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Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

theguardian.com

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Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#21

Post by cedws »

oompydoompy74 wrote: post #11

I didn’t expect to open the comments and find people who were pro beating children on Hacker News. I find this abuse horrific and you should speak to a therapist if you think this is okay. Absolutely barbaric behavior.

After seeing with my own two eyes how soft touch policing and parenting leads to a shitty society for everyone I’m completely in favour of this. Singapore, Japan, among other Asian countries are safe and prosperous for a reason - if you do no wrong, you have nothing to fear. In London we recently had a swarm of youths raid supermarkets and shoplift. Most of them got off scot free. Even tenured criminals are getting out after a few months of jail time in the UK now because the prisons are full. I’m done with the pathetic soft touch approaches. I want to live in a high trust society. Second, third, and fourth chances aren’t the way to get there. You have to make them learn the first time.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#22

Post by jitler »

elevation wrote: post #19
oompydoompy74 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Deterrent can be an effective form of rehab. A former coworker of mine walks funny because he had polio as a child, and his father worked for the railway union after WWII. He told me one day in high school, one of his friends came to school with bruises couldn’t hide, inflicted by his drunk father. Everyone in school knew, everyone in town knew, but no one did anything. My coworker informed his dad, about the egregio…

> My coworker informed his dad, about the egregious injuries that day. His dad drove to the drunk man’s house and knocked on the door and seized the drunk man by the collar: “if you ever touch that boy again, I’ll kill you.”

Yeah that wouldn’t fly nowadays. Your friend’s father would be hot with a slew of charges from “terroristic threats” to “meanacing”

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#23

Post by jitler »

oompydoompy74 wrote: post #15
noworriesnate wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pain is a highly evolved way of telling humans to change their behavior. Why would we choose not to use such an excellent tool, within reasonable boundaries? Also, do you think the victims of bullies have a pleasant experience? Being merciful to the bullies enables them and is cruel to their victims.

[flagged]

> Rehabilitation and figuring out why they are bullying is the correct response in a civilized society.

Your so called “civilized societies” have continuously failed at this though.

You can’t keep failing and then demand your method is the correct method.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#24

Post by altmanaltman »

noworriesnate wrote: post #14
oompydoompy74 wrote: post #11

I didn’t expect to open the comments and find people who were pro beating children on Hacker News. I find this abuse horrific and you should speak to a therapist if you think this is okay. Absolutely barbaric behavior.

Pain is a highly evolved way of telling humans to change their behavior. Why would we choose not to use such an excellent tool, within reasonable boundaries? Also, do you think the victims of bullies have a pleasant experience? Being merciful to the bullies enables them and is cruel to their victims.

Yeah its so evolved. But then why limit it to children? Why shouldn't your boss be allowed to beat the shit out of you so it sends a signal you need to change your behavior?

There is a massive leap between "let them bully other kids" and "we have to cane them" and pretending like only pain is the solution, especially in case of children where bullying is often a second order effect, is sick.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#25

Post by CM30 »

lioeters wrote: post #4

Solution against bullies: a bigger bully.

I'm no fan of caning or physical punishment for crimes, but isn't that how a lot of bullying ends? The victim snaps, the bully gets beaten up or injured in some way and the latter finds an easier target to go after?

At the end of the day, a bully picks on those they perceive to not be a threat, whether that's a school bully using physical violence or a copyright/patent troll harassing individual creators and small companies. Being forced to go against someone with more resources or who can inflict serious damage against the aggressor is how a lot of bullies get shut down.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#26

Post by noworriesnate »

altmanaltman wrote: post #24
noworriesnate wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pain is a highly evolved way of telling humans to change their behavior. Why would we choose not to use such an excellent tool, within reasonable boundaries? Also, do you think the victims of bullies have a pleasant experience? Being merciful to the bullies enables them and is cruel to their victims.

Yeah its so evolved. But then why limit it to children? Why shouldn't your boss be allowed to beat the shit out of you so it sends a signal you need to change your behavior? There is a massive leap between "let them bully other kids" and "we have to cane them" and pretending like only pain is the solution, especially in case of children where bullying is often a second order effect, is sick.

I do agree we shouldn't limit it to children! But I don't think the boss/employee relationship should involve violence though because firing someone is simple and effective. But if someone is doing something bad for their community that has no obvious other consequences? Then yeah, it absolutely should be an option.

These rules should be implemented locally at a town or city level. No need to enforce the same set of rules across all society.

And it's interesting you bring up that bullying is a second order affect. If one of the parents is abusive, that should be something that has physical consequences. Solve the problem at the source, stop wringing our hands and getting lawyers / police involved for everything. That's not scalable and as a result there are a bunch of unsolvable problems in our society today.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#27

Post by walletdrainer »

oompydoompy74 wrote: post #11

I didn’t expect to open the comments and find people who were pro beating children on Hacker News. I find this abuse horrific and you should speak to a therapist if you think this is okay. Absolutely barbaric behavior.

A few days ago an older teenager tried to steal my phone on the street, I kicked the shit out of him.

What else should I have done? Just let the kid take the next guys phone?

If I’d called the police, they’d almost certainly have told me on the phone to let the shouting kid go. There would have been zero consequences for him, and possibly some for me.

I genuinely did that kid a favour.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#28

Post by everforward »

cedws wrote: post #21
oompydoompy74 wrote: post #11

I didn’t expect to open the comments and find people who were pro beating children on Hacker News. I find this abuse horrific and you should speak to a therapist if you think this is okay. Absolutely barbaric behavior.

After seeing with my own two eyes how soft touch policing and parenting leads to a shitty society for everyone I’m completely in favour of this. Singapore, Japan, among other Asian countries are safe and prosperous for a reason - if you do no wrong, you have nothing to fear. In London we recently had a swarm of youths raid supermarkets and shoplift. Most of them got off scot free. Even tenured criminals are getting o…

It won’t work, we have literal piles of research showing that severity of punishment is not an effective deterrent, and to an incredible degree for children. They tend to either not think of consequences, or have youthful hubris and be certain they won’t get caught (even when they have in the past, I got spanked numerous times for the same exact things).

I would go so far as to bet it will have the opposite effect. Nothing legitimizes using violence to affect the behavior of others like the state doing it to you. I doubt they have the introspection to recognize the difference between state and personal violence, the message they’ll get is “might makes right”.

Those countries have structurally different cultures, economies and governments. Eg Singapore has a median household income that rivals or exceeds the US, in a part of the world where that makes them fabulously wealthy compared to their neighbors. That alone is a huge crime deterrent; why steal stuff you could just buy off whatever their Amazon is? They’re also a fairly small island, so it’s way easier to control drugs getting in.

TLDR Singapore and Japan have low crime rates that likely have nothing to do with severe punishments.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#29

Post by RiverCrochet »

cedws wrote: post #21
oompydoompy74 wrote: post #11

I didn’t expect to open the comments and find people who were pro beating children on Hacker News. I find this abuse horrific and you should speak to a therapist if you think this is okay. Absolutely barbaric behavior.

After seeing with my own two eyes how soft touch policing and parenting leads to a shitty society for everyone I’m completely in favour of this. Singapore, Japan, among other Asian countries are safe and prosperous for a reason - if you do no wrong, you have nothing to fear. In London we recently had a swarm of youths raid supermarkets and shoplift. Most of them got off scot free. Even tenured criminals are getting o…

My sister had an interesting take on this:

"These countries also directly take care of their citizens, which I think is an important factor. Other societies will let you be homeless and say it is your fault for being broke even when employers terminate you purely for economic reasons or when there simply aren't enough jobs to go around. That backdrop contributes to desperation and predatory mindsets."

I disagree with her though, because that sounds communistic and can only lead to empty store shelves, tattered housing blocs, and the state preventing me from listening to the same rock music songs I've heard since the 1970's.

Re: Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

#30

Post by altmanaltman »

noworriesnate wrote: post #26
altmanaltman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah its so evolved. But then why limit it to children? Why shouldn't your boss be allowed to beat the shit out of you so it sends a signal you need to change your behavior? There is a massive leap between "let them bully other kids" and "we have to cane them" and pretending like only pain is the solution, especially in case of children where bullying is often a second order effect, is sick.

I do agree we shouldn't limit it to children! But I don't think the boss/employee relationship should involve violence though because firing someone is simple and effective. But if someone is doing something bad for their community that has no obvious other consequences? Then yeah, it absolutely should be an option. These rules should be implemented locally at a town or city level. No need to enforce the same set of…

I don't understand your view here. You want people to take care of problems/injusitice by violence but you also want this violence to be limited to "someone doing something bad for their community"? How can that be enforced at all. Like if you are doing something good for your community, the other community feels slighted and gets a free pass to... beat you?

Like I dont understand what you're saying at all because it seems like you want the social contract but also give anyone the agency to conduct violence and both cannot exists at the same time. We live in communities and created the police and law precisely because personal grudges and fights cannot scale and work to be a functional society. God i hope you are trolling

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