interesting, especially given the size of the various investments.

There are a few more cases like this that are - in my opinion at least - <USER2> interesting still because they are closer to fields that I know more about than about bloodworks. And that's one of the main take-aways for me, investors should invest in things that they understand _or_ they should hire their own independent experts to verify that the technology is real, but in practice even if they know this they do not always do it, even at the level of Theranos (hard to imagine, but there is pretty solid proof by now).

That Theranos is - at this point this seems likely - a lemon is a very good and extremely expensive lesson for anybody that wishes to invest looking at the bona-fides of the other investors already on board. That should count for exactly nothing. Good luck convincing the world of that but that is my conclusion.

The way I read the Theranos story is that the dream didn't work out, that - rather than welcome inquiry and fixing of the tech. They chose to become super defensive and play silly games rather than to open up which suggests that there is a level of self deception going on. And this is where it becomes very hard to distinguish a scam from an accident and a fraud from simply one of many failed investments.

If anything the _level_ rather than the principles here are what attracts attention, you see this situation in the investment world with great regularity at lower levels of investment and usually these take much less time to play out.

I wonder if at some level Theranos and its executives still believe they can 'fix' the technology or if they have actually given up on that. This will be the harder part for them, to acknowledge defeat and to own it.

It's a sad story, nothing to be gleeful about but at least for me there are some very valuable lessons here. Social proof is no proof at all and each and every investor that lost (or stands to lose) money in this whole saga will have paid a very dear price to learn that lesson.

Next up: uBeam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Perfect setup for a conspiracy thriller: she appears on Bloomberg and mentions that Americas biggest problem is not health insurance but health care cost. The cronigarchie takes notice, swivels its massive canons and starts firing at her for the past six months. Epic. Even the NYTimes, who has been - <USER3> - somewhat at the forefront of investigating into medical billing fraud, still wonders if 'there is truth to her technology'. Let's see how this unfolds.

</comment><comment><USER34> How is this any different than Google, Facebook, etc.?

<comment><USER35> Google, Facebook have working products people are willing to use and largely based on open technologies, where the competitive advantage is speed to market, network effects, and good execution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> What's the endgame? Theranos spends the next five years burning a billion VC dollars and then goes bankrupt?</comment>