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Lies We Tell Kids

paulgraham.com

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Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#221

Post by Mistone »

pchristensen wrote: post #135
jamesbritt wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is ESPECIALLY dangerous if you (or your kids) are smart. If you're fairly smart, then school is easy. It's easy, so you never fail, so you never understand that many things (including most worth doing) are hard." Add to that parents who keep telling their smart kids how they expect them to do well, that they can be and do anything they want in life, etc., and the amount of personal disappointment these kids fac…

I've taken great care (and gotten my wife on board too) to change the way we praise our older girl. When she does something new, we no longer say "Wow, you're so smart!" - we say "Wow, that was great how you worked hard and kept trying until you succeeded!".

nice - a small but important distinctions, I'm going to use something similar.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#222

Post by edw519 »

TunaFish wrote: post #203
edw519 wrote: post #65

Einstein, like many people, felt differently about religion at different times in his life, throughout which he maintained his Jewish identity. Young Einstein's observation about religion cited in the article should probably be balanced by older Einstein's insight, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

I find it funny, if also a bit sad, how strongly certain societal groups try to spin Einstein's views about religion decades after his death. For insight, I offer a bit more of his text around that tiny little quote that is so often used out of context. " The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Though I have asserted above that in truth a legiti…

"I find it funny, if also a bit sad"

"certain societal groups try to spin"

"tiny little quote that is so often used out of context"

"This brings us back to the issue of lies"

"so often used to state"

"completely eviscerates"

"Obviously, someone here has told a lie"

"Was it you"

"one who first told you"

"lessen your trust in the truthfulness"

"Will you now be going around correcting"

My nominee for "Bait of the Year". Nice try.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#223

Post by jganetsk »

hugh wrote: post #212
mhartl wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let N be the number of great scientists. It would be sensible for the curriculum to include the n greatest scientists, where n N . Since Marie Curie always gets included in the textbooks, we can conclude either that she ranks as one of the n greatest scientists, even for very small n , or that the reasons for her inclusion go beyond her scientific accomplishments. Considering how few history textbooks mention (for ex…

I don't think anyone is trying to deny that Curie gets a little more attention in the school curriculum and the popular mind just because she's a woman, but I think the point asnyder was making is that she at least has the distinction of being a great scientist, unlike George Washington Carver who (and I had to look him up, since having not been educated in the US I'd never really heard of this guy) doesn't seem to b…

We aren't talking about the users of this board, we are talking about the average American who went through the public education system. 99.9% of them have heard of George Washington Carver, but not of Onsager and Landau.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#224

Post by andreyf »

pchristensen wrote: post #191
ambition wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a great article. It also touched on a commonly-told lie which pg's essay didn't mention: Eternal true love and monogamy in marriage.

I prefer "Working at love" to "Falling in love" - it addresses both of those "lies"

I prefer "Working at love" to "Falling in love" - it addresses both of those "lies"

But that takes out quite a bit of the romanticism out of it, doesn't it?

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#225

Post by Mistone »

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.

a good point, essay gets downgraded a bit due to fact that the author does not have direct experience, but like startups, just because you've done one does not make you good at it, and many of the most interesting are first timers (see facebook/google/and most yc co.'s). This essay would be better if he was expecting and thus thinking a lot about being a parent.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#226

Post by Mistone »

wallflower wrote: post #7

"Probably the biggest lie told in schools, though, is that the way to succeed is through following "the rules." In fact most such rules are just hacks to manage large groups efficiently." Reminds me of something Seth Godin (?) once said - that the whole purpose of school is to institutionalize mediocrity

awesome insight.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#227

Post by pg »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #176
michael_nielsen wrote: post #6

"I used to think I wanted to know everything. Now I know I don't." I'd be interested to know what caused the change, and what types of knowledge you'd prefer not having.

Read Paul Fussell's Wartime . Or Eugene Sledge's With the Old Breed - At Peleliu and Okinawa . Then you'll know why I'm happy to study war from my armchair, despite the fact that I'll never really know what combat is like. It's also good to not know what it feels like to be high on heroin or hooked on nicotine.

With the Old Breed is a truly great book.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#229

Post by epi0Bauqu »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #97
pg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

A few short follow-up questions: 1) Is any "development" part of suburbia? 2) What if there were multiple developers building the houses? 3) What if it is x miles from a town center? 4) What if the owners built their own houses in the development? Let's get specific using the Boston area as an example. 5) Do you think any parts of Cambridge count as suburbia? 6) Do you think any of the following areas/towns count as…

Why am I getting voted down for this--are these not legitimate questions? I am just trying to understand the definition of suburbia in this context.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#230

Post by mechanical_fish »

comatose_kid wrote: post #204
mechanical_fish wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically right. The words are taboo because it's useful to have taboo words, so the culture deliberately makes them so. Taboo words are useful because they transcend politeness. If a normally civil person comes into your dinner party and tells you that the fucking ceiling is about to fall down , you get moving . You don't waste time looking around for the ironic smile. You don't reproach the person for speak…

Interesting. So I wonder if exceptions are the programming language analogue of swearing?

Now that is insightful. I think you're saying that, when a program gets into an unstable state of stress and confusion, it throws exceptions... and vice versa.

I could buy that.

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