author:skookumtree admission of the hock
SkookumTree
7mo ago
I have a new proposal.
I think there should be an additional way to get into an elite college. You can still get in because you're an Olympic swimmer, or won an international math competition for high schoolers four years in a row, or because you're the daughter of a sitting U.S. President. But for mere mortals willing to put everything on the line...
I was thinking about an idea for Ivy League admissions reform: the ruling class and those that wind up hanging around them don't have to take much personal risk to get there. In ages past, until a few months into WWI, aristocrats were expected to take personal risk by going to war; many of the sons of aristocrats pulled strings to get sent to the trenches. War is more dangerous now than it was in 1900, and warmongering isn't exactly a good or necessary thing for the United States.
Therefore, I propose Admission of the Hock. Those with SATs over 1300 or ACTs over 27 who are in the top 15 percent of their high school class are eligible for the Hock. In early March, participants are parachuted onto a frozen lake in a boreal forest in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They're allowed anything they can carry on their back except for firearms, maps, and communication devices. No rescue beacons, either. If they survive by making it back to civilization under their own power, they receive admission to an Ivy League school.
If you want something - if you truly, honestly believe in something - that means being willing to risk your life for it and to suffer for it. There's very little of that nowadays in America outside of the combat arms. The likes of Harvard and Yale and by extension the American aristocracy would thus be leavened by large numbers of people willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to ascend the class ladder. These people would know suffering and want as they had not in their sheltered childhoods. They would understand the whims of Mother Nature; they would know viscerally for the rest of their lives that the universe will not bend to their will.
We could have special diversity-based scholarships to Hock-prep schools and Hock-prep classes for the determined but poor individuals that we want to have a better chance at the Hock. After all, that Supreme Court decision only applied to college admissions; the Matthew Henson Hock Prep Program can offer scholarships how it likes.
TL;DR If you can do the work at Fancy Elite College and graduate, but you're not a rockstar, you can get dumped into the Alaskan wilderness in winter. Make it out alive and you're in. If you add diversity, maybe there's going to be some organization focused on preparing you for the rigors and trials of the Hock. Or you could simply take your chances; good luck.
The survivors will be very fit, very determined people.
SkookumTree
8mo ago
I like BJJ. I like the aesthetic of boxing and football...but really dislike the fucking CTE. That robs brave men of their selves. Maybe there'd be fewer concussions in bare knuckle boxing or something.
Also, my rationale for the Hock.
I think there should be an additional way to get into an elite college. You can still get in because you're an Olympic swimmer, or won an international math competition for high schoolers four years in a row, or because you're the daughter of a sitting U.S. President. But for mere mortals willing to put everything on the line...
I was thinking about an idea for Ivy League admissions reform: the ruling class and those that wind up hanging around them don't have to take much personal risk to get there. In ages past, until a few months into WWI, aristocrats were expected to take personal risk by going to war; many of the sons of aristocrats pulled strings to get sent to the trenches. War is more dangerous now than it was in 1900, and warmongering isn't exactly a good or necessary thing for the United States.
Therefore, I propose Admission of the Hock. Those with SATs over 1300 or ACTs over 27 who are in the top 15 percent of their high school class are eligible for the Hock. In early March, participants are parachuted onto a frozen lake in a boreal forest in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They're allowed anything they can carry on their back except for firearms, maps, and communication devices. No rescue beacons, either. If they survive by making it back to civilization under their own power, they receive admission to an Ivy League school.
If you want something - if you truly, honestly believe in something - that means being willing to risk your life for it and to suffer for it. There's very little of that nowadays in America outside of the combat arms. The likes of Harvard and Yale and by extension the American aristocracy would thus be leavened by large numbers of people willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to ascend the class ladder. These people would know suffering and want as they had not in their sheltered childhoods. They would understand the whims of Mother Nature; they would know viscerally for the rest of their lives that the universe will not bend to their will.
What do you think?
TL;DR If you can do the work at Fancy Elite College and graduate, but you're not a rockstar, you can get dumped into the Alaskan wilderness in winter. Make it out alive and you're in.
Yes, some would become frozen popsicles and have their carcasses eaten by wolves or something. Others would lose fingers and toes. But the survivors would be stronger. And a thousand years ago - or even two hundred years ago? Most people that survived to adulthood would have watched siblings die and not been able to do anything about it; most parents watched their children die unable to do anything about it. "No parent should bury a child" is a sentiment that can't be much more than a hundred years old.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
This is why I think there should be an additional way to get into an elite college. You can still get in because you're an Olympic swimmer, or won an international math competition for high schoolers four years in a row, or because you're the daughter of a sitting U.S. President. But for mere mortals willing to put everything on the line...
I was thinking about an idea for Ivy League admissions reform: the ruling class and those that wind up hanging around them don't have to take much personal risk to get there. In ages past, until a few months into WWI, aristocrats were expected to take personal risk by going to war; many of the sons of aristocrats pulled strings to get sent to the trenches. War is more dangerous now than it was in 1900, and warmongering isn't exactly a good or necessary thing for the United States.
Therefore, I propose Admission of the Hock. Those with SATs over 1300 or ACTs over 27 who are in the top 15 percent of their high school class are eligible for the Hock. In early March, participants are parachuted onto a frozen lake in a boreal forest in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They're allowed anything they can carry on their back except for firearms, maps, and communication devices. No rescue beacons, either. If they survive by making it back to civilization under their own power, they receive admission to an Ivy League school.
If you want something - if you truly, honestly believe in something - that means being willing to risk your life for it and to suffer for it. There's very little of that nowadays in America outside of the combat arms. The likes of Harvard and Yale and by extension the American aristocracy would thus be leavened by large numbers of people willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to ascend the class ladder. These people would know suffering and want as they had not in their sheltered childhoods. They would understand the whims of Mother Nature; they would know viscerally for the rest of their lives that the universe will not bend to their will.
What do you think?
TL;DR If you can do the work at Fancy Elite College and graduate, but you're not a rockstar, you can get dumped into the Alaskan wilderness in winter. Make it out alive and you're in.
LOL - you're talking about the Hock, right? I also think that the Hock is cool as hell; I've written before about using it for college admissions and my reasoning behind why I like the aesthetic of the Hock, even if as a practical matter it is both insane and idiotic. I believe that the Hock provideth, either through victory or death, and that everyone chooses their own Hock - or abstains from Hocking.
If the Hock wouldn't make me any more attractive to women, I'll be honest - I'd be less excited about it, but I'd still think it was cool as hell. It's the culmination of what was basically a years-long thought experiment and a set of personal beliefs about suffering and ordeals building character, especially if voluntarily done.
If some deity came down from the Heavens and told me that no one would ever be interested in me...I'd be sad. I don't know whether I'd go on the Hock or not in that case. Leaning no - but maybe I'd do some kind of lesser Hock in Montana or something, IDK. Hockism as a homebrew philosophy is personally compelling to me.
Ask the ACN discord about the Hock; you'll hear a lot about it.
Besides. "Skookum, the First Hockmaxxer" has a nice ring to it to my ears even if it is also dumb as all hell and unlikely to work. I'd at least be the first fool to try "chucking yourself and some survival gear and food and shit into the Alaskan wilderness in winter and walking out" as a solution to romantic woes, which is at the very least some novel foolishness instead of garden-variety dumb shit. You've said it yourself...that I am likely to wind up in a unique flavor of train wreck.
My post history is partly an experiment log and partly something for posterity, especially if I don't survive the Hock.
Some things can be done as well as others; I know I'm three parts Chris McCandless and one part Don Quixote, but I've heard tales that native Alaskans respected Chris McCandless. I respect the guy: he was starving but functional until he got got by a relatively obscure poison and was fatally weakened by lathyrism. It was the potato seeds that did him in! He had the strength to live and die by the courage of his personal convictions, just like I would if I set out on the Hock.
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