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Comment by SunshineTheCat | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how much this plays a role, and this is anecdotal, but I feel like the last 5-10 years or so, folks have put increasing stock in being (or being portrayed as) a victim.

A hobby growing in popularity seems to be perusing the internet on the lookout for something to be "outraged" by, no matter how mundane.

As someone who played hockey for years, this always felt like such a contrast from my experience where the norm was to conceal an injury and power through so you could keep playing.

If you were bleeding and unphased, you were the envy of your teammates. If a guy was limping off the ice after blocking a shot, you did not want to see the bruise he had underneath.

What I will be interested in seeing is, as students graduate into the job market, how the feigning victimhood approach fits into getting a well paying job. For all I know, it may pay off. Only time will tell I guess.

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You can get all sorts of extra accommodations at school and work now if you're diagnosed with a disability. Disability rates have thus exploded. I support giving reasonable accommodations to people who are truly disabled but we have medicalized a lot of minor stuff that people ought to just "power through".

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/40-percent-st...

Alternatively, we are gatekeeping basic decency behind having a diagnosed disability.

Could you define basic decency for us? Should every college student receive a private dorm room and unlimited time on exams?

I mean, sure, why not?

There are only two ways to give everyone a private dorm room:

1. Drastically reduce admissions until a 1:1 ratio of rooms to students is achieved. Once rooms are full, you have to reject students. Overall college admissions is cut significantly.

2. Massively increase tuitions so that more single-occupancy rooms can be built

So which one do you choose? I suspect most of these proposals rely on a world where money is infinite and nothing has to be sacrificed to get there.

Or make all the rooms smaller single rooms rather than intentionally building all the rooms as doubles?

Or don't require students (especially freshmen) to live in dorms so more people can live in apartments off campus to reduce the need for dorm rooms?

That’s not actually feasible. It’s cost prohibitive to refactor all the shared dorms and/or tear down and rebuild a significant fraction of on campus spaces.

Umm.. these elite universities are sitting on tens of billions of dollars in endowment funds. They can easily build dorm rooms if they care to - especially given the universities already own the land and have vast amounts of unused land.

I think there is a fallacy to look at endowments like they are checking accounts. Or to assume elite universities generally have unused land or can rebuild a large amount of their dorms for less than hundreds of millions of dollars and significant disruption to campus life

Just two options huh? Who's agenda are you pushing?

Sounds good. How about a free emotional support pony while we're at it?

And people wonder why college tuition prices are so high.

Are you being serious? Because it’s cost prohibitive to the university and undermines the ability for educators to evaluate student performance.

Imagine being the TA that has to proctor an examination that takes an indefinite amount of time.

I understand your sentiment but it seems like you’re avoiding the harsh reality of things. And these things are not that “harsh” in the grand scheme of things.

"Grievance culture," I believe, is the term you are looking for.

Most of the power in that came from classes of victims being untouchable. Some of that was the decorum of not wanting to punch down. Some was the reasonable ask that people realize they had advantages others didn't have.

All of it was completely unprepared for being gamed and infiltrated by bad faith actors.

> I feel like the last 5-10 years or so, folks have put increasing stock in being (or being portrayed as) a victim.

I've actually noticed the same pattern where I live in Europe. Some young adults go to great lengths to find a psychiatrist that will diagnose them something. I heard than on multiple occasions, reported by doctors themselves, and anecdotal evidence.

To be honest, I don't know how much this is a reality, and how much of it is an old man rant :)

I imagine most people are secretly turned off by the victim card (for the same reason you’d avoid someone who always has a “woe is me” story) but who knows how that affects the job market when virtue signaling is so powerful.

People don't hunt down outrage posts, they are delivered to them by algorithms seeking maximum engagement. The solution is nothing less than to outlaw recommendation algorithms.

1000% agree recommendation algorithms should not be allowed. Sorting and user criteria, great. But nothing should be pushed without clear acknowledgement of the user. Anything software recommends should be specified by the user.

there is also institutional favourability for the disadvantaged, it's hardly a surprise that most attendees are claiming disability...they were selected in part because they identified themselves as victims/disabled/etc.

I blame soccer for starting this societal trend.

Fool the ref, win the game.

(only partially tongue-in-cheek)

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