For the longest time, Stanford campus has used a “blue light” security system, allowing those who feel endangered to summon a police car with the touch of a button. Now, inspired by the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Stanford University Department of Public Safety has announced that they will be installing a “green light system” specifically for when you are being chased by an unsolicited entrepreneur out of touch with reality.
“While it has been common knowledge since the early 20th century, scientists recently proved that socially-oblivious upwardly-mobile men in their early 20s are reliably dazed by the presence of green lights off in the distance,” said a joint professor of the Psychology and English departments. “They feel compelled to stop and contemplate the light, and soon lose track of whatever it was that they were doing in the first place. This makes a ‘green light system’ extremely effective for personal safety.”
The downside of Stanford’s start-up culture is, regrettably, that the university has no shortage of romantically delusional entrepreneurs lacking the ability to read social cues. Green lights should be able to combat this problem, filling these misguided individuals with distinct feelings of nostalgia and misplaced longing.
The SUDPS has confirmed that these green lights will not actually call the police. “We’ve found that these lights are already extremely effective at sending their targets into a bewildered daze of useless hope, rendering continued harassment impossible—as such, there’s no real need for them to also call the police away from more important activities, like arresting freshmen who stepped five feet away from a frat party while holding a can of beer.
When asked if they were worried that this induced paralysis could impair driving abilities and cause car or bike accidents, the SUDPS representative dismissed these cases as “highly improbable,” and that they have “never, ever heard of something like that happening.”
