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Let's End Adolescence

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Re: Let's End Adolescence

#151

Post by dgabriel »

thras wrote: post #147
dgabriel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bell Curve is incredibly controversial. I recommend reading some criticism of the book. Here's a good start: http://goinside.com/98/3/postmod.html

That's a terrible start. I don't think that "William J. Matthews, Ph.D." got beyond the introduction. The statement that "Herrnstein and Murray's assessment of race and class differences...rest on 4 very questionable premises which they simply do not discuss much less defend [which are then listed]" is simply false. The book goes into massive detail on each. Matthews is not simply mistaken, he has flat-out lied. Well…

In any case, you should google Bell Curve plus controversy. I'm not sure it's a book that is generally seen as "good science," so much as "popular and possibly misleading science."

Re: Let's End Adolescence

#153

Post by bokonist »

rsheridan6 wrote: post #144
bokonist wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One option: Abolish Congress and the presidency. I mean, what have they done for you lately? Can you name a single good deed they've done in the past 30 years? Use some sort of board of trustees to select the Supreme Court justices and the Joint Chiefs. Perhaps this board of trustees would be selected by existing trustees, or perhaps we could use something like the Venetian lottery system ( http://unenumerated.blogsp…

You could do worse than emulate the Republic of Venice, which lasted about 1000 years and only went down because a big empire (Austria) took them down. I would bet money that the US won't last that long, except that I don't expect to live long enough to collect. But you could also do a lot worse than US-style democracy. See any number of lunatic 20th century dictators - and lots of monarchs. The disaster of WWI, for…

Many of these lunatic dictators were elected ( Mussolini, Hitler) and the others came to power from revolutions that promised a "people's democracy" ( the Bolsheviks, Mao, Pol Pot).

My take on the origins of World War I is quite different than yours. From my readings, the monarchs were much less willing to go to war than the politicians, and the politicians were less rabid than the mob. Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia all had elected parliaments with universal manhood suffrage that voted for the war. The rise of universal suffrage in the late 1800's gave rise to a number of jingoistic newspapers and politicians. Imagine five powerful countries and all the sources of news were like Fox News - no NYTimes or NPR. That's the recipe for one of the worst wars in human history. Pre-democracy, the kings would fight a few battles and call it a day ( see the Franco-Prussian war of 1871). With a democracy, calling a truce was "giving in to the aggressor" and the war lasted four terrible years.

Some good books/articles on the subject: Liberty Or Equality ( http://blog.mises.org/archives/006326.asp ), The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig, Once an ArchDuke by Archduke Ferdinand, "Churchill on the Great War" - http://themonarchist.blogspot.com/2008/08/churchill-on-great..., Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War"

Re: Let's End Adolescence

#154

Post by Nerdlinger »

I don't look down on people who work with their hands. At the same time, though, I think that the power to create original things is the best power we've got. To be fair, few people ever do this, regardless of position. If you look at hackers as a whole, we're no better.

But at least we're sexy objects.

Re: Let's End Adolescence

#155

Post by diN0bot »

jimbokun wrote: post #90
tomjen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that a low birth rate says anything about when people grow up. If it did, teenage mothers would be the most responsible people in society.

You know, a teenage mother raised a man who was just elected to the most powerful position on Earth. Anecdotal, yes. But your comment relies on a stereotype. How do we know that teenage mothers do not quickly start maturing from the point they become teenage mothers, relative to their peers? They almost have no choice. (I say that knowing of some concrete counter-examples to what I just argued. But that's just anecdo…

Furthermore, correlation does not imply causation. There are many factors at play, including the correlation that many teenage mothers are also single mothers.

Re: Let's End Adolescence

#156

Post by AndrewWarner »

I'll speak for myself and say that I spent my teenage years sure that I could do so much more. Some of my best years were wasted listening to other teenagers tell me teir bad drinking stories. Boooo

Re: Let's End Adolescence

#157

Post by JabavuAdams »

Retric wrote: post #142
krschultz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real purpose of education is to turn people into intellectuals No, it isn't, unless you are talking about highly selective liberal arts colleges. And even then, the best you are going to get are 3rd generation photocopies of Susan Sontag. It would seem to me that that IS the purpose of education, especially a technical one. To me the definition of intellectual is a person who is always seeking to learn new things…

I went to a cheep, public, liberal arts school. Granted I know Harvard accepts our English credits, but check out shepherd.edu to see a good education for a reasonable price. PS: And yes the English department was insanely hard for a public school, but I still got a CS degree while taking 4 English classes, 2 history classes, art, music, horseback riding etc. They even force philosophy majors to take take a single co…

English fail.

Re: Let's End Adolescence

#159

Post by tdavis »

omouse wrote: post #5
tdavis wrote: post #4

While I wholeheartedly agree that there are many things wrong with "kids these days," completely abolishing adolescence would... what's a good word here... suck! Look, I did my fair share of dumb stuff when I was younger, most of which was done in the name of boredom. But what's the alternative here? "Happy 13th birthday, son, now go get a job!"? If high STD and drug use rates tell us anything, it's that these young…

If high STD and drug use rates tell us anything, it's that these young people are, on average, too immature to assume adult roles. Or that they have nothing better to do?

In fairness, there is never anything technically worse to do than make an impulse decision based on short-term gain at the expense of long-term destruction. There were always better things for me to be doing, it just so happened that I found none of them particularly engaging and enjoyable. The first and only conventional employment I ever had in no way engaged me nor did I gain any measure of joy from it.

Had I gotten a job at 15, I would likely be far worse off than I am now since my life would have been filled with more things I didn't like, leaving less time for me to learn what I did like and make mistakes trying, etc. I believe the fundamental problem here is that kids are basing their actions off of their peers, who are just as bored and unsatisfied and just as immature. Therefore, they end up making the same immature choices. If, instead, schools were improved, parents were more proactive and children were all extended the same opportunities someone like myself was, this wouldn't be an issue.

Of course that's never going to happen so the drug business is safe. Phew.

Re: Let's End Adolescence

#160

Post by Alex3917 »

thras wrote: post #127
jimbokun wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, a teenage mother raised a man who was just elected to the most powerful position on Earth. Anecdotal, yes. But your comment relies on a stereotype. How do we know that teenage mothers do not quickly start maturing from the point they become teenage mothers, relative to their peers? They almost have no choice. (I say that knowing of some concrete counter-examples to what I just argued. But that's just anecdo…

Actually, her mother was the one who raised him. Barack's mother ditched him with her parents so that she could live with her husband and daughter in Indonesia.

Not until he was in fifth grade.
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