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Never Back to School (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

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When guests came to visit us at Stanford, they’d always comment on the beauty of our campus — the copious greenery, the modern decorations, the classic architecture. I used to take them at their word. I always thought Stanford was a very pretty campus. Now I realize that it was merely bright. Coming back to Stanford after living in San Francisco is an odd experience, because the place seems so obviously much more fake. You don’t notice when you’re in it, but Stanford is a real wonder of a bubble. Surrounded by a moat of trees, it pretends to be its own self-sufficient city, complete with its own name (Stanford, California is not technically a city, but only a “census-designated place”; it has its own zip code, nonetheless). It has its own food, housing, public transit system, gas station (this is California), police force, job openings, newspaper, and events calendar. Most large universities have such things, of course, but they mesh with and supplement the outside world. At Stanford,

Never Back to School (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought) Raw Thought by Aaron Swartz Never Back to School When guests came to visit us at Stanford, they’d always comment on the beauty of our campus — the copious greenery, the modern decorations, the classic architecture. I used to take them at their word. I always thought Stanford was a very pretty campus. Now I realize that it was merely bright. Coming back to Stanford after living in San Francisco is an odd experience, because the place seems so obviously much more fake. You don’t notice when you’re in it, but Stanford is a

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