Live data from Hacker News

Our sister died because of our mum's cancer conspiracy theories, say brothers

bbc.com

61–63 of 63 posts

Re: Our sister died because of our mum's cancer conspiracy theories, say brothers

#61
post #60
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point does someone step in? at the same time when you tell the children that santa is not real. /s this is what school is for. teaching children to be critical and investigate claims no matter where they come from. incidentally, this is the reason why homeschooling is outlawed in germany. to prevent parents indoctrinating their children without the children getting a chance to learn about alternatives.

That's hilarious. Germany has the complete reverse problem; the indoctrination is largely happening at school. It's probably one of the worst countries in the EU on that matter. It's also an extremely stupid and authoritarian law. The number of parents that would homeschool their children is rather low (as long as school is free) and even if they wanted, they probably couldn't because both parents need to work nowada…

what indoctrination would that be that you get in german schools?

homeschooling can be done by groups of friends. you don't need one parent to stay at home for every family. also many immigrant families in germany only have one parent working. so it's absolutely not just a rich peoples affair. and alternative people are exactly the type that do home schooling to isolate themselves from society. unless i don't understand what you mean by alternative people.

Re: Our sister died because of our mum's cancer conspiracy theories, say brothers

#62
post #61
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hilarious. Germany has the complete reverse problem; the indoctrination is largely happening at school. It's probably one of the worst countries in the EU on that matter. It's also an extremely stupid and authoritarian law. The number of parents that would homeschool their children is rather low (as long as school is free) and even if they wanted, they probably couldn't because both parents need to work nowada…

what indoctrination would that be that you get in german schools? homeschooling can be done by groups of friends. you don't need one parent to stay at home for every family. also many immigrant families in germany only have one parent working. so it's absolutely not just a rich peoples affair. and alternative people are exactly the type that do home schooling to isolate themselves from society. unless i don't underst…

Maybe that's not the case anymore or it's not everywhere in Germany, but when I was there in my youth, there was a mandatory religion "course" in gymnasium that was solely about Christianity. If that's not a form of indoctrination we need to re-define the word.

I didn't say it was only about rich people and we seem to agree on what alternative people mean. The disagreement is that you think it's bad that those people have their freedom and come up with choices that may be sub-optimal (at least in the short run). Yet diversity of behavior and opinions is not only desirable, it is necessary to challenge the status quo and allow an evolution.

Germany in general has a big problem with liberty and this is just one more example of it. Then people get shocked when authoritarian ideals take over in Germany (currently happening by the way).

This is clearly a culture problem, something that needs to be changed, yet when I describe the problem, you act as if you are in the right and it's everyone else that wants freedom that are in the wrong...

Re: Our sister died because of our mum's cancer conspiracy theories, say brothers

#63
post #62
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what indoctrination would that be that you get in german schools? homeschooling can be done by groups of friends. you don't need one parent to stay at home for every family. also many immigrant families in germany only have one parent working. so it's absolutely not just a rich peoples affair. and alternative people are exactly the type that do home schooling to isolate themselves from society. unless i don't underst…

Maybe that's not the case anymore or it's not everywhere in Germany, but when I was there in my youth, there was a mandatory religion "course" in gymnasium that was solely about Christianity. If that's not a form of indoctrination we need to re-define the word. I didn't say it was only about rich people and we seem to agree on what alternative people mean. The disagreement is that you think it's bad that those people…

germany is federated, and education is in the purview of each state. so every state in germany may have different rules. that too was done with the goal to prevent nationwide indoctrination. besides, you got what, 2 or at most 4 hours of that subject, and it obviously didn't work to indoctrinate you. i was sent to religion class too, expressly to learn about other religions because we are not christian. if you want real christian indoctrination then you need to go to a catholic school where christianity gets into every subject, and being in school is like being in a monastery. again, the point is to expose children to different viewpoints. being a primarily christian culture, having a class about christianity is only fair. although today i hope that in most regions the class is not limited to christianity but also covers other religions, as it did btw in the school i went to several decades ago. in 9th grade we had the choice between religion and ethics. i chose religion. and if it were up to me, i would make that mandatory, because religion is a big influence in our culture, and we need to learn about it. not teaching anything about religion would be like not teaching history.

the problem with alternative people is when they isolate themselves from the rest of society. people should have freedom to believe what they want, but they should not get the freedom to completely lock out outside influences. our society lives from the input of different cultures and viewpoints. if you are isolating yourself from everyone, that may be ok for you, as an adult, but it is not ok for your children. they should make their own choice on whether they want to follow you or not. and it's our responsibility as a society to offer those choices.

take the amish in the US for example. they have their own way, but they are not completely isolated. and as i understand it in youth at one point each youth gets to live one year outside and potentially make a choice. for german expectations that's probably not enough. we want full integration, so your different beliefs need to be strong enough that they can hold their own against the rest of society. if they aren't, and if you feel the need to protect your children from general society, then i would wager there is something wrong.

also from a parenting perspective, if your children don't want to follow you then you are doing parenting wrong. as the adage goes, it is pointless to raise your children in a certain way, they end up copying you anyways. meaning, if they don't copy you you must have messed up badly.

Post reply on HN