[872] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Discuss Mandatory Dining at the UA Town Hall Meeting Tonight
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jay)
Thu Oct 4 10:07:07 2001
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Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.30L.0110040314190.18696-100000@buzzword-bingo.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 04:00:57 -0400
Reply-To: "Documentation at http://web.mit.edu/beland/talk/talk.html"
<MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU>, Jay <jayp@MIT.EDU>
From: Jay <jayp@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <200110040610.CAA27557@home-on-the-dome.mit.edu>
there are a few people here who seem to be getting out of hand.
On Thu, 4 Oct 2001, Anil K. Varghese wrote:
> No, I don't like being nasty to people. But I'm angry, and I don't
> see any other viable options.
this seems like it may be getting to my point. it is the situation that
their decisions affect our communities moreso, and in different ways, than
their vista can allow them to see: it hits us at home. you propose that
we hit them at home, because it will force them to change their actions.
the fact that people (mind you, likely a small number, but as we all know,
that's all this sort of situation ever needs) wish to change their actions
by instilling fear into their lives is personally quite frightening.
this is the first thing i felt after reading today's emails.
some of these people are reasonable people who have overlooked or
misinterpreted the intentions of the general plan they have, and therefore
their implementation of it has missed the mark. others have been deemed
by repeated student interaction to have little respect for the students or
for their ideas. it is a fact that communication has broken down, but if
we find a totally new system of going about things, then maybe there won't
be so many surprises anymore. maybe when we talk to (some of) them, they
will have a way to go about incorporating our suggestions (and, as things
go, often demands as well). yall may jump on me about this, but the
dormcon meeting with cmvest yesterday appeared to be at least somewhat
fruitful towards this end.
perspective from the real world (hold on a second, burst the bubble, mit
is not the end-all, be-all of human existence, no matter how much we
deeply care for it and hate to see it fucked with): these are just people
with jobs, who may have made mistakes. they may even have the
misperception that the students in general are extremely immature and
cannot act like the adults that they should be. but you are suggesting to
make them feel like their physical saftey, and worth as human beings, is
endangered. you have also suggested interfering with the institute to
what i would call an illegally fraudulent degree. i feel like your
perception of The Line has been blurred too much by your anger.
i implore you to calm down and appeal to more mature judgement.
Jay
disclaimer, more repetition: i have been very critical of the recent
decions, and of the process by which they have been made (which would
label them more as decrees), and by the progress made towards better
communication and more careful design of plans to improve student life (in
particular, say, by including students in the process from the start). i
can even say i've been convined by the conspiracy theories running around.
i've gotten extremely angry myself. (i still am quite angry.) the point
is, don't let your intentions get so misguided by your emotions as to
drive you to do something as awful as this. i should also recognize that
there have been other suggestions (labeled under the same name as
"drastic") which fall far short of the threat of personal harm and
humiliation, which might be acceptable. (i'll deal on a case-by-case
basis.) but please don't let people (think they will) get hut over this.
remember who we are and what we're doing in the eyes of the real world.
---
Jonathan Pottharst
3 Ames St. Box #109 Cambridge, MA 02142
617-225-6374
email: jayp@mit.edu aim: sharlaon icq: 4374738
http://www.mit.edu/~jayp/
1 \to \overline{K^\times K^\times_{\infty+}}
\to \mathbb{A}_K^\times \to \mathrm{Gal}(K^{ab}/K) \to 1
