buybuydandavis comments on Don't rely on the system to guarantee you life satisfaction - Less Wrong

16 Post author: JonahSinick 18 February 2014 05:48AM

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Comment author: zslastman 18 February 2014 12:19:58PM 32 points [-]

It's also worth noting that the social environment in school is artificially horrific. That many young people should not be left to socialize amongst each other without older peers to decrease the jostling for status, and enforce humane behavior. A large percentage of people will emerge from school with mild trauma and a set of learned social behaviors that are severely maladaptive in a more normal environment.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 18 February 2014 09:12:25PM 2 points [-]

Yes, it's peculiar that most people think Lord of the Flies model used in mass schooling is the appropriate model for the socialization of children.

Comment author: Nornagest 18 February 2014 09:42:27PM *  2 points [-]

It's particularly apropos that Lord of the Flies is common required reading in American high schools.

Comment author: taelor 19 February 2014 01:57:29AM 7 points [-]

Paul Graham on the subject:

If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumably someone wanted to point out to us that we were savages, and that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupid world. This was too subtle for me. While the book seemed entirely believable, I didn't get the additional message. I wish they had just told us outright that we were savages and our world was stupid.

Comment author: peterward 21 February 2014 08:45:29PM -1 points [-]

Were it not the case the teachers are often the biggest bullies. On the contrary, IMO, it is the excessively authoritarian, prison-like model school follows that generates bullies.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 21 February 2014 10:25:43PM 2 points [-]

Prison is the better model for the whole institution, while Lord of the Flies is the model of the schoolyard.

I think there's a good correlation between people who think a pile of children makes for good socialization and people who ignore the overarching prison model of the institution as a whole.

But I really don't think it's the interaction with the Prison Guards that predominantly makes for bullying - it's the interactions in the prison yard.

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