4 ms·

The comments here have a number of various negative stereotypes of the Amish. These are probably all based on factual events, but I doubt they are as negative

by wscott 11y ago

The comments here have a number of various negative stereotypes of the Amish. These are probably all based on factual events, but I doubt they are as negative as we perceive. Do a thought exercise and reverse roles. Imagine you live in a highly conservative rural community and you wanted to make a negative documentary about the modern american lifestyle. There would be no shortage of truthful material to make us seem totally depraved. Often I find my Amish neighbors are more accepting of us and our strange lifestyle and we are of theirs.

DanBC 11y ago
Whenever we see religious communities providing their own "courts" and "punishment" of child abusers we see those children continuing to be abused and the abusers continuing the abuse, often with different children. This has happened across religions and across countries. There have been significant problems with the Catholic church (because they're so large) either ignoring the abuse coming from nuns, or thinking that telling a priest to stop and moving him to a different town would help. That caused significant levels of harm to the survivors, and to the rest of society (in paying the costs associated with completed and attempted suicide, with drug and alcohol addiction, with mental health treatment, with reduced economic activity). It's not just Christianity though. The Beth Din courts used by some Jewish people and the sharia courts used by some Muslim people have often told abuse survivors not to go to the police to report abuse. That covers child sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, but it also covers domestic abuse and domestic violence. Here's one UK tv programme about rabbis: http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/rabbi-urges-alleged-child-abuse-victim-not-to-tell-police http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/rabbi-urges-alleged-... So, while we don't know if abuse is worse in these communities we do know that the reaction to abuse is often totally inadequate. As a general principle any organisation that has any contact with children needs to have in place robust child safeguarding processes. It's a bit disturbing to see how weak this concept is in the US (and how it's sometimes really poorly done (eg lengthy interventions for people who allow their children to walk home from school)). For tech companies: What do you do if a 14 year old discloses on your service that they're being abused at home? What if they say they're 11 and disclose they're being abused at home? What if an adult discloses that they're abusing their child? It might not be your role to report these to the relevant authorities (do you even know who those are) but you might want to have a single simple page on your website that describes your company's processes and requirements for interacting with law enforcement. (Something like "We don't cooperate with law enforcement under any circumstances. You'll need to take us through court" or "if you're the correct law enforcement agency and send us validly formed legal documents to example@example.com we can release this {list} information".) Users of your site who see the disclosures can then include your requirements in their reports to law enforcement.

by wscott 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

Whenever we see religious communities providing their own "courts" and "punishment" of child abusers we see those children continuing to be abused and the abusers continuing the abuse, often with different children. This has happened across religions and across countries. There have been significant problems with the Catholic church (because they're so large) either ignoring the abuse coming from nuns, or thinking that telling a priest to stop and moving him to a different town would help. That caused significant levels of harm to the survivors, and to the rest of society (in paying the costs associated with completed and attempted suicide, with drug and alcohol addiction, with mental health treatment, with reduced economic activity). It's not just Christianity though. The Beth Din courts used by some Jewish people and the sharia courts used by some Muslim people have often told abuse survivors not to go to the police to report abuse. That covers child sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, but it also covers domestic abuse and domestic violence. Here's one UK tv programme about rabbis: http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/rabbi-urges-alleged-child-abuse-victim-not-to-tell-police http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/rabbi-urges-alleged-... So, while we don't know if abuse is worse in these communities we do know that the reaction to abuse is often totally inadequate. As a general principle any organisation that has any contact with children needs to have in place robust child safeguarding processes. It's a bit disturbing to see how weak this concept is in the US (and how it's sometimes really poorly done (eg lengthy interventions for people who allow their children to walk home from school)). For tech companies: What do you do if a 14 year old discloses on your service that they're being abused at home? What if they say they're 11 and disclose they're being abused at home? What if an adult discloses that they're abusing their child? It might not be your role to report these to the relevant authorities (do you even know who those are) but you might want to have a single simple page on your website that describes your company's processes and requirements for interacting with law enforcement. (Something like "We don't cooperate with law enforcement under any circumstances. You'll need to take us through court" or "if you're the correct law enforcement agency and send us validly formed legal documents to example@example.com we can release this {list} information".) Users of your site who see the disclosures can then include your requirements in their reports to law enforcement.