
Refusal after Refusal - petsormeat
http://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/issues/46/refusal-after-refusal
======
ptero
> I woke up ... and took 450 milligrams of bupropion, 50 milligrams of
> Lamictal, 5 milligrams of aripiprazole, and 200 milligrams of modafinil ...
> few hours later, I took 20 milligrams of Adderall. Only then was I able to
> write this paragraph.

We all have bad days, but if this psychiatric cocktail is a daily routine
caused by the job stresses the author should fix him/herself first before
advising others, especially prospective students. Sorry, it sounds harsh. But
the author should consider taking some of his/her own medicine and switch
employers or careers. Even if it makes one a bit poorer, it is better long
term. And if that helps it would make for a more informative future post.

~~~
pjc50
Even if that's a true and accurate account of their medication (which sounds
like rather a lot to me, but I'm not a pharmacologist), it also serves as a
Hunter S Thompson reference. Which seems deliberate when you're writing a 4k
word essay with 28 references in. Especially when you're referencing Negri.

~~~
trippypig
This must be hyperbole. The 450 mg of Buproprion alone is hard to believe.

~~~
sk5t
For something pressed in the 5mg to 30mg range, it seems very ludicrous a dose
indeed.

~~~
trippypig
It's a bit higher than that. 150 mg for anti-smoking (as Xyban), 300 mg for
severe depression or Bipolar 1 (as Wellbutrin) is not uncommon, but with all
the others (esp. the Adderall and the mood stabilizer) and coffee to chase,
yeah, that would wake up a mummified corpse.

That shrink should have his license pulled.

(That said, Buproprion is a miracle drug. As far as antidepressants go, it's
in class all by itself.)

~~~
pmiller2
> As far as antidepressants go, [buproprion is] in class all by itself.

I'd like to emphasize that this is literally a true statement. It's what's
called an atypical antidepressant [0] because it doesn't act in a way similar
to other antidepressants.

\---

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atypical_antidepressant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atypical_antidepressant)

~~~
anon2775
The word "literally" is misused, unnecessary and annoying.

~~~
pmiller2
Unnecessary? Only in the sense that my sentence works without the word. It's a
rhetorical device.

Annoying? You must be easily annoyed.

But, misused? Not if you agree with definition 3 on dictionary.com: "actually;
without exaggeration or inaccuracy." [0]

\---

[0]:
[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/literally](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/literally)

~~~
trippypig
I should have know better than to use THAT word on the internet. How silly of
me.

------
Traubenfuchs
That was the most pretentious creative writing homework I have read in a long
time.

The verbose and complicated presentation makes me disinterested in the
content.

Also, yes, an effort should be made to let college students know the sad
reality of working as architect.

~~~
circlefavshape
I thought the writing was ok but ... do architecture students really believe
they're about to transform the world through architecture? If so - why?

~~~
necovek
Does anyone into anything out of passion _not_ believe so?

I believed so as I enrolled into mathematics, physics and computer science
studies, only to be very much disappointed with academia (more than I
expected: I did not expect much, but what I've met was sadder than I could
envision).

~~~
subw00f
Yeah, maybe when you're 16~18, then you grow up and understand just how hard
it is to make a difference even in your own social circle, let alone the
world. I guess people should stop pretending all the great man and woman we
hear about today did their thing alone. They all needed someone else, even if
just to make their ideas popular or to give them financial means.

~~~
necovek
I've never claimed I envisioned doing it solo. That's where most of the
disappointment actually came from: teaching assistants and professors were so
uninterested in the subjects they were giving, they'd hardly motivate anyone,
let alone give them a chance to participate in anything world-changing. Even
to the point that out-of-the-box creativity was punished. That drove the
student body to turn into an exam-passing automata.

Universities are a perfect place for that, and I hoped for such a stimulating
environment. I did end up meeting a teacher or two in later years that met my
expectations, but they never stuck around long enough.

And no, the fame is not the driver, imho: I believe all humans would gladly
contribute to a challenging problem solution, without requiring ego
satisfaction (that can come later :)).

------
iron0013
Thank you for sharing this, I enjoyed it very much. I've always been
fascinated by the fact that the culture of architecture is (or at least has
been) more aligned with that of art and literary criticism than, for example,
engineering. I get the feeling that most here at Hacker News would think
that's a bad or ridiculous thing, but I think it's wonderful.

------
mcguire
" _While the typical college student in the United States accrues an average
of $29,420 in student debt..._ "

Ok, this is killing me.

That statement comes from
[https://archinect.com/features/article/112509888/the-
state-o...](https://archinect.com/features/article/112509888/the-state-of-
debt-and-the-price-of-architecture), which says, " _While the average student
debt for a US American student is $29,400,..._ " and links to a search,
[https://ticas.org/search/google/posd%20OR%20homestate%20OR%2...](https://ticas.org/search/google/posd%20OR%20homestate%20OR%20by%20OR%20state%20OR%20data).
On the other hand, they're not the only ones:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/06/13/student...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/06/13/student-
loan-debt-statistics-2018/#38d08bff7310).

Here's the deal: all of the numbers I can find in the $30,000-$40,000 range
are for _people with some educational debt._ In other words, it excludes those
without debt. (Want to bump up your average? Exclude the zeros.)

" _Twenty-seven percent of adults report that they borrowed money to pay for
expenses related to their own education, .... Among just those who completed
at least some education beyond high school, 41 percent acquired at least some
debt to finance that education, and half of those who completed at least a
bachelor 's degree acquired at least some debt in the process._" \-
[https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2016-economic-
wel...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2016-economic-well-being-
of-us-households-in-2015-education-debt-student-loans.htm)

Second, this defines "the typical college student" as the average college
student with debt, as those are the numbers they're using, as opposed to the
median college student college student. The median is consistently lower: "
_Among respondents who report that they currently owe student loan debt for
their own education, the mean level of this debt is $30,156 and the median is
$12,000. (The median amount of education debt is consistently lower than the
mean due to some individuals with large levels of debt)._ " \-
[https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2016-economic-
wel...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2016-economic-well-being-
of-us-households-in-2015-education-debt-student-loans.htm)

In fact, the reference this essay uses says, " _In the United States, around
40 million people currently hold student debt,_ " linking to
[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kyle-mccarthy/10-fun-facts-
ab...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kyle-mccarthy/10-fun-facts-about-
student-loan-debt_b_4639044.html), which links to
[http://pages.citebite.com/c2y6l3p2t8uga](http://pages.citebite.com/c2y6l3p2t8uga),
" _More than 40 million Americans have student loan debt, amounting to roughly
$1.2 trillion in outstanding debt._ " [Thus, the roughly $30,000 average
value.]

I just wish to note that
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States#General_attainment_of_degrees/diplomas),
[https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-
ag...](https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-
age/?dataView=1&currentTimeframe=0&selectedDistributions=adults-19-25--
adults-26-34--adults-35-54--adults-55-64--
65&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D)) there are
roughly 125 million Americans with a bachelors or greater, leading to an
"average" student loan debt of $9,600.

Does the Harvard Design Review fact-check their essays? Is the author taking
entirely too many psychoactives?

Thanks. I feel better now.

------
3pt14159
There is a real problem, but this article does it a disservice.

The problem is that we've got arms races everywhere and they're making it
impossible to live up to the standard of living we could have if we didn't
have them. Architecture can be beautiful, but it isn't in designing parking
garages.

Take property prices, for example. There's only so much land in Toronto.
There's only so much lakefront property two hours north of there. Even leaving
aside mortgages (which only exacerbate the issue) the intellectual 1% is going
to fight it out to get a piece of that no matter what.

This is the double edged sword that is capitalism. It does good when it pushes
out the candlemakers for the lightbulb manufacturers, but the very same
mechanism has a cost and it's levied at the very shareholders and workers it
enriches.

Advertising, education, housing, and (in the US) healthcare are all where
we're dumping our money and if we were smarter about it we could tax or
regulate sensible limits to them. Or at least come to figure out a better
arrangement like we did with our world's security to blunt actual arms races
via liberalism.

------
JackFr
70 hour weeks for $70000 is $20/hr, not $15/hr as stated in the article.

~~~
kittiepryde
If you calculate with overtime, it is.

    
    
      40+30*1.5 = 85 effective hours
      70000/52/85 = $15.84 hour

~~~
JackFr
Indeed. I hadn't considered that.

~~~
mcguire
Who, with a college degree or without a union, gets overtime?

------
turgidity

      The machinist, the one they 
      called Chef, was from New 
      Orleans. He was wrapped too 
      tight for Vietnam, probably 
      wrapped too tight for New 
      Orleans.

