Live data from Hacker News

Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school

theguardian.com

91–100 of 713 posts

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

#91
post #10

I understand that caning leaves lifetime scars, at least the type I heard about. It's not something you can put weight on for a while.

It depends. For some, yes. For most, no.

Not that I support caning by random teachers; this happens a lot of developing countries. A random teacher becomes the judge, the jury, and the executioner.

A caning punishment with proper investigation from proper authority seems like a good middle ground. Bullies should be punished. We cannot just brush it off as "they are just kids".

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

#92

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.

> who were pro beating children

Correction: pro beating abusers.

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

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> father would lose the responsibility for his child This HN discussion of systemic abuse in US Catholic orphanages last century also discusses vast, documented ongoing abuse in both religious and state run care/foster systems around the globe. Statistically, these systems cause more abuse than they prevent, and should only be a last resort. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17852129

Why do you assume that it works such in America = world wide? I was in such a system but I was a relief. But not America

I'm not an expert in all nations but systemic abuse in abuse prevention systems is not uniquely american. For instance, the British care system seems consistent with American results - a Brit I talked to told me that in year, roughly 1 in 2 children report sexual abuse at the hands of their caretaker or an older child. It's hard to tell the extent of the unreported abuses. And yet, widespread abuses doesn't preclude the possibility of children escaping unharmed. I'm glad you made it through.

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

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piles of western research. Eastern psych corpus suggest opposite. Well it's more nuanced, some combination of permissive / neglectful parenting styles. IIRC the rough TLDR is engaged tiger parents with mild CP vs hands off parents with no CP... guess who had better academic performance, social regulation etc. Something something kids find engaged parent with a little tough love = being cared for vs hands off = neglec…

Got a link to a study or meta-study? I tried searching, but the results I can find from Singapore match Western research. A notable divergence here is that Singapore leverages the death penalty _much, much_ more heavily than even the US does. Per capita death penalties were 20.3x higher in Singapore than the US. Deterrence means a lot less when you don't have to worry about recidivism because the person is dead. That…

Yet somehow, people aren’t that deterred if they keep executing people at a 20x rate than the U.S.?

I’m confused about that because the executed obviously are not deterred anymore, but the the not-yet executed people still are getting caught at the higher rate than in the U.S.?

Maybe the prison population is much smaller, because people are either law abiding or dead?

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

#96
post #6
post #4

Solution against bullies: a bigger bully.

Works really well, and doing nothing is exactly why western societies are fucked up. New generations do whatever they want and do not face any consequences. Have you seen how much of a shithole France became due to street criminality and teenagers attacking people ?

> Have you seen how much of a shithole France became

No, how far away should I be to see that?

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

#97
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Countries taking care of their citizens is communism? A social safety net leads to empty store shelves? Am I the latest victim of Poe's Law here?

Every advanced economy in the world except for the United States has a well developed social safety net, and I assure you our shelves are not empty and I can listen to all the Mötley Crüe I desire.

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

#98
Singapore works as a multi-ethcnic multi-cultural society because of measures like this and an understanding that you cannot have a functional democracy in a multi cultural, multi racial and a multi-ethnic society: each race/culture votes for his own and against others on racial/ethnic lines.

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

#99
post #78

I see at least 2 issues with the physical punishment: - it will only make the bullies taking their revenge on vulnerable ones with even more cruelty. And they will plan it carefully to be hard/impossible to prove. It will lead to the escalation, not to the resolution - the power will be abused, it's inevitable. I would be so scared to be in a class where "teacher" has the power to harm me physically! (to clarify: I a…

> it will only make the bullies taking their revenge on vulnerable ones with even more cruelty. And they will plan it carefully to be hard/impossible to prove. It will lead to the escalation, not to the resolution

Bullies are generally not very intelligent. Deterrents absolutely do work if applied consistently. A society that applies corporal punishment at multiple levels, as Singapore does, strongly ingrains the idea to straighten yourself out, because there's always someone with a bigger stick.

> In severe cases, I can think of suspension or exclusion from school or another kind of isolation.

In my experience, this isn't the deterrent you think it is.

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

#100
post #21

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…

I was in day care one day as a small child when another child threw a ball of clay and it hit the woman who was watching us. She did not see who had thrown the ball of clay but for some reason decided I was the one who had done it.

My mother worked at the day care but was away on a vacation that week. She had told the director of the day care that she was allowed to spank me if I acted up.

I was taken to a broom closet and told to drop my pants so that this woman who was not my parent and who was only going on the words of another adult could spank me.

I was then put in timeout for the rest of the day. I also was spanked again when my mother returned from her vacation and the day care center director explained what (she believed) had happened.

I did nothing wrong, but I was still subjected to corporal (and illegal) punishment because my mother wanted to make sure I "learned my lesson" or whatever bullshit excuses that adults like you seem to think will come of subjecting children to violent retribution for their transgressions.

The only lesson I learned that day is that I should never trust those who have power over me. They don't care if they are punishing the person who committed "the crime." They just care that they are punishing someone.

Adults who think that physical violence is the only way to change the behavior of people who break the rules or who commit violent acts are nothing more than bullies themselves.

Tell me something, if I came up to you, told you that I'm going to punch you in the face (or cane you, or literally any other form of painful physical punishment) until you learn that your viewpoint is incorrect, would it cause you to change your mind, or would it simply cause you to resent me and start working to find a way to hurt me back.

Why would you think that the threat of physical violence against miscreants, child or adult, would cause them to act in any way different from how you would react?

Post reply on HN