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194 Comments
- lewystud, on 04/23/2009, -3/+50"A generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is the answer we really need."
-Fight Club - DestroyedAUS, on 04/23/2009, -0/+43Awww, you missed the better quote:
"I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy ***** we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." - inactive, on 04/23/2009, -3/+43Ruining childhood? Modern society extended childhood to age 30.
- yeeaauuh, on 04/22/2009, -8/+46I remember praying for a tornado to hit my high school during algebra class alot. Probably the cause of my atheism today.
- lilhelper, on 04/23/2009, -1/+35no ***** sherlock.
Kids have access to amazing amounts of information and knowledge, and we ask ourselves why we worry too much!?
If ignorance is bliss, what is the contrary? - GovernmentsGun, on 04/23/2009, -1/+33I don't even know what to say about this? Is modern society failing children? Yes. But probably not in ways most people would think of.
In an effort to give our children easier lives, we're not preparing them to grow up. We're instead infantilizing them far beyond when we should. Even people who are basically adults are characterized as 'children'. And then we wonder why we have 40 and 50 year old children.
Children are capable of a lot more than we generally give them credit for now. But in the name of saving them, we're ruining them. - LonelyTylenoL, on 04/23/2009, -1/+29I always get really sad, because even though I'm in school now, I can see actually trace how my talents declined, mostly because I'm so slow at homework that I never really get to have a life on weekdays.
What's even worse is that I love to learn, and yet school gets in the way of my learning. Sometimes I would be doing math in class and think, "Hey, I should compile all my notes into a more organized way, and then try to make my own little ways of making a new algebraic equation..." Or sometimes in Bio class I might be thinking, "Wow! I didn't know that. I wonder if this could be..."
I really love learning but I'm now really hating school because it has actually ruined a life that could have been. Because of school, my parents hate me, and I hate them, I always want to be alone, and the list goes on and on.
School has ruined everything that I hold near and dear about my life. :(
Education should be the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a bucket. - Shiftgood, on 04/23/2009, -2/+28I think children are smarter than we gave them credit for in the past. So now they are using technology to go around the parental/adult filtered information and find out what the world is really like on their own.
You would too if you were them. - LonelyTylenoL, on 04/23/2009, -1/+26Here's an interesting vid about how schools ruin creativity.
Since children really spend their entire life in school, I think it should be improved to suit their needs, so they can have the chance to live a life they can love.
http://digg.com/d1nSuS - deweyhewson, on 04/23/2009, -1/+26"School" is not about education, school is about forcing students to conform to one way of doing things and the right perception of knowledge. Not knowledge, but perception of it.
You ask most elementary teachers when Columbus discovered America. They'll say 1492. Then you respond, "No, he never discovered America," and they'll look at you with blank stares. - offrdbandit, on 04/23/2009, -2/+26It extended adolescence to about age 30. These days "childhood" ends at about 6.
- deweyhewson, on 04/23/2009, -0/+24We let entertainment raise them, we buy them stuff to make them like us, we complain about them, we look down at them, we don't educate them, we brainwash them, we pacify them, we patronize them, we give in to them, we ignore them, we frighten them, we don't trust them, and then, when all that has played through, we medicate them.
No ***** society is ruining childhood. - Hardataq, on 04/23/2009, -0/+23I remember when my biggest worry was what cartoon I was going to have time to watch before school.
- inactive, on 04/23/2009, -1/+24With all the fear-mongering going on in the media, even adults are getting scared about leaving the house.
- kanabiis, on 04/23/2009, -0/+22Every generation reflects on their youth and recalls something they did 'back in the day' that they can now not do.
As America has aged, freedoms and liberties we used to take for granted continue to disappear.
I'm only 33, and I would never want to be 16 in todays world. I would have likely already ended up in prison..... for things most adults my age and older all did.
The rise of victimhood mentality, and lack of personal responsibility is to blame..... as is that stupid, think of the children groupthink that seems to plague urban centers.
Unfortunately it won't change, it will only continue to grow worse, until we all walk around in little personal bubbles, afraid to speak or touch or interact with any other human being because perpetual fear of pretty much everything.
What a wonderful future our grandchildren have to look forward to..... - scarlettletter, on 04/22/2009, -1/+22Yes... next!
- Orchid64, on 04/23/2009, -0/+21You can thank the emphasis on test scores for the forced conformity. In the 80's, everyone was so impressed that Japanese students scored so high on tests and Americans were seen as stupid for not doing as well. The thing is that the Japanese education system is all about rote memorization and one correct answer for every question. It doesn't encourage analytical skills or critical thinking, and the American system has slowly evolved into the same system which emphasizes test scores over actually learning to think.
Until people accept that intelligence isn't shown by the ability to regurgitate facts for tests and that teaching how to think is more important than test scores, the situation will not improve. - Gizza, on 04/23/2009, -0/+18Exactly, people are ruining childhood with all this "think of the children" crap.
- nobody41, on 04/23/2009, -1/+17men, women. i reckon it's more complicated than that. and what do these terms really mean anyway? in my experiences, when it comes to individuals, two genders hardly covers it. anyway i don't see myself mentally as only a man. i'm kind of a woman too. it's all a tangle....
"I had no reason to doubt that brains were suitable for a woman. And as I had my father's kind of mind— which was also his mother's— I learned that the mind is not sex-typed."
-Margaret Mead-
i'm likely to get dug down, or get a snappy retort, but i challenge a thoughtful response instead. discourse oft' times seems a rare practice on the internets. - Spire3660, on 04/23/2009, -0/+15I wonder how a movie god felt uttering those words
- Orchid64, on 04/23/2009, -2/+17I know I'll get buried for this, but all of this is the result of a preoccupation with the material. I'm not only talking about possessions, though that is a big part of it, but also the emphasis on the physical world over the mental, psychological, and, yes, the "spiritual" (not the religious).
As time has gone by, advanced cultures have not only focused more on shallow pursuits, but also increasingly validated lifestyles which focus excessively on them. Why shouldn't children despair when they have nothing to focus on in life but how physically attractive they are, how much money they have, how many cool things they have, and what sort of status their future job will afford them?
The irony is that sites like Digg are chock full of people who are part of the problem with their preoccupation with the trivial, embracing of stereotypes, and harsh judgment of anyone who isn't a physical ideal (particularly women). The absence of compassion, lack of emphasis on true character development (as opposed to growing a thick skin), and indifference to suffering that you see is the result of society's change in focus.
If you want a better world, be a better person. That doesn't mean making money or having a job. It means being a humanistic individual who values deeper things. If you can't manage that, you have no right to complain. You're a part of the movement that is causing kids to be filled with despair. - ButtFuzz, on 04/23/2009, -0/+14Pish posh...
In the 60' Vietnam was all over the TV, and rioting and demonstrations were commonplace.
In the 50's kids did nuclear war drills where they would hide under their desks to protect them from the blast.
Previous to that we had WW2, the depression, and WW1.
Previous to that, if you made it to your 16th birthday, you had already likely used up half of your lifespan.
Being a kid had always been tough...and it still is. I think we tend to over medicate and overprotect our kids.
BTW.. I've got a 4 year old daughter.
And just for the hell of it here's a video of 45 year old Joey Ramone singing about not wanting to grow up:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids. ... - toxicityj, on 04/23/2009, -2/+16once we got broadband a few years back I pretty much unlearned everything my parents taught me and developed my own opinoins which now contradict 90% of my parent's opinions. The biggest being I'm a politically independent atheist and my parents are republican christians.
- Shiftgood, on 04/23/2009, -0/+12It probably has just as many benefits as it does side effects. But if you look at the incubation period in the animal kingdom.. the animals that stay with their parents longer tend to be more educated and build better societal structures.
So what if this doesn't really lengthen the incubation period, but intensifies it?
Perhaps these next generations will have large mental burdens, but they will also have a larger set of tools to overcome them. And in turn, help us all over come them.
just a thought. - Tyrghast, on 04/23/2009, -0/+10Cause of Death: Boredom.
- MacEnvy, on 04/23/2009, -0/+9"The biggest being I'm a politically independent atheist and my parents are republican christians."
I sincerely hope that this becomes a worldwide trend as free access to information becomes more universal. - barc0001, on 04/23/2009, -0/+9I also have a daughter. She's in high school now, but when she was younger she was TERRIFIED of being left on her own anywhere for even a moment because "someone might steal her". You can thank overprotective society combined with "if it bleeds, it leads" newscasting for that one. When I was your daughter's age I would spend the whole day outside either with my friends or by myself, and nobody's parents worried even a bit about it. When I was 7 I was riding my bike all the way downtown with my friends, which was a 4 mile trip. We'd hang around all day, pop into shops, buy lunch, go to the park at the river and then come home for dinner. If you tried to do that now, all the neighbors would call CPS on your ass before the kids got past the corner. And people say "oh but it's a different time now". And they're right. It's actually SAFER today than it was when we were kids, statistically speaking.
My daughter and I were talking about this just a couple of weeks ago and I mentioned that statistically there are less kidnappings of children now than when I was young, we just hear about it more because of the relentless coverage on the news. And then I also mentioned offhand "and you know that only 3% of kidnappings are by strangers anyway" and my daughter was stunned. I guess when everyone's busy drilling Stranger Danger into the kids nobody bothers to mention that 97% of the threats will come from relatives. - silence7, on 04/23/2009, -0/+8Kids aren't allowed to BE kids anymore, both parents working, sitting with a babysitter, who sits them in front of the TV until Mom or Dad comes home, then it's off for bed. Weekends you can only play in the front yard for fear of someone snatching you and throwing you in the back of a van.
Good article on how kids aren't allowed to explore and run around like I could when I was little, times change, sadly....
How children lost the right to roam in four generations
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How ... - thebrokenlight, on 04/23/2009, -0/+8rrbest, I don't think you're a mathematician.
Much of what we strive for is more elegant proofs, more efficient methods of problem solving. I just learned a proof in my Real Analysis class that was originally 400 pages long. It's since been reduced to about 20 lines on a blackboard. The fact that he wants to think about math problems creatively means he could have the mind of a great mathematician. Advice like yours causes exactly the kind of damage he's talking about. - Suricou, on 04/23/2009, -0/+8You could make a good argument that it invented adolescence within the last century or two. I've seen that argument, and though I can't recall the details, it made a few very good points.
I think it might just be a consequence of increased educational standards required by skilled work. It's no longer enough to spend a few years learning how to haul coal - most well-paying occupations now will need someone to attend primary school, secondry school, and further education - not even getting into work until the age of twenty at least, many years later than the historical norm. - jitterbits, on 04/23/2009, -0/+8Isn't that the general premise of Flowers for Algernon?
- inactive, on 04/23/2009, -1/+9Algebra made me an atheist as well.
- Spire3660, on 04/23/2009, -1/+9Equating adults abusing a power relationship with a child to two consenting same sex adults in a relationship shows your severe lack of critical thinking skills.
- kevincredible, on 04/23/2009, -0/+8I watched that movie when I was 15 and I thought it was okay, though I forgot about it quickly. I watched it again a couple months ago and I got it. Great ***** movie.
- inactive, on 04/23/2009, -0/+7terror sells.
- Sucka27, on 04/23/2009, -0/+7The point was that no one ***** cares if the earth is around but we (humans) aren't. It's 100% sure to be true at some point anyway. The author lumped the latter (realistic little kids) with the former (misguided kids) in the statement although they're greatly different. Assuring my kids that the earth will still be here won't comfort them that things will probably be worse.
- Lewie, on 04/23/2009, -0/+7Actually, I think relationships with children was more accepted, or at least more prevalent 100s to 1000s of years ago.
A quick google search led me to this:
"Despite the lack of statistics, other sources indicate that sexual relations between adults and children have always existed. Attitudes toward this have changed over the course of history, and these relations have been condemned since late antiquity. Despite this we can find examples of prominent figures, including Saint Augustine (354–430), Muhammad (570–632), and Gandhi (1869–1948), who publicly enjoyed the company of young children and may have had sexual relations with them.
In the strictly hierarchical society of classical Greece, sexual relations between an adult man and a boy were seen as contributing to the boy's education. In late antiquity this view was questioned by, among others, the poet Ovid and the philosopher Plutarch."
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Pa-Re/Pedophilia.htm ... - DigitalisAkujin, on 04/23/2009, -1/+8The Internet - killing childhood since 1996.
- GovernmentsGun, on 04/23/2009, -0/+7I was the same. But, when you get to college, you can be assured that it'll change. Wanting to be there, and knowing that you don't have to be, makes all the difference to your motivation.
- LonelyTylenoL, on 04/23/2009, -0/+7See my post a few ones up, you are exactly right...
- Betrayer, on 04/23/2009, -0/+7make up your minds... do you want us to teach the kids about the world around them and why they need to protect it?... or do you want us to shelter them from reality?
- GovernmentsGun, on 04/23/2009, -0/+7It made me a compulsive napper.
- ButtFuzz, on 04/23/2009, -0/+6 I also remember playing outside till the streetlights came on.... nowadays you must have a pre-arranged, pre-screened play-date.
Penn and Teller; *****, season 6 episode 8:
Stranger Danger
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&clie ...
Because everyone knows magicians are the best source of factual information. - inactive, on 04/23/2009, -2/+8Yeah! Let's ignore their legitimate complaints because they might scare the little kiddies! God, offrdbandit, come up with a better justification to silence people that actually care about the world we live in more than corporate profits.
- Sucka27, on 04/23/2009, -1/+7FTA:
"A survey of 500 U.S. children aged 6 to 11 found that one-third fear Earth won't exist when they grow up. And 56 percent believe the planet will not be as good a place to live.
(The truth: Earth may indeed become less hospitable in the next few decades as the climate warms and seas rise, but barring a surprise cosmic catastrophe —with odds that are astronomically long — the planet will be around for a few billion years. Feel free to share that with your kids.)"
To which your kid responds: "But I'll be dead and you didn't even understand that you unbelievable piece of *****." - SpeedSteamBoat, on 04/23/2009, -0/+6You are right, but it's worth pointing out that not everyone was raised to share such values. I certainly wasn't, and I have plenty of friends who weren't either.
That said, I don't have many friends, and it's mostly because I can't relate very well to the majority of people who share those materialistic values. They start talking about all the things they want in life, and, for me, it's like they're speaking a foreign language. I've also noticed those are the people who seem the least happy. - bdbr, on 04/23/2009, -0/+6Agree with GG, college is much more oriented to real learning than just wrote memorization and standardized testing. And life is even more so - I'm 50, and I'm still learning new stuff all the time. The beauty (and the challenge) of knowledge-based jobs is that learning and discovery never ends...you stop learning, and you fall behind quickly.
- elmuerte17, on 04/23/2009, -0/+6we're gradually padding all the corners of the world for the children and they're growing up with no common sense or experience as a result. it's even apparent in older teens nowadays, kids that can't figure out ***** like looking up a phone number in the yellow pages.
- LonelyTylenoL, on 04/23/2009, -0/+6Thanks for trying to help. :)
But I don't think you understand it completely. Here's a hint.
My parents wouldn't let me get C's and if I cut classes I will be suspended.
Thanks for trying though. It was much appreciated. :) - Elranzer, on 04/23/2009, -0/+6You're constantly talking about children and sex on this thread. Please seek help.
Also, I highly doubt the validity of your "story." And no, it's not the status quo. -
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