the Sam Jackson College Experience

The Physical Impossibility of Graduation in the Mind of Someone Enrolled

Sam Jackson — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:34:33 +0000

Three years ago this time, I was just starting my Yale experience as a freshman. Now, my little sister is starting school - at Carleton - and I'm getting ready to finish. That's a scary thought indeed. Before we cross that frightful threshold out of the ivory tower come May, however, I have a few more credits and quite a lot more courses that I will take along the way. Let's explore!

I've been catalog-browsing and will begin going to courses proper tomorrow. Shopping period at Yale is a magical, mystical thing. I have been writing about it on and off since before I set foot on campus. When I first got here, I was bursting with excitement about the many classes to choose from, and it's still a delight to me, for all the stresses that it might produce.

I traded my four-day weekends of freshman fall for 5-days-a-week Chinese sophomore fall, but that hasn't stopped me from a huge amount of intellectual adventuring. While I've taken some lumps and developed some degree of cynicism since, I still very much love Yale and love being here. Classes are a big part of that, especially once I figured out that you didn't have to take lectures as a Political Science major unless you really wanted to. (I don't, so I don't).

This post is meant principally to talk about the classes that I'm looking at this semester - though, apologies, I can't help it if I start to wax nostalgic and teary-eyed looking back on three years of the collegiate experience.

Onwards!

These pictures should convey a sense of what my shopping looks like: a well-organized mess. I have a large roster of classes that I would like, but can only reasonably take about five of them. This fact, and my past abuses / excesses, mean that I am theoretically only 5 credits (or one semester) away from graduating. But, because I have a lot of classes not strictly speaking in my major, graduating a semester early would be a terrible strain.

Plus, I like Yale so much that it's worth stomaching thousands and thousands (...and thousands) of dollars to be there another semester. I hope.

The smaller photo gives a sense of the layout of my week; that shows the 18 classes that are "most likely" to be shopped, adjusted for schedule conflicts. If seminars let out early, there are other classes that I would like to attend to investigate for future study, mor curiosity, or whatever. A separate page has a lot of classes that I might like to stop in sometime to hear -- a particularly good lecture can be fun to listen to, even if I wouldn't want to be stuck in the class for 13 weeks.

I pre-registered for State-Building, with Keith Darden, and Language & Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans with Robert Greenberg. This is because I know from first hand experience that both are awesome professors, and both courses deal with fascinating subjects, from different angles. More on these later. I am shopping approximately 15 other Political Science / International Studies / Ethics, Politics, Economics style courses as well; all tend to be similarly interesting to me.

I have to be careful to try not to take too many in Political Philosophy since I need to diversify my classes, as it were, for my major. This is a kind of confusing process because the course divisions for PLSC are only listed on certain secret websites. You can guess by course numbers, but not always. This is because there are more total courses taught over the record keeping period than there are course numbers. This means there are numerous repeats in the class range from 100 to 499... lot of Poli Sci courses indeed!

What will I shop, if not seriously try to get into? Some samples:

PLSC or its Social Scientific cousins:

Democracy & Constitutionalism
U.S. Party Formation
Public Opinion in China
Means and Ends in Politics
American Founding Debates
Moral Capital and International Politics
Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves

Outside PLSC:

Direction of Time (Exploration into the nature of time, some philosophy of physics here)
Language and Computation

All in all, it should be a fun week. As a senior, my schedule is not due until 5 pm the 15th. That means I have 2 full weeks of classes to shop, though in most cases, I would never take a class unless I went to a meeting of it, which means going to the first class for seminars. This limits total shoppability, but extensive syllabus stalking and preparatory work ensures that the best decisions are made. The best laid plans still go awry, as has happened to me in past semesters.

I think that things will go well, and will report to you, my dutiful Internet Public, the results of shopping period...

Any questions always welcome, happy to help enlighten those poor unlucky souls who are still long-time readers or found their way here by search engine.

Welcome Home Arlo! (My New Puppy!!!)

Sam Jackson — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:18:45 +0000

Since my younger sister is going off to college, my mom and dad have wisely chosen to substitute a puppy for her! Arlo is our new puppy who has just come home last Friday. SADLY I have not been able to meet this wonderful golden retriever puppy, because I am still in San Francisco. But one week from now, I will be able to give him a big hug!

Here's a photo of Arlo and Cozmo having a nice time outside together. Cozmo certainly sounds like he is jealous of the puppy's attention, but I think they will get along fine! What a cute puppy : )

“Gypsies, Tramps, & Thieves” : Best Political Science course this semester (thus far)

Sam Jackson — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:37:51 +0000

So, the semester has not yet started, but today we received the list of classes that we could pre-register for in Political Science. Most majors allow those majors to pre-register for at least some of the classes, though you still have a good shot of getting into seminars afterwards.

I've done quite well over the years getting into classes that I want, and ever since second semester freshman year, I've tried hard to take as few lectures as possible, focusing instead just on seminars.

Here's my favorite course so far, in terms of originality. I'm not sure if I will pre-register for it, but I'll definitely try to shop the class (note: shopping, as in shopping period, the chaotic first two weeks of school where no schedules are solid and you can go to any class. Best part.)

The extended description below.

PLSC 154, Gypsies, Tramps, & Thieves

Instructor: Alec Sweet
Field Distribution: International Relations
Day and Time: T, 1:30-3:20

Expanded Description:

The course examines how people who have chosen to live outside, or on the margins of, “normal” society govern themselves, through constructing and maintaining a defining culture, “law,” and modes of dispute resolution. Cases will include the Roma in Europe, hobos and other transient workers in North America, pirates in the 18th and 19th centuries, and perhaps others (e.g., the Sicilian mafia). One purpose of the course is to consider a range of theories about how discrete human communities make rules and resolve their disputes, with what social effects. We will do so with reference to groups who, through choice or necessity, live beyond the reach of state law and courts.

The course will be divided into four sections. We begin (I) by comparing how Mayan Indians and Cowboys in Shasta County have governed themselves, within their respective state systems (Mexico and California). In addition to introducing general concepts, we will also compare anthropological and economic traditions of analysis. We will then focus, in turn, on (II) pirates, reading closely the new book by Peter Leesen, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates; (III) tramps, and the classic compilation of Hobo lore by Joyce Kornbluh, Rebel Voices; and (IV) gypsies, with a focus on various aspects of Roma (including Manouche and Gitan) life and law.

-----------

Yes, this is Yale, where we take classes on Vikings and Pirates.

Loving it!

“Solitude and Leadership” : An Address at West Point

Sam Jackson — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:55:13 +0000

William Deresiewicz gave a very interesting address at West Point this past spring, I discovered. I do not always agree with his opinions, but his essays -- and, it seems, his speeches -- generally provoke interesting discussions and a great deal of thought. In that regard, they are very valuable indeed, for it is too rare a thing which can provoke a good debate on topics of serious import.

This speech is about leadership, and in it Deresiewicz tackles the problems posed for thosed christened the "future leaders of the world" when faced with mediocre leadership in the here and now. Those who have fought their way into Yale and West Point and Stanford and other places, he observes, are not fully informed on how to navigate the jungle of bureaucracy that threatens to ensnares their ambitions and dreams.

In "Solitude and Leadership," he therefore contends, "If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts." Ultimately, he writes:

"I started by noting that solitude and leadership would seem to be contradictory things. But it seems to me that solitude is the very essence of leadership. The position of the leader is ultimately an intensely solitary, even intensely lonely one. However many people you may consult, you are the one who has to make the hard decisions. And at such moments, all you really have is yourself."

I recommend giving it a read, as it is an interesting piece. Here it is again, in The American Scholar: http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/

Summer update

Sam Jackson — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:28:46 +0000

Just a quick summer update. I'm in San Francisco this summer, working in Mountain View at Google. Aside from fog and free food, I am looking forward to making new connections, so if you're reading this and want to grab a cup of tea, do write / call me and we'll try to sort things out.

I can't say really much (anything) about my job, as per usual, but things are going pretty well. This is the second week of what is now my third summer (!!!) at Google. Different things each summer, so trying always to find new things to learn and develop myself.

For general updates about the summer, I encourage you to go to my twitter or, I have a current 'streaming' Tumblr that I am trying to use to post photos to from the go, etc. Check that out at stream.samjackson.org.

Chinese Youth and the Social Web

Sam Jackson — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:14:45 +0000

My name is Sam Jackson, and I am currently a rising senior political science major at Yale University (Class of 2011). In the fall of 2009, I was a participant of the Yale-PKU Joint Program, based in Beijing. There I had the opportunity to live and study with Chinese students. I found the unique ways that Chinese students approached the internet - and, especially, the social web - to be of great interest. I wanted to find a way to share some of what I was discovering from my time studying abroad. This was made possible through the support and encouragement of danah boyd and Microsoft Research, for whom I prepared this report, Chinese Youth and the Social Web (PDF).

While in China, I conducted a series of interviews with friends and other students readily accessible to me (and my language abilities). I subsequently transcribed portions of these interviews and arranged them with additional commentary into a larger report. The ultimate goal of this work is to offer a rough answer to the following question: "How can we understand youth practices in a Chinese context?"

A few key questions focused this general theme:

a) Where do students go online? What’s cool, and what’s not?
b) Why do Chinese youth use the sites that they do?
c) How (if it all) can different online communities be characterized?
d) What are common usage practices, and how do they meaningfully differ from those in the United States?
e) How do underlying factors in China – institutional and cultural – shape usage of social network sites and tools?

The report is divided into three main sections: first, a general background or topology of the social web as it applies to students at Beida; secondly, a report on early experiences online and the role parents play; lastly, perceptions of safety and attitudes towards privacy online.

Here again is the completed report (PDF). It is a small, qualitative snapshot meant to help situate the reader, and I hope that you enjoy reading it. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them here, either in the comments or as a personal note to me.

I am also infinitely grateful for the patience of all those interviewed as I asked endless questions about the differences between different instant messaging programs, websites, mobile phone company data plans, and the specifics of managing their identities online.

Please enjoy! If you'd like to read more about my time in China, look for posts with the tag 'China' to read previous posts I have written. Thanks for reading.

a) Where do students go online? What’s cool, and what’s not?

b) Why do Chinese youth use the sites that they do?

c) How (if it all) can different online communities be characterized?

d) What are common usage practices, and how do they meaningfully differ from those in the United States?

e) How do underlying factors in China – institutional and cultural – shape usage of social network sites and tools?

Recent Thoughts about Privacy Online (and Facebook)

Sam Jackson — Sun, 09 May 2010 07:05:49 +0000

I was interviewed two weeks ago for an article in the NYT, titled "The Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline," which just came out today. This was great fun and I had a very good talk with the writer, Laura Holson. Sadly a lot of what we discussed seemed to end up on the editing room floor, and as a result I wanted to more fully elucidate my views on privacy online. (Think of this also as the opening salvo in what I hope will be a new (renewed) project to share more of my thoughts about technology, probably in a new blog. Still working on a name.)

If you have not yet, please go read the article. Done? Good! I think the article can be summed up well by this line:

"The conventional wisdom suggests that everyone under 30 is comfortable revealing every facet of their lives online, from their favorite pizza to most frequent sexual partners. But many members of the tell-all generation are rethinking what it means to live out loud."

All very true. It's great that Holson was interested in covering this angle which is so weirdly contrarian - that young people should care about privacy! Please note, however, that the conventional wisdom is not just 'recently' wrong - it always has been. (Separate discussion). My opinions were collapsed in the context of the article into that framework, but I think they merit some further elaboration. Personally, I never wanted to 'live out loud.' I am cognizant of the fact that technology is making our lives broadcast more and more, and that more and more information about us is available online. As a result, I want to strictly control my online persona. I want to be able to share information with my friends, and in some cases with weaker ties or even strangers. But I don't want to broadcast every detail of my life, not now, not ever.

I'm always the cranky person complaining about Facebook and various other privacy encroachments, not to mention the serious civil liberties violations that have taken place in such alarming number over the last decade. But, these are not new thoughts. In fact, thanks to my interactions online, I have explicit documentation... (a blessing and a curse). Consider my statements late 2007 (so, Senior fall, HS) in response to a danah boyd - Robert Scoble discussion about Facebook:

"Facebook as a tool loses much of its usefulness to many of its users if it’s made too public. Many of them don’t know that yet, though. There will be a period of disconnect there, I think."

I think in many respects that disconnect continues because Facebook has been so good at deceiving its users. When Facebook claims that it is simply responding to new privacy 'norms and mores' alone, it cannot be taken at all seriously. Whether such a statement is true or not is subject to some debate, but what is certain is that the more access Facebook has to our personal information, and the more it can be shared, the greater their profit potential through advertising and other uses of personal information.

Every time Facebook redesigns its site, it resets privacy defaults to the most public possible settings, and makes it very hard for the uninformed users to realize what is going on, much less how to change things and assert their old privacy standards onto new opportunities for exposure. Even for those who know exactly what Facebook is up to, and want to stop them, it can be hard to defend oneself!

There are some, citing here again Robert Scoble, who are jumping on the 'expose everything' bandwagon. That is fine for them, they should be given the tools to do so if they like, but I should not be dragged into that affair. I feel bad highlighting Scoble's example because it is just this kind of situation that leads him to over-share; commentary as an opportunity for self-promotion. He likes sharing because, as he is situated, it brings him attention and influence. (Then again, what am I doing here?).

That aside, My ordinary interactions with friends are not something that I want indexed for eternity and accessible to all. Unfortunately, one must often act as if that were the case, simply because companies like Facebook cannot be trusted, and even if they could, your weakest link is always the other people who have access - you'll never have total lockdown. That doesn't mean it hurts to try.

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Let's turn back to the New York Times piece.

Sam Jackson, a junior at Yale who started a blog when he was 15 and who has been an intern at Google, said he had learned not to trust any social network to keep his information private. “If I go back and look, there are things four years ago I would not say today,” he said. “I am much more self-censoring. I’ll try to be honest and forthright, but I am conscious now who I am talking to.” He has learned to live out loud mostly by trial and error and has come up with his own theory: concentric layers of sharing.

Unfortunately what comes after that sentence somehow was disappeared in editing. I described 'concentric layers of sharing,' which is important to how I conceptualize information on the web. Let me work through it here:

Layer 1 (most private):

Technically, this would be e-mail, Skype, instant messages, this kind of medium. 1:1, private, and if there is a breach, it's only through gross security flaws or the failures of my counterparty.

Layer 2 (reasonable expectations of privacy):

Facebook, though less and less so over time. For the best graphic on the ways Facebook has continually made inroads in selling out its users for profit, please see this excellent chart / graph / animation. As you can see, over time Facebook has tried to make you share more and more of your private information. However, even so, Facebook isfunctionally a more private medium than the next layers. I try to work through the privacy trainwreck as best I can and use Facebook therefore to share more semi-private information. My Facebook is clean not just because my life is (truly!) but also because I know that it really can't be trusted. However, I'll still post on a friend's Facebook wall a comment complaining about a mutual teacher, or similar complaint.

This is because even if Facebook has security problems, it is not directly indexable (or at least, I try to make it as little as possible). This may one day change, and I will end up being embarassed by the kinds of remarks that can be taken in aggregate or out of context as potentially problematic. For a very long time I tried not to upload many photos to Facebook because of three reasons: a) the policy wherein Facebook claimed ownership of your photos, reserving the rights to use it commercially as long as it was up, in potentially unhappy ways; b) the terrible upload quality of Facebook photos versus say, Flickr or Picasa; c) I have been continually faced with fewer and fewer reasons to ever trust Mark Zuckerberg and Co. (List not exhaustive).

I was, of course, pressured into uploading them... the better to share with friends; with family; so that friends of my-friends-who-were-not-friends-of-me could see their photos... the list goes on. Eventually, I caved in some instances, but for a long time I would upload just a few and then offer links to the full content at my self-hosted Gallery2 installation (since dead). But photos are still a good example: I don't upload anything that would be a serious problem if leaked anywhere in the world, but that DOESN'T mean that I want to share everything!

Layer 3 (reasonably known and mediated audience):

This is basically Twitter. On Twitter, I have friends who are my followers, strangers who are my followers, spam-bots who are my followers, and then of course an unknown 'n' who don't follow but find my remarks through searches, etc. I use Twitter mostly just to share links and status updates, but I actually make conscious decisions and what might be Twitter vs. Facebook appropriate when considering cross-posting (not just for character length).

This is very obvious to me because when I post something using TweetDeck, I am given a choice: Twitter, Facebook, or both? It's just one click of a button to decide, but it can make a world of difference. Some statuses, for instance when I recently warned friends of Facebook's new privacy threat, go to both. Others, such as when I retweet an interesting link that might pertain less to my broad audience of hundreds of friends than it does to my smaller 'immediate' Twitter audience, will just go to Twitter (e.g. "RT @Amanda_Lenhart: Neat infographic w stats from our Teens & Mobile Phones report http://bit.ly/98T8G9 | report: http://bit.ly/teenMobi"). Sometimes I forget about how public things can be on Twitter, and it can be unsettling when reminded of that in less than ideal contexts. Still, I assume the worst but also note that things are more casual and ephemeral and because of the medium, that's OK.

Layer 4 (controlled and maintained, but audience even less known, especially public, especially linked to me):

Here is where my blog lives. When I post something to my blog today, I expect several things. First, a few hundreds of people will see it immediately, and then thousands more will trickle by over weeks and months and get to see it. Worse, at any time, someone might just search for me and find it, or something that I wrote, that applies to something they are searching for. Sometimes this comes off very badly, sometimes things work out well. But I know no matter what that I should really be on my best behavior and put my best face forward. Even if it is equally public to Twitter, and similarly branded, my expectation is that this is the authoritative source for Sam Jackson news, and it should be treated as such. (Twitter is rolled in here, but is not the #1 feature or visible resource).

My goal is that when you search 'sam jackson' online, this website comes up, and that when you come here, visitors get a certain image of me which is favorable and beneficial to me. This has been the case over the last almost five years now. This blog has been this way for a long time - mediated, controlled - because soon after I started writing, it turned into a college blog, and I realized I was writing articles that were being read by the same admissions officers whose kind regard I required for a viable candidacy at all these different schools! That taught me very quickly a series of lessons about how to manage myself online, lessons that some of my peers would have done well to adopt, too.

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Thus, I have a series of curtain walls around my privacy castle, or so I like to imagine. I am aware that I have historically shared things which may later prove embarassing (though not devastating) by commenting on blogs all over the place as a 16 year old, occasionally saying things that would later sound stupid; or writing right here, on this very blog, dumb things. I have left them up for honesty and posterity's sake `but do get embarassed if I see hits going to certain old pages on the site. Nothing is bad but some of it, when now looking at the blog as the work of a 20 year old college student instead of a 16 year old college applicant, haven't aged as well.

The problem with Facebook is that it isn't comfortable just being used as a social utility, but is driven by some dangerous combination of ideology and desire for revenue / mission growth to expand its social web and extend its tentacles into more of your life, the better to deliver it again to advertisers. The problem is that the network effects are so great, right now you can't escape. In a world of barely-checked Facebook powers, this is a sad thing indeed.

Students don't want their whole lives exposed now, and they didn't want them exposed before. Facebook has typically had huge boosts in use when it introduces some new, privacy-busting policy. I hope that in the past week, the numerous privacy problems -- from the Instant Personalization debacle that destroyed all my likes and interests as punishment for not complying with Facebook's 'be more public' order, to the security flaw that allowed people to read friends' live chat streams -- it hasn't been a good week for them.

Mistrust of the intentions of social sites appears to be pervasive. In its telephone survey of 1,000 people, the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California found that 88 percent of the 18- to 24-year-olds it surveyed last July said there should be a law that requires Web sites to delete stored information. And 62 percent said they wanted a law that gave people the right to know everything a Web site knows about them.

That mistrust is translating into action. In the Pew study, to be released shortly, researchers interviewed 2,253 adults late last summer and found that people ages 18 to 29 were more apt to monitor privacy settings than older adults are, and they more often delete comments or remove their names from photos so they cannot be identified. Younger teenagers were not included in these studies, and they may not have the same privacy concerns. But anecdotal evidence suggests that many of them have not had enough experience to understand the downside to oversharing.

It's good that others are more and more aware of the risks that they face, and are taking action to protect themselves when given the knowledge and the power to do so. The best test of this is what happens when you talk to someone ignorant of the ways Facebook may have exposed their 'private' profile information to more people than they thought -- e.g., when someone would in previous years join a 'city' network, they would by default be totally viewable to all the 10s or 100s of thousands of people who lived in that city. Not what people expect from their badge of geographic pride! But, when you would tell them that that was the case, they would be very eager to change it.

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I liked the new 'Like' button, at least before I knew how it actually worked. Everywhere there's a privacy 'problem' at Facebook, someone made a choice; the system is built the way it is by design, and it reflects a particular vision. Jim Merithew @ Wired said it well, in regards to the Like button, about how things could have been done differently.

Like” buttons around the web could be configured to do exactly what you want them to — add them to a protected profile or get added to a wish list on your site or broadcast by your micro-blogging service of choice. You’d be able to control your presentation of self — and as in the real world, compartmentalize your life.

Perfect! Too bad it conflicts with Facebook's view of the world.

At least several times a week I hear friends talking about problems arising from privacy and the world online. In many respects the efforts to reclaim 'privacy' are a losing battle, and for the savvy, the battle has shifted to controlling messaging / stories / identities, rather than keeping them out of sight altogether. I would feel betrayed by Facebook if I had any real trust or faith that the company might serve its users first, rather than caring about harvesting them for value, and taking care of them second.

The final point here is simple: I care about privacy, my little sister cares about privacy, my mom cares about privacy, and according to Pew, so do a lot of other people. This is not a new 'trend' even if people do like to share certain things with certain people. Behavior doesn't always match with beliefs, sometimes to the surprise or dismay of the actor. All the propaganda to the contrary should be evaluated for conflicts of interest and considered carefully. It is rare to find anyone who says 'privacy is dead' without a vested interest in making it so.

Zuckerberg came to Exeter in January 2007 to give an assembly... I made a bad recording of the talk and called for readers to pose questions about privacy (yes, I cared even then, and so did they!). I got tired of doing a transcription from the hard to understand audio file, but maybe now I finally have an incentive to bust it out and make an effort - I think his responses from 2006 may now prove historically enlightening. (In many respects, it was just a rehash of his Davos talk from that year).

Facebook: ... all privacy hope abandon, ye who enter here!

As of 5pm today, junior year is over (!)

Sam Jackson — Fri, 07 May 2010 05:21:23 +0000

That's right - after 6 hours of finals today and 3 hours yesterday, after the 65 pages of papers finished over the weekend, at last all is done for the year. I'll be back in Boston Sunday evening after packing up everything. It's been an interesting year, and I'll have free time to post reflections on all manner of things, no doubt.

For now, time to take a break, relax, and just recover! Good luck to all who still have finals, at Yale or otherwise.

Yale Final Papers and Exams, Spring 2010

Sam Jackson — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:42:40 +0000

The following photo is a stack of a selection of the sources I am using for my final paper in Prof. Keith Darden's Nationalism + National Identity class (EP&E 412 / INTS 328 / PLSC 158 / PLSC 655 ). There is more where this came from, not to mention JSTOR articles and the like. O_o

Note that last PLSC 655, indicating that it is cross-listed for the graduate department -- usually that just means it is open to grads, and maybe there is one or two in the class... but this class is maybe 70% PhD students, 10% Masters, and the last sliver, a few undergrads... (!). So I am working very hard on the paper to be up to the standard, so to speak. Scary! There were more undergrads at first but many fell away...

Darden is a brilliant professor / scholar with a good sense of humor, and the class is great fun, but the paper is both fairly long [20-25 pages] and, by necessity, hugely research-intensive. It's almost like a one-semester senior essay, except, I'm not a senior and not doing it for credit as such. (Remember, I'm trying to do a year-long). Matters are complicated by particular difficulties in the China case, and of course a perpetual scarcity of data...

My paper is about nationalism / the development of national identity in China seen through the lens of the Manchurian Incident, addressing Manchuria under Japanese occupation 1931-1936 and also focusing on student protest and uprisings elsewhere. The case for exploring variables which affect rates of resistance in Manchukuo (the Japanese-created puppet state) is made difficult by sparse data, so I am more exploring the phenomena of why so much more widespread protest seems to be found elsewhere. More on the paper later; maybe I'll post it in full if I'm happy with it. (Do people want to read my papers? I am never sure, and always worried they may come back to haunt me, so I have tended not to share my academic work here.)

I have three other finals next week, and another paper too. (This and another paper due Monday; Chinese finals Weds; Tech World + Blacks & the Law on Thursday). Bummer. But, I'll survive.

Readers: do you have finals? Hanging in there? Kudos to the use of my blog to procrastinate, if you are doing so.

Yale’s new financial aid policy: blood from stones

Sam Jackson — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:00:54 +0000

No time to go into this in too great a depth, but just wanted to raise the point: for next year, Yale raised the student income contribution 15%, to $3000 for the year. This is a really big number when it comes to income that is meant to be earned while also being a full-time student. It makes a big difference if you have to work or not.

There is a meeting this Weds -
Student Forum on Financial Aid
Wednesday, April 21 7:30pm
Dwight Hall Common Room

To discuss some of impact of these changes. 82+% of the student body said that the recession had negatively impacted their ability to finance their Yale educations. I don't need to drop out of Yale because of the new fees, but it's infuriating that after I work all summer, Yale just lays claim to everything that I earn. In fact, because I earn so much during the summer, Yale tends to reduce my student income contribution, which sounds good, except on a tax-basis, it's worse, since it means that I can't use any scholarships I might receive directly towards that part of the tuition (and the sum is instead equivalently subtracted, or demanded, as a tithe from my summer income).

$3000 per year, paid at Yale's pretty decent wages, still exceeds the number of recommended hours for a student (about 6, I believe) by quite a lot: with 13 weeks a semester (or thereabouts) you'd have to work about 10 hours per week just to make that amount. This is really hard even if you have a good job (NOT always easy to come by at Yale, actually, especially given cutbacks... the Provost's office does subsidize some jobs, but even so, there are limited available opportunities).

I know some people who take on research jobs and then, partway through the semester, the professor running them just changes his mind, decides he's going to go write a book or travel or do something else, suddenly poof -- no more income! Good luck finding something new halfway through the semester.

Anyway, this is really very frustrating. Next year things will be a little better for me, in some context at least, since my sister will be going to school, too - this means that I'll get better financial aid. Net-net, it's not really better though for my family, since the family income contribution isn't decreased, just split between two children.

Anyway... I know Yale is searching for pennies, but shaking down student workers for more cash is NOT the right way to do it, and seriously undermines the university's stated mission of providing an education to all students.

Besides that, there's also just a big different in student life quality. I've missed trips, events, and other deadlines -- including some academic ones -- because I've been trying to finish up work projects or get in more hours. I at least have an OK cushion from my summer income (even if, overall, I still have looming college debts).

But, for now I'll stop, and stick to this blog's tagline: all the exciting parts, none of the crushing debt burden.

Bulldog Days 2010!

Sam Jackson — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:43:37 +0000

Bulldog days is underway, which means that approximately 1200 (!!!) freshmen and an unknown number of parents are here on campus. This is a scary invasion! I am studying in Trumbull Common Room and suddenly it was swarmed by about 40 people led in by a tour guide to drop some more Yale knowledge, yikes. Interesting to hear the kinds of questions that people are asking, as always... which is why I wish more prefrosh / curious students would ask me more questions here on the blogs.

Anyhow, if you are reading this and happen to be at Yale right now - great, welcome! If you're an admitted student but can't go to Bulldog Days, don't worry -- I never went, and turned out just fine.

That special feeling, website redesign on the brain

Sam Jackson — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:23:33 +0000

I'm deeply tempted to do a facelift of this blog (again) because it is finals time (again) and I don't want to write my final papers at this moment (when does one ever?). My academics suffer, but readers' aesthetic pleasure (hopefully) would stand to benefit! I think the logic that I have come to in the last five minutes is that if I was going to not do any work right now, it's better to reinforce a positive Sam Jackson brand by redesigning this blog than to play games or just idly read news articles.

Maybe that's not true, but! I'm also telling myself that I could move over to a new Thematic child theme in no time at all with all the newfound CSS skills that came from redesigning the Trumbull College website (http://www.yale.edu/trumbull). Maybe yes, maybe no, only one way to find out... and it's not as if anyone reads this site to mind the interruption!

Writing my senior essay: Step 1, Picking a Topic

Sam Jackson — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:33:15 +0000

It is the spring of my junior year, which means it's time to start thinking about senior essays! Importantly, now is the time we decide if we want to write a year long senior essay or not - in political science, at least. Some other majors have mandatory year-long essays, and some have none at all.

I am looking to write a year-long essay, which entails a year's work and will culminate this time next year in a ~60+ page treatise on a topic of my choosing. My advisor strongly urged me to only consider a year-long essay if I had a true existential need to do so, and a great passion for the subject which would allow me to maintain some enthusiasm for the work over the course of the year. I think that that is the case.

What is it that I am so interested in writing about? Well, as I report in my personal statements and narratives, and on my e-resume, I'm interested in combining the powers of technology and politics to do good. Therefore, I was hoping to pursue this kind of combination in a more philosophical setting, and develop a useful and interesting intellectual framework for myself. Something about progress and technology. This brings into play many questions of modernization theory, the relationship between technology and democracy, the Enlightenment theory of progress, and a lot more.

But, that's a very broad topic! So I was told to pick something more narrow: either a philosophical inquiry on the nature of progress and technological determinism / modernization, or something which went more directly to the relationship between technology, democracy / politics, and perhaps even involving a case study of a particular country like China or Iran.

Right now I'm leaning towards the former, but really can't decide, and have to make up my mind soon, at least for where I'm starting from! However, for an idea about the political-philosophical motivations that are behind my goal here, see below, in my initial proposal. I also considered looking into projects about Cyber-nationalism in China and other things related to the internet. A friend is looking to work with Net Neutrality rockstar Elizabeth Stark, which is also cool.

- -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- -

Exploring divergent narratives of modernity | on the relationship of technology and human progress

progress, n.

1. Progression or advancement through a process, a sequence of events, a period of time, etc.; movement towards an outcome or conclusion.
2. spec. Advancement to a further or higher stage, or to further or higher stages successively; growth; development, usually to a better state or condition; improvement; an instance of this.

What is ‘progress,’ who or what seeks to advance it, and why? What are its ends, and is it a worthy means to achieve them, or do our ideas of progress need revision or wholesale renewal? These are some problems that I hope to articulate in the course of this senior essay. Specifically, the question of ‘human progress’ will be addressed in conjunction with the concern of technological development / advancement, specifically in the modern era and modern.

Essential elements of this investigation will likely include an extensive evaluation of claims for the specific relevance of technology in the development of socioeconomic superstructures; the question of historicity is equally important. Is technology tool or invisible taskmaster, or worse still, an irrelevant distraction? After examining whether ‘progress’ is conceptually useful and/or plausibly real, or merely an illusion perpetuated by a system of self-interested and/or deluded agents, technology’s role in the process by which progress occurs must be established.

How does it alter and mediate modes of relation and existence; does it alienate and atomize, offer unifying capabilities, or both? Limited case studies may inform this question. Ultimately, the goal is to identify not only the relationship between progress and technology, but to anticipate and explain ways in which it could be leveraged normatively in the context of human relations – in the political sphere. Alternately, what can be justified in the name of progress?

Noteworthy criticisms of our modernity, hyper-saturated with technology, attempt to draw a distinction between its self-perpetuating and ever-expanding qualities and its requisite advantages to humans and humanity. A quintessential case is made in evaluating the past two centuries: industrialization brings opportunities and creates ‘wealth’ but also brings new forms of oppression and slavery; the same nitrates which make fertilizer possible, are also used to make bombs and high explosives; the nuclear energy that lights our homes and sends probes in deep, dark space bears with it the seeds of unfathomable destruction. Is progress still progress when every new advance in social good is accompanied by new ways to kill, destroy, or control? Furthermore, in the 21^st century, is that paradigm of technological advancement finally broken?

Finally, the intention of this inquiry is to draw from the historical-political past to evaluate the present and future. Progress, in a social sense referring to self-actualized societal improvements in the human condition, (economic progress, contingent upon scientific progress) has been the backdrop of Western political thought since the Enlightenment. In abstraction, what is the function of this progress-as-‘idea of progress,’ and does it have a possible goal or, indeed, true direction? Most fundamentally, what are the implications for the political sphere of an assertive and self-propelling technological revolution?

Is technologically derived progress possible, and is it to be loved or feared? Is human liberty compatible with the future, and to what degree does technology threaten to shift from tool to master? Are the self-wrought chains of technological dependence consistent with progress?

Exploring divergent narratives of modernity | on the relationship of technology and human progress

progress, n.

1. Progression or advancement through a process, a sequence of events, a period of time, etc.; movement towards an outcome or conclusion.

2. spec. Advancement to a further or higher stage, or to further or higher stages successively; growth; development, usually to a better state or condition; improvement; an instance of this.

What is this blog all about? A picture in words

Sam Jackson — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:48:51 +0000

Things are still very sad here at Yale, but I went home for the weekend and went to Passover seder and spent time with my family, walked my dog in the woods, and all of that helped. So let me try to move on with something new here, also.

I heard about Wordle when it had some trademark worries reported on TechCrunch. It's a really neat website that takes a page, or any body of text, and will make a visualization of that in pretty ways thanks to a nice Java applet. Here's what this page looks like - as of a few weeks ago - when I ran Wordle on it.

Here's another variant:

Enjoy, make you own, and share the results. Good for papers and useful for making tag clouds for other related projects.

Rest in Peace, Cameron Dabaghi

Sam Jackson — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:36:16 +0000

Cameron Dabaghi, BK '11, a good friend who was part of the Yale-PKU program with me, died yesterday evening in New York City.

I am making a post about this because I've seen too many reports from trashy tabloid like newspapers that just wanted to get pageviews or attention from flashy notice of this, since Cameron jumped from the Empire State Building. As a result the internet is now full of hundreds of flash updates on twitter, blogs, and elsewhere sharing this news. What does it matter to strangers online it was this particular 21 year old student, Yale East Asian Studies major, from Austin, TX, who died? It is terrible that in this time of grief the various NYC and other blogs and updating everyone and posting new photos of the site at 34th street including pictures of them taking away the body in an ambulance. At least, it is terrible to those deeply distressed here at Yale. Maybe that gets pageviews otherwise; I know it is not something I am ordinarily interested in and I think it's not good behavior or respect to do so.

Why are random news sources reporting his name to their followers online? I didn't post anything because I wanted to give Cameron's friends and family time without drawing on more media attention to this, but since that has already happened, I wanted to try to remove some of the noise by posting something legitimately descriptive and telling how Cameron was a good person. I know that this post will be overwhelmed on the internet by HuffPo and others but wanted to add it to internet posterity all the same, for what little difference it makes.

Cameron was a great guy and a good friend, to quote another Yale-PKUer, Kai Chao,

"I would like to say that even though Cameron has left, his memories remain deep inside each and every one of us. Cameron was a great gentleman, never selfish, always considerate, ever-so-loving, nicest guy ever. We will remember every great moment that we had."

I have known Cameron since freshman year (he used to be in Trumbull before he transferred, and lived 1 floor above me) and got to know him much better from travel and study in China last semester. Cameron was always excited to explore and learn new things about China; he really seemed to be the personification of all the good natured 外国留学生 who we would read about in our textbooks, doing 课外活动 (outside of class activities) to make friends and understand China and chinese. He made friends wherever he went and even got married on the Burmese border!

I don't have any clues as to what might have motivated him to these actions, but it comes as a terrible shock to all of us in the program. Just last Saturday we had a little reunion dinner and everyone was having a great time, laughing and chatting and telling stories. I don't know what was going on in Cameron's head at the time, but my thoughts are with his family, especially his younger sister who is a current freshman in Berkeley College.

Rest in peace Cameron, we will all miss you very much. Here is a picture of Cameron and us at that dinner, having a good time. It is memories like these that will always spring forth when thinking about Cameron and all of our adventures together in China.

Also of note: If you are at Yale, and need to talk, you can always call 203-432-TALK (Walden Counseling), and counselors are available at YUHS all night tonight. You may walk in at any time or call 203-432-0123. The Chaplain’s Office in the basement of Bingham Hall will also be open until 11:00 p.m. tonight and tomorrow night.

EDIT, 4:30 PM 3/31: Apparently this didn't come through clear enough here, or perhaps it is just because "Cameron Dabaghi" is currently #6 Google trending topic, and "empire state building jumper" is #11, but: I don't want to make comments or talk to newspapers about this, etc, I think Cameron's family and all deserve time and not just to have this picked over by the press right now.

Update 4/05: We made a scrapbook to send to Cameron's family full of photos and stories. Here's what I wrote:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I knew Cameron from freshman year, before he left Trumbull, but only really got to spend time with him last semester. I was happy to hear he'd be in the program with me, that we could catch up: Yale is full of too many situations like that, friendships full of promise, left untended in our bustle and haste. Cameron did not err as I did, though: he always made sure to cultivate friends and connections everywhere and in all the languages he could. It was Cameron who would call out to me on the paths between Trumbull and Berkeley, where we'd see each other walking to class, or in the halls of our Chinese classes, before he leapfrogged me with summer study.

Describing him to those who did not know him, I have been characterizing Cameron as the perfect foreign exchange student, the kind comically typified in our Chinese books -- eager to explore a new culture and to make new friends, unafraid of foolishness, courageous and hardworking in his efforts to learn more about the places and people around him and to participate in all its activities. I mourn Cameron not just for the loss of someone who has touched my life, but for what I know he would have been able to do in the world with his desire to make a difference and his ability to connect with others.

Stoic and reserved at times, but always there for his friends, in China I got to know more of Cameron: his sharp wit and humor, and intense compassion and consideration for others. He is someone who lead by example in his personal actions, inspiring those around him to challenge themselves. There is no way to do him justice with these scarce words alone, but I will carry his memory with me always. We made so many memories together in China, and I am so saddened to imagine the void that remains, the now-missing element in any gathering of our close group.

What I do know is that whenever I think of Cameron, I will remember him most for those times when he opened up, smiled, and shared himself with us. The time we 'married' him in Yunnan, we volunteered Cameron to be costumed and lead us in dance; how he took to it! He handled life with such aplomb. I will never forget him, as a peer, a fellow adventurer, but most of all as a friend.

Sam Jackson
TC '11