Here’s the thing: as a parent you had a high amount of control over what your children consume. Yes, there is peer pressure, but you can just decide to make your kid uncool or weird or quirky. My child basically doesn’t see ads. She travels with her own tablet and hotspot with ad-free services and ad-free mobile games. Tiktok and YouTube shorts is almost totally banned in my house, but she may watch a few videos specifically on my devices under my supervision if she wants to see something her friends send her. I don’t really have a problem with tiktok per se, more how it zombifies kids with constant dopemine hits. Youtube is a whitelist since don’t trust that algorithm at all.

You get the picture. I won’t say that my kid is watching things wholly appropriate for her at all times, but my mission as it stands is to keep her attention span solid and teach her moderation, so some games get banned before she ever get to play them (roblox), some get banned after me seeing the impact on her cousin (fortnite) and some get banned for impact on her (mobile games are evil). The fall out can be severe, but in this respect I’m an authoritatian parent. My word is law. Your feelings don’t matter. You’ll thank me later. Or not. You have a long adulthood play videogames.

Do we though? Alcohol the most commonly used addictive drugs is allowed for adults and even children in many states as long as the adults approve and do it in in private residences.

Parents need to be better about paying attention to games. I remember telling my aunt about a game my 10 year old cousin wanted. She was horrified and said absolutely not. She bought it for him when he asked when they were in the store because she doesn’t take any time to pay attention to game They’re for kids. Even though games are clearly marked with any objectionable material. She “blindsided” by what was in the game when her son booted it up dispite the game be rated as mature, marking objectionable things and me giving her a play by play.

There are a lot of additive things that we expect parents to use their judgment on. Sugar for example. Until someone is talking to me about how we need a bad on soda and BS like that because parents can’t be expected to parent their kids about it, I don’t really care about the most optional of activities that is games. Children have extremely limited access if their parents don’t allow it. Theu buy the phones/tables/game consoles and robust parental controls have existed for a while.

Kids can be addicted to all sorts of things and it’s still on the parents. Because it’s technology we for some reason stop believing parents can do a thing. Oh however would the person who controls the internet ans the devices control their child’s access to social media (another one I see whining about) and video games. As a parent myself, I’m just under the impression that at least watching in my circle, the parents who don’t aren’t paying attention or don’t actually care that much, they just don’t like the outcome judgment.

That’s because someone can easily track your address via a phone number. This is why I have a burner VoIP number to give out until I trust people.

What is a “pointless pursuit”? History and any marginalized population by the list. So apparently when the government makes a plan for how to invigorate an area, they don’t need to know anything about it’s culture and history? We don’t need people who understand things like that. Every citizen is the same obviously any thing the government demands is correct and will work out for all populations.

Also why does the state even fund PhDs? PhDs don’t enter industry and spin that economy baby, so that worthless. Doctors and lawyers can just take out more loans. It’s fine. Looking at that why fund programs for most master’s degrees? What companies require one anyway?

I’m being flippang here because even as a STEM major, I’ve gotten so much mileage out of the “useless” part of my degree. Being exposed to those “pointless pursuits” allowed me to build things that people actually needed and avoid the pitfalls before we exposed people to them.

When I was in school, I wondered why the state was forcing me to take these stupid humanities classes at an engineering university at that, but I see it now. Mine was a school where humanities students had to learn to code a bit, and engineers had to learn do media analysis and probably take more history than they wanted, but getting out into the world, I’ve found that the engineers who got that exposure are just better because they know there is a whole class of problem involving people and they know when it’s time to ask for help or when it’s time to do research.

Has the state been funding schools though? Because state funding has been falling across the board and if the state has an interest in being lean then they should focus on out of prop salaries of administration and sports spending. After all what interest does the state have in sports? By this line of reasons colleges should have to fund that themselves.

This is of course setting aside that humanities does help society and is in the vested interest of the state. I’m saying this as someone who was a STEM major. Giving context to the world and giving people a greater understanding is useful for every major. It allows them to understand their world and make better decisions from their station in life.

To take the stance that the state has an interest in funding “useful” degrees then no one should be allowed to do anything outside their education, which is aburd. People with different points of view and knowledge enhance professions, not destroy them. That’s what happens when a profession only has one allowable perspective to deal with infinite possibilities of the world.

Unless you are actively for killing people once they hit a certain age, demographic collapse is a real problem. You cannot care for the elderly with nothing but robots. Elders need healthcare. They need people in general and unlike young people they don’t move from dead rotting towns. In demographic collapse they don’t even have anyone to make them because they don’t have kids.

See Japan for how demographic collapse is working out. Young people are being crushed by the weight of what it takes to care for too many old people. And the cycle is only getting worse because of course young people don’t have kids when very stressed. Japan has whole towns going to rot. They’re economy is experiencing negative effects from not having the expected amount of workers for what they need.

You really want a gradually declining population. You want your birth rate to be about 2. 2.1 is the replacement rate. Currently the US is the only developed country doing this and mostly by accident due to immigration. The US is experiencing a much less pronounced pension crisis than other developed nations. Instead we can focus exclusively on our fascist regime bid for power. That’s our of population decline as well, but we get to fight against it since the US is fairly balanced in demographics (for now. It remains to be seen how the millennial generation will handle being dominant generation in a decade or so)

There’s a middle ground. I’m in a true small city of 10K and I love it. The city is all of 10 miles square. It has all the basics movie theater, most chains, etc. The city isn’t walkable, but it is bikeable and I’ve found that to be good enough. I grew up in a city like this and I wanted that for my kid. We still drive into the local metro maybe once a month, but I don’t ever need to go into the metro for basics.

But I’m not talking about moving fuck all no where. I’m talking about expanding the range impact of cities. We got this way because people all moved to cities. If people spread like a wave away from cities, then the power impact decreases. My town is went from a Christian stronghold where you couldn’t drink and everything was closed on Sunday to a place where a Republicans have to battle for local spots and most highly religious laws have been repealed.

Im halfway between 2 major cities. One is the major metro and the other a mid-size city. It used to be very red going 30 minutes away from either, but now we have a sea of purple. And areas are only getting bluer.

Everywhere in GA outside of like 4 cities is bumbfuck, but being I proximity of cities and growing small towns into midsized cities is the way to win. When I was a kid my hometown was bumfuck, GA. Now it’s a major city (for GA. I mean it’s sub-1 million by a lot) and solidly blue when it used to be very red.

We won’t see an AOC type for a long time, but a moderate republican (not a Manchin type) is a way better platform than any republican.

Public school? You mean that place that children are mandated to be? Also you forgot government. It was a whole thing. So if you’re a Muslim and you want to be a part of the French government, then I hope you don’t have any attachment to those head scarves. There are other religions ornamentation, but the head scarves one was the last one I saw. And whether school or a DMV clerk, it’s dumb.

Also noticed I used two different labels for France rather than China. I think China is fascist with what they’re doing. France is xenophobic with what they’re doing.

Honestly, I feel the same about both: it’s absurd. With France I get the “freedom from religion” spiel from some Frenchman, but it’s veiled xenophobia to me. When you ban a kind of clothing but only for one group of people, that’s basically the definition. Here, it’s just fascism. At least the Chinese people are speaking out.

It’s a problem because of free movement. I live in GA which us now gloriously purple. Do you know the biggest problem GA has right now? The homesteading movement. A lot of urbanites are spreading from cities. My county (which I just move to lol) was so close to flipping blue they split it in two. And that doesn’t matter because I’ve seen democrat leaning people from the city movement even further past me deeper into rural GA.

To me, this is why they’re fighting municipal broadband. I actually fucking hate cities. I’ve lived in the heart or Atlanta, of DC and more. I hate it. I’d rather a real small town (not bullshit suburbs). I can live here because the town has city sponsored fiber internet. It has made the whole ass area a magnet for tech people. Locals hate it. The city loves that sweet, sweet tax money. And it’s like a virus prompting neighboring cities to give it a whirl. But you get just a drop of city folk to move and suddenly a whole district is blue.

That’s why this widening divide is a horrible problem. I know a lot of people like me, liberal city haters who are chained to cities for jobs. Some people move because they can, but a lot more people are moving because they have to. My sister lives in bumfuck, GA because that’s where she can afford rent and that is a stealth problem for the GOP IMO. Kids are going to show up and gentrify their small towns as broadcast rolls out and remote work is more common

The issue for the GOP is millennials are not getting more conservative as they age. IIRC it’s like a 55/45 split in dems favor and it’s gets more starkly blue the younger you go. If this trend continues of young people not getting more conservative, the GOP is beyond fucked.

Damn, if only there was some sort of established and regulated type of business where you could rent lodging by the night in New York City. I bet they could make a whole lot of money building big buildings full of rooms you can rent like that.

As someone who has a big ass family, hotels fucking suck for families. When I compare my childhood vacations in hotel to what we do now in airBNB, we do airBNB every single time.

Do you make a habit of charging your friends and family that come visit you?

I have in the past when I was hard up for money because food costs for extra people can be great.

I read it in the summary, but I guess I made a mistake. I still think it’s ridiculous. Like why have a limit at all on who people want to host in their house?

I was with them until they banned more than 1 guests at a time. Are you a couple needed somewhere quick to stay before going to an airport or something? Go die in a fire. New York only wants solo couch surfers. People who want a friend along. A single person with a child. A family in a money crunch, anyone really can just pound sand.

That is a super bizarre and IMO indefensible position. If someone wants to host more than one person in their home for a short span why is does they city even care?

I’m also worried about how this could be abused. What if you legitimately take someone (or even two someones) in for a week, kick them out and then they report you for being “an unregistered short term rental”. This is going to be a shitshow.

Edit: alright I misread this morning. It’s 2. Still bullshit. Why have a limit at all with the other stuff. My same complaints apply now with one more person. It’s not like 3 people groups (aka 2 parents an a single child or one parent and 2 children, etc) are uncommon.

IMO hotels just don’t fill the niche of needing a cheap single night or needing to have a bunch of people for a long time. Traveling with my family got so much better when airBNB became a thing.

I just felt like replying.

1. Children probably need to be in school basically year round, but for less time. They need reinforcement, but can’t focus for long. The whole day could probably work if the 2nd half of the day was unstructured. This is basically how I’ve seen (successful) college students work. They tend to have a 3-4 hour block of classes and then between that they work on stuff at their own pace including studying, getting help, etc. This is how my kid’s grade school works and honestly, I was shocked all the kids score the same as the public school, so apparently no loss. It is a year round school and the kids are in school more days of the year, so I don’t know if it’s technically more or less effective.
2. Accurate. Anyone who says differently is lying to themselves. Schools are also a monitoring service for abuse and a safe place for kids to escape hope abuse and maybe even report it.
3. Before we had more grandparents involvement. I have a lot of memories of my grandparents doing things my parents now refuse to do and I have to do. Families with grandparent involvement are just less stressed.

As for the 4 day thing, I’m interested to see how it works out. In Texas it has resulted in poorer outcomes for children on the whole mostly due to the safe place service schools provide.

You have a good point, but it’s not something most people would be interested and for good reason.

We’re talking about children here. People who would let their teeth rot away if no one constantly fussed at them about brushing. People who don’t understand why they shouldn’t do a great many things that will actually kill them.

We don’t actually care about what children want to learn. This article is talking about math that is taught before puberty. That’s the math that people are struggling with. That’s everyday math. We’re not talking about calculus here.

You’re saying that there’s no pragmatic way to teach things, but really that’s not the problem of children and you know it. Kids get word problems and whatnot to tell them how math can be relevant, but just like English and history and basically all of school, they don’t want to do it. Math is weird because it actually builds on itself and you need to understand every part. It’s not something where if you forgot or never learned you can bullshit your way through.

I’m speaking as someone who went to a top engineering college and my English 101 class had to check for literacy. I was the literal only student out of like 20 who got to skip the exam. Several of my peers were functionally illiterate from reading their essays and whatnot.

It’s not just math. It’s everything and it’s the failure of the system that we do not fail children when they don’t achieve. If they don’t like it they can drop out at 16 get a GED or be known as the uneducated people they are.

I guarantee you that if we went back to failing kids they’d learn more. My sister failed a whole grade and the embarrassment from it and the pressure from my parents was a fantastic motivator.

The maybe rheu shouldn’t advance and be failed? Like to me if you’re bad at a subject, you should be required to take it until you pass it, not push along to the next harder version of it. Kids don’t get left back or failed now. That is the problem. If you’re not ready fine, but you can’t take algebra until you pass pre-algebra.

I’m speaking as someone who didn’t learn to read until 3 grade and still graduated on time and went to a good college. Failing classes is fine as long as you can also catch up if you rapidly learn the material as well.

I’m 100% in agreement. I think that our school system fails deeply in expressing the point. What I liked about college was what even if it was tedious, etc my professors took the time to explain why I needed to do it this way first and what the dangerous of not having some of these skills were. Did I always believe them? No, but now that I’m out in the world working I definitely know they were always right and I’m glad I did it anyway even if I didn’t always believe them.

Grade school is a different beast and I spent so much time frustrated and bored and not knowing what the point was. If it wasn’t for the fact that I just really wanted to be a roboticist and there was only one school in my state I could so that at, I probably would have done the least effort thing all the time.

I did appreciate my calculus teacher who gave us word problems. It really helped me understand the point of calculus. Those words problems showed me there were scenarios where algebra was not gonna cut it. I wish more of my grade school classes explained the point of it all after it became less obvious from middle school onwards.

I say history is for analysis because honestly anything that would let you truly understand today isn’t taught. Yes you will learn about segregation, but my history classes barely touched my grandparent’s time, so it’s hard to connect that middle missing period to today. Sure. I’m the mind of person to go fill in that middle period, but many people aren’t.

What was useful to me was the analysis part. Seeing how bias was in sources. Seeing how different people had the same sources, but different conclusions. Yes, seeing how a past event caused a future event.

But, I don’t think many people in the US connect US history with why we have many things going on today. Grade school history isn’t going to give that. My college history lessons did though. I had a whole ass history class on nothing by lobbying and I really gained an appreciation for why lobby should exist, how Americans are ridiculous, and how writing laws to keep the good of something, but not the bad is really hard. But no, I cannot tell you anything about the history of lobbying to day I spent 3 months studying and debating about it.

Back to math for a bit. I think that the logic part of math needs to be brought more into focus again. I think that programming is only going to become more and more important and it’s a shame we’re not teaching any of the fundamentals to allow people to even do things by make fancy excel formulas.