3 ms·

It's reasonable to presume that a long-term implication of inculcating a "never talk to strangers" mentality into young children is the gradual decline of socia

by Gormo 3y ago

It's reasonable to presume that a long-term implication of inculcating a "never talk to strangers" mentality into young children is the gradual decline of social trust, potentially leading to the collapse of civil society generally. I think a t least some of the intense polarization, "culture war" acrimony, paranoia, and institutional dysfunction we're seeing today is attributable to the coming of age of people who were raised this way.

tombert 3y ago
I really think this is a pretty large extrapolation from me saying "don't let your kids talk to random celebrities on the internet", claiming that what I suggested will lead to some kind of moral decay. I agree that I probably should have clarified (and have in a few sister threads, you can find it if curious), but I don't actually think it's 100% analogous to say that being cautious when talking to famous people is the same as "don't talk to strangers". There's a pretty huge power differential between a kid and someone that they really admire vs some random stranger, and there is probably at least some degree of selection bias of people who pursue positions of power and have the desire to abuse it. I don't have kids, but if I did I probably wouldn't let them hang around a lot of people who actively pursue power completely unsupervised, e.g. basically any politician, religious leaders, etc. You can call it paranoia if you want, but I think it's just being aware of selection bias; I probably wouldn't let a kid into an Incel Support Group for the same reason, because there's going to be selection biases towards justifying horrible stuff, even if a vast majority of incels are just dorky dudes who probably wouldn't do anything inappropriate to a child. Most famous people are just average humans, and are perfectly professional and courteous, and I feel like I did at least kind of mention that in my original post when I said that nothing bad happened to me, but I don't think that implies you just throw caution to the wind and just let kids reach out to every stranger they want. I also don't think it's leading to a moral decay to think that parents should supervise very young kids on the internet.

by Gormo 3y ago

tombert 3y ago

I really think this is a pretty large extrapolation from me saying "don't let your kids talk to random celebrities on the internet", claiming that what I suggested will lead to some kind of moral decay. I agree that I probably should have clarified (and have in a few sister threads, you can find it if curious), but I don't actually think it's 100% analogous to say that being cautious when talking to famous people is the same as "don't talk to strangers". There's a pretty huge power differential between a kid and someone that they really admire vs some random stranger, and there is probably at least some degree of selection bias of people who pursue positions of power and have the desire to abuse it. I don't have kids, but if I did I probably wouldn't let them hang around a lot of people who actively pursue power completely unsupervised, e.g. basically any politician, religious leaders, etc. You can call it paranoia if you want, but I think it's just being aware of selection bias; I probably wouldn't let a kid into an Incel Support Group for the same reason, because there's going to be selection biases towards justifying horrible stuff, even if a vast majority of incels are just dorky dudes who probably wouldn't do anything inappropriate to a child. Most famous people are just average humans, and are perfectly professional and courteous, and I feel like I did at least kind of mention that in my original post when I said that nothing bad happened to me, but I don't think that implies you just throw caution to the wind and just let kids reach out to every stranger they want. I also don't think it's leading to a moral decay to think that parents should supervise very young kids on the internet.