I saw someone post this was due to H1B visas. Then I drilled into the comments and saw it was a Palestine protest. It is getting hard to know what is true anymore as everyone is trying to push their own narrative.
To me, this seems like a rather unfortunate indicator of the death in intellectualism in this country. Granted I recall having stances and an optimistic naivete after graduating college and positions that, while still broadly liberal and left-leaning, shifted notably over the decades since. However, it pains me a bit to see how much "essentialism" stands as an argument and way of understanding the world, even to graduates of a top-tier institution. The argument that the Israel/Palestine situation is "essentially" genocide, rather than a tragic and complicated reality where the precise characterization of the situation is debated immensely and relies on ones own biases and expanding or narrowing the definition of the term. The further argument that since Google does business with Israel, they are "essentially" complicit and supporters of aforementioned genocide.
Depending on one's biases, my previous statement will likely elicit some sort of reaction, especially to college grads of this generation, without me ever stating a position.
This all to me is a rather unfortunate place for academia and intellectualism to have landed in the past decades. Or was it always this bad? I don't think so, I do think that always-online and recommendation engines and gameification of social media has created an acceleration of this.
But it pains me to think about where this is evolving to, and how these graduates will navigate life in the extremely complicated, suboptimal, often hateful or self-interested world we live in, if this is where they get to after graduating from a top institution.
I wonder what percentage of total graduates walked out? The video shows maybe around 50 people at all. The title makes it seem like everyone graduating walked out.
I went to the Electrical Engineering ceremony, the only speakers were from the faculty and one newly minted B.S.E.E. I biked there and saw there were a lot of smaller ceremonies across the campus outside of the stadium the photo captures.
Pretty light hearted, and honestly considering that he's given a speech to an empty stadium before (as referenced in the first few sentences, I think he'll have handled it just fine.
> But people have also been giving me a lot of advice on what to say. Actually, it’s been the same advice, and it’s about what not to say. People thought it would be really difficult for me; it is the last two letters of my last name, after all.
Ha, chuckle-worthy. Of course he'd find it hard to not pitch AI.
The only thing I find surprising is no-one points out that Stanford is a truly elite education system: Some 2 in 5 of students enter disabled, but almost all of them end up successful over time.
I skipped mine. Definitely worth skipping - I don't really need the super expensive pep talk by someone who I almost always really don't want to hear from, inspiration porn is free (and largely unavoidable) by the gigaton nowadays.
Save the money, fund the humanities with it. Maybe then the people planning these speakers would realize why people are booing and walking out.
Everyone loves the "free Palestine" slogan, but I've never actually seen the people who call it offer a concrete realistic solution that could achieve that - is it a two state solution? Is it a one state solution that will burst into a civil war? What's the plan?
What does it actually look like?
I still think a two state solution is the only realistic plan.
I don't have a plan, but we could at least stop being part of the problem by not giving billions of dollars a year in military funding to their oppressors. If you really want to go crazy, we could stop arms sales to their oppressors altogether. That might not result in a free Palestine, but at least we'd no longer be contributing to its un-free condition.
The reason a two state solution seems unworkable is because the people who were there, and had their land systematically taken from them, are considered to be the ones that have to compromise. The world panders to the colonisers, who despite having a huge amount of wealth and global support, always want more than they've already got.
Regardless of the details of this speech, I believe Sundar Pichai is uncommonly out of touch with reality and with the nation of the United States of America, even among tech CEOs.
Counterpoint, he is Google top CEO by stock percentage gain and possibly by management. Pichai successfully focused (can't say "pivoted" to AI because they've long been a/the leader) Google on AI (compare to Microsoft) and streamlined many of Google's redundant/fruitless efforts.
Will they reject google / meta / etc internships and job offers? If not and I suspect not, it's the classic performative stuff activists around the world are used to.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 49.4 ms ] threadDepending on one's biases, my previous statement will likely elicit some sort of reaction, especially to college grads of this generation, without me ever stating a position.
This all to me is a rather unfortunate place for academia and intellectualism to have landed in the past decades. Or was it always this bad? I don't think so, I do think that always-online and recommendation engines and gameification of social media has created an acceleration of this.
But it pains me to think about where this is evolving to, and how these graduates will navigate life in the extremely complicated, suboptimal, often hateful or self-interested world we live in, if this is where they get to after graduating from a top institution.
Pretty light hearted, and honestly considering that he's given a speech to an empty stadium before (as referenced in the first few sentences, I think he'll have handled it just fine.
> But people have also been giving me a lot of advice on what to say. Actually, it’s been the same advice, and it’s about what not to say. People thought it would be really difficult for me; it is the last two letters of my last name, after all.
Ha, chuckle-worthy. Of course he'd find it hard to not pitch AI.
The only thing I find surprising is no-one points out that Stanford is a truly elite education system: Some 2 in 5 of students enter disabled, but almost all of them end up successful over time.
Save the money, fund the humanities with it. Maybe then the people planning these speakers would realize why people are booing and walking out.
What does it actually look like?
I still think a two state solution is the only realistic plan.
He should step down.
I wish more people had the guts to reject Google and the panopticon they’ve built.