Comment by andr
7 years ago
While this may sound creepy for a foreigner, getting a decent apartment in the SF Bay Area is really expensive and the commutes are horrible. So in this context, that could be a good thing.
7 years ago
While this may sound creepy for a foreigner, getting a decent apartment in the SF Bay Area is really expensive and the commutes are horrible. So in this context, that could be a good thing.
Why does it sound creepy? What percentage of the population, historically, have been "free" in a sense that they don't belong to an organization that exerts some sort of control over their social world? It seems there are many shades and dimensions here...
Actually I think in some ways the lower classes have more psychological freedom here.
I've worked a bunch of minimum wage retail jobs and all the grunts mock the daily "walmart chant." At high status jobs people apparently really buy the "my employer is who I am" thing.
"At the same time, the proles are freer and less intimidated than the middle-class Outer Party: they are subject to certain levels of monitoring but are not expected to be particularly patriotic. They lack telescreens in their own homes and often jeer at the telescreens that they see. "The Book" indicates that is because the middle class, not the lower class, traditionally starts revolutions. The model demands tight control of the middle class, with ambitious Outer-Party members neutralised via promotion to the Inner Party or "reintegration" by the Ministry of Love, and proles can be allowed intellectual freedom because they lack intellect."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four :)
No, I'm pretty sure this is creepy to non-foreigners as well.
I don’t know. It makes rents higher since companies pay more and it takes units off the market and they can deduct the expense unlike traditional renters.
I think the opposite is more likely to be true. This sounds creepy because it is creepy and the only place it seems reasonable is in the increasingly disconnected culture of Silicon Valley.
Many undergraduate, graduate and postgrads live on campus in housing provided by the university, and get paid by the same university. Soldiers in the military live in barracks, even some who would otherwise have the option to live off base. Even expats working for private energy companies abroad sometimes live in corporate housing campuses.
Universities are not top-down controlled institutions - profs have tenure (i.e. independence) and run their labs at a relatively micro scale, so whatever the criticism of tech mega-corps, it probably doesn't transfer because of those differences.
Soldiers in military often have a hard time adjusting to the freedom of civilian life, and it seems that structure is there out of institutional necessity (i.e. society could not exist without a military to protect it), not for the benefit of the individual soldier. Creating corporations that are both single-leader authoritarian and control more aspects of their employee's lives may not be how we want more of in our society. A lot of successful corporations seem relatively all-consuming for their employees (both small and big corps), so it seems like a subject without a solid path toward consensus.
Yes, and socializing students into broader society is a core topic for "campus life" divisions at universities, and transitioning back to civilian life is a significant challenge for many when discharged from the military. These are closed and walled off ecosystems of human engagement, each with their own challenges and failure modes for human psychology.
> Many undergraduate, graduate and postgrads live on campus in housing provided by the university
Last I checked, universities weren’t busy papering the world in surveillance, pretending that’s a moral prerogative, refusing summons to the House of Commons, characterising whistleblowers with contempt, and then lying when they get caught acting unethically.
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