kengr

Thinking about the vaccination arguments and other things brought to mind Kant's "Categorical Imperative".

One way to state it amounts to "what would happen if *everyone* took the action you want to take?"

Apply that to vaccination, and the answer is starkly obvious.

In other cases it's not so obvious, but only because people tend to limit their thinking.

A lot of arguments about religion only make sense from the viewpoint of the dominant religion. If you change the premise from we don't want *their* religion thrown in our face to "we don't want *any* religion thrown in our face, then applying the Imperative will make the followers of the majority religion in the area *really* uncomfortable.If not outraged.

Similar things apply to a lot of racial, gender and sexuality issues.

On another topic, I was watching an episode of NCIS (I'm way behind on watching them) and a late teens (about to graduate high school) character had something they'd worked all summer for destroyed by a disapproving parent.

This is one of number of parent/child relationship/behavior things that *really* annoys me. Especially since in this case it wasn't anything that it was *wrong* to have, just something for an activity the parent didn't want the kid involved in (dancing).

There is something *very* wrong with a world where parents can destroy something like that and *not* be liable for restitution.

The whole idea that children don't have property rights is morally and ethically questionable.

Likewise all the arguments about parents restricting things their kids are allowed to learn, much less some medical decisions.

Your right to control your child ends at the point where it could harm them. Failing to get them treatment for illness is an obvious case. Vaccinations are less obvious.

Keeping them ignorant or worse teaching them things counter to reality is even less obvious but frankly it can be just as damaging. Not just things like alternate "theories" to evolution, but also things like no sex ed, or abstinence-only sex-ed.

If I was dictator, you could teach your kids creationism, etc, but they'd still have to pass science classes that *weren't* forced to cater to your religious views.

And something like Dutch (or is it Danish) sex ed classes that start in kindergarten by teaching about healthy relationship would be required too.

Ok, several different things sort of collided in my head the other day.

First was the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Next was Impostor syndrome

Add in a Dilbert cartoon where the pointy-haired boss was talking to Alice about Dunning-Kruger...

So, I thought, we have the *really* incompetent thing they are great at whatever, so they'll be very confident about their abilities. And a fair percentage of the folks who are actually *good* at something will have Impostor syndrome and not be very confident.

Now, what is a very important (actually *overly* important in my opinion) factor in job interviews? How confident the applicant appears.

Considering the above, that may not be a very good criteria. Especially if you add in the con-man types who can *exude* confidence in spite of knowing they aren't competent, but can *fake* things long enough to accomplish their goal.

Once again subjective factors mess things up.

I slept thru much of Coming Out day. But here's a quick sketch...

Bi (ever since I knew about sex).

Somewhat poly.

Switch (but prefer sub though I can be a "service top" for many things and a real top for a few.

Bi-gendered or genderfluid. I present male most of the time just because it's less effort (fewer spoons). Would like to present female more but after all these decades of having to present male for protective coloration, there are so many things to unlearn as well as things to learn.

But ever since I knew the anatomical differences I wanted to switch back and forth. Had some rather detailed fantasies about different sorts of "cycles". Also tried the tape bit when I was in my early teens but couldn't get it to work. :-)

Probably neurovariant, possibly Aspergers or the like.

PTSD, social phobia social anxiety disordedr, all going back to when I was a kid, but getting worse in my later teens.

Hopefully, I'm a lovable mess.

This post got me thinking. And while it's appalling I realized something about the way guys are "indoctrinated".

Guys, especially teens *know* that *of course* everyone wants sex. They don't even question it.

A fair number figure that there are reasons why a girl might not want to admit it. They get *that* much* of female cultural conditioning.

But I suspect that the vast majority would find the concept of girls actively not *wanting* to have sex totally incomprehensible. And a lot don't "get it" even after they become "responsible adults.

The simple fact is responsible for vast amounts of suffering.

So, not only do we need to quit teaching that "no means no" (rather teach that "anything but an explicit *yes* means no") but we need to get across to guys that for females sex is a *horribly* risky thing and that they have a lot of very good reasons to not even want to *consider* it.

With that context, teaching them that "consent means an explicit yes" will be a lot easier.

Heck, it might even make the stupidity that is "abstinence only" sex "education" a bit less of a major fail.

I've been working my way through an interesting person's tumblr (warning, she's got a *lot* of NSFW content) and I ran across this entry.

The comments about "forced socialization" are *so* true. Yet somehow most teachers, parents and other adults don't seem to even *consider* the possibility of any of this.

I expect a lot is due to this cultures overwhelming bias towards extroverts.

But it's also a symptom of the practice of adults not *listening* to kids. You can't just throw a kid in with a bunch of other kids and expect them to learn social skills by osmosis, much less make friends.

Yeah, it works often enough to be seen (via selection bias) as workable. The problem is that when it doesn't work, it usually goes pretty far into the negative. And then we blame the kid for not being able to get along or whatever. Hell, it's where a lot of bullying comes from.

Parents *really* need to stop and listen. And consider that while the kid may not be expressing himself well, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have a point. He (or she) may well know quite well that things are going wrong (and how), but just lacks the vocabulary to discuss it.

Lack of success does *not* mean lack of effort. Often it's a case of clashing personality types. Or of ignorance.

I know that I had some difficulties fitting in in the first few grades because (due to being raised by a widow) I didn't know the rules to baseball, football, etc. Didn't help that mom's husband had been a lefty, so when she gave me his old baseball glove it didn't help.

We *really* could use someone sitting down and writing out all the stuff "normal" kids *do* pick up thru osmosis and writing it down (probably as a series of "age" appropriate books) for the kids (and adults) who *don't* figure it out.

Also need something to explain to the kids who don't "work" the way "normal" kids do (and their parents and teachers) that it's not *wrong* to be different. And suggest coping strategies that *aren't* "fake it".

I was reading about a study of what happened when men got into women's spaces. Stuff like there being 5 men to almost 40 women, but the men did 50% of te talking, and were "deferred" to a lot.

I suddenly remembered an incident at a party some years back. I'd wandered into a group of folks I mostly knew and they were talking about something I was interested in (might have been computers, might have been gaming). And I kept trying to join inn but kept getting ignored.

Now, this is a continuing problem with me as I'm overly polite and not very assertive. So I have trouble finding a break I feel I can use to interject things.

This time it was a lot worse than usual. So much so I finally went elsewhere feeling really lousy.

But now I'm wondering. I know that I went to a lot of those parties en femme. Being as it's been so long, I don't recall if I was that time. But if I was, that'd make the suck even worse. Because those folks knew me both ways. And that'd mean that they were unconsciously tteating me differently.

fayanora posted a link to about procrastination.

While reading it, I was reminded of other issues with similar causes.

Especially this paragraph

You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.

Growing up with "high expectations" and a parent who didn't believe in praise except for *exceeding* her expectations led to that sort of thing.

To use a sports analogy, it was like being criticized for every stumble and missed step, but at the same time being expected to turn in exceptional times on the track. *Before* you have gotten any experience at running, nor worked up your "wind", stamina and other skills and abilities that require practice or training (training in the sense of exercising an ability to improve it, not in the sense of being shown how to do it).

So you turn in a time of 15 for the hundred yard dash and get criticized for not being faster, totally ignoring the fact that your previous time was 17.

Improvement didn't matter because you weren't "good enough".

This is a recipe for getting someone to *hate* whatever it is that they are supposed to be "good at".

Being "smart" doesn't apply equally to all subjects. Nor will it help if the problems haven't been explained properly.


Mom got that basic arithmetic required drills (because it was mostly rote memorization). But any other math "should" have been "read the text", or "hear the technique explained" and then you should be perfect.

Yeah right.

Add in a large dose of "because *I* understand [unspoken rule] then it doesn't need to be explained to the kid. And if he gets it wrong, he's "not trying" or "lazy".

The logic there escapes me. You make getting things wrong *very* painful (often *literally* with liberal applications of the switch) yet failures must be from lack of effort, they can't *possibly* be from poor teaching that lead to lack of information or lack of understanding of some crucial detail.

In my later teens I actually had the guts to actually say that I wished I had a father so that there'd be somebody to appeal mom's irrational decisions to.

Oh yeah, hit someone with "not trying" and "lazy" often enough, combined with their best efforts getting "you can do better" and eventually they *will* quit putting forth any effort they aren't forced to. Why should they? They'll get punished anyway (and don't try to claim that "not trying", "lazy" and "you can do better" *aren't* punishment regardless of any physical "discipline" applied)

Yeah, I've never raised any kids. Hell, given what *my* childhood was like, and the "sterling example" I had, I decided a *long* time ago that it was best if I didn't ever have any. Not that I've had the chance.

But that doesn't mean that what I have to say can be casually tossed aside. I've got *lots* of experience (that unlike too many adults, I actually *remember) at what sort of treatment will be seen as grossly unfair by any child with an ounce of brains.

Sure, kids don't have the best judgment on many things. But there's that famous quote about a ruler not only having to be fair & just nut must be *seen* as fair and just.

Lots of necessary stuff is going to be resented by kids. But there's lot of stuff that *isn't* fair or just, merely "parents always have [and always will] gotten away with" that just maybe needs a second look. Or a third.

At the very least folks, try to rein in your expectations. Take a look and see if the kid has done better than last time. Even if you think the kid can do better (and you just might be wrong about that) they *did* do better. That doesn't merit a "you can do better". That merits a "you did better. Good" Then, *after* they've gotten that little bit of carrot, *maybe* it will be appropriate to start discussing how they can do better next time.

And don't *assume* things. Maybe they got that wrong because what they heard/read given what they know (which is *not* what YOU know) is wrong or lacking in some critical detail.

Sad and painful example.

I got confronted with some "math" problems where letters had been substitued for digits. And you were supposed to be able to work out the answer. Which involved figuring out what digit (0-9) had been substituted for which letter.

Not easy, but doable. But when it was explained to me, all I was told was that you substituted numbers for letters. Mom thought that was sufficient. But she *assumed* a crucial detail was "obvious". Namely that in a given problem, you *always* substituted the *same* digit* for the same letter.

Lacking that little bit of info, I quickly came to the (*correct* given the info I had) conclusion that there weren't any unique solutions, so the problems couldn't be solved.

Guess who got in trouble for not doing the problems?

I've heard of a kid who got into trouble for similar reasons on some problems. Only unlike my mom, someone wondered why he got such wrong answers and worked the problems thru with him.

In his case, there'd been an example problem at the start of the section to explain how to do the (simple algebra) problems.

When the person working with him started working the firsat real problem the kid exploded. "You aren't using the same numbers!!"

After a bit of back and forth the adult realized that the kid had been trying to use the X and y values *form the example* in the rest of the problems. Because nowhere was it stated that they'd be different in each problem. Because "everyone knew" that.

Once that was cleared up the kid did very well n the problems.

But without someone willing to dig into *why* he'd gotten wrong answers, he'd have flunked. All because it was *assumed* that students would know something that was never explicitly stated.

Little kids are *notorious for behavior that if you look at it *objectively* is *not" "stupid" or "silly". It's them quite logically applying the e rules they have been given and getting tripped up because the *adults* had not given them necessary information or rules, they'd just *assumed* that it was "obvious".

Classic example is the joke about the little girl who told her mother that she'd made a bunch of money off the little boys betting her that she couldn't do a handstand. Mother tells her that the boys were trying to see her panties, and she shouldn't let them.

Next day she's boasting about how much more money she'd made betting with the boys. Mother reminds her that they were trying to see her panties and that she shouldn't have let them. At which point the girl pipes up "Yeah, I fooled them by not wearing any!"

Perfectly logical from the girl's point of view, and *horribly* inappropriate from the mother's point of view. But it's ythe mother's fault for *assuming* that she only had to tell her daughter not to let boys see her panties.

Adults do this with other adults as well. Bosses or trainers who don't think to explain crucial details about a job because they are "obvious". Or politicians who use the principle with malice aforethought to mislead people by leaving out info so that folks will *assume* the "obvious" (but *wrong*) fats as background and conclude that something awful is being done.

Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85%

Check the stuff about ACEs. It's *way* too familiar to me, and I suspect to many of you.

I scored a 3 on their shortened version of the ACE survey. I rather expect I might score higher on the full version.

I could *so* have used a school like that back when I was in high school.

I ran into the old chestnut about "Can God create a rock to big for Him to move?"

The standard answer is that it's a nonsense question.

But then it occurred to me that if God can set rules for the universe, maybe he can set rules that he has to follow. In that case, if he created a rock with the intent that he not be able to move it, then it would indeed be immovable, because he'd made that a new rule.

Different, but plausible, yes?

Then it hit me. God created man with free will. And if the above idea is true, he's stuck with us having free will.

That explains a *lot* of things about the world that are otherwise hard to square with am "omnipotent" deity. Most of what theologians refer to as "The Problem of Evil" to name but one.

Reading yet another tale that all too accurately recounts what childhood was like for many, I once again had the "If I were dictator" thoughts on dealing with such things. But this time a few new ideas came to mind.

Not sure how to break the culture of "don't involve the adults" that keeps so many kids enduring stuff that should never happen. Finding ways to make it obvious *to the kids* that adults who can't be trusted get punished for it might help. Meanwhile:

Fighting: Ok, many boys (and some girls) actually enjoy a bit of a tussle. Or at least have no problem with it if it's a fair fight and they've got a reason.

So outright saying "no fighting" is a non starter. Finding ways to limit it to something resembling mutual consent and one of one with no retaliation from "buddies" of the loser against the winner would suffice for that.

The big kid picking on the smaller kid (or other mismatches such as a kid with lots of skill/experience/strength against a kid without it) and ganging up should get treated as assault, with only some mitigation for age.

"Games" like keepaway are theft. Plain and simple. No excuses of the "we were just playing" sort. Again, *some* mitigation for age.

Damaging/destroying things belonging to other kids is vandalism. Period.

Adults who are supposedly supervising or otherwise responsible for the kids and either don't prevent this stuff or shrug it off get charged as *accessories*. As adults. (one of the new thoughts).

Somehow, I suspect that the teachers, coaches, etc who try to say "kids will be kids" or "the wimp needs to stand up for himself" or any of the other loathsome things that are too often used as excuses would change their tune is the "pranks" or "jokes" or "boisterousness" could result in them facing criminal charges. And face it, these things *are* crimes, even if current society doesn't want to treat them as such.

Alas I can't come up with good ways to deal with the "sports are super important" folks.

One thought regarding PE though. Heart rate monitors are pretty cheap, and pulse oximeters could be if they were produced in larger numbers.

I have this vision of a PE class were all the students are wearing them and some authority figure points at the readings for some kid like I was and reams the PE teacher a new one for telling the kid to try harder when the "wimp has a higher heart rate than the jocks and is struggling with a lot lower blood oxygen level as well.

Come to think of it, something like those, maybe with a couple other things like a temp sensor might be able to be pushed as a way to avoid liability for pushing kids too far...

Dealing with the various horrid memes out there, like "being brainy is bad" or worthy of getting picked on for, or that acting "gay" or "like a sissy" is worthy of abuse are another whole set of problems.

But being able to just stop the *physical* abuses would help.