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Lies We Tell Kids

paulgraham.com

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Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#301

Post by xcombinator »

dpapathanasiou wrote: post #239
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…

My least favorite pg essay. I agree; it's even worse than the one on philosophy.

Me too.

I use to like PG essays, I don't like this.

I don't remember being lied by my parent's. I used to ask my father a lot, and he as a scientist replied. Then I started reading books. They didn't hide anything.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#302

Post by xcombinator »

yters wrote: post #168

I think one of the most important purposes of morality is to keep people smart and interesting. I grew up in a pretty sheltered Christian environment, and the difference between how I thought and they way the jaded teenagers at public school thought was very distinct. The behaviors that are traditionally considered sinful end up making the sinner a boring and small minded person in the long run. This is essentially b…

Thanks for the enlightenment. I never thought about that. I believe something that is deeply ingrained in our mind should have a reason.

Having felt in love when I wanted to work I can understand what you say. Love-sex actives some area in our mind, and nothing is more important in that moment.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#303

Post by copenja »

astine wrote: post #22

Does it count as a 'lie' if it is believed by the parent? The reason that parents don't want kids to swear is because they genuinely believe that it is wrong for some reason. The don't know the reason themselves, and so break the rule and become hypocrites, but they still believe that it is wrong and want their children to do better than they did. With regard to group identity (and religion,) most parents actually ad…

I honestly never feel that I was lied to about swearing.

When I was a very young kid, 3rd or 4th grade, my Father told me that there was nothing wrong with swearing...but that I shouldn't do it in front of my my Mother.

My grade school teacher caught me swearing and she told me the same thing.

It is a respect thing, a culture thing. You don't swear in front of your mother for the same reason you don't take your dick out in public: It's considered impolite.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#304

Post by xcombinator »

abahmonkey wrote: post #283

I was not lied to in this fashion. I was raised a Quaker, and we don't lie. My parents told me about sex, prostitutes and drugs from a young age (5?). They told me sex and drugs were fun, but even better for your soul if you waited for the right person in life. Having only had a sexual relationship with my wife, I can't say if this is true, but it certainly feels true. At any rate, because of their honesty I didn't f…

I hate the city(living)too.I live in a eurpean suburb-village, PG talks about american suburbs. Every person I know from america tells me the same America lacks social spaces. Solution is not city center through.

Cities are unnatural,noise,too much people,stress. I like going into cities when I need, but not living.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#305

Post by randomhack »

mhartl wrote: post #201
asnyder wrote: post #19

Besides being a woman, Marie Curie was the first and ONLY person to ever recieve a Nobel Prize in different sciences. Something her male counterparts have yet to do, so maybe there's something there besides her sex.

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…

You forgot to mention Turing :) Turing doesnt get much space in school textbooks. And von Neumann too despite being one of the giants of mathematics in 20th century.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#306

Post by partdavid »

DmitriLebedev wrote: post #289

Never heard "Ask your parents" in my life. I guess it's only in American culture.

So then what is the response when someone else's child asks those example questions? If a child asks you if there is a God, do you try to convert them to whatever you believe?

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#307

Post by geebee »

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.

"Grandma went to heaven" may be a kind of lie, it depends on the context.

If a priest says to me (a 36 yo adult) that "Grandma went to heaven" it clearly is not a lie. I know that the priest is speaking from faith, and I am able to evaluate the truthfulness of his statement in context. In this case, it's implied that the statement means "I have deep religious faith that grandma is in heaven." This doesn't need to be spelled out.

However, if a priest says this to a small child, it becomes a kind of lie unless the priest explains the difference between faith and fact. If Itell my son that "France is in Europe, catepillars become butterflies, and Grandma went to heaven", I have pretty much lied to my kid, even if I deeply believe that all statements are true.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#308

Post by partdavid »

run4yourlives wrote: post #193
allenbrunson wrote: post #159

pg quotes Peter Mayle, writing about divorce: "You shouldn't put the blame on one parent, because divorce is never only one person's fault." to that pg replies: "Really? When a man runs off with his secretary, is it always partly his wife's fault?" my answer to that would be: yes, even in that case, the guy's wife has to take part of the blame. she married him in the first place. if she was observant, she would have…

That's an outrageous opinion, frankly. Do you blame the people of Burma too for not "recognizing the signs" of the impending catastrophe? The rape victim for wearing a dress that's too tight? Blame should be placed always with the actor. There may be extenuating circumstances for the people involved, but one should never allow those to dissolve and/or lesson the blame in the action.

"Blame should be placed always with the actor."

I wouldn't have put it the way the GP did, but yeah, "blame," if we have to assign it, probably does always land at least partly on both partners in a relationship. PG was proposing a hypothetical in "outrageous" terms as a counterexample, and arguing about the specifics of the counterexample is probably pointless. We aren't going to establish what the specifics were in the situation because it doesn't exist.

By "always blaming the actor" you also blame the woman who leaves an abusive man. You also blame the man who leaves his wife because she had an affair (though she doesn't want the marriage to end).

You're attaching a heavy moral burden to the notion of a failed marriage, and I think where the "Both partners are always responsible for a divorce" counselor is coming from is not one of moralistic condemnation. You're lumping an affair in with rape and natural disaster. At best, that's hyperbole, at worst you're trying to impose your moral code of fidelity on other people's children.

In a world where about a third of both men and women "cheat" on their spouses, I think it's hypocritical of society to be universally and unilaterally condemnative of the behavior. If we're talking about the culpability in breaking a promise of fidelity, we also need (in the context of our hypothetical affair situation) to talk about the culpability involved in the other promises of marriage. Was she loving, honoring and obeying him? Was he? I don't accept that these thorny and extremely poorly-defined questions can possibly come down to a simple equation of blame.

You might accuse me of casuistry, and I can see that. But as far as I'm concerned you can't possibly come up with some equation of "blame" for a failed marriage whose definition is so precise and so universal that there is any circumstance where you can objectively and unambiguously assign it to only one partner.

A better example lie, in the context of a divorce, might have been "children are always blameless." It's obnoxious to most people to contemplate the idea that children in a family might contribute to a divorce, but this is undoubtedly sometimes true.

Re: Lies We Tell Kids

#310

Post by DmitriLebedev »

partdavid wrote: post #306
DmitriLebedev wrote: post #289

Never heard "Ask your parents" in my life. I guess it's only in American culture.

So then what is the response when someone else's child asks those example questions? If a child asks you if there is a God, do you try to convert them to whatever you believe?

I say what I think. I don't think saying "doesn't seem to exist, but many people believe" may harm any kid.

If a kid asks me of sexual stuff, i'll think twice, because what I say can be transmitted to parents in a different shape.

Let me ask: will you answer "ask your parents" in the same situations? About the religion - do you consciously try to avoid confronting a kid with your beliefs (that may be different)? (just want to figure out)

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