This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I don’t have any research to back this up at all, but as a generally bright student I always felt that the school tried to teach me too many things with the inevitable boredom and time waste as you forget all that stuff inevitably.
I believe very strongly in just encouraging/letting kids read and write as much as possible until a certain age of mental maturity (probably early teenager years). School should be almost entirely focused on this besides giving them some life skills they need as children (arithmetic, basic science facts, national identity building, how to cross the road etc). Vast majority of what I remember actually learning in primary school is from the books I read plus some maths classes, Turkish nationalism and earth-turns-around-the-sun-which-is-a-star type of facts.
It shouldn’t waste their time with busy work. A common failure mode is we desire to teach young kids things their brains aren’t yet capable of properly understanding, then end up having to teach them a dumbed down version which they will learn later was actually not correct. It’s profoundly useless.
If a kid is especially talented in a field at an early age, they can be directed to relevant books with some tutoring. If your kid is actually capable of understanding trigonometry at 9, they won’t need endless busywork homework sheets.
After around teenager years if the kid turns out to be smart and interested enough they can continue to get much deeper education in a limited number of subjects. Their brains are finally ready for it and they can have rapid progress without dumbing down the subjects. It’s also at this point that majority of kids should be funnelled towards practical/vocational education. It’s incredibly useless and akin to torture to force not very bright kids to sit down and pretend to learn highly g loaded subjects until they are 18.
It might be difficult to give such an experience to your kids if the education system where you live is set up with opposite assumptions (ie daycare and social mobility activism centers). In that case I personally think it’s ethically admissible to simulate this by relieving your child off the busywork as much as possible (ie help them cheat at bullshit homework)
More options
Context Copy link