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You can't tell people anything (2004)

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Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#141

Post by throw681158 »

junyoon wrote: post #126
jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

I know this sounds shallow and it is and I've out grown it (I think) but could a young person's 'problem they have' be parental expectations? It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between this and a student's academic performance.

In my experience pushy parenting works. Kids tend to come out of it kinda awkward but broadly academically successful and morally upstanding. No way in hell I'd do that to my kid, but it's not a strategy doomed to failure.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#142

Post by watwut »

jrussino wrote: post #74
memco wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. This may be way off in another field, but this is actually frustrating to me as a father in another way: when we watch shows or read books with our child so many of the stories are so far detached from reality as to make me ask, "Why are we asking kids to care about this?" I have particular ire fo…

Have you found any good counterexamples? We let our three-year-old watch Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and I love it because it is exactly this: short (~10 minute) stories about situations and conflicts that a young child will encounter in everyday life. I’d be really interested to hear of other good shows & books like this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Daniel_Tiger%27s_Nei...

It is for a bit older kids, but comics from Raina Telgemeier are real life like. Some are autobiographical.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#143

Post by throw681158 »

cuddlybacon wrote: post #40
marcosdumay wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the culture of anti-competence (although, yes, that exists). How many times have you tried to communicate a novel idea to competent people just to have them dismiss it with obvious problems that clearly don't apply to your idea? That doesn't happen because they can't evaluate your idea, it happens because they don't understand the idea itself. When the innovation is small you can get away by repeating it aga…

One thing I've noticed is the better an engineer gets, the better they are at shooting down every idea they see. While I have seen many cases where a person did it anyways and failed, I have also seen many cases where they did it anyways and where massively successful.

I would amend this to: the better an engineer gets while still staying a salaried engineer.

Calcified engineers are more likely to enjoy the high-level corporate environment. Flexible ones leave to start companies, contract, whatever.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#144

Post by watwut »

mrslave wrote: post #101
gowld wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stick with PBS Kids and Sesame Street and Mister Rogers reruns.

If I remember correctly, babies learn to distinguish vowels from consonants from near birth when adults speak to them in that annoying high pitched "coochy coochy coo" dialect. After 6-12 months of life this starts to hold them back as they need to transition to hearing normal sounds and seeing the people mouthing them. The puppets with hinge-flap mouths, exaggerated and insanely high pitched accents in Sesame Street…

At the age when kids watch Sesame Street, they understand spoken language well and there it is ridiculous to worry about their ability to learn language.

Also, even kids that are hold back due to in high pitched accents are hold back little bit for like two months maximum, so it completely absurd to worry about any of that.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#145

Post by throw681158 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #71

Training is hard. I've been training remarkably difficult-to-train people for decades, with really spotty success. Part of it was that I have never been "trained to train," so I cleared the minefield by dancing through it. I have learned to take Responsibility for communication. In my experience, if "they" don't "get it," it's my fault. The biggest problem that I have, is starting at too high a baseline (sounds like…

This reads like sales speak. My experience is the opposite. Some people take to concepts like a duck to water, some people are dopey and forget things you told them an hour ago, some people (most people) want you to hold their hand every step of the way and will actively try to avoid figuring things out independently.

I want to say it's enthusiasm that matters, but a lazy smart person takes less time to train than an enthusiastic moron, in my experience.

If you're paid to train people it's healthy to take responsibility for that but IMO it's not realistic or true. Training someone with poor aptitude is like swimming through tar. It's palpably different.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#146

Post by vnorilo »

ksdale wrote: post #79
memco wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. This may be way off in another field, but this is actually frustrating to me as a father in another way: when we watch shows or read books with our child so many of the stories are so far detached from reality as to make me ask, "Why are we asking kids to care about this?" I have particular ire fo…

To add to your complaints, so many narratives designed for kids have such a clear delineation between the good side and the bad side. I'm not sure it's great for kids to be so steeped in the belief that the good and the bad are always and immediately obvious. Another qualm I have, similar to yours, is the number of kids' shows that focus on "problem-solving" but then have the solution be some sort of magic item they…

I think I saw an essay linked on HN once about how many popular kids' shows have fascist worldview (examples were Thomas the Tank Engine and Paw Patrol) Now before you roll your eyes, these shows have nothing to do with murdering the "wrong kind" of people or destroying democracy, but it had a point: there is a fixed world order, the moral of the story is that of you disobey authority or move out of your role, bad things will happen.

Kids also lap this up. They are be in a phase where they need a sense or order in a chaotic world. It's a developmental phase. At some point when they grow up some great books, movies or games will hopefully provide disruption.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#147

Post by gfxgirl »

throw681158 wrote: post #134
memco wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. This may be way off in another field, but this is actually frustrating to me as a father in another way: when we watch shows or read books with our child so many of the stories are so far detached from reality as to make me ask, "Why are we asking kids to care about this?" I have particular ire fo…

I think mythology is an important metaphorical tool, but I'm inclined to agree with you. Disney movies are engineered to sell, usually by indulging kids' fantasies. One of the big numbers in The Little Mermaid is literally, "I have so many toys, and now I'm in love." It's kid-crack. Kids like candy. I like Mulan though, and The Lion King. I think those are some very cool movies with very good life lessons.

Mulan is great! The Lion King though, The evil dark skinned lion and his dark skinned underlings with immigrant accents take over and the world goes to shit. Only the light colored royal lineage can be in charge if you want a nice world.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#148

Post by dragonwriter »

memco wrote: post #66
jerf wrote: post #7

I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. I think it's one of the major problems in the entire structure of the educational system... it's all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet. Sometimes this is just unavoidable; I'm not sure how to turn geography into a problem you have. (I mean, you can fake it, but people's brains…

> I often think of this as "it's hard to tell people the solution to a problem they don't have", or don't know they have. This may be way off in another field, but this is actually frustrating to me as a father in another way: when we watch shows or read books with our child so many of the stories are so far detached from reality as to make me ask, "Why are we asking kids to care about this?" I have particular ire fo…

> I have particular ire for Disney's penchant to make kids think they need to be groomed for life in royal society

Er, none of Disney’s films—well, at least not the princess ones, there might be something I'm unaware of elsewhere in the body of Disney-branded (and even more likely in the broader Disney-owned) catalog—has anything to do with grooming children for life in royal society. They are largely adaptations of fairy tales that use stories of royals specifically because they are interestingly exotic to communicate lessons of quotidian life aimed directly at children of more common means (often the adaptation changes the intended message to something modern and empowering from the original message which is often something like “don’t stray from the course society has set for you on pain of death”.)

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#149

Post by throw681158 »

gfxgirl wrote: post #147
throw681158 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think mythology is an important metaphorical tool, but I'm inclined to agree with you. Disney movies are engineered to sell, usually by indulging kids' fantasies. One of the big numbers in The Little Mermaid is literally, "I have so many toys, and now I'm in love." It's kid-crack. Kids like candy. I like Mulan though, and The Lion King. I think those are some very cool movies with very good life lessons.

Mulan is great! The Lion King though, The evil dark skinned lion and his dark skinned underlings with immigrant accents take over and the world goes to shit. Only the light colored royal lineage can be in charge if you want a nice world.

Ehh, that reads like shoehorning in a political agenda to me. The hyenas aren't dangerous because they're foreign, they're foreign because they're dangerous. Their actions make them a threat - they're sneaky, mean and evil. That's why the lions don't accept them.

Timone is also foreign.

But like, if you want a parable they already gave you one: they aren't immigrants, they're Nazis.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#150

Post by dragonwriter »

vnorilo wrote: post #146
ksdale wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to your complaints, so many narratives designed for kids have such a clear delineation between the good side and the bad side. I'm not sure it's great for kids to be so steeped in the belief that the good and the bad are always and immediately obvious. Another qualm I have, similar to yours, is the number of kids' shows that focus on "problem-solving" but then have the solution be some sort of magic item they…

I think I saw an essay linked on HN once about how many popular kids' shows have fascist worldview (examples were Thomas the Tank Engine and Paw Patrol) Now before you roll your eyes, these shows have nothing to do with murdering the "wrong kind" of people or destroying democracy, but it had a point: there is a fixed world order, the moral of the story is that of you disobey authority or move out of your role, bad th…

> I think I saw an essay linked on HN once about how many popular kids' shows have fascist worldview (examples were Thomas the Tank Engine and Paw Patrol)

Neither of those have even vaguely fascist worldviews. Particularly, non features the militarism or ultranationalism or xenophobia associated with fascism.

TTE arguably is problematic in other ways stemming from the fact that the bulk of the major characters are, in fact, items of property—technically state property though in the presentation of the narrative of the show they are virtually indistinguishable from personal chattels of the Fat Controller (Sir Topham Hatt in the US versions) or the Thin Controller (Mr. Percival in the US), including a number of them being threatened with imminent destruction for not being “really useful”.

> there is a fixed world order, the moral of the story is that of you disobey authority or move out of your role, bad things will happen.

That's not at all particular to fascism, it's the dominant rule of most historical societies and of most morality stories directed at children, including most fairy tales which long predate the development of fascism.

It's also not really a fair criticism of Paw Patrol, though it certainly is of at least much of TTE.

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