eurg comments on Firewalling the Optimal from the Rational - Less Wrong

86 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 October 2012 08:01AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 10 October 2012 01:05:30PM *  2 points [-]

Are there countries generally regarded as non-totalitarian, other than the US, where people do anything like that?

Comment author: eurg 10 October 2012 06:10:35PM 3 points [-]

If "anything like that" includes reciting prayers, practically all catholic private schools in Europe will count.

Comment author: thomblake 10 October 2012 06:12:11PM 2 points [-]

Yes, FWIW catholic schools in the US do that too.

Comment author: [deleted] 10 October 2012 07:07:40PM *  1 point [-]

Well, that's what I thought too, but in those schools everyone is (supposed to be) a Catholic, and if not you (well, your parents) can choose a different school, whereas if I understand correctly children are asked to say the Pledge in all American schools, so (short of emigrating) you (and your parents) have no choice.

(Then again, some otherwise non-confessional schools in Italy keep a crucifix in each classroom -- I think it used to be mandated by law, but it no longer is and a few years ago a Muslim sued his son's school for that and managed to have it removed. But keeping around a sculpture that pupils might not even notice --I honestly can't even remember which of certain classrooms in my high school had one and which hadn't-- is a lot less scary than have everyone pledge allegiance every morning, IMO.)

Comment author: Blueberry 23 October 2012 06:19:09AM 0 points [-]

I actually never was asked to say the Pledge in any US school I went to, and I've never even seen it said. I'm pretty sure this is limited to some parts of the country and is no longer as universal as it may have been once. If someone did go to one such school, they and their parents would have the option of simply not saying the Pledge, transferring to a different school (I doubt private or religious schools say it), or homeschooling/unschooling.

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 23 October 2012 07:15:24AM 1 point [-]

As another datapoint, the pledge was announced over the loudspeaker but students weren't required to recite it at the first high school I went to (though we were required to stand respectfully and most everybody still did the salute even if they didn't recite), and theoretically required for any student that didn't have a religious exemption note at the second high school I went to.

I have a funny story about the second situation, too. I'd been one of the ones who didn't say the pledge, before I moved, and decided that I wasn't going to change that unless they made me. The result of this was that the other students in my homeroom class stopped saying it, too - first the ones nearest me, then the ones next to them, and so on across the room. I happened to have a desk in one corner of the room, and by the end of the year a handful of the students in the other corner of the room were the only ones still saying the pledge, and they generally shouted it, raucously or sarcastically depending on their mood. (Makes a pretty interesting complement to the Asch conformity test, come to think of it.)