[General Battuta]

Anecdotal evidence isn't really a good way to discern trends about the whole population. China's definitely up and coming - after all, they're a lot bigger than us - but, on a few levels, that's not exactly a clincher for your argument:

1) the fact that China does well doesn't mean we're doing worse, just that they're doing better, in no small part because
2) China's still climbing out of the rut it was in; explosive growth is to be expected, but that growth isn't always sustainable
3) we've made the same arguments about lots of other countries in the past, and then reality tends to kick in (witness Japan)

I think the same things you see as signs of some kind of regression or moral degradation are just ordinary human nature.

[Nuke]

Not yet it isn't. I don't know about where you live, but I look at the generation behind me with horror. Heck even my generation scares me.

This quote could come from probably any year in the past 20,000.

its not whether this generation scares you or not. its if this generation scares you more than the last.

[General Battuta]

Given the fact that they were burning cats for amusement in Paris opera houses and no one batted an eye a couple centuries back I'd say we're doing something right.

[Flipside]

There is actually an interesting example of what has changed there from my own life.

When I was about 7-8 years old and was walking home from Primary school (which was perfectly normal in 1979ish) a man pulled up next to me in a car and told me that my parents had sent him to pick me up. I didn't recognise him, and he drove away as soon as I asked what my Dad's name was, so there was little doubt that the person involved was up to something shifty. At the time I considered it no big deal, my parents were proud of me for listening to the 'don't talk to strangers' speech and that was about it.

Nowadays that would have at least made the local papers, probably with a headline like 'Paedophile In Our Midst!! No Child Safe!!!!'.

That, to my mind is what has changed, not the level of criminality, but the way it is presented to the public, it's gone from one extreme to the other, rather than 'keeping mum', there's now an attitude of 'be afraid!', I don't think either is really the best solution.

[Unknown Target]

Aye. I often wonder why children aren't put together and allowed to try to govern themselves in a small area. It seems to me that that's the best way for them to learn how to govern a society.

I think both the fear and the "keeping mum" sides of it stem from a lack of trust in people - both in each other and in oneself.

[General Battuta]

Aye. I often wonder why children aren't put together and allowed to try to govern themselves in a small area. It seems to me that that's the best way for them to learn how to govern a society.

That was how my elementary school worked. We all formed tribes in the woods - you joined one when you were in kindergarten, then stayed with it until you were in sixth grade (unless you became a filthy traitor). Everyone worked together to build and maintain forts without any real adult supervision.

It turned out pretty much exactly like you'd expect.

[Unknown Target]

Aye. I often wonder why children aren't put together and allowed to try to govern themselves in a small area. It seems to me that that's the best way for them to learn how to govern a society.

That was how my elementary school worked. We all formed tribes in the woods - you joined one when you were in kindergarten, then stayed with it until you were in sixth grade (unless you became a filthy traitor). Everyone worked together to build and maintain forts without any real adult supervision.

It turned out pretty much exactly like you'd expect.

To be honest it sounds awesome - but I know that'd never fly in most of today's communities, at least in the US. Those kids must be taught discipline and obedience to adults from an early age, as some say.

[General Battuta]

It was awesome, but it was also horrible. Actually I think it explained a lot about why modern society is so excellent and so much better than what we had before.

Each tribe fell under the rule of a dictatorial strongman or strongwoman (there was no real gender distinction until you hit 5th and 6th grade, although girls had to ritually smash Barbie dolls with stones to prove they were strong). Resources were scarce - supplies of sod carved up out of the soccer fields were the most important part of building a good fort, so control of those sod fields was important. Gangs of kids fought over it using sticks and pinecones. There was a lot of posturing but not much violence.

Then the resource system was disrupted when a lumberjack started felling trees and chopping them up nearby. Using the leftovers from his work, you could build amazing log cabins. The more powerful tribes were slow to pick up on this, so when upstart groups started turning up with these amazing cabin-forts, the established power structure went nuts with jealousy - their position was threatened. Warbands started demolishing other tribes' work. People started bringing stones and gravel to fights. The little kids, who mostly worked in gangs to help gather resources, got pressed into combat.

I had it pretty good in this whole structure because I had status symbols - sweet military surplus helmets and gas masks. As long as I steered clear of the big kids, I could pretty much do what I wanted. In the winter, when it was harder to work on forts, the tribes competed to build monuments and tunnel systems in the snowbanks around the school parking lot. I became a pretty well-known engineer and ended up lording over my own construction projects from a throne of ice.

The more powerful you became, the more corrupt you were. Some of the older tribes were decadent; there were rumors of childish sex rites in the corners of distant forts. I tried to extend my power into the classroom. When a new kid (this was a small school) turned up and began yammering about his rich dad, I took a disliking to him, so I had my people use the school computer system to delete all his assignments before he could turn them in. He eventually got pulled out of classes because he wasn't doing well enough. This kind of sanctioning of the outsider was common, but I think I was the first one to extend it to information technology.

Everything came to a head my last year. Violence in the woods spiked as resources ran scarce. By this time people had learned to make fires and sharpen sticks to use as spears (for intimidation, mostly, I don't think anyone ever got stabbed). One kid knocked another out with a baseball bat. I took a disliking to my sixth grade teacher and decided to drive her away from the school, so I started mutinies to make her life difficult, then ended up arranging for her to receive anonymous death threats.

By the time I left the school it was all-out war. I think teachers banned kids from going into the woods the year after that.

That's what happens when you let kids govern themselves: human history in a capsule. Ender's Game, Lord of the Flies.

[Unknown Target]

What did that whole experience teach you about how was the best way to behave and act towards others and yourself in a society? How do you carry the lessons you learned, and apply them in the "world of adults"?

Everyone's gotta make a mistake sometimes in order to learn. Sometimes mistakes can be the best way. That's something I learned when I was very young.

[General Battuta]

Oh, there weren't any mistakes - the lessons I learned there are exactly what made me so successful. Of all the kids in my year, I was one of only two to make it to college the only one to make it to college; the rest are now either military, military and dead, drug addicts, wage workers, or wrapped up in prostitution rings. I was ruthless and intelligent, so I made it to the top.

Children aren't little angels; they're basically weakling chimps, and left to their own devices, they're monsters to each other.

I saw how humans behave in the natural state. We need society, civilization, and education to make us something worth living with. I spent the next few years doing debate and international government work, and all the same patterns turned up - that patch of woods was a microcosm of the world, shaped by the same forces. You want to achieve stability and peace for as many people as possible, you need to know how the system works. That's why the scientific method, the free market, and democratic government are the best ways to achieve that goal.

And now you know what happens when you let children try to govern themselves!

[StarSlayer]

[Unknown Target]

Oh, there weren't any mistakes - the lessons I learned there are exactly what made me so successful. Of all the kids in my year, I was one of only two to make it to college the only one to make it to college; the rest are now either military, military and dead, drug addicts, wage workers, or wrapped up in prostitution rings. I was ruthless and intelligent, so I made it to the top.

Children aren't little angels; they're basically weakling chimps, and left to their own devices, they're monsters to each other.

I saw how humans behave in the natural state. We need society, civilization, and education to make us something worth living with. I spent the next few years doing debate and international government work, and all the same patterns turned up - that patch of woods was a microcosm of the world, shaped by the same forces. You want to achieve stability and peace for as many people as possible, you need to know how the system works. That's why the scientific method, the free market, and democratic government are the best ways to achieve that goal.

And now you know what happens when you let children try to govern themselves!

When you say you were the only one to make it to college, it seems to me like you learned the wrong lessons. Rather than learning what you should or could have done to help these kids get ahead, you only learned ways of benefiting yourself.

To me, since you were a part of that society, and that society consisted of, in your own words, people that behaved monstrously towards each other, I challenge you to question how you acted towards others, as one of those people within that group?

So after learning how to get ahead even as others fell behind, what sort of actions do you think you do now?

[General Battuta]

I know exactly what could have been done to help those kids get ahead. I'm surprised you don't see why they didn't make it, or why it is that I made it and they didn't.

Remember: you always need context to figure out a system. You need analysis. See if you can figure out why the other kids didn't get to college, and why I did.

[General Battuta]

To me, since you were a part of that society, and that society consisted of, in your own words, people that behaved monstrously towards each other, I challenge you to question how you acted towards others, as one of those people within that group?

Are you familiar with the Robber's Cave Experiment? The Stanford prison study? The Milgram paradigm?

[Unknown Target]

I know exactly what could have been done to help those kids get ahead. I'm surprised you don't see why they didn't make it, or why it is that I made it and they didn't.

Remember: you always need context to figure out a system. You need analysis. See if you can figure out why the other kids didn't get to college, and why I did.

My first impulse would be to say that it was because you had the skills and you didn't teach them when you had the chance.

To me, since you were a part of that society, and that society consisted of, in your own words, people that behaved monstrously towards each other, I challenge you to question how you acted towards others, as one of those people within that group?

Are you familiar with the Robber's Cave Experiment? The Stanford prison study? The Milgram paradigm?

I'm familiar with the Stanford study, and the Robber's Cave Experiment sounds familiar.

[General Battuta]

My first impulse would be to say that it was because you had the skills and you didn't teach them when you had the chance.

Oh, not at all - I was successful in no small part because I helped everyone with everything academically. Did my best to keep everyone thriving.

Try again. You're thinking too small. What are the reasons, in general, that determine whether American youth make it to college?

[Unknown Target]

My first impulse would be to say that it was because you had the skills and you didn't teach them when you had the chance.

Oh, not at all - I was successful in no small part because I helped everyone with everything academically. Did my best to keep everyone thriving.

Try again. You're thinking too small. What are the reasons, in general, that determine whether American youth make it to college?

The adults in their lives.

[General Battuta]

To me, since you were a part of that society, and that society consisted of, in your own words, people that behaved monstrously towards each other, I challenge you to question how you acted towards others, as one of those people within that group?

Are you familiar with the Robber's Cave Experiment? The Stanford prison study? The Milgram paradigm?

I'm familiar with the Stanford study, and the Robber's Cave Experiment sounds familiar.

Good. Now you're starting to see why things like this happen: it's the natural way of things with humans, a relic of primate social structures still buried in our neural hardwiring. The reason our system is so miraculous is because it lets us transcend that.

I've been blessed with the opportunity to do a lot of good. I've run charities, helped elect politicians, and nursed transgender kids through their transitions in the middle of a really harsh and unfriendly college environment. Over and over, the lesson that pops up is that if you're going to change something, you need to understand why it's a problem in the first place.

My first impulse would be to say that it was because you had the skills and you didn't teach them when you had the chance.

Oh, not at all - I was successful in no small part because I helped everyone with everything academically. Did my best to keep everyone thriving.

Try again. You're thinking too small. What are the reasons, in general, that determine whether American youth make it to college?

The adults in their lives.

Exactly!  My dad was the first person in his family to go to college, and he succeeded. I was the child of a successful political scientist in a town of impoverished marijuana farmers and deer hunters. I had a systemic advantage. The other kids were trapped in a cycle of poverty - not only did they not have the means to get to college, they didn't know they needed college, because their parents didn't value it. The teachers did what they could, but it wasn't enough.

I wish to hell I could've done something for those people; many of them were my friends. Some of them got damn close - one of my closest friends, who I'll call Al, was the child of carpenters, but his parents sent him to my house every day they could so that he'd be with me and hopefully pick up some of my family's values. He was a good kid until he hit high school, then drugs got him. Last I knew he'd disappeared after his dad kicked him out of the house.

That cycle has to be broken to save these people. And to break the cycle requires economic intervention, which means we need to understand why this town is so impoverished, and what can be done to repair it.

[Unknown Target]

To me, since you were a part of that society, and that society consisted of, in your own words, people that behaved monstrously towards each other, I challenge you to question how you acted towards others, as one of those people within that group?

Are you familiar with the Robber's Cave Experiment? The Stanford prison study? The Milgram paradigm?

I'm familiar with the Stanford study, and the Robber's Cave Experiment sounds familiar.

Good. Now you're starting to see why things like this happen: it's the natural way of things with humans. The reason our system is so miraculous is because it lets us transcend that.

I disagree on both accounts. I believe it's the system that perpetuates it; I had a discussion with someone that was about 40 years old, had a pretty good thing going, and told him about some of the ideas I had. His response was one I heard a lot of times - he flat out said that there was nothing in it he saw for himself or his family, and thus he didn't want to do it. It was extremely short term thinking.

Now, there are some things I like about our system - the US Constitution is one of the best examples of good law ever written. Not so much the stuff about the government, but the Amendments to it as a whole are pretty awesome. If I were to start again, I would start from there, and only add if it was really justified.

There's even an argument for spontaneous governance, now that I'm on the subject. The idea is that in the absence of governance, humans will immediately try to craft or experiment with the best form of governance they can think of. For instance, if I walked into a meeting between a bunch of anarchists, punched one and stole his wallet, the other people in the area would spontaneously form a "government" - one of their most likely actions would be to first say "Hey, you can't do that!", take steps to make me stop doing it, remove me from the area (one of our greatest achievements being that, historically, they would kill me on the spot), and then attempt to make sure the person is ok (there may have been a time when they would have simply tried to take advantage of the person's weaker state).

Basically, once you stop making assumptions about people, then people stop making assumptions about you - and it's assumptions that create systemic problems, IMO.

My first impulse would be to say that it was because you had the skills and you didn't teach them when you had the chance.

Oh, not at all - I was successful in no small part because I helped everyone with everything academically. Did my best to keep everyone thriving.

Try again. You're thinking too small. What are the reasons, in general, that determine whether American youth make it to college?

The adults in their lives.

Exactly!  My dad was the first person in his family to go to college, and he succeeded. I was the child of a successful political scientist in a town of impoverished marijuana farmers and deer hunters. I had a systemic advantage. The other kids were trapped in a cycle of poverty - not only did they not have the means to get to college, they didn't know they needed college, because their parents didn't value it. The teachers did what they could, but it wasn't enough.

I wish to hell I could've done something for those people; many of them were my friends. Some of them got damn close - one of my closest friends, who I'll call Al, was the child of carpenters, but his parents sent him to my house every day they could so that he'd be with me and hopefully pick up some of my family's values. He was a good kid until he hit high school, then drugs got him. Last I knew he'd disappeared after his dad kicked him out of the house.

That cycle has to be broken to save these people. And to break the cycle requires economic intervention, which means we need to understand why this town is so impoverished, and what can be done to repair it.

You may be right that it will take economic intervention, but our government is great at throwing lots of money at problems and not having anything actually get done. This leads me to believe that there's a societal function that must be repaired.

One of those things is this reliance on "getting into college" as the sum total of a "good childhood" these days. Not that extreme, but college is not the end-all-be-all of a kid's early life. That is something that needs to be fixed, IMO.

[General Battuta]

We didn't have a system in the woods. Didn't need one. All it takes is the old chimp wiring.

There's even an argument for spontaneous governance, now that I'm on the subject. The idea is that in the absence of governance, humans will immediately try to craft or experiment with the best form of governance they can think of.

This will involve installing a strongman to run the tribe, rule by force, and raids on the neighbors. Left to their own devices, uneducated humans will go back to where they began.

Basically, once you stop making assumptions about people, then people stop making assumptions about you - and it's assumptions that create systemic problems, IMO.

There's nothing to assume; it's all neurally determined, from the reciprocity norm that drives those anarchists to stop you, to the tribe instincts that put dictators in charge and unite everyone against a hated outgroup. We're a flawed species. Only our constructs - our technology, our government - give us a prayer.

Until we start rewiring, at least.

One of those things is this reliance on "getting into college" as the sum total of a "good childhood" these days. Not that extreme, but college is not the end-all-be-all of a kid's early life. That is something that needs to be fixed, IMO.

A good job is just as beneficial as college. What's important is economic mobility. College is a good lever for that.