Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
Around 200 Stanford students walk out as Google CEO takes stage (sfgate.com)
92 points by pera 1 hour ago
3 comments

This is an effective form of protest. It causes someone who is clearly courting public affection to see they won't get it. It doesn't interrupt the speech for others who want to hear. But it's also not going to be missed by anyone at the assembly. Moreover, it communicates to the administration–who are also courting donations and prestige–that this gets more difficult when there is a massive gap on an issue students care about between them and leadership.

My only gripe is the lack of a clear ask. But perfect is the enemy of good.

Is it? I have to assume that Pichai was informed beforehand that there would be a walkout. Around 10% if the class walking out is not that big of a deal, especially considering that ten percent was probably not likely to seek gainful employment with Pichai’s companies anyway.

Economically, the BDS movement is making demands of so many companies that there’s hardly a large firm or other organization in the country they don’t have a problem with. But if you are saying you’re going to boycott everyone, it means you’re not really boycotting anyone.

The upper middle class' opinions and reflections on business seem to be shifting in this environment. It seems less mutually beneficial than it used to be.
A lot of upper middle class people recognize that AI is a direct assault on their livelihood. The very jobs that AI threatens to disrupt are the bread and butter of the upper middle class.
"The median family income of a student from Stanford is $167,500" [1]. Not poor. But not trust-fund rich.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit...:

Considering the price of Stanford, this is more bourgeoisie than middle class
> this is more bourgeoisie than middle class

The bourgeoisie are literally the middle class [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie

> The bourgeoisie are a social class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_class#Bourg...

There is even a funny article here: https://danielmiessler.com/blog/a-bourgeoisie-primer

You can learn more here: https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/hilk3e/trying...

So, if you want to play it safe, you can say, "it's the upper middle class that own the businesses and factories"

> No, it's the rich middle class

The "no" is incorrect. Some people use it to refer to the upper middle class. But this betrays the term's original Revolutionary as well as Marxists roots, and I'd argue, is inherently incorrect.

The main reason we blur these lines is because we want to call our poor middle class. And our rich don't want to admit that we're rich.

What I was about to say. I’m pretty sure most of the students walking out have a trust fund way more than what I have as savings.