You would fall into the "of the world" camp. There are others, a relative minority but prevalent everywhere, that don't want to be a part of this, nor want their children involved. You will likely never interact with them, and their thoughts and feelings will never reach you -- but that doesn't mean their worlds are inane (or rather, more inane than any other).
The deterioration of quality within the "elite universities" is self-evident if one goes by more nuanced measure than "how high up the industrial and political ladder" its graduates reach. What the contrary is, is a matter of values that I will not be elaborating upon (this conversation has become tiring).
What a vulgar rendition: "little nothing no-name universities."
There's more to a college than how much money it's going to make you throughout your entire life. In the case of St Lawrence and Adrian: this is where you send your children to if you don't want them to end up "of the world." They're small campuses, in controlled environments, with people from similar backgrounds (i.e. long-time upper middle class, no intentions of "moving up" or down). $40-50k a year for a couple of years is absolutely nothing if you want to make certain your offspring don't end up silly (and if you're of that notion, you surely can cover the cost).
For Landmark, it's obvious from a cursory glance of their info that this is a "special case," and different from the rest: it's a college tailored towards those with learning disabilities. Whether or not this justifies the costs is another matter, but it cannot be seriously lumped in as a regular college for comparison.
T1 is more marketing than substance. Most of the "Ivy League"s have fallen off since coming into public consciousness, and being flooded by people other than those that once brought it a good name. Even the "grinder schools" (e.g. CMU, MIT, etc.) are following in similar fashion (again, appearance over substance). Will they expose you to a wide range of people that may end up being useful towards some end in the future? Yes, but it's obscene to even think such a thought.
"America" is in the unique position of having no culture -- barring "make money" -- to assimilate to. This obviously leads to much greater ease of assimilation for immigrants; you don't even need to speak English. If you can achieve an upper middle class income, you have assimilated and are thus dubbed "American."
In Europe, it's much different. There's no "short cut" to being accepted in your host society; and I very much doubt anyone really assimilates into a European culture if they're not born within. There's a depth to it that is impossible to grasp unless you've been submerged in it for the entirety of your life.
You will never be a German. Should you decide to change your mind, and make the decision to move to and have children there -- then perhaps they will end up being German; but that path is closed to the individual you.
Accepting people is a long process when your standards are high; and short when low. Letting people come and go as they please does not make for a very stable society, filled with the types of persons that are beneficial to the whole.
You don't have to keep up with all the stuff it adds. If you actually need a certain thing C++ has added -- that you're unaware of -- you'll naturally find it when you go looking for it.
Otherwise, it's best to just stick with the feature-set that you know. KISS/YAGNI/if it ain't broke, don't fix it (but if it is broke, find a better way). Et other cliches.
Tolerance is tiresome. Putting up with nonsense, and being impelled to consume metaphorical shit, is vulgar to the soul.
In art, the nonsense is the lack of honesty. Inauthenticity brought forth and exhibited for all of us to see. People without a shred of depth having the obnoxiousness to put something out that appears to be more than it is. The hubris.
Each passing day, I understand the wisdom of the French and their intolerance more.
You've put to words an intuition I've always had, but been unable to verbalize: it irritates me when someone converses with the intent to reach some end... or just enters a conversation with some notion or emotion that they're holding tight onto, and will not waver no matter what.
Worse are those people with canned lines and vocal inflections... the same ones on repeat over and over again; like they've built up a toolbox of sound bites to navigate them through all of life. It's unbelievably grating to hear.
It feels vulgar... to make one's presence and desires so known and obvious... instead of having a conversation for its own sake... for the sake of amusement or personal expression...
It's as if they're treating socialization as a constant string of business deals to be navigated... gross.
I dislike the spirit of "/r/AmITheAsshole." I don't think I can put it into apt words, but it may go something like: "does this really matter?" and "must this really be exhibited for all to see?" and "who cares who the asshole is?"
I think you're getting a lot of "Yes, but"s that go on to completely disagree with the spirit of your post -- something I see annoyingly often... as if people are constantly piggybacking off what others are saying to say their own piece... (ha! I'm no different).
I would like to add something original instead: the act of selling out, and shifting one's focus towards money is an irreversible change in one's soul. I can feel it in myself, and I can plainly see it in others. It deadens the spirit, if only ever so slightly; but what is lost here is lost for good. And the more time is spent in that headspace, the more likely it is one will never be able to leave it.
I don't know what it is or how it works: I just notice it happens. Why does forsaking the more nuanced joys of life lead one to losing all nuance oneself?
Perhaps it's a comfort thing. Where you shed away all strong emotion in exchange for a consistent tranquility -- you also lose the very things that gave life depth. The opulence leads one's material needs to always being fulfilled, as if in a perfect bubble; where any sort of stimulus that could push one's emotions one way or the other are completely cut off.
And then once you start down this path... perhaps you become complacent. The bubble is comfortable, unvulgar, pleasant, unprovocative: why would you leave? All the things which spur one's emotions are quite the opposite. And it reinforces itself. The more you get a taste for this tranquility -- this unchanging homeostasis of comfort -- the more effort (consciously and unconsciously) you will put into maintaining it; and the more strongly its grip takes hold of you.
Until you lose all appetite for the things that enliven. You become boring, insular to life.
You would also burn a hole in your stomach if you took a 2-3g potassium pill(s).
For what it's worth: I've used "losalt" drinks for potassium-replenishment (especially during carbless diets), and it works well. Hard to overdose, because it will induce vomiting if you get reckless with the ratio of water to losalt.
Please speak for yourself. A comfortable cage does not inspire me to go above and beyond.
I very much doubt my "going the extra mile" will really affect anyone at all in any major way. It may make some made up numbers go up -- or down -- but realistically it will have no major effect on anyone at all, except myself (and negatively).
Whatever effect it elicits in another will be short-lived, and forgotten next quarter -- least of all recompensed sufficiently for the sacrifices made.
I think it may be that some people have low environmental-sensation barriers.
For them, hearing "bus factor" may make it through the barrier and result in an involuntary creation of imagery in their head of someone getting gruesomely hit by a bus, and then the corresponding emotions they would feel (or simply just the emotions, without the imagery).
Having worked both "grueling" manual labor jobs and "stressful" white collar work: I would rather be an ape living in some rain-forest.
I don't want to have complex thought. I don't want to have to perform feats of self-flagellation everyday in order to survive. I don't want to be forced to spend the entirety of my very short life in relative isolation, making some other ape filthy rich so he can escape the absurdity and emptiness of existence.
Let me hunt for other small animals with my tribe -- and then spend the rest of my time loafing about. I don't feel like contorting my body and mind as a glorified circus animal in order to get that metaphorical bread.
The deterioration of quality within the "elite universities" is self-evident if one goes by more nuanced measure than "how high up the industrial and political ladder" its graduates reach. What the contrary is, is a matter of values that I will not be elaborating upon (this conversation has become tiring).