So what about the uneducated British troops sent to put down the illegal colonial rebellion over, as you put it "expensive tea"? Blue collar hardworking guys right? Should have just bent over and taken it because they had badges?

It is bad luck for them, as for the British soldiers, that those whose will they have pledged to violently enforce make tyrannical and demented proclamations. But the most elementary understanding of Jefferson, and the fundamental basis for the US constitution, absolutely precludes meek subservience to tyranny.

A few more gutless masochists like you in Boston and you would be singing God save the Queen, and crowing about how great the staus Quo is. Or whatever mental contortions you had to perform to avoid growing a pair.

As for causing a disrespectful commotion at the memorial to a father of free expression, are you really blaming people silently jigging over people violently attacking others??

No offense but if you'd spouted that shit to Jefferson he'd have knocked you the fuck out.

>> ^bareboards2:

This is the very definition of dehumanization. To tell a hardworking blue collar worker that they are a tool of the state, instead of recognizing that they are understandably pissed off at a bunch of folks who aren't following specific directions?
There is a vid on the sift interviewing cannibals on how they justified eating a fellow human being.
This is the modern world equivalent of that cannibal saying the sorcerer wasn't human, so it was okay to kill and eat him.

Quoted from Wiki:
In 1926 Sanger gave a lecture on birth control to the women's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey.[13] She described it as "one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing," and added that she had to use only "the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand."[13] Sanger's talk was well-received by the group and as a result "a dozen invitations to similar groups were proffered."

Sounds like she was one of them alright.

>> ^vaire2ube:

hang on a gotta go pay my professor so i can skip class and continue to learn on the internet ... aka college. sigh.
he puts things very well here: we can do better and should.


You know, up until recently I've used this site as a supplement for my math classes (until recently when I've gone beyond what they cover). It really is a great tool for learning on your own. And once that subject *clicks* you're good-to-go. My mother is an elementary school teacher, I think I'm going to see if she wants to get involved with the program.

I'd like to advise my fellow sifters to try to not get too emotionally heated, this is a great discussion.

I remember travelling way up North just a few years back, a little town called Pangnirtung, one of seven dry communities in Nunavut. Alcohol is not sold in town and guests and tourists are prohibited from bringing any of it into the hotel. The community took a vote not too long ago and with roughly 70% of the small community in favor, the town stayed dry. Alcoholism, ofcourse is still a problem. Suicide rates among the youth are very high, and most serious crimes that are committed are still alcohol-related.

Bootlegging presents a very worthwhile enterprise for many kids up there, it's obviously very easy to find outside the community, it's only a matter of hiding it. What's more, it's a hell of a lot easier to smuggle a mickey of rum than a six pack of beer, obviously any booze you find there is going to be the strong stuff.

Now under any normal circumstance at all I would say alcohol prohibition is a terrible idea, the same goes for the war on drugs. It's just that, Pangnirtung is so isolated and detached from the rest of mainstream Canada. So much so that it can be very hard for the local boozehounds to get their fix. If alcohol was suddenly made readily available I have no doubt in my mind that alot of kids would end up dead.

During our trip we had a chance to tour through the local elementary school and as I walked through the halls I started to look at the arts and crafts posted along the walls. Most were just typical little kid sketches or small little art projects. Then I noticed something that made my stomach churn..

One of the projects included a picture and then a list of the child's goals and his likes and dislikes. Nearly all of them mentioned alcohol and drugs in some way or another. It was kinda upsetting, alcohol shouldn't be on a list of concerns of a twelve year old.

In terms of drug regulation I really don't know, I've been on both sides of the issue and I'm still left with alot of questions, just my two cents.

This isn't necessary, is it?

I mean, honestly. I don't like it when elementary kids go to school with makeup, and that goes basically all the way to highschool. It's not necessary, at that age, like the woman said, they should be thinking about playing.

I don't understand why people feel the need to push boundaries and envelopes, yes, change is sometimes good.. but it only takes two seconds to think how sexualizing 7 year old girls is possibly a bad idea.

this thread got tldr.

here's my 2 cents. an over abundance of advertising is damaging. not just for how it portrays women, not just for impressionable girls and boys who are possibly likely to grow up with a skewed sense of identity and self worth. it's just damaging. to everyone. to cultures. to the psyche. it's too much. and it's constant.

women are intelligent and can think for themselves. i'm not falling for the "you don't look like kim kardashian?!? get your fat ass some slim fast and some loreal, dye your hair, wear this underwear, smell this way, use this roller ball crunch machine you fat fucking ugly cow" ads. and neither is my daughter (so far). because we are not at all exposed to it consistently.

know what it takes to brainwash someone? a few hours a day of content and a peer group who agrees with said content. that's it. period. so you take 10 elementary school kids who watch television 2 or 3 hours a day and have them all hang out together 8 hours a day at school. eventually you will get a generation who eat doritos and snack cakes and think that their bodies and their make up and their shaving cream represent them. thats not just damaging to women. its damaging to culture. period. my complaints are not as feminist, but as a human being. enough is enough already. can we please quit buying sooo much stupid shit already?!?!??

>> ^blankfist:
...This boy, Richard, is probably someone who's also bullied due to his size, and probably picks on others that won't fight back to help his image. ...


Actually, given his age, he's about normal. His peer group would accept him. Casey, being "husky", would be a target unless he was far more aggressive. In high school I decided to try out pushing people around after being picked on in elementary. Only lasted about a month. Just not in my character. Helped shape a stay-away-from-big-Dave mentality for the rest of school though, that was cool.

>> ^draak13:

People make stupid comments all the time. Whether or not it was intended, this thread was essentially trolled off-topic with enormous rants about religion vs. atheism. Instead of going on forever about it, why not pay as much attention to it as it deserves? Immediately after the religious posting, Enoch magnificently addressed and concluded that religion doesn't consistently shape behavior nearly as much as good parenting in just 1 post. Of course the religious faction is going to reply back; their religion is a strong component of their identity. Just don't mind it and continue the thread forward.
If it's possible to salvage this thread at all, we were actually talking about how behavioral shaping comes most strongly in 2 forms revealed so far:
1) Mass showing of materials which help instill understanding of people who are very different from normal in some way, with sincere discussion (such as dealing with bullying the gay or mentally retarded individuals)
2) Parenting, to ensure that children hold strong values about understanding each other and treating each other well.
Are there any other interesting ideas to add to the list? Also, point 2 is huge; how do you get more parents to parent better?


I think 2) is in fact overrated. Most of a child's development nowadays comes from social interactions at school and in their neighborhood. Judith Harris expounded on this in her book, The Nurture Assumption. Parents have the most impact on their child's early development, before they can socialize on their own. In that small period of time, you can develop a child's intellectual potential, but the moral character, if not already determined or strongly limited by genetics, will be molded by future social interactions. Of course, parents are included in these social interactions, but their influence will be much diluted, especially compared to the school authority figures, the real authority in a school kid's life (they can make life miserable for them both at school and at home, by telling the parents).

So, as the saying goes in Africa, it takes a village to raise a child. Again, something known in the time of the ancient Greeks. Even Plato admitted this, although he tried to bring religion in, hence why he wasn't taken seriously. In this perspective, 1) should be an integral part of society's behavior at large, not just in videos. Although of course videos can have a pregnant effect on a child's mind and act as a surrogate to real life examples. The problem arises when those children are let go after school: they see that real life is not like the videos. They can then try to change the real world, become apathetic or worse, become cynical. And this is what is wrong with preaching: the hypocrisy of the "do as I say not as I do".

To prevent this, you have to teach intellectual self-defense at the same time as the reasons why behavior as shown in the videos is more desirable than behavior seen in real life. This would be hard for even philosophers to do, not to mention underpaid elementary school teachers. In our philosophy department here, there is a minor in "philosophy of children". It has nothing to do with describing the essence of children, but more with how to talk about philosophy with children: how to approach concepts in general and how to touch difficult subject matters. Still, the goal is not for the philosopher to teach children about moral/ethics, but to teach how to think about such things.

So, as a parent be a good role model and teach your child how to fish (think) instead of just giving him fish (preaching). For example, instead of trying to always be the best you can be around your child, be yourself. And when you fail to uphold a principle or whatever, instead of giving excuses be frank and explain why people sometimes fail even if they start with the best of intentions. The important thing is not that you be the best today, but that you be better tomorrow.

Also, never think you can shield your child from anything. Better it be you that show him the ugly things than he finds out by himself or through friends/society. That way you can explain and answer his questions. So: sex, drugs, violence and death education at a very young age repeated at various times to ingrain the facts (not the moral preaching). No need to be hands-on of course! Don't want you all to go rape and kill your children or something.

This is as much as you can do, I think, to "protect" or "arm" your children against society's more nefarious influences without resorting to indoctrination or physical confinement (although these last two options sound more like blinding and amputating than protecting really). If all children were educated like this, we may not get a perfect society (the genes!), but at least it should be a better society and certainly a more honest and open one.

That's a great idea! A similar thing happened in my elementary school for a mentally retarded kid. Their parents made a short documentary about what everyday life is like for him, how he perceives the world, and his helper dog and everything. All the kids in school watched it, and the teachers talked about it with the kids with a sincere attitude. People seemed to react in a considerate fashion instead of with hostility, and the kid made it through school just fine.

>> ^bareboards2:

Seems like there are two types of comments here -- ones that look at the moment on the video, and those that step back and put the video into a larger context and pontificate on the larger context.
And then there are arguments about who is right, when it isn't the same topic.
Bullying has always been a problem. No one has ever addressed it. How could we address it?
I read about a program in a UK school that tackled gay bullying, and it was pretty successful. The solution? Mandatory education on the contributions of gays to society. For example, they taught the kids about Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who was crucial to the Allied forces breaking the Nazi Enigma coding machine. Who was subsequently harassed and whose life was destroyed because he was gay.
That great post by the teacher shows change can happen if someone takes steps to make changes.
Humans have human responses. Casey did what Casey did.
What do we do now?

My friends and I had fun in high school.

We didn't have many "Bullies" per sey, but there were a few groups of them here or there, and one friend in particular was an easy enough target because of how he looked. (He dressed in purple misfits plaid shorts, with a leather jacket, combat boots, and had a giant mohawk, etc.) and the way we diffused those situations were funny.

We were walking back to school one day from lunch, and these idiots decided they were going to throw a half eaten banana at us from their car. However, not one of them even seemed to be relatively aware of physics, so they decided to A) Speed up so it would hit with more force, then B) throw it at us AS they were passing us.
The banana missed us by 2 houses and when they confronted us at school we made fun of them so hard infront of a group of people that they just took off.

Another time (When he was alone) he was just walking the halls when their idiot ringleader was doing a science project (with a meter stick) and hitting people who passed by. He was walking up behind my friend and was winding up his swing when my friend just turned, pointed at his face (finger two inches from his nose) and just said "NO!" gave him a stupid look, and just walked away with the ringleader just standing there stupified.

My favourite (although, mean) situation though, was at an elementary school. To get to the plaza with the McD's, KFC, Tim Hortons etc. for lunch, you had to pass through an elementary school, and on the way back they were out for recess or something. So the two of us were just walking through shooting the shit with each other and minding our own business when the bell went and the kids started lining up to get back in.

One little idiot we passed by started saying "HA HA, LOOK AT THE ROOSTER! HEY EVERYBODY, LOOK AT THE STUPID ROOSTER" (because of the mohawk) I finally sanpped, dropped my backpack and started to charge towards the kid. He instantly looked absolutely terrified and raised his hand (wriggling fashion, to note that he REALLY wants attention) I came up to him, face to face, and just started giving him shit about "What gives you the right to make fun of people? He dresses the way he wants to, you dress the way you want to, keep it to yourself" etc. The teacher finally came out and said "What's going on here?" so I even told her "This kid here was making fun of my friend, I was having a discussion with him."

She actually thanked me and said "We're going to be having a discussion on this in class."

I've never wanted to get into a physical confrontation, my method of choice was to belittle the bullies. Granted, a lot of places this'll get you decked, but it worked for me as a way of non-violent confrontation.

In a perfect world, there'd be no bullies, and I'm one that advocates not using force, but there are unfortunate situations that do call for it. I feel for the big kid here, because he was put in a no-win scenario. He lets the little kid get away with it, or he gets in trouble for defending himself. I guess not everyone can be as lucky as I was.

Spoco2 isn't talking about how the kid shouldn't have defended himself, he's talking about how such a horrible situation should never have happened. His apparent resolution is to punish all individuals that contributed to the situation.

But, let's say that you're a kid in school who realizes that the social atmosphere is completely horrible. What do you do? Do you stand on a soapbox and make a momentus Martin-Luther-King-like speech to get everyone to stop treating each other like shit, and to care about each other instead? Outside the box looking in, perhaps you can do something. The teacher who made a long comment on here has obviously figured out very clever ways of doing it by manually adjusting the social environment...at least in their own classroom. But, if you're one of the people stuck inside the problem trying to deal with it, the situation is exponentially more difficult.

In short, it's going to take much more than 'punishing all those involved' to correct the atmosphere; every kid in the school would need to be punished. For any school fight, you still see people forming a circle around the two people watching and commenting. Such is the default nature of things for humans. Back in elementary/middle school, I was pretty low on the totem pole, but I also am guilty of treating other people like shit (those lower than myself), and relishing violence whenever I saw it. If you're going to override the default, it's going to take major torrents of social reprogramming.

Elementary school.

Kid followed me in from "recess", punching me in the back.

He kept punching me, harder and harder, all the way into my classroom.

( Suddenly, as I type this, for the first time since then, 35+ years ago, I think, "Where the fuck were any teachers?" Meh, that's the late 70's I guess, probably smoking in the teacher's lounge )

I sat down at my desk, he sits in the one behind me, hitting me.

I stand up, he follows me into the "cloakroom", which is basically an alcove between the inset front and rear doors to the class. Two large chalkboard/shelving units with cubbyholes in the back block us from the rest of the class. He is still hitting me.

I turn around, pick him up off the floor (he's much smaller than me, just like Casey's tormentor) and slam him into the cubbyholes, sliding it a few inches forward. It felt SO GOOD that I did it again. The shelving unit moves about 6 inches this time.

I walk around to the front, push the shelving unit back into place, replace the books and chalk that have fallen off, and go back to my desk and start reading.

The kid never bothered me again, nor did his friends, nor did anyone else at that school. I never got "tattled" on, back then, kids just didn't do that.

Moral of story: Only bully kids that can't knock the living shit out of you.

Unfortunately, Casey and I suffered the kind of bulling that is fairly rare. Our outcomes DID fall under the "stand up for yourself and all will be pie and nakid pictures". The bullying I worry about with my neice and nephews, and the kids of my closest friends come from the other direction, where the bullies are Casey's size, and the bullied are the other kids.

FUNFACT: Someone here mentioned the larger kid going after Casey. I like the girl that got in THAT kids face, making him back down. Good on her!

In elementary school, I was bullied by a kid like this. Most of the time it was verbal abuse, but one day he jumped on my back and put me in a choke hold. I slammed him against the brick wall until he fell to the ground. He never bothered me again. Sometimes bullies will continue their bullying until you stand up for yourself. Although I will not cheer for what happened, the bully can't complain when their subject reaches their limit and strikes back.

As an example Einstein is thought to have had bi-polar along with many other great physicists. Others were autistic or had something like Aspergers.

I think the key is that these individuals are able to look at society or normal rationalizations from a different aspect or with "rose-tinted glasses" and other "colors". It helps to look at a problem from a new perspective. This is also why many people DO use drugs, to force this perceptual change on the brain chemically. It's not an accident that it works in many cases. It's also not an accident that it fails as well.

For every breakthrough there is someone that is lost to their own delusions; forever trapped in a mind that can't understand reality. This is arguably the one thing humans have never gotten right: seeing reality as it is. Or, we refuse to see it, due to our biologically imposed psychology.

This is the most fascinating and the most unique aspect for humanity and humans: we not only can vary GREATLY on how we view reality, but we can describe it to each other with understanding and in great detail.

This is where Psychology as a field must tread lightly. For if we destroy every last shred of what we "think" is an error or a mistake due to our majority imposed societal and cultural norms, we may destroy one of our greatest attributes. Luckily, many have realized that even the most "normal" of us are delusional by default. As this is the only way we have to perceive what we know as reality.

We see reality through a lens and a filter; all of us. That lens can be warped, colored, broken, or very sharp. Likewise, our filter can do what it pleases and give us information with accuracy or lie to us with false or even made up information. It typically follows what evolution has designed for us: to be efficient, to be successful. We are a machine that uses a vast search engine that makes Google look like an elementary addition problem and memory that is amazingly powerful and yet it requires very little room to store it's information; and with both of these, together, our mind creates us. It brings our nodes, memories, and present perception together to give us sentience. We perceive a continuity to this existence that does not exist; yet, it's easy to see why you don't notice this, for what can you notice if you have no memory of it? That is our view, our window--it is a delusional one by definition as it does not SHOW reality, but only approximates it and it can vary greatly.

However, evolution while responsible for what we are, most likely did not have a design in play for true sentience. In that one miscalculation, humanity was born.

That and this is who we are.

I disagree that you have to understand newtownian equations to get the basic concept of seasons.

In fact, their explanations were flat out wrong. There is a world of difference between the earth being closer, and the part of the earth being closer, due to a tilt.

And the fact that these are liberal arts, or even arts students is the point, I believe. They should know the answer, as this is in even elementary school textbooks.

What is the basic level of science understanding (that is, both knowing basic science facts/results, and understanding the scientific method) is required for a productive citizen, or at the very least, someone who claims to have a well-rounded education, which you expect from a Harvard graduate.