Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

mathstodon.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 193 posts

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#111

Post by cbolton »

rolfus wrote: post #57
cbolton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never occurred to me to consider efficiency in piñata, but I dislike them because it's making a game out of violence.

This is only tangentially directed at your reply, but this is the kind of statement that I'll sometimes hear other parents say, and it makes me think that they've completely forgotten what childhood was actually like. Like, the idea that normal, fun activities and sports are bad because they bear some abstract resemblance to adult violence feels very contrived and misses what childhood play is about.

Yeah I'm not saying it's bad for the children, but it's unpleasant for me. It seems violence is a concept that gets deeper and uglier as you grow. For young children it's often abstract and maybe harmless. I just read a book to my child that turned out to have violent scenes that horrified me a bit but he barely thought about it and only in technical terms (like where is that artery ripped by the wolf). Same with people that had fun watching horror movies as teens, then find them unpleasant when they're older.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#112

Post by wartywhoa23 »

veltas wrote: post #96
laurieg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning a second language is a fantastic way to feel many aspects of being a child again. Having to deal with frustration. Understanding a situation but not be able to fully take part. Being able to communicate but only with the blunt instrument of the words you know.

That's how I feel right now talking in my only language of English.

Yep. So many people have been drifting away into some kind of parallel reality where language is seemingly the same, yet transmits no meaning between our diverging realities.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#113

Post by cbolton »

socalgal2 wrote: post #78
cbolton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never occurred to me to consider efficiency in piñata, but I dislike them because it's making a game out of violence.

Is it? Or is that just you, projecting. You could argue baseball, golf, hockey, are all violent as you smash a stick into a ball.

Maybe it's projecting but what I see is kids ganging up to break a target that is often human/animal-shaped, and that feels different to me.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#114

Post by slazaro »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #88
burticlies wrote: post #3

I see this clearly at kids birthday parties whenever there is a piñata. Adults hate them. All they see is the goal and the incredibly inefficient path the kids are taking towards it. But the kids love it, they don’t care when they miss, they are just enjoying hitting something with a stick. And every miss heightens the excitement for the eventual lolly scramble.

I get piñatas, but there is an extreme version of this that I find just too much. Not sure in other places, but in Spain there is a kind of fair stall where children use a plastic fishing rod with a magnet or hook to catch some plastic ducks with the corresponding magnet or hook. The ducks have some points and give you rewards, but the payoff is terrible - maybe you spend €10 and you get a gift that you could buy for…

Well, your child is spending 0€, getting a bit of fun with a game, and getting a reward afterwards, which is randomized (more dopamine). That seems like an amazing trade.

As an adult, if I went and they said it cost 0€, I think I'd play too.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#116

Post by orsetto »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #88
burticlies wrote: post #3

I see this clearly at kids birthday parties whenever there is a piñata. Adults hate them. All they see is the goal and the incredibly inefficient path the kids are taking towards it. But the kids love it, they don’t care when they miss, they are just enjoying hitting something with a stick. And every miss heightens the excitement for the eventual lolly scramble.

I get piñatas, but there is an extreme version of this that I find just too much. Not sure in other places, but in Spain there is a kind of fair stall where children use a plastic fishing rod with a magnet or hook to catch some plastic ducks with the corresponding magnet or hook. The ducks have some points and give you rewards, but the payoff is terrible - maybe you spend €10 and you get a gift that you could buy for…

It sounds like you've got an opportunity to set up something like this at home. You'd feel like you were getting ripped off less, and make the rewards at the fair seem less attractive to "what we have at home". The challenge, of course, is to still make it feel like a special occasion...

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#117

Post by close04 »

WalterBright wrote: post #53
sevenzero wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children have no concept of violence or empathy or right or wrong. Children often are extremely violent to other kids and sometimes even adults. They kick they scream they punch and they destroy objects. It's on the parents to teach them these concepts and its fun to have settings in which that behavior is allowed.

> Children have no concept of violence or empathy or right or wrong This is not correct. I remember having a sense of shame when I was 4 when I tried to hurt another kid. Kids will also hide the things they do wrong, because they know it is wrong.

> because they know it is wrong

Or they know they'll be told it was wrong. Children start knowing nothing then they slowly absorb what they're told again and again, and what they see around them until they feel it. They go from knowing nothing, to knowing what the adults told them, to internalizing that and feeling it rather than just knowing it (maybe these 2 concepts fully overlap in other people's minds).

But until they do get all of that, they'll spend a lot of time plucking wings off of insects, burning ants with a magnifying glass, pulling the cat by the tail, or throwing rocks at dogs and frogs.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#118

Post by gambiting »

Markoff wrote: post #95
gambiting wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>which is glorifying suicide I've literally re-read it this year again and I couldn't disagree more, like, to a point where I wonder if we even read the same book. That book made me scared of dying when I was a child, and it made me appreciate the finality of death again now that I'm a grown up. There's nothing there that "glorifies" suicide - we could have a meta 2026 conversation about whether it's trying to say t…

I read it this year to kids and the book says basically - no biggie, there is no death, you commit suicide to move to another level to be with your brother, you can't lose him, you have infinite lives in this videogame called Life. And what if I F up the next level? no biggie, you just commit suicide again to be with him, there is no such thing as death, after each death you just move to another level. So there is no…

That's such a dishonest read of the book I don't actually know what to say. To me, joining Johnathan at the end is the conclusion of the entire book of love, loyalty and bravery. Nowhere does it say "meh, no biggie just kill yourself". If that's the message you took from it then I strongly encourage you to sit down one evening and read it again. The biggest "proof" of it not being treated lightly is obviously all the inhabitants of the valley of cherries enduring, surviving and fighting against oppression instead of as "just killing themselves" to go to the next level. Even at the end Johnathan makes it sound like it's a rumour and maybe there is something there, but no one knows for sure, same as naningalia was at the beginning - people hope there is a better afterlife, but that's all it is - hope.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#119

Post by mrheosuper »

marcelo-earth wrote: post #99
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get piñatas, but there is an extreme version of this that I find just too much. Not sure in other places, but in Spain there is a kind of fair stall where children use a plastic fishing rod with a magnet or hook to catch some plastic ducks with the corresponding magnet or hook. The ducks have some points and give you rewards, but the payoff is terrible - maybe you spend €10 and you get a gift that you could buy for…

> maybe you spend €10 and you get a gift that you could buy for €2 Oh yes, I got it, they are like the claw machines that have fake bills and iPhones with them (at least that's what I saw too). But the point of having fun, you know it's a rigged game.

Different thing. The claw machine is basically gambling for kids. There is no skill involved.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#120

Post by [deleted] »

Markoff wrote: post #95
gambiting wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>which is glorifying suicide I've literally re-read it this year again and I couldn't disagree more, like, to a point where I wonder if we even read the same book. That book made me scared of dying when I was a child, and it made me appreciate the finality of death again now that I'm a grown up. There's nothing there that "glorifies" suicide - we could have a meta 2026 conversation about whether it's trying to say t…

I read it this year to kids and the book says basically - no biggie, there is no death, you commit suicide to move to another level to be with your brother, you can't lose him, you have infinite lives in this videogame called Life. And what if I F up the next level? no biggie, you just commit suicide again to be with him, there is no such thing as death, after each death you just move to another level. So there is no…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN