smoofra comments on Our House, My Rules - Less Wrong

36 Post author: David_J_Balan 02 November 2009 12:44AM

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Comment author: smoofra 02 November 2009 03:31:16PM 9 points [-]

In my experience, children are cruel, immoral, egotistical, and utterly selfish. The last thing they need is to have their inflated sense of self worth and entitlement stroked by the sort of parenting you seem to be advocating. Children ought to have fundamentally lower status, not just because they're children per se, but because they're stupid and useless. They should indeed be grateful that anyone would take the trouble to feed and care for someone as stupid and useless as they, and repay the favor by becoming stronger.

Comment author: Alicorn 03 November 2009 03:20:58AM 19 points [-]

Children are ignorant and powerless; that's not the same as stupid and useless.

Comment author: dclayh 03 November 2009 07:43:50AM 9 points [-]

Children ought to have fundamentally lower status, not just because they're children per se, but because they're stupid and useless.

So then the legal system should award status based on usefulness and intelligence, not age as in the present system.

Comment author: DanArmak 03 November 2009 03:47:22PM 4 points [-]

Usefulness to whom?

Comment author: smoofra 03 November 2009 04:58:17PM 3 points [-]

Well, no.

Status is a informal, social concept. The legal system doesn't have much to do with "awarding" it.

Comment author: gwern 04 November 2009 05:22:11PM 2 points [-]

So then the legal system should award status based on usefulness and intelligence, not age as in the present system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_of_minors

"In most countries of the world, adolescents below the legal age of majority (adulthood) may be emancipated in some manner: through marriage, economic self-sufficiency, educational degree or diploma, military service, or obtaining medical conditions in a form of diseases such as AIDS, HPV, or other STDs."

Comment author: William 05 November 2009 09:50:33PM 2 points [-]

But should stupid adults have no rights?

Comment author: DanArmak 06 November 2009 01:23:19AM 9 points [-]

Fewer rights, perhaps.

More to the point, equal rights isn't a good idea because it's just and right, but rather because it's a defensive position against rulers who grant extra rights to privileged groups.

Comment author: gwern 05 November 2009 10:09:28PM 3 points [-]

/me checks into legal status of retarded adults & vegetables

Dunno about 'should', but they don't have very much beyond what kids have...

Comment author: Clarity 11 November 2015 09:49:10PM 0 points [-]

Usefulness to who? Isn't it enough for people to be useful to themselves if they're not harmful to others?

Comment author: MBlume 03 November 2009 12:28:22AM *  2 points [-]

I don't know that I agree with you, but

  • I also don't know whether I disagree with you
  • No one else came close to this point
  • and you made it well

so upvoted.

Comment author: wedrifid 03 November 2009 03:58:59AM 2 points [-]

To convert the above to a bulleted list, add a space between each asterix and the sentence.

Comment author: Alicorn 03 November 2009 05:03:14PM *  3 points [-]

each asterix

This caused me to imagine a little ASCII character that resembled Asterix.

Comment author: MBlume 04 November 2009 03:31:14AM -1 points [-]

haha, I loved those books when I was a kid ^_^

Comment author: LucasSloan 05 November 2009 05:14:46AM 0 points [-]

I love them still as they are really useful for practicing my french. My teacher has a shelf full of them. I've already read them in English, and they contain a lot the the plot in the picture and they use very simple language. The best test of my abilities come when one of the characters with a lisp or foreign accent is talking and I have to puzzle out what french word they're using.

Comment author: akshatrathi 23 November 2009 04:12:24AM 0 points [-]

Children ought to have fundamentally lower status, not just because they're children per se, but because they're stupid and useless.

I am not a parent myself but I've been told a lot of times by my parents and others that they have learnt a great deal from children. Thus, calling them useless is not fair.

Also, even now children in rural India are treated as future bread-earners. Thus, taking care of them and helping them grow is seen as an advantage to the parents.

Stupid, yes they may be but then weren't we all?