
My Semester with the Snowflakes - bkohlmann
https://gen.medium.com/my-semester-with-the-snowflakes-888285f0e662
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jtwaleson
Previous discussion 4 days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21864639](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21864639)

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telesilla
Thanks for the link - it opens up more questions after I listened a while back
to the Serial podcast about Bergdahl's desertion that lead to the author's
injuries.

[https://serialpodcast.org/season-two](https://serialpodcast.org/season-two)

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gfodor
I’m not worried about the kids in college now who are too young, busy, and
roll their eyes at mainstream American political culture to give a shit about
the latest outrage-du-jour on Twitter. They’ll be graduating into the
strongest economy in American history. They’ll be just fine.

It’s the young adults who are a few years into their career being crushed by
high prices, low wages, holding useless degrees under piles of debt that I
imagine make up the majority of the online outage mobs and who are likely
going to be a lost generation.

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sysbin
> They’ll be graduating into the strongest economy in American history.
> They’ll be just fine.

How are you forecasting that future? Seems strange to read it with what you
see now and as you phrase the lost generation that's struggling from inflation
& low wages..

I'm skeptical but I think the worst is yet to come for the next generations.
Unless all the young adults that are struggling don't just all commit suicide
in the years to follow. It's going to be a disaster when time comes and they
need to retire but cannot. The burden will go on the young even more so than
what we can imagine today.

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siquick
And no mention of the elephant in the room - climate change.

It feels like we're already seeing it here in Sydney, Australia. We've had
dangerously low air quality from bush fires for the last 1.5 months and we now
have a serious water shortage.

I've been accepting of climate change up until recently - now I'm genuinely
worried about the future here.

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mikemotherwell
Why? That's weather and short term.
[https://aqicn.org/map/sydney](https://aqicn.org/map/sydney) is the pollution
in Sydney. Here is Jakarta
[https://aqicn.org/map/jakarta](https://aqicn.org/map/jakarta)

Look at the historical data: all red and yellow for Jakarta, almost all green
for Sydney, with the last two months an exception.

Climate change is going to have little to no impact on Sydney now or in the
next 50-60 years.

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abraae
How do you get from a map of the current air quality in Sydney to blithely
saying climate change will have "little to no effect" on Sydney for the next
60 years?

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TuringTest
It is a common trolling strategy, I have seen it applied elsewhere to
delegitimise measures against climate change.

It doesn't make any sense, but apparently it is enough to satisfy the
unsophisticated blind followers of climate denialism. Anything that sounds
contrarian and data-based is deemed a sufficient response to distract
attention, which is scarce in most online discussion forums.

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sneak
It’s interesting how much implied context is in this: that someone old, and
related to the military (presumably right-leaning from the “snowflake” term),
likely distrusts/disrespects someone young and wealthy from the coasts
(presumably left-leaning from geography).

Are we really so polarized? Are hundreds of millions so gung-ho to flock away
from the center? Can the whole American situation be approximately summed up,
statistically, by these two exaggerated caricatures?

It seems that’s the tone of the article. Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s wrong,
but either way I would hope that the real situation is more nuanced than that.

Maybe the situation on the ground really is that bad in some places. I don’t
leave my house in the US much other than to fly out of the country, and only
know what I read online about it. Can someone with direct experiences in these
places shed some more light?

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SpicyLemonZest
I feel like this is a pretty weird reading of the article. The author makes it
clear that the real situation _is_ more nuanced than that, that the people
he's met at Yale aren't trying to flock away from the center at all.

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sneak
I feel like the article is written into that presumption/expectation. It comes
very much from a “I was like that, but now I am like this” place.

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catchmeifyoucan
Well written piece! Never stop learning.

In a way there's an underlying political statement here on how diverse
opinions and education changes perspective.

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kortilla
It’s not really “education” that changed his perspective but rather immersion
in a group of people with a completely different mindset. The same could be
accomplished spending time with them in a job, a volunteer group, a prison,
etc. He also likely wouldn’t have changed his perspective much if he took the
courses online asynchronously.

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sneak
I wonder what percentage of the United States, due to time commitments related
to family and work, get to spend time/immersion in groups other than their
facebook/instagram tribe and television/radio broadcasters.

My hunch is that it’s pretty low.

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abraae
If you are part of an enormous tribe comprising virtually half the country,
made up of people who think like you and more or less share your views, why
would you hang out with the other tribe?

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sneak
I don’t think either of these tribes comprise “virtually half the country” or
even an approximation thereof.

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g000m
Great quote: "To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is
dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect."

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luord
> Later at some point during the day, a young student placed a glove with red
> paint on it on one of the flags as she wanted to demonstrate her displeasure
> with something…I’m not quite sure what.

> These hardworking kids are very kind and thoughtful. A far cry from the
> picture that is often painted of them.

I'm... Confused, to say the least. In fact, those two paragraphs encapsulate
my confusion at the post in general.

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BMorearty
I love this essay.

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lechemin
Interesting article. Read it this morning. Curious what the 'snowflakes' think
about it.

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EncryptEntropy
Stop reposting this over and over.

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blackflame
There was once a guy in his mid-40s that tried to rush the fraternity I was
in. I don't think there were any rules that prohibited it either except
extreme creepiness.

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sillysaurusx
Why would people be unwelcome after a certain age? They’re just as valid of a
student as anyone else.

“Tried” implies he failed. I wonder if it was due to his own merits, or due to
bias against him due to age.

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kortilla
Fraternities have very little to do with the education aspect of being a
student.

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blackflame
College provides more education opportunities than just those found in the
classroom. Social skills are just as fundamental as arithmetic in a successful
career.

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he0001
I always thought the “liberal snowflake” term is quite odd. I guess I could
qualify or classified as one. There’s something wrong with that statement. I
think the meaning of it is quite the opposite. As a liberal, you realize that
you are not a special individual and must cooperate to gain more, to
distribute the available resources for some sort of greater progress, such as
health care for everyone etc. Being the opposite is just what a snowflake
would be. The one of a kind, just me and my capabilities and resources against
the rest of the world. If you don’t have an insurance to give the appropriate
healthcare to your loved ones, you, and only you are the failure here, not the
collective “us”.

I believe I was less liberal in my youth, but since when I got my children I
can’t bare the thought of not being able to pay their health care if they ever
needed it. Even though that’s not a problem for me, I still think of it very
often when I see them sick.

