Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by grogenaut » Sat, May 09, 2026, 3:18 AM UTC

doubled112 wrote: post #345

sybercecurity wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero tolerance can lead to a new type of bullying: state sponsored. I remember a younger colleague who talked about her school experience, this was just at the start of zero tolerance because there was a belief that bullying caused school gun violence. Bullies quickly found out it was easy to just report "weird" kids as potential shooters and let the school torment them with investigations.

You can also use the school staff to help you bully other kids. Play the victim, they can't allow that, now the other kid is in trouble for nothing. Start a fight knowing you'll both get into trouble, laugh at the other kid who is in trouble because of your choices.

My (private) school had the luxury of sorting this through a multi tier system. a) detention was 3 hours minimum on a saturday. It involved manual labor like mulching flower beds, picking up litter while rolling around 50 gallon drums, etc. b) if you liked manual labor you were made to do homework with someone paying direct attention or lecturing subjects you were bad at. c) if you attempted to opt out of that they would have you dig holes 3 feet deep with a post hole digger and fill them back in. d) if you attempted to opt out of that you got 2 options 1) the teachers thought you were redeemable. you pushed the dumpster around campus picking up the 50 gallon drums. 3 times during the circuit you'd come back and raise a 50 lb plate overhead and drop it to smash the garbage. Aroudn 30 times each round. One of the philosophy teachers would expound on your life decisions for the full 3 hours. 2) you were enrolled at your public school immediately, and truant the next day. your parents were called and told to pick you up and returned the balance of the tuition.

it was a large luxury of privilege.

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

#562

Post by itake » Sat, May 09, 2026, 3:42 AM UTC

mantas wrote: post #260

itake wrote: post #256

I (think) many bullies have bad home lives. I wish parents would be held accountable instead of taking it out on the kids that are struggling to process their emotions / hormones in a healthy manner.

And parents are acting out for myriad of reasons. There's a never-ending chain if you go that way. At the end of the day, bully victims end up holding the short end of the stick. And they frequently become bullies themselves. Maybe stopping bullying at the visible link is not the most right solution... But is there anything better that does not lead to eternal finger pointing?

I think the puck should stop with the first adult.

The front line adults at school have this policy now, which covers 30 hours of the student's week.

Parents need to be responsible for the remaining 183 hours they have with their kid.

---

In Seattle, I hate seeing news articles about kids doing stupid stuff (murdering classmates [0], stealing cars, etc) and not an ounce of accountability for being a bad parent.

[0] - https://www.fox8live.com/2024/07/05/13-year-old-bystander-ki... [1] -

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

#563

Post by kelipso » Sat, May 09, 2026, 4:06 AM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #558

kelipso wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There a line after which too much science fanboyism can get a person to tie themself in knots.

Science fanboyism is just in understanding what you do and don't know, not eschewing the possession of beliefs or actions made from them.

Theory vs practice.

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

#564

Post by AussieWog93 » Sat, May 09, 2026, 4:20 AM UTC

teiferer wrote: post #461

AussieWog93 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I have girls and there's definitely a biological difference there even at a young age. They're much more sensitive to more subtle negative feedback in a way that boys just aren't.

And that's why boys should be beaten when they misbehave?

I'm not saying boys should be beaten whenever they misbehave, but girls are definitely more tuned into the way they're being perceived by others.

With girls, you'll get the same corrective effect from an uncomfortable grimace as you would a wooden spoon.

I'll also add since this is about bullying, the type of bullying behaviours girls engage in is much less physical and a lot more underhanded. It's much harder to correctly identify who's the victim and who's the perpetrator.

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

#565

Post by dotancohen » Sat, May 09, 2026, 5:13 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #535

dotancohen wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And was he doing that 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? Like you know...he would do at work? No, he was doing it for maybe a few hours at a time, no more. He demonstrated capability. > if you were in charge of national policy, what kind of work program would you establish for 12 year olds that misbehave at school? I would not establish a work program for 12 year olds that misbehave at school. I would however ensure tha…

Ok, so answer the question then - what work program would there be for those 12 year olds that cannot function in the company of polite society. Like what kind of work would you have them do and how would you ensure compliance.

I don't have to answer the question because my goal is more the welfare of the remaining children in the school and less whatever happens to the bully. I really don't care what happens to them. Let their parents care. Let their parents find some solution. The more difficult that is, the better.

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

#566

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, May 09, 2026, 5:15 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #452

sybercecurity wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero tolerance can lead to a new type of bullying: state sponsored. I remember a younger colleague who talked about her school experience, this was just at the start of zero tolerance because there was a belief that bullying caused school gun violence. Bullies quickly found out it was easy to just report "weird" kids as potential shooters and let the school torment them with investigations.

> Zero tolerance can lead to a new type of bullying: state sponsored. Absolutely. The more of a victim you're perceived the more attention and the more punishment the bully gets. If the system overreacts, bullies would be stupid not to use the over-reaction in their favor. One of the kids at my daughter's school figured it out and was getting others in trouble by falling down then telling the teacher so and so pushed…

This doesn't sound like a result of "zero tolerance" policies, unless the one faking being attacked was also punished, but you didn't mention it.

And if that's the case "zero tolerance" would on the face of it seem to discourage this kind of fakery by punishing the faker too.

Even the comment before doesn't sound that relevant to the normal complaint because again, the two parties aren't both being punished, just the one reported to the system as a potential threat.

So we are complaining:

1. The victim and the perpetrator are equally punished (because it's hard to figure out who started it when a physical fight starts)

2. People shouldn't always believe reports of kids being potential school shooters, because they might be liars doing a mini-(or indeed literal) SWATing by weaponizing the institutional response.

3. People shouldn't always believe people who complain about bullies generally, because they might be liars being "cry-bullies"

These individually sounds like hard problems to solve. Combined they have further complexities and solutions for one seen to make others worse.

The tone of these complaints often make it seem like there is an obvious better way, but that may in fact just reflect the strong feeling that they were the victim, and that the other person should have been punished, not them (or their child).

Which is understandable but not really a great basis to make policy on.

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

#567

Post by eszed » Sat, May 09, 2026, 5:29 AM UTC

dmoy wrote: post #489

FireBeyond wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-high-school-... Absolutely, there are three high school football stadiums with capacities over twenty thousand, in Ohio and Texas.

Oof wow, that's bigger than I realized. I knew there were a lot of big ones (10k+), but I didn't realize there was US highschool football being played in stadium bigger than the smallest EPL stadiums. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given a lot of college stadiums are 50k+ capacity.

Eight of the top ten largest stadia in the world are for NCAA Football.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_by_capacity

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

#568

Post by jrflowers » Sat, May 09, 2026, 5:32 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #89

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.

I'm sure there are a few such comments, since you say so, but I read most of the thread and didn't see any.

lmao the person you’re responding to didn’t say that anybody was breaking the rules, they just pointed out that there’s a lot of people here pontificating on the side of the merits of violence against children

You can post anything on hacker news if you phrase it right. Sometimes the mods will even pop in and interject unprompted that it’s all good so long as nobody is saying swears

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48035090

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060620

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48036265

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058102

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48065636

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48036672

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063728

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063439

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48059347

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058017

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058265

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48035671

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48036627

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

#569

Post by dash2 » Sat, May 09, 2026, 5:53 AM UTC

sayamqazi wrote: post #230

rlonn wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems there actually is a fair amount of research pointing to prohibiting corporal punishment for kids leads to better mental health, lower suicide rate, etc. and it does seem like a no-brainer to me that less violence leads to more stable individuals, and a more stable and happy society in general. In medieval times there was a lot of physical punishment, and society was violent, dangerous and unhappy compared to no…

I am as asian and I was at the receiving end of pretty severe (trust me you dont wanna know the details) physical abuse as a child. It did leave some lasting damage but surprisingly it didnt affect my academic outcomes and I dont feel like someone who would ever ever consider suicide for anything whatsoever.

Just to state what I hope is obvious - every serious person, on any side of the smacking debate, agrees that physical abuse of children is wicked and wrong. The disagreement is about smacking; some people think that it is physical abuse by definition. Others may not think that, but believe that smacking is still a bad idea. Those on the other side believe that you can distinguish between reasonable corporal punishment and physical abuse. I'm sorry for what happened to you!

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

#570

Post by dash2 » Sat, May 09, 2026, 5:55 AM UTC

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #358

dash2 wrote: post #157

This seems a good place to point out that the evidence for the harmful effects of corporal punishment is very low quality: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/the-academic-literature-on-sma...

Some things can be good/bad in and of themself, rather than just a means to an end. I would argue that "violence against children" is bad in and of itself, and outlawing it is good in and of itself. If you want to argue that you see violence against children as a useful means to an end, why stop there? Let's also put the children to work. The children yearn for the mine.

Right, but if you smack your child on the wrist, is it violence? You can't really answer these things by throwing definitions around. (Imprisoning children is wrong, I'm sure we can agree. So, if you ground your child, is that imprisonment?)