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Lies We Tell Kids

paulgraham.com

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Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#31

Post by astine »

brlewis wrote: post #16
mynameishere wrote: post #9

Most lies are of a statistical nature. Moving to the suburbs is a good example. You're seeing lots of true things that aren't statistically representative. The extensive coverage of protected groups in history texts is the same way. Look at some different lies: 1. "Grandma went to heaven." False. 2. "God doesn't kill good people." False, but containing a moral lesson. 3. "Your parents won't die." False, but translate…

"Grandma went to heaven" is not falsifiable. I'd prefer keeping this discussion focused on falsifiable lies. Let those of us who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the coming of the semantic web, or other supernatural phenomena believe what we want to believe.

Ah the semantic web, as it was for told in the Book of Revelations.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#32

Post by pg »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #5

PG: what does suburbia mean to you? You paint it in an extremely negative light, and so I'd just like some more detail of how you define that term. I know it means different things to different people.

I mean post-war neighborhoods of tract houses build on spec by developers. I don't mean places that are merely geographically suburban, in the sense that they're less densely settled areas on the perimeters of cities.

(In the US, practically all the less densely settled area on the perimeters of cities are neighborhoods built by developers, but in Europe there are older cities where this isn't true.)

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#33

Post by dgabriel »

pg wrote: post #15
dgabriel wrote: post #4

My least favorite pg essay. It's too easy to generalize about parenting, and so little of this essay applies to me. 1. Raising a kid in the city, and quite happily. 2. No prohibitions on swears in my house. Just at Grandma's, and only because it would offend her, not because swearing is inherently bad. 3. He goes to a school where they only teach you how to read, write, and do basic math. Everything else is a child-l…

Lying to your kids is like the kind of intellectual fashion I wrote about in "What You Can't Say." No parent thinks they lie to their kids-- except of course in necessary or harmless ways -- just as no one thinks what they believe is an intellectual fashion. But in retrospect it turns out most parents do, just as in retrospect it turns out most people's beliefs are influenced by intellectual fashions. So if one has a…

The examples you presented to illustrate your argument ring false in my experience, and the premise seems flawed as a result. They may seem correct to you, depending on how your circle of friends behave.

It might be more correct to say everybody lies outrageously to everybody else, and sometimes one person is a parent and one person is a child.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#34

Post by mynameishere »

brlewis wrote: post #16
mynameishere wrote: post #9

Most lies are of a statistical nature. Moving to the suburbs is a good example. You're seeing lots of true things that aren't statistically representative. The extensive coverage of protected groups in history texts is the same way. Look at some different lies: 1. "Grandma went to heaven." False. 2. "God doesn't kill good people." False, but containing a moral lesson. 3. "Your parents won't die." False, but translate…

"Grandma went to heaven" is not falsifiable. I'd prefer keeping this discussion focused on falsifiable lies. Let those of us who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the coming of the semantic web, or other supernatural phenomena believe what we want to believe.

When something is falsifiable, that means it is suitable for examination by science. When something is not falsifiable it should be considered false, in most contexts.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#35

Post by sanj »

Does PG have kids?

I'm not advocating ignoring the essay if he doesn't.

But just as I'm leery of taking startup advice from someone who hasn't done one, I'd be tempted to discount this a bit.

The issue is that there are forces afoot in your brain when you have kids which are deep, powerful and extraordinarily difficult to ignore. Pre-mammalian lower-reptilian brain stuff.

Wanting to protect them is one of those.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#37

Post by byrneseyeview »

iamwil wrote: post #14

"And after having spent their whole lives doing things that arbitrary and believing things that are false, and being regarded as odd by "outsiders" on that account, the cognitive dissonance pushing children to regard themselves as Xes must be enormous. " Typo: I think there's suppose to be an "are" in "lives doing things that ARE arbitrary"

Not necessarily. Being that pedantic and reading sentences that are not so well-edited is no fun at all.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#38

Post by byrneseyeview »

sanj wrote: post #35

Does PG have kids? I'm not advocating ignoring the essay if he doesn't. But just as I'm leery of taking startup advice from someone who hasn't done one, I'd be tempted to discount this a bit. The issue is that there are forces afoot in your brain when you have kids which are deep, powerful and extraordinarily difficult to ignore. Pre-mammalian lower-reptilian brain stuff. Wanting to protect them is one of those.

You think his lack of kids would bias him when observing parents? Isn't this more or less the opposite of what courts argue -- that e.g. a judge who owns Microsoft stock should not be ruling on a Microsoft antitrust case, even if he is the only one who really knows what it would feel like for the shareholders were they walloped with a giant fine?

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#39

Post by dgabriel »

mynameishere wrote: post #10
dgabriel wrote: post #4

My least favorite pg essay. It's too easy to generalize about parenting, and so little of this essay applies to me. 1. Raising a kid in the city, and quite happily. 2. No prohibitions on swears in my house. Just at Grandma's, and only because it would offend her, not because swearing is inherently bad. 3. He goes to a school where they only teach you how to read, write, and do basic math. Everything else is a child-l…

Turkeys are not very smart, and have no concept of "wanting to die." Turkeys are very smart birds and their behavior is very finely geared around not dying.

Exactly. There aren't suicidal turkeys; they get slaughtered and cleaned and cooked. Why is that so horrifying for a child?

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#40

Post by EliAndrewC »

I think that it's only a lie to tell a child that they are an X if you also lead them to believe that this is a lifelong identity.

For example, I don't mind telling children born in the US that they are American children. They might grow up, move to another country, and change their citizenship (my mother knows people who have done this). So saying that they're American children is simply a description of their current state.

This would only be a lie if you let them grow up with the notion that they should stay Americans all their lives and that it would be somehow wrong to ever switch nationalities. Indeed, I imagine that many Americans would consider this unpatriotic and probably to some extent a betrayal. But it doesn't have to be that way.

The same thing is true for religion. Obviously many (if not most) religious groups don't bring children up to question their beliefs and decide for themselves what they believe and whether they want to belong to any religious group at all. But some do, and so I think it's possible to tell a child that they are a Christian child or a Muslim child or an atheist child without it being a lie. Just like telling them that they're an American child, it can simply be a description of their current state,

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