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I think Sesame Street was designed as a vehicle for encouraging socialist revolution. One of the biggest lessons I remember from childhood was sharing. One of

I think Sesame Street was designed as a vehicle for encouraging socialist revolution. One of the biggest lessons I remember from childhood was sharing. One of the biggest. Kids are encouraged to share everywhere in the US. You can find hundreds of articles on encouraging your children to share in US parenting magazines. That hundreds of millions of children who grew up in the US were encouraged to share as part of some kind of sinister socialist plot is... fanciful.

secabeen 6y ago
> One of the biggest lessons I remember from childhood was sharing. One of the biggest. Kids are encouraged to share everywhere in the US. I have seen a small amount of dialing back on this in the preschools my kids went to. Kids are encouraged to share, and they can't be possessive of a toy, but they aren't required to share, or to give up a favorite item to another kid. If kid 1 wants to play with a truck for a whole hour, that's fine. Kid 2 just has to wait, or find something else. However, once kid 1 sets down the truck to go on the slide, it's fair game to kid 2.
UncleSlacky 6y ago
I recall a Fox News segment a few years ago (can't find a link to it now) about how encouraging sharing in schools would lead to socialism/communism.
- quacked 6y ago
  I'm sure neither you nor I watch Fox News; I typically recommend people ignore cable news completely. What does lead to socialism/communism is the modern urban/suburban American lifestyle. If you grow up in a fully state-funded education system, have all of your personal outcomes controlled and motivated by government initiatives, and live in a city that is ostensibly fully controlled (facilities, transportation, construction, etc.) by the government, you start to believe that all good things come from the state, and you start to believe that all problems can be fixed by more legislation and rules, paid for by more taxes and enforced by state actors. I've been around too many disparate sets of people whose only understanding of how large-scale problems can be solved is "more government" to think that I'm seeing a phenomenon that's unique to my own experience. Most American citizens are disconnected from law, fighting, farming, construction, manufacturing, etc., and the ones that aren't usually range from weak to strong conservative.
  - UncleSlacky 6y ago
    Socialism/communism isn't "when the government does stuff"* - you should really read up on what they actually are (though given the US education system, you'd be forgiven for not knowing). *Credit to Richard D. Wolff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysZC0JOYYWw&t=2494s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysZC0JOYYWw&t=2494s
    - quacked 6y ago
      Of course, my mistake! I only learned what socialism was just yesterday from a series of Tucker Carlson videos. Would you be so kind as to explain how socialism does not involve decentralized control of a set of resources by each individual member of the group, allocated through a codified representative legal system and enforced by members of the same group? I'm sure my underdeveloped American mind can't grasp any nuance past "government bad, company good"!
      - UncleSlacky 6y ago
        I can't put it better than the very first line of the Wikipedia definition: "Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production." Why are you now referring to a "group" and "members of the same group" whereas previously you referred to the "state" and "state actors"? These are not (necessarily) the same things.
        quacked 6y ago
        Is there a significant difference between a group of people controlling resources that are also following and enforcing laws and the state, except for the number of people that are participating in the enforcement? If you have the ability to carry out or enforce a law, which is maintained by a group of people, you all become the state, and your neighbors/"community members" acting against you effectively becomes state action. My point is that people who rely on the modern government for most things can be easily convinced that "social ownership of the means of production", as the wikipedia page puts it, is the best economic system to aspire to, because they perceive themselves as already partially there. They experience resources as easily obtained and distributed by a group of people they "elected", and so the mental leap to "let us use this system for everything, and we'll simply participate in the distribution and eventually it'll be socialism" is very easy to make. This leap is not as easy to make for those that actually participate in the production and organization of industry and society.
quacked 6y ago
It's not necessarily sinister; if anyone organizing collectivist propaganda believes that what they're doing is good and virtuous, then it's just a regular plot. As for its efficacy- many, many young people today openly identify with socialist and pre-socialist movements. I suspect it had to do with all of the childhood programming everywhere, as you mentioned. If Sesame Street happened to be a part of that giant effort, it doesn't necessary make it a conspiracy, just part of a political movement.

secabeen 6y ago

> One of the biggest lessons I remember from childhood was sharing. One of the biggest. Kids are encouraged to share everywhere in the US. I have seen a small amount of dialing back on this in the preschools my kids went to. Kids are encouraged to share, and they can't be possessive of a toy, but they aren't required to share, or to give up a favorite item to another kid. If kid 1 wants to play with a truck for a whole hour, that's fine. Kid 2 just has to wait, or find something else. However, once kid 1 sets down the truck to go on the slide, it's fair game to kid 2.

UncleSlacky 6y ago

I recall a Fox News segment a few years ago (can't find a link to it now) about how encouraging sharing in schools would lead to socialism/communism.

quacked 6y ago
I'm sure neither you nor I watch Fox News; I typically recommend people ignore cable news completely. What does lead to socialism/communism is the modern urban/suburban American lifestyle. If you grow up in a fully state-funded education system, have all of your personal outcomes controlled and motivated by government initiatives, and live in a city that is ostensibly fully controlled (facilities, transportation, construction, etc.) by the government, you start to believe that all good things come from the state, and you start to believe that all problems can be fixed by more legislation and rules, paid for by more taxes and enforced by state actors. I've been around too many disparate sets of people whose only understanding of how large-scale problems can be solved is "more government" to think that I'm seeing a phenomenon that's unique to my own experience. Most American citizens are disconnected from law, fighting, farming, construction, manufacturing, etc., and the ones that aren't usually range from weak to strong conservative.
- UncleSlacky 6y ago
  Socialism/communism isn't "when the government does stuff"* - you should really read up on what they actually are (though given the US education system, you'd be forgiven for not knowing). *Credit to Richard D. Wolff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysZC0JOYYWw&t=2494s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysZC0JOYYWw&t=2494s
  - quacked 6y ago
    Of course, my mistake! I only learned what socialism was just yesterday from a series of Tucker Carlson videos. Would you be so kind as to explain how socialism does not involve decentralized control of a set of resources by each individual member of the group, allocated through a codified representative legal system and enforced by members of the same group? I'm sure my underdeveloped American mind can't grasp any nuance past "government bad, company good"!
    - UncleSlacky 6y ago
      I can't put it better than the very first line of the Wikipedia definition: "Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production." Why are you now referring to a "group" and "members of the same group" whereas previously you referred to the "state" and "state actors"? These are not (necessarily) the same things.
      - quacked 6y ago
        Is there a significant difference between a group of people controlling resources that are also following and enforcing laws and the state, except for the number of people that are participating in the enforcement? If you have the ability to carry out or enforce a law, which is maintained by a group of people, you all become the state, and your neighbors/"community members" acting against you effectively becomes state action. My point is that people who rely on the modern government for most things can be easily convinced that "social ownership of the means of production", as the wikipedia page puts it, is the best economic system to aspire to, because they perceive themselves as already partially there. They experience resources as easily obtained and distributed by a group of people they "elected", and so the mental leap to "let us use this system for everything, and we'll simply participate in the distribution and eventually it'll be socialism" is very easy to make. This leap is not as easy to make for those that actually participate in the production and organization of industry and society.

quacked 6y ago

It's not necessarily sinister; if anyone organizing collectivist propaganda believes that what they're doing is good and virtuous, then it's just a regular plot. As for its efficacy- many, many young people today openly identify with socialist and pre-socialist movements. I suspect it had to do with all of the childhood programming everywhere, as you mentioned. If Sesame Street happened to be a part of that giant effort, it doesn't necessary make it a conspiracy, just part of a political movement.