i heard punishments where the parent stays at the timeout and are present but firm are better than abandoning them an hour at a time to cook or work out, sometimes your life is just tragic I'll say
And I'm pretty sure the type of person speaking out against outdated, abusive child rearing doesn't support the use of cudgels or tear gas in law enforcement or unsafe/cruel deportation.
In my jurisdiction prison sentences and imprisonment for public protection are different things, and only the latter is to protect innocent people. It is also pretty rare. Most prison sentences are, because society 'thinks' the aspiring prisoner deserves it, not because the public needs to be protected. Also penalties also fulfill the desire of the society for vengeance.
I think, being locked in isolation or with very dangerous individuals can leave deeper scars than a short period of violence. It's also not, like people in general never have any injuries, so it's not the pain itself that is an uncommon experience, but more the knowledge of it being linked to your actions. People don't have traumas just because they walked through nettles, feel from their bicycle or broke their legs.
> And I'm pretty sure the type of person speaking out against outdated, abusive child rearing doesn't support the use of cudgels or tear gas in law enforcement or unsafe/cruel deportation.
That's nice, but I think he still has an amount of accepted violence by the state, because the policy of 'I don't give a fuck, let the strongest do what he likes' doesn't actually lead to less violence.
I just want to point out, how it is not necessarily a black or white thing, I'm not arguing for child abuse.
No, I don't think it is different. Both are applications of state violence for enforcing laws. I think it would be reasonable to use (public) caning as a judicial punishment in the US for certain kinds of crimes, for the same reason I think it is reasonable to use incarceration as a judicial punishment in the US for other types of crimes.
What else should I have done? Just let the kid take the next guys phone?
If I’d called the police, they’d almost certainly have told me on the phone to let the shouting kid go. There would have been zero consequences for him, and possibly some for me.
I genuinely did that kid a favour.
You can post anything on hacker news if you phrase it right. Sometimes the mods will even pop in and interject unprompted that it’s all good so long as nobody is saying swears
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48035090
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060620
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48036265
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058102
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48065636
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48036672
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063728
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063439
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48059347
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058017
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058265
I would go so far as to bet it will have the opposite effect. Nothing legitimizes using violence to affect the behavior of others like the state doing it to you. I doubt they have the introspection to recognize the difference between state and personal violence, the message they’ll get is “might makes right”.
Those countries have structurally different cultures, economies and governments. Eg Singapore has a median household income that rivals or exceeds the US, in a part of the world where that makes them fabulously wealthy compared to their neighbors. That alone is a huge crime deterrent; why steal stuff you could just buy off whatever their Amazon is? They’re also a fairly small island, so it’s way easier to control drugs getting in.
TLDR Singapore and Japan have low crime rates that likely have nothing to do with severe punishments.
People often quote research to mislead and push their narratives. Widen the scope and their narrative falls apart.
In this case it's about going past this (often western-ish) belief that all children are born good and that something in their lives makes them bad. I'd like to propose a different take: that some children will often test their boundaries upon others and choose to say some threats are no big deal, until they actually go through the pain. Amongst those who go through it, even if there's 1 who remembers the pain and refrains from committing the same act in the future, it's worth it. Caning won't stop everything, but it is but one part of the whole net to tackle problem youths, and has effects down the road.
Can you elaborate ? Singapore has 4 ethnicities, 4 religions, and 4 languages living together as a developed nation in a small city which could be considered a marvel in any other part of the world. Also, apart from the US, and perhaps UAE, Canada, is the only nation with a policy allowing a sizable skilled immigrant population. With such a diverse set of folks, one could argue that the only common denominator is the cane, a language everyone understands.
To link this back to the original topic: discipline of children is part of a wider topic of how as a society we discipline those who fall out of line. Discipline in society determines the kind of future we're shaping for ourselves.
My mother worked at the day care but was away on a vacation that week. She had told the director of the day care that she was allowed to spank me if I acted up.
I was taken to a broom closet and told to drop my pants so that this woman who was not my parent and who was only going on the words of another adult could spank me.
I was then put in timeout for the rest of the day. I also was spanked again when my mother returned from her vacation and the day care center director explained what (she believed) had happened.
I did nothing wrong, but I was still subjected to corporal (and illegal) punishment because my mother wanted to make sure I "learned my lesson" or whatever bullshit excuses that adults like you seem to think will come of subjecting children to violent retribution for their transgressions.
The only lesson I learned that day is that I should never trust those who have power over me. They don't care if they are punishing the person who committed "the crime." They just care that they are punishing someone.
Adults who think that physical violence is the only way to change the behavior of people who break the rules or who commit violent acts are nothing more than bullies themselves.
Tell me something, if I came up to you, told you that I'm going to punch you in the face (or cane you, or literally any other form of painful physical punishment) until you learn that your viewpoint is incorrect, would it cause you to change your mind, or would it simply cause you to resent me and start working to find a way to hurt me back.
Why would you think that the threat of physical violence against miscreants, child or adult, would cause them to act in any way different from how you would react?
Your example says more about the costs of getting details wrong in punishment, than about punishment.
"These countries also directly take care of their citizens, which I think is an important factor. Other societies will let you be homeless and say it is your fault for being broke even when employers terminate you purely for economic reasons or when there simply aren't enough jobs to go around. That backdrop contributes to desperation and predatory mindsets."
I disagree with her though, because that sounds communistic and can only lead to empty store shelves, tattered housing blocs, and the state preventing me from listening to the same rock music songs I've heard since the 1970's.
Every advanced economy in the world except for the United States has a well developed social safety net, and I assure you our shelves are not empty and I can listen to all the Mötley Crüe I desire.
Oh, come on, stop whining. Skrewdriver is still on Spotify.
You're such a snowflake, posing as the victim of government oppression.
Correction: pro beating abusers.
>I find this abuse horrific
>barbaric behavior.
Absolutely! We're all against bullying here.
They like to torture them psychologically and physically, precisely because they are defenseless.
Well, these animals are just big animals: human.
It means: they find it fun so they actually enjoy harming humans.
This is precisely the reason for bullying.
Punishing these behaviors early, and you might actually stop this pleasure-loop and send a signal to all people around that it is a not a good idea. In addition, you may prevent escalation to worse crimes. Once you do a crime, then crime+1 is maybe ok. If crime+1 is maybe ok, then crime+2, etc.
Less pithy version: The message you send by beating kids, is that violence is wrong unless you're big and strong enough and have enough authority that nobody can stop you. This is not a good way to get kids to be less violent, it just teaches them to be more calculated in their violence.
There is a massive leap between "let them bully other kids" and "we have to cane them" and pretending like only pain is the solution, especially in case of children where bullying is often a second order effect, is sick.
These rules should be implemented locally at a town or city level. No need to enforce the same set of rules across all society.
And it's interesting you bring up that bullying is a second order affect. If one of the parents is abusive, that should be something that has physical consequences. Solve the problem at the source, stop wringing our hands and getting lawyers / police involved for everything. That's not scalable and as a result there are a bunch of unsolvable problems in our society today.
This is unintentionally hilarious. You're not arguing the moral point, you're using the same kind of reasoning that leads to gay conversion therapy. It roughly equates to: "that's not in accord with my social norms, therefore you need professional intervention."
(Perfunctory disclaimer that I don't support caning. I am not arguing for it, I am only pointing out problems with a statement against it.)
In my own personal and shared experience; having grown up in a culture where corporal punishment is a given. You found out it can be administered in the most humane way possible. And as a matter of fact, a couple minute after the entire thing you are back to talking with friends and siblings and laughing it off.
Sure, I didn't love being caned, nor did anyone I knew, but I will say it was a more effective and better guide towards good behaviour than words alone or other approaches
Nobody I have met loved being canned as a child, and at the same time no one turned out worst from it. And as much as Africa seems to be a lawless place, schools are very orderly; bullying by peers is rare, students generally do not exhibit anti-social, rebellious or rude behaviors to teachers or parents.
I'm certain the views of people who grew up in Africa and certain part of Asia, where caning is still practised, will be quite different from those of people who didn't.
P.S. My views are on parents and teachers caning kids or young teenagers.
And then, when they become adults...
Have you never wondered why those "perfectly fine" children become such corrupt adults?
