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Alright I wrote sort of an argument / idea for some sort of public policy that can make industrialized western Countries like Canada and America become better places.
It's not very well writtten, however I have the "goodest" of intentions so... hopefully you guys can point out flaws in my idea and help me develop my critical thinking skills. The writing style is also REALLY BAD. Hopefully amusing rather than childish / a big turn off D=
Outline: To receive good parenting... is a right. It is justice. It will solve all of societies "dirty" problems.
Therefore... instead of my original plan of OMG NO ONE IS ALLOWED to have children... I shall try to move towards a more... reasonable platform.
Make parenting a right that must be earned. You need to prove you are in a position to provide great parenting. You as a person must meet several requirements. How you parent will be detailed and listed out. Steps, tutorials, programs...
How you socialize this child must be careful and bring about humans. Thinking humans not diluted by the inhuman traditions of our past. Look at our history, look at what we have done, what we are capable of. Think about how each human is so... malleable... so capable of greatest evil and greatest good.
We need to socialize our children in a responsible way. To provide them the capabilities to be "true humans", worth carrying on the torch of humanity.
Children to read philosophy and to discuss it. To have an existential crisis, and have peers to work together through it. To be in the pits of despair.. but with help and support. To WRESTLE intellectually, but also aesthetically, artistically. To sport to be healthy and responsible, thoughtful and caring. Passionate individuals working together.
The human utopia.
People who play in the mud but also discuss public policy. Kids, Children, adults who act like kids, but are immensely responsible and thoughtful. Someone who acts really silly and has a good time, but also ponders the greater good of humanity, things that must be done, changes that need to occur, things to discuss with others for the betterment of society.
All it takes is for society to take responsibility and start truly “educating” the next generation. To mentor and foster humans, not commodities... slaves... or tools...
 
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On January 13 2012 10:50 jodogohoo wrote:
We need to socialize our children in a responsible way. To provide them the capabilities to be "true humans", worth carrying on the torch of humanity.
Children to read philosophy and to discuss it. To have an existential crisis, and have peers to work together through it. To be in the pits of despair.. but with help and support. To WRESTLE intellectually, but also aesthetically, artistically. To sport to be healthy and responsible, thoughtful and caring. Passionate individuals working together.
99% of people are not capable of doing this- probably not even you- and it's dangerous for them to try.
I do agree with you that parenting is very important. Unfortunately, in America there is a segment of the population that is an almost dysfunctional society and I don't think this is necessarily the way to help them.
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Russian Federation142 Posts
Reversible vasectomy at birth, reversed only when person can prove that they will be a good parent? The easier way to do it is to just gas all poor people.
You're a terrible person.
e: Yes, I realize that not all poor people are bad parents, but the majority enslave their kids to a life of poverty. Can that be considered good parenting? Middle class parents are more often superior.
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Governments (or other authorities) have no right to manage who can be parents. No doubt tons of people end up as parents who won't do well in the role. That's just nature, though.
Generally, society shouldn't grow to encompass and govern things with groupthink. What one parent thinks is acceptable behaviour another may think is a grave sin. This is the beauty of living in a free country; we are all raised differently from different backgrounds, and our differences are what makes us strong.
OP, you should move to North Korea or China, and see how much you like it when "Society" becomes overbearing and invasive.
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On January 13 2012 11:12 serge wrote:
Reversible vasectomy at birth, reversed only when person can prove that they will be a good parent? The easier way to do it is to just gas all poor people.
You're a terrible person.
e: Yes, I realize that not all poor people are bad parents, but the majority enslave their kids to a life of poverty. Can that be considered good parenting? Middle class parents are more often superior.
lol actually i had the same thought as you. My ideas are sort of related to eugentics... which is related to nazi germany... however i'm hopefully different as I don't use race as a point of discrimination but parenting ability. Besides, I'm ready to make the assumption that most people who are not ready to be parents have kids not by choice...
but hmm poor people can definitly also be good parents, but probably not if they have children while they are fairly young
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{: There's much left to be desired .... in general parenting [not your writing]. It's all interlinked, so I'll start with the main problems and try and uncover their causes.
First of all: "and then suddenly: sex". There are a LOT of parents who don't want to be parents, but have a baby. Having children is one of the most fantastic things you can ever do (if I wasn't of that opinion I wouldn't deserve to be born myself q; ), but in a lot of cases it's a responsibility that's plonked on young women mostly that completely diverts the flow of their lives.
Solution? Perfect education, awareness, contraception and screening. Oh, and no rape.
Second, as always "which one of you will be the first to judge his brother?" How can we be possibly be perfectly fair and just in our screening process, to ensure that only families with the highest probability (note: not 'certainty' ) of having the most 'achieved' offspring have kids. If it's 'for the sake of the life the kid would be living' then wouldn't you want to prevent low/no-income, defavoured single high-school dropouts from having kids because in all likelihood (again: not utterly certain) their kids wouldn't turn out 'well' ?
First what is the limit of 'acceptable familial standards' suitable for a child to be born into. We have NO RIGHT to condemn their life as being miserable, thus not worth living, because I believe every life is worth living, and if you asked the future child what they think, they'd sure as hell rather have existed than not existed. Well that's my stance on abortion, and it's important because, well, whaddya do with mammas-to-be who don't make the cut? Cut it out? Overall it implies that those who don't meet society's standards are not worthy, thus not allowed/capable of having children at all. See how that's just so fucked up? (nothing against you or your thoughts, it's just where I see it leads)
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On January 13 2012 11:19 darkscream wrote:
Governments (or other authorities) have no right to manage who can be parents. No doubt tons of people end up as parents who won't do well in the role. That's just nature, though.
Generally, society shouldn't grow to encompass and govern things with groupthink. What one parent thinks is acceptable behaviour another may think is a grave sin. This is the beauty of living in a free country; we are all raised differently from different backgrounds, and our differences are what makes us strong.
OP, you should move to North Korea or China, and see how much you like it when "Society" becomes overbearing and invasive.
i guess you're right... human's need self-determination =\
however, what about the cases between authoritative, neglectic, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles?
the natural order of things doesn't really make me happy though. throughout history, the natural order of things was pretty terrible. I'm off topic though. I guess your argument is that of authoritarian governments and democratic governments, and... so far authoritarian governments have been pretty shitty. Maybe we can have good authoritarian governments in the future run by benevolent dictators =\ where corruption isn't a problem
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On January 13 2012 11:19 darkscream wrote:
Governments (or other authorities) have no right to manage who can be parents. No doubt tons of people end up as parents who won't do well in the role. That's just nature, though.
Generally, society shouldn't grow to encompass and govern things with groupthink. What one parent thinks is acceptable behaviour another may think is a grave sin. This is the beauty of living in a free country; we are all raised differently from different backgrounds, and our differences are what makes us strong.
OP, you should move to North Korea or China, and see how much you like it when "Society" becomes overbearing and invasive.
It's unfortunately this type of thinking which is why we are all getting ready to choke and die on our own collective excrement.
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On January 13 2012 11:27 bITt.mAN wrote:
{: There's much left to be desired .... in general parenting [not your writing]. It's all interlinked, so I'll start with the main problems and try and uncover their causes.
First of all: "and then suddenly: sex". There are a LOT of parents who don't want to be parents, but have a baby. Having children is one of the most fantastic things you can ever do (if I wasn't of that opinion I wouldn't deserve to be born myself q; ), but in a lot of cases it's a responsibility that's plonked on young women mostly that completely diverts the flow of their lives.
Solution? Perfect education, awareness, contraception and screening. Oh, and no rape.
Second, as always "which one of you will be the first to judge his brother?" How can we be possibly be perfectly fair and just in our screening process, to ensure that only families with the highest probability (note: not 'certainty' ) of having the most 'achieved' offspring have kids. If it's 'for the sake of the life the kid would be living' then wouldn't you want to prevent low/no-income, defavoured single high-school dropouts from having kids because in all likelihood (again: not utterly certain) their kids wouldn't turn out 'well' ?
First what is the limit of 'acceptable familial standards' suitable for a child to be born into. We have NO RIGHT to condemn their life as being miserable, thus not worth living, because I believe every life is worth living, and if you asked the future child what they think, they'd sure as hell rather have existed than not existed. Well that's my stance on abortion, and it's important because, well, whaddya do with mammas-to-be who don't make the cut? Cut it out? Overall it implies that those who don't meet society's standards are not worthy, thus not allowed/capable of having children at all. See how that's just so fucked up? (nothing against you or your thoughts, it's just where I see it leads)
First off: accidental or unplanned pregnancys... might as well be a crime =\ it's pretty irresponsible and bolds negative consequences for society... or does it? i'm not sure. This is entirely debatable
As forthe screening proccess and judging... that may be a real limitation that can't be overcome. and if it can't be overcome then... this idea won't work.
as for " whaddya do with mammas-to-be who don't make the cut?" they would have to be provided with the opportunity / training to become a good parent, or something of this sort... i think a worthy investment...
regarding " I believe every life is worth living"
I don't think it's really useful to think of humans as that special. is every dog worth living? are humans comparable to dogs? of course not, that's insane. humans should be treated justly... but i think harsh population limitations and rules should be inplace. of course this may result in a completely terrible consequences... sooo maybe not...
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Well I'm none to promote 'making' as many babies as possible because it would be 'moar happyz' , especially in impoverished circumstances. I certainly prefer good care and nurturing over neglect, so certainly keep a lid on it. In the future we're sure gonna need it. But if one's already on the way, I can't really express it well so I'll just put it like this:
If a baby's on the way you can choose to prevent if from growing up and living it i.e.abortion. No point in going into "by which point is it technically alive or just cells" "is it killing?" w/e . You're preventing that kid from a shot at real (ideal adult existential-crisis ..) life.
With a dog you'd be preventing the joy of raising it as a puppy and keeping it as a compagnion. But with a kid, one day he'll (hopefully, if you raise 'em well) thank you for allowing him that shot. That "thank you" in itself is worth the whole pain: a proper upbringing and education is the greatest gift my parents have given me. I've had a lot of exposure to what are best described as 'rich kids' , but unlike dogs where you can pay some academy to teach them for you then they'd be more disciplined, throwing money at your kids doesn't raise them well at all. They come off ungrateful, proud, lazy and prettymuch useless. The amazing thing is that good parenting is largely independent of money (then there are cycles of poverty, but let's stay away from super-low level survival immigrants in West LA trying to live through alcohol abuse, gangs etc. my sister's worked with 'em , it's a harrowing story), because you can't give money to bring up your kids right, it just takes time, dedication, effort, love and discipline.
Hurrah for rambling, sorry, I'm tired, I've been intellectualizing on TL all day : /
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The OP is right in one thing - the family is the bedrock of civilisation and it's vital that kids are brought up in the right way. This will ensure that the future generation will become strong.
The problem with the proposal (earning parenting rights) is that if parenting is under the control of the state, then teaching kids will be shaped by the very few people will be defining parenting policy. What happens if the "experts" in the area have a particular agenda? They will be influencing the future generation.
Instead, what is more important is to have laws and policy in place to encourage rather than destroy families. I don't want to get too much into detail, but I'll give a few examples of how laws and policy is destroying families in the USA.
1) No-fault divorce and alimony have created a condition where someone can walk out of a marriage, enjoy financial security without any consequences. One of those conditions (no-fault or alimony) need to be removed.
2) In the USA, states receive federal funding based on how much child support payments they recoup and how much assistance is given to single-parent homes. This creates the perverse situation where states are encouraged financially to have as many single-parent homes as much as possible.
3) Leftist thinking means that disciplining children is very difficult in today's society.
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On January 13 2012 12:10 bITt.mAN wrote:
Well I'm none to promote 'making' as many babies as possible because it would be 'moar happyz' , especially in impoverished circumstances. I certainly prefer good care and nurturing over neglect, so certainly keep a lid on it. In the future we're sure gonna need it. But if one's already on the way, I can't really express it well so I'll just put it like this:
If a baby's on the way you can choose to prevent if from growing up and living it i.e.abortion. No point in going into "by which point is it technically alive or just cells" "is it killing?" w/e . You're preventing that kid from a shot at real (ideal adult existential-crisis ..) life.
With a dog you'd be preventing the joy of raising it as a puppy and keeping it as a compagnion. But with a kid, one day he'll (hopefully, if you raise 'em well) thank you for allowing him that shot. That "thank you" in itself is worth the whole pain: a proper upbringing and education is the greatest gift my parents have given me. I've had a lot of exposure to what are best described as 'rich kids' , but unlike dogs where you can pay some academy to teach them for you then they'd be more disciplined, throwing money at your kids doesn't raise them well at all. They come off ungrateful, proud, lazy and prettymuch useless. The amazing thing is that good parenting is largely independent of money (then there are cycles of poverty, but let's stay away from super-low level survival immigrants in West LA trying to live through alcohol abuse, gangs etc. my sister's worked with 'em , it's a harrowing story), because you can't give money to bring up your kids right, it just takes time, dedication, effort, love and discipline.
Hurrah for rambling, sorry, I'm tired, I've been intellectualizing on TL all day : /
Ahh yeah, SES may generally indicate better kids, but i think the best parents are ones that have deep insight on things researched in the social sciences and humanities / philosophy. Wisdom > money
i wish i made it clear that good parenting can from a wide variety of backgrounds... but bad parenting can also come from just as many sources
as for abortion... what and a baby on the way... what about planning to have sex and have a child... would deciding not to have sex also "prevent a baby" from not having a chance at life? i think you're placing to much emphasis on biolgical processes... you can always have a baby later. i'm not sure if my argument is sound...
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Well I, bof, Imagine you wanna make a really cool UMS map. You can either start one, then delete it, or never actually start one and just think about it. Either way, you're not gonna come out with a UMS map after 9months, but while the latter has infinite possibilities, the former could only come out in a few different ways.
In the second case, there are so many different ways sperm can combine with ovumseggs, and there's no way you can sire a child off each reproductive cell, so I feel you've got the potential, you're just not acting on it. However if the thing's already on the way, why not let nature run her course.
Then there are big issues with today's society you'd have to overcome, such as the importance of ''sex''. As a young man who strives to attain real and lasting (biblical) manliness , I'm ashamed and appalled on our society's view on sex, especially men's. Simply put, many people idolize and worship promiscuity and sex, their whole lives revolve around gym, [tan, laundry] ---> club ---> sex. That's pathetic, it's like thanking and loving a pair of sandals, instead of the person who gave them to you for your enjoyment and proper use. Ye gonna trash'em, or you gonna take good care of 'em and use 'em responsibly for his namesake?
It's all the more saddening that one of the main features of being a man, being fertile and capable of sexual reproduction, is seen as an inconvenience and a trouble. So you're certainly gonna have trouble getting people (society)to stop being promiscuous. To be able to reliably stick to that sort of abstinence, instead of quickly reverting to adultery, people need help from reveling in carnal animal nature. "I heard 'em say without sex life is a waste .... [ideology] 's holding the brakes [on sex drive]" I'm not saying Christianity is the only way, but bro I'm a virgin by choice, and that's FUCKING HARD sometimes, in short because I don't want to waste the beautiful and holy union of sex with just any random.
TL:DR our current society is just all about deciding TO have sex, you're gonna need some massive paradigm changes, with fulfilling and lasting dogma if you ever want people to 'decide not to have sex'.
Or, somehow control pregnancies. Maybe give people some sort of vaccine that makes them ~infertile~, and only once they're deemed ~ready~ are they given a ~cure~ that means it's possible for them to have kids. It'd be too dumb and unsafe to sterilize all the men and have strictly-regulated, huge sperm banks for 'the allowed few' (no genetic variation FTL), maybe some sort of 100% all in-vitro fertilizations. To pull that sort of thing off you'd either need to seriously modify the human genome (maybe affect the body in such a way that only pre-fertilized eggs can 'work' ), get some fucking good drugs with 100% administration or easiest get much better education. I think if you REALLY wanted this sort of thing to work you would have really good education/brainwashing, making people think they'll die in 2 days if they don't use a condom each time, and the allowed few get to use 'different' condoms, which don't act as condoms at all.
That'd generate a black market for 'the few' condoms, it'd get owned by people just not wearing a rubber, and if people got pregnant outside of regulation your dystopian government would probably secretly abort the baby through chemicals (this is a bit extreme, but a similar situation is addressed in the Cameren Diaz film "Aeon Flux", good fun, torrent + watch). I do believe it would be possible though to educate the population to A. Diminish their sex drive B. Diminish their sex focus and C. Make wearing a condom as instinctive as wearing shoes when you go outside you house.
Hmm ramble ramble, but nah it's interesting, I'm just going to the far extent of the situations, and now it's 5AM and I SELEP <:
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To receive good parenting... is a right. It is justice. It will solve all of societies "dirty" problems.
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I totally agree 100%. This is such a crucial observation about humanity. But,,, it obviously becomes so tricky whenever you try to implement anything towards this! I feel that the first step should be better schools! more role models! idk everyone try hard!
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On January 13 2012 15:37 TheNessman wrote:
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To receive good parenting... is a right. It is justice. It will solve all of societies "dirty" problems.
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I totally agree 100%. This is such a crucial observation about humanity. But,,, it obviously becomes so tricky whenever you try to implement anything towards this! I feel that the first step should be better schools! more role models! idk everyone try hard!
no, not better schools. definitely not better schools. Our schools are fine, we have great fucking teachers. I already went down this dark path awhile ago. No, it is not the education system that is at fault. We can not expect teachers to do the FULL job of socializing our kids. The family is the primary socialization agent. It is the families responsibility not the schools.
I will not blame schools for this. It is the responsibility of our society, of humanity to address the what type of culture we want to live in. We need to regulate media, mass media, and properly socialize the next generation. I know I use terms that sound totalitarian like. But I'm not trying to promote a Nazi agenda, I'm trying to come up with a system and tools needed to help improve our society, be in means that were traditionally used for evil.
Also, good parenting and decent socialization is a right because... it is an injustice to have bad parents. To have to live people humans that... are just not in a position to be successful parents.
ohh you are 100% right thought about how to actually implement this... T_T;; and ohhh it's nice someone agrees with me on something ^.^ hehehe
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On January 13 2012 17:06 jodogohoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2012 15:37 TheNessman wrote:
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To receive good parenting... is a right. It is justice. It will solve all of societies "dirty" problems.
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I totally agree 100%. This is such a crucial observation about humanity. But,,, it obviously becomes so tricky whenever you try to implement anything towards this! I feel that the first step should be better schools! more role models! idk everyone try hard! no, not better schools. definitely not better schools. Our schools are fine, we have great fucking teachers. I already went down this dark path awhile ago. No, it is not the education system that is at fault. We can not expect teachers to do the FULL job of socializing our kids. The family is the primary socialization agent. It is the families responsibility not the schools. I will not blame schools for this. It is the responsibility of our society, of humanity to address the what type of culture we want to live in. We need to regulate media, mass media, and properly socialize the next generation. I know I use terms that sound totalitarian like. But I'm not trying to promote a Nazi agenda, I'm trying to come up with a system and tools needed to help improve our society, be in means that were traditionally used for evil. Also, good parenting and decent socialization is a right because... it is an injustice to have bad parents. To have to live people humans that... are just not in a position to be successful parents. ohh you are 100% right thought about how to actually implement this... T_T;; and ohhh it's nice someone agrees with me on something ^.^ hehehe
What? The North American education system (Esp US) is awful. There's literally thousands of problems about it.
Also, I don't know how you could possibly fix the 'injustice' of 'bad parenting' without something completely ridiculous, draconian and possibly setting up for a pretty cool movie idea.
Also:
On January 13 2012 11:27 bITt.mAN wrote:We have NO RIGHT to condemn their life as being miserable, thus not worth living, because I believe every life is worth living, and if you asked the future child what they think, they'd sure as hell rather have existed than not existed.
Sorry for being morbid, but the teenage suicide rate compared to any other age group says otherwise.
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I think attempting to educate the public about the psychological dangers of specific acts like spanking, etc. will have a more effective impact than lobbying for limitations on parenthood.
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On January 14 2012 11:05 airtown wrote:
I think attempting to educate the public about the psychological dangers of specific acts like spanking, etc. will have a more effective impact than lobbying for limitations on parenthood.
i'm more concerned about the socialization of the next generation, but I think you have a point.
Perhaps the policy I should try to advance is a shift in social services in support of helping parents, educating parents, giving parents workshops, and a place or way to talk to other parents and be part of a strong social network.
Also hopefully with better parents, will come healthier kids and hopefully our free market system will shift towards lower consumer demand on unhealthy food and more on healthy living and exercise so we don't have to spend as much on health care.
see.. it all falls together like dominos.
1. have a great culture that is lead with wisdom from the social sciences
2. social problems are prevented and instead of spending fixing a mess, we would be spending on preventing problems from occuring in the first place.
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Interesting. OP your intentions are well meaning and as mentioned in the tread title - very idealistic. A world where everyone uses reason and conversation in order to respect eachother and humanity as a whole and the nature that humanity depends upon. All thats well and good and how could anyone disagreee? Right?
The problem with idealism is that it tends to disregard a little thing we call 'reality'. Now idealistically we would like reality to correlate with our idealism. But it doesnt. So what do we do? We do what OP does and construct arguments for an utopian society. We all do this. I would even argue that this is a good thing. That idealism is a good thing.
I want the world to be a better place. We all do. Most of us atleast. But whats a better world? Is my ideas about a better world the same as yours? Or everyone elses? So it becomes a problem of definition. Who has the power to define the ideal society? This is where it gets ugly because no one should have that power. I define myself. Thats the freedom we should encourage atleast. The freedom to define ourself and our goals in life. Dont let the government do that job for you.
So the problem here is when the idealism turns into ideology. I can think that my definition of an ideal world should be the
norm, but hows that going to deal with reality? Reality being the sum of all people and their own definitions. Am i going to force my opinion through? Is that ideal? Forcing people in living in a certain way is never a good start and it becomes horrific if the enforcer is the government itself. And im not talking about laws of justice (we need those) but laws that would support a certain ideology.
To talk about the particular means of your outline: Reading through the requirements im thinking that you would be a good parent. But a politician, not so much. I agree with your thoughts about parenthood and how we should view life throught reason, knowledge and with the playfullness and curiosness of children. Beatiful. And even though this idea that you have will "solve all of society's 'dirty' problems" might be true. It is a utopia. People dont have those admirable ideas that you have. Or they are to poor and starving to have ideas other than ideas about survival.
The world, I guess, is somewhat complex. And you cant force humans into doing what you want, even if you are highly certain its for their best. Because humans are much like animals, lets say dogs. And if you push a dog into a corner, its going to bite you. Or submit to you and bite anyone stranger. So lets not treat humans as dogs. Lets treat humans as the reasonable creatures that we are. Enlightment instead of enforcement. And to educate, anyone can to that. Thats not only happening in the classroom.
Its really, I feel, about we as individuals can do. You cant change the world, but you can do your part. Is there a problem in your local community? Join in with others and try to solve it. And thats where idealism becomes a good thing. When it changes your life. And thats where it really starts and ends.
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