Comment by titanomachy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by titanomachy | Hacker News Reader

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Point 1 is legit. Going to a really raunchy party that doesn’t have a no-phones policy might have been a little much even for college-aged me.

But I disagree with much of the rest. You’re welcome to make those choices for yourself, making your life about resume-building and career from an early age, and certainly society benefits a lot from people like that. But suggesting that everyone should be forced into those choices feels wrong to me. I think having a colorful and joyful life has its own value, but even if we’re sticking to utilitarian arguments, a lot of the people who benefited humanity the most were certainly not resume-driven rule-followers in their youth.

As for false rape accusations… I think this is one of those things that gets talked about so much that it seems more common than it is. I believe it can happen, but every one of my male friends has made it this far in life without being accused of rape. If you only have sex with people who enthusiastically want to have sex with you, I think you can probably put this somewhere between “plane crash” and “lightning strike” in terms of how much you should worry about it.

Fake accusations can happen for lots of crimes, not just rape. All it takes is someone being vindictive or petty and knowing they can get away with the fake accusation to destroy someone. In these cases, the system becomes the weapon. When you eliminate foundational elements of a justice system like innocent until proven guilty or the ability to question your accuser, you’re changing it from a system from justice to injustice as people realize that it’s an even better weapon with which to enact revenge than a gun or a knife because you can destroy someone with little chance for being held accountable.

I don't think everyone in society needs to act this way. But, like, everyone at Stanford is a resume builder because Stanford only admits people with good resumes.

Also, I'm not worried about comes-out-of-nowhere false associations. I am aware that I need to avoid actually doing something wrong because the consequences of that are really high. I implement your "only have sex with people who enthusiastically want to have sex with you" rule by not getting drunk at student-organized "anything-but-clothes" parties!

Fair enough, not getting blackout drunk should definitely reduce your risk of making bad decisions with lifelong consequences. Nothing but respect for that decision.

I still question the premise that the only worthwhile activities are the ones that look good on a resume.

Did you go to Stanford or similar?

The point of those schools is to go work for McKinsey or whatever. Your folks didn’t take violin at age 3 and pay $50k for lacrosse academy for you to blow it all at some kegger.

No, I went to a reasonably high-quality and cheap public university. There’s plenty of Stanford/Berkeley/MIT folks where I work and they seem happy with their choices as well.

I actually don’t think my parents care all that much whether I work at McKinsey or Google or wherever. They put me in music lessons because they thought it might be interesting, not because it would help me land the perfect corporate job. I doubt my parents even know what McKinsey is.

This reminds me of discussions with some Indian colleagues of mine who were telling me how they were cramming for years in school (with private tutors and studying till late at night) in order to get into very competitive IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology).

> As for false rape accusations… I think this is one of those things that gets talked about so much that it seems more common than it is

Yes, I fully agree. The fraternities have a ton more true rape cases than they have false allegations. Which might also be a reason the the crackdown on fraternity culture.

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