[woofie11]

I went to MIT, and I can confidently say it's no better than many schools a tier or two down. What you describe is a difference in personality, more than in tier. There are party ivies, and there are some really awesome 2nd or 3rd tier tech schools. Some of the lower-tier tech schools are just like MIT in virtually all respect, except brand.

That said, brand matters.

MIT now invests incredibly heavily in brand development, compromising integrity, research quality, and teaching-and-learning. For grads, that's paid off. My degree has gone up in value a lot over the years.

[Melting_Harps]

What do you make of Eric Weinstein's recent interview on Lex Fridman's AI podcast (both MIT alumni) specifically the taking back MIT portion:

https://youtu.be/rIAZJNe7YtE?t=6418

I've been conflicted with MIT as an institution ever since the death of Aaron Swartz, it stood by and then participated in what ultimately took the life of a great member of the hacker/tech community, but I understand and accept that so many great minds go there to create some of the greatest innovation the Human Species' is capable of.

It was sad to hear Eric's plight was the same trivial political non-sense and administrative corruption that I encountered in the low tier State Schools I attended, his impact was far greater to say the least of course. Which apparently also the case with Harvard. This seems systemic, and not just a prestige campus based occurrence.

The closest I ever got to MIT was a clim co-lab project I was involved in that was accepted into the finalist rounds in sustainability and presented on campus at the awards.

I couldn't attend the event as I was working on my startup in CO, so I didn't see it from within; but I was told by the project lead that it was a great experience, even if nothing really came of it--there is lots of hand shaking, but ultimately prize winners are given a small token sum, not really even seed money to get a project off the ground so the best thing you can do is network for well endowed collaborative partners and find leads for real funding.

[woofie11]

I can't comment on the whole talk, since I only watched a little segment of it, but yes, for MIT to be a force of good in the world, it would need to be taken back by the nerds. I'd love to see that happen.

The leadership is overrun by brand-focused, power-seeking, money-grubbing sleaze-balls. That's drifted down, taking over some parts of the Institute, and leaving others okay-ish. But if left unchecked, it will take over the whole thing and ruin it.

We definitely still need a place in the world where nerds can do their thing.

It's hard for me to express how much less visible MIT was when I went there, and how much higher the quality of the research was as well. When I applied, scientists respected it, but popular audiences confused MIT with ITT. A highly-branded high-dollar MIT of the type we have today brings in the wrong sorts of people. Nerds have no chance of competing with them for power, and they have no chance of competing with nerds for intellectual curiosity.

But I think the time for taking back MIT may have passed.

Aaron Swartz is far from the worst thing that happened at MIT; things like that now happen regularly. MIT "wised up" to the use of NDAs and non-disparage agreements in protecting its branding.