4 ms·

Religious studies fails to make kids more religious. Abstinence programs taught in schools fail to increase celibacy. Health programs fail to dent mcdonalds mar

• tmaly 2y ago
  Sounds like we need to throw some startups at it /s
  • brianf0 2y ago
    We should. why /s?
    • Terr_ 2y ago
      I can't give a definitive answer since I'm not the parent poster, however, it makes sense to me: There are various areas in which "disruptors" have promised that their outsider approach would somehow revolutionize the status quo into something better, and either they flopped or it became arguably worse in the long run. A simple example might be how Theranos was going to innovate past stodgy medical companies and provide wonderful new diagnostics to drive down healthcare costs, etc. Or how certain rideshare companies, once they achieved various local -opoly statuses--in ways not entirely aboveboard--are somehow back to a worse value-proposition than the system they displaced.
      • roenxi 2y ago
        All that tells us is that some attempts at improvement fail. Which, while common, doesn't inform us about the whether making attempts is good. Startups give you as many attempts at improving a situation as there are people who can scrape together some capital. Improvements from within is capped at (#Existing Companies x %with functional management) which is a much smaller number of attempts. Improvements by regulation is capped at ... N=1 and whatever the odds are that a good idea dodges regulatory capture, your political opponents, inertia and being too hard to enforce (sub 1 attempt in practice, maybe 2 or 3 pushes in exceptional circumstances). Of the options, startups are the best. The failures are less consequential.
        • Terr_ 2y ago
          I don't think they meant to say that all experimentation is bad, but rather to satirize a certain blend of overoptimistic tech-bro ideology that often pops up.
    • margalabargala 2y ago
      Because creating an organization to attempt to extract profit from ameliorating interpersonal social issues is incentivised to, and will, make those issues ultimately more pronounced and widespread than they would otherwise be. So that they can profit from it. Maybe some sort of organization should be created to address the parent's problem, but one dedicated to the extraction of value for its members won't make things better for everyone else.
• kypro 2y ago
  > Religious studies fails to make kids more religious You can definitely make kids believe in religion. There's a reason entire societies in the past held the same religious views.
  • skissane 2y ago
    Religious education in schools often fails because the kids can tell the adults teaching it don’t really believe in it themselves. If the person who wants you to believe it doesn’t actually do so, why should you? And then when they do really believe in it, more often than not rather than “I’ve thought deeply about all the doubts and I can give thoughtful responses to them”, their attitude is more “asking tough questions is a sin” Of course, even the best possible religious education isn’t going to convince everybody. But when parents ask me if they should worry that sending their kids to Catholic school is going to indoctrinate them in Catholicism, I always reply—based on my personal experience of having spent the majority of my K-12 education at them—that the average Catholic school is more likely to turn your child into an atheist than into a convinced Catholic. And many religious schools of other persuasions do no better
    • Izkata 2y ago
      > their attitude is more “asking tough questions is a sin” I don't think they went that far with me, but I did get frustration and telling me to stop asking questions. Pretty sure not being able to answer anything I came up with had me thinking it can't be true. And this was specifically in a religious education class we did once a week at a church separate from school.
      • skissane 2y ago
        > I don't think they went that far with me, but I did get frustration and telling me to stop asking questions. Pretty sure not being able to answer anything I came up with had me thinking it can't be true. If I could go back in a time machine and talk to a younger version of myself, I think I could give far more intelligent answers to my questions than anyone I asked could. Back in the Middle Ages, many of the smartest people in society ended up working for the Church. That doesn't guarantee they were right, but they were far from simpletons. Someone like Thomas Aquinas, whether he's ultimately right or wrong, he's a much more nuanced thinker than shallow dismissals of mediaeval scholasticism would suggest. And one can make similar remarks about Jewish scholars such as Rambam/Maimonides and Ralbag/Gersonides, or the great Islamic philosophers such as Ibn Sina/Avicenna, al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd/Averroes and Mulla Sadra. But nowadays, religion struggles to attract people of the same intellectual calibre. Which isn't to say none of them exist, but they are hidden away in remote higher education institutions, and there is a big disconnect between them and your average K-12 religious education teacher. Of course, in the Middle Ages, your village priest/rabbi/imam was unlikely to be anywhere near the level of that era's intellectual giants, but they arguably had less of a disconnect with them too.
• maxerickson 2y ago
  The analysis they reanalyzed did see useful results from the interventions. In the new analysis, they found that if the separated by age, the older children got less benefit. What are the odds that repetition of a basic curriculum by a lightly trained teacher has less impact over time?
  • fnordpiglet 2y ago
    I’d also note mindfulness only works with practice and reflection as well as an experienced guide. It’s not a pill to be swallowed. Likewise CBT and other interventions need a work, practiced, and an experienced and licensed practitioner. Finally I would look at late life outcomes as well. A lot of the lessons of vipassana and other mindfulness lessons are difficult for the very young. Handing someone a life time tool and expecting it to yield apples before the tree is even planted or tended is absurd.
    • renewiltord 2y ago
      A lot of this is junk so it’s hard to take the rest seriously. CBT works just fine self-taught. You don’t need an experienced and licensed practitioner. That is totally bogus. So I must conclude that there is zero information value in the rest.
      • benterix 2y ago
        What I suspect the parent is referring to is that if someone pretends they practice CBT but have no experience they may create more problems instead of solving the existing ones. But personally, I'd attribute that to therapists in general, especially the ones who tend to shift the blame towards the parents (even if they don't spell it out explicitly), not really to CBT where you actually verify very quickly if the method works or not.
  • gloryjulio 2y ago
    My personal experience is completely opposite. When I was young I would naturally focus and block out noise even though my environment was chaotic and I got good grade without trying. But as I grew older, since high school the natural ability was lost and my performance and grades suffered. When I start working the mindfulness and meditations practices helped me tremendously and I would felt like I can go back to my focus and productive mode easily and regained my performance.
• charlie0 2y ago
  Wonder what this all says about free will.
• gary_0 2y ago
  Maybe because kids aren't stupid and they can tell Western society doesn't practice real piety, doesn't respect celibacy, doesn't care about the health of its citizens, and glorifies recklessness over studious caution? You can't preach what you don't practice. (Hopefully I don't sound like I'm criticizing Western decadence too much. I'm actually a big fan of decadence!)
  • whatshisface 2y ago
    What you're doing is criticizing decadence from an epicurean perspective.
    • gary_0 2y ago
      Pretty much. "Have fun, just don't be stupid about it." I have a deep suspicion of proponents of asceticism.
      • woleium 2y ago
        everything in moderation, including moderation.
  • nottorp 2y ago
    My daughter told me towards the end of high school something that basically summarizes as: For lifestyle/moral decisions kids will do what they see their parents do. Not what they are told by parents or anyone else. Based on her observations of her friends.
    • em-bee 2y ago
      a german comedian said this: there is no point to raise children properly, they will just copy their parents anyways
  • energybored11 2y ago
    +1
  • 2y ago
• XorNot 2y ago
  School's are unique to the western human experience in that they are one of the only things you can't really "escape". We mandate children go to them, they have no choice in which one they go to, they have no ability to "quit" one and go to another if they don't like it (i.e. while this is not entirely true of employment, it's true enough and the effects on adults when it is not are pretty similar degrees of psychological trauma from hostile work environments and workplace bullying).
• euroderf 2y ago
  For matters ecological, the Viridian Manifesto (Bruce Sterling) is aware of this and interprets it as damage and routes around it. https://www.viridiandesign.org/manifesto.html https://www.viridiandesign.org/manifesto.html