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Comment by usednet | Hacker News Reader

And all of this contributes to extremely low intellectual diversity at Ivy Leagues. I have the pleasure of frequently interacting with Harvard students and it is consistently true that they are always unremarkable individuals. These schools simply breed a managerial class that is capable of grinding hard and following orders.

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I've been affiliated with MIT in one way or another for more than a quarter-century. What's been astounding is the change in faculty.

Historically, MIT faculty were nerds into neat tech problems.

New MIT faculty are slick politicians with an increasing sleazy Enron-style vibe. That's true of MIT leadership as well.

Do you know of some place where there are still nerds into neat tech problems?

Less popular but still hardcore places like Carnegie Mellon, Caltech, some state schools like Ohio State, UMich come to mind. Just stay away from woke ivy league

FYi, MIT is not Ivy League.

You need to leave the US and look at European Unis. EPFL, ETH Zürich, Delft, TÜ Berlin/Munich.

Caltech's still the real deal.

has been reflected in the student body as well in some ways? tia

Can you elaborate on what "Enron-style vibe" means when describing university faculty?

People who make decisions using powerpoint slides?

form over substance

- Academic fraud

- Clever financial schemes and complex conflicts-of-interest

- Incredible salesmanship relative to the amount of substance

- ... and so on.

I've seen criminal activity there too (which I can't elaborate on), but I suspect the Institute is waiting for an Enron-style collapse. It will be a soft landing. The endowment is obscene at this point; the Institute can weather a lot.

I’ve suspected this. There was always some seed corn of this type at MIT, even in the old days. I got SB, 1968-72. Hacker was a new word, and nerd was often spelled with a “u.” It would have been unthinkable to try to prosecute Jonathan Swartz then.

Aaron Swartz you mean.

though Jonathan Schwartz did get metoo'd (not prosecuted) and kicked off WNYC

Sorry, you are of course right.

>Historically, MIT faculty were nerds into neat tech problems.

Computer Science used to be for nerds that were into neat tech problems. Now it's just seen the same as business/law/finance/whatever. And accordingly, we now have a deluge of CS graduates that want nothing to do with tech and simply move into management as fast as possible.

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