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Thread: What In The World Is Wrong With American Kids?

  1. #61
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    Economics IS science, and Austrian Economics has by far the best assessment of the effects of government on the populace.
    good descriptive power does not equal good predictive power.

    Now, since you do believe there is some science to this, can you answer my question of using data to back up the claim that "government involvement will children will always and only make them worse at any stage, any time"?



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  3. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by EvilEngineer View Post
    Why are kids so horrible today?

    The PARENTS... or lack there of.

    People can blame culture, games, schools, etc... but at the end of the day it comes down to the parents not doing their jobs.
    is that a problem? and if so, what do we do about it? If not, then good.

  4. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by awake View Post
    Except now you dug a hole for yourself. I get to use "statistical manipulation" and "bias" to ignore the evidence if I wanted to. But I won't, at least not automatically, I'll take a look.

    ..but of course another body can interpret the data and explain away the differences...Or better yet, simply compile their own data to say what ever they wish.
    exactly, which is why we will look and see if this is reliable, you're the one claiming government involvement will always and only lead to children be "worse off".

    Public schools vs private schools is not the same as "government vs less government".

  5. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by John F Kennedy III View Post
    American kids today are selfish, self-centered, sadistic, cruel, disrespectful, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, boastful, unforgiving, incredibly brutal and they possess very little self-control whatsoever. They feel entitled to everything, but they don’t want to work for any of it. They are absolutely addicted to entertainment, and they know very little about self-sacrifice. Disciplining children is not considered to be “politically correct” in America today, and with each passing year these little hellions get even worse. So what in the world is our country going to look like when all of these out of control kids grow up?
    Maybe the children in your family fit that stereotype, the ones in mine certainly do not. Most of the kids in my family and friends circle that I meet are incredibly nice, conscious of the world around them, tremendously capable, and far kinder than I ever remember being.

    If the kids you encounter are really so demonic, I think that says more about you and where you live than the children.

    My guess is that the writer is a religious nut and lives in a cesspool of an area where the religious crazies dominate and kids are punished for independent thought, thus acting out the behaviors he mentions.

    My relationship with my parents is also a lot richer, deeper and more respectful than between them and their parents (they of course lived in a time when disrespect towards parents was never shown openly, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily felt the deep respect for their parents that I do for them).
    Last edited by ZenBowman; 07-27-2012 at 02:47 PM.



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  7. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by ZenBowman View Post
    Maybe the children in your family fit that stereotype, the ones in mine certainly do not. Most of the kids in my family and friends circle that I meet are incredibly nice, conscious of the world around them, tremendously capable, and far kinder than I ever remember being.

    If the kids you encounter are really so demonic, I think that says more about you and where you live than the children.

    My guess is that the writer is a religious nut and lives in a cesspool of an area where the religious crazies dominate and kids are punished for independent thought, thus acting out the behaviors he mentions.

    My relationship with my parents is also a lot richer, deeper and more respectful than between them and their parents (they of course lived in a time when disrespect towards parents was never shown openly, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily felt the deep respect for their parents that I do for them).
    and he hates WalMart

  8. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by Pericles View Post
    My mother wouldn't let me play in the mud when I was a kid, so I got even by joining the Army.
    Lol that'll show her.
    I am the spoon.

  9. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by 2young2vote View Post
    We have to remember that people are animals. Just like some are more attractive than others, there are some who are more intelligent, while at the same time there are people who are more capable of morality (self control). For some reason many people are lacking whatever part of their brain that helps them make moral, logical decisions. I've yet to meet someone my age who has a more traditional Christian behavior than myself, and i'm as hardcore an athiest as you will ever meet. I behave the way i do for a reason, because it results in the greatest benefit for everything. Why does my co-worker go out partying? Because it makes her feel good. There is a notable difference in reasoning.
    I don't believe people are animals. That is just propaganda which causes our kids to behave like animals. The statement itself is not supportable. It is simply a dogmatic assertion that has no logical grounds in reality.
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  10. #68
    "52 percent of survey respondents say they do not use protection when having sex."

    Wait, I thought condoms were BAD???

  11. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by PaulConventionWV View Post
    I don't believe people are animals. That is just propaganda which causes our kids to behave like animals. The statement itself is not supportable. It is simply a dogmatic assertion that has no logical grounds in reality.
    Are we... plants?

  12. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by PaulConventionWV View Post
    I don't believe people are animals. That is just propaganda which causes our kids to behave like animals. The statement itself is not supportable. It is simply a dogmatic assertion that has no logical grounds in reality.
    People have the following traits

    They're alive
    They're composed of large numbers of cells
    They move around

    Sounds like animals to me.
    If you wanted some sort of Ideological purity, you'll get none of that from me.

  13. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by Nickels View Post
    good descriptive power does not equal good predictive power.

    Now, since you do believe there is some science to this, can you answer my question of using data to back up the claim that "government involvement will children will always and only make them worse at any stage, any time"?
    First you need a basic economics lesson that won't seem related at first, but will make sense later. If there are 100k people on a giant island with no outside contact, they would be relatively well off if they had 25k small homes. Average of 4 people in small homes. But I think we could all agree that they would be better off, or have a higher standard of living, everything else equal with 25k small homes and 15k larger homes. Same with # of cows, # of chickens, # of peppers, potatoes, eggplants, etc..

    In other words, the more that is produced, the better off everybody is. So maximizing production is the most important thing in any society, allowing people to choose freely what they may purchase and create. If they have free choice, people will create more and be able to get the things they want. This is called growing the pie. If you can't get past that concept of growing the pie and how it increases standard of living, you won't get Austrian Economics.

    So back to education. Parents want their kids educated. In a free society they will put as much resources into education as they believe will maximize their and their children's standard of living. A rich person, not one who steals or commits fraud like bankers do today because that is not allowed in a free society, but a rich person who creates a lot of items for people grows the pie and raises everybody's standard of living more than almost everybody else in the entire town. They use their wealth to invest back into their businesses which create even more items for everybody and make everybody's lives better. When the government instead steals from the rich person and puts it into schools, they are stealing future productivity and shrinking the pie, decreasing everybody's standard of living. These resources would have been best served increasing the standard of living for everyone. As productivity rises in a society with low tax rates and an honest monetary system, people will have to work much less to have the same standard of living. Thus more free time for everybody and more time to dedicate to learning about our world.

    So yes, in a free society it is never good for the government to take resources from everybody, especially the most productive (richest) and use them on education because it will not provide as high of a rate of return as investing back in their business. If it did, then somebody would figure it out, it would be a business and it would already be happening.

    The problem we have today is that many of the richest in our society are not productive, they have simply found government created loopholes to gain wealth by siphoning it from hardworking people, both rich and poor. Taking money from them and using it for education would likely create positive gains as compared to not. However we shouldn't model our economic system around a corrupt system, we should instead work on getting rid of the corrupt system.
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  14. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by jonhowe View Post
    Are we... plants?
    I don't know about you, but I'm Bose–Einstein condensate
    I am the spoon.



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  16. #73
    Sweet, another person that believes in nature weeding out the stupid!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    I blame it on safety regulations. Before they came around, if you were stupid you got injured or even killed for doing something dumb. Now you really have to work at it. If you were killed or maimed, you couldn't breed and pass on the dumbness genes. Now they are allowed to multiply.

  17. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by GunnyFreedom View Post
    In the 1770's kids had access to horses, which could carry you more places than a car. Communicating 'faster' is not automatically communicating 'freer.'



    Do you really think America is more free in 2012 than we were in 1962? Say instead 1952 to make it easier. Seems to me the more freedom individuals had, the more respect kids had. Not less.



    Tolerance of disrespect is not an indication of freedom, it is more an indication of being cowed into submission by an overarching and interventionist state apparatus. Teaching kids respect will make them far more free over the course of their lives than letting them be disrespectful and feral. We as a society are too consumed by the moment that we fail to take into account the long vision. The first 18 years of your life are but the blink of an eye compared to the remaining 70 years you live as an independent adult. Respect and discipline teaches responsibility. Without responsibility there can be no liberty.

    Any parent who cares about their kids freedom and liberty will do whatever it takes to teach them respect and discipline for that very reason. I would argue that parents who let their children run wild and feral do so because they specifically do not care about their kids freedom and liberty, or else they do not know enough about what freedom and liberty is in the first place to understand that you can't have it without responsibility.



    No, you said, "Disrespectful kids are a sign of a free society," and I will say again that is categorically untrue. If we actually lived in a free society, then parents would feel free to discipline their children without fear of being sent to prison and having their children seized by CPS. Parents don't fail to discipline their kids because they respect their freedom, parents fail to discipline their kinds for 2 major reasons - 1) fear, they are afraid of government repercussions for disciplining their children, and 2) lack of knowledge, since the tyranny of fear started some 20-30 years ago, there are parents today who were not raised with discipline and therefore do not know how to discipline their kids.

    No parent wants their child to grow up and be a failure or a mass murderer or such. Most everybody knows that discipline is the primary key to success. If parents knew how to discipline their kids and weren't too afraid of the government to do so, then they would, precisely because they respect their kids' liberty in a free society.

    The flip-side of liberty is responsibility. The primary component of responsibility is discipline. If you really want your kids to be free and you respect their right to liberty, then you should be doubly adamant to teach them discipline as a child so that they can in fact grow up free.
    It's really quite simple. The more freedom we have as a society, the more freedom parents have to raise their kids. No self-respecting parent would raise a child carelessly. In the beginning of our nation, from the 1770s to 1850 or so, parents were able to raise their own kids however they wished, and many chose to do so to support their interests by introducing them early on into their field of work. Discipline was necessary. When parents discipline their children as they see fit, successfully, the child will inevitably grow with a sort of respect for their parents. Less and less kids are being disciplined by their parents these days.

    So when parents have the freedom to discipline their kids, the kid is usually forced to mould their behavior to closely resemble that of their parents, who support them. Who supports our kids these days? Some distant, far-off government daddy who puppeteers the public school system by indoctrinating our kids with lies. No wonder kids act up. The public school experience is hellish and there is not much time to actually discipline the kids except for the random teacher or supervisor telling the kids to "sit down and shut up" whether that be in the classroom, lunchroom, or elsewhere in the public school. There is no personal connection like with a father or mother. Instead, the majority of their time is spent babbling with kids of their own age who know as little as they do about the real world.
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  18. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    I blame it on safety regulations. Before they came around, if you were stupid you got injured or even killed for doing something dumb. Now you really have to work at it. If you were killed or maimed, you couldn't breed and pass on the dumbness genes. Now they are allowed to multiply.
    The "dumbness gene" is referred to quite alot, although I've never heard any substantiation of its existence. After all, being accident-prone doesn't necessarily make you stupid. That's just an unfounded assumption of many people who seem to think everyone who makes a bad decision should get killed.
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  19. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by PaulConventionWV View Post
    I don't believe people are animals. That is just propaganda which causes our kids to behave like animals. The statement itself is not supportable. It is simply a dogmatic assertion that has no logical grounds in reality.
    Good example of what's wrong with America. People are so scientifically illiterate that even scientific truths are some kind of "political issue".

  20. #77
    Quote Originally Posted by ZenBowman View Post
    Good example of what's wrong with America. People are so scientifically illiterate that even scientific truths are some kind of "political issue".
    So let's examine this. What makes a person an animal, scientifically? Is it the common feature of being composed of flesh and blood? Then why are we using the "people are animals" mantra to define a human being's mental behavior? Is it the existence of forces in nature which force both humans and animals to accept and live with reality, giving us similar "instincts"? Perhaps, but why is it that we feel the need to call humans animals? We could say humans and animals share some common characteristics in their response to the world around them, but does that necessarily make them animals?

    What is it that forces us to accept the presumption that sharing the world with animals and being composed of the same materials actually makes us animals? Any human being can tell you the big differences that exist between an organism that simply lives to survive and one that seeks to fulfill its quest for the most profounding questions in life and understanding of its existence.

    What makes "humans=animals" some kind of unquestionable truth? Anyone can see that there are differences in the way we act and the way we think, the way we behave, the way we create. Animals live with no regard for others except when it serves their own self-interest while humans have compassion and morality. There is no denying the uniqueness of man. The statement "human=animal" requires some sort of standards for classification as an animal, so pray tell, what are the standards for defining something as an animal?
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  21. #78
    There are not traits which humans have which are not also seen in other animals.

  22. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by PaulConventionWV View Post
    What makes "humans=animals" some kind of unquestionable truth? Anyone can see that there are differences in the way we act and the way we think, the way we behave, the way we create. Animals live with no regard for others except when it serves their own self-interest while humans have compassion and morality. There is no denying the uniqueness of man. The statement "human=animal" requires some sort of standards for classification as an animal, so pray tell, what are the standards for defining something as an animal?
    There is no denying the uniqueness of a rhino either.



    Pretty damn unique, isn't it?

    You see plenty of compassion and morality among animals as well.



    As to what defines something as an animal:

    1) Multicellular
    2) Motile
    3) Reproduce sexually
    4) Must ingest other organisms to survive (in contrast with plants, which can photosynthesize energy from the sun)

    In addition, humans are mammals, which are defined as:

    5) Animals that give birth to live young
    6) Reproduce sexually
    7) Breathe air
    8) Four chambered heart, have red blood cells

    How is it that you can grow to whatever age you are and not know what an animal is (serious question)? Did you go to some kind of wacky religious school?

    Shocks me completely that there is no basic requirement of literacy prior to being able to vote.
    Last edited by ZenBowman; 07-27-2012 at 04:26 PM.

  23. #80
    Quote Originally Posted by jonhowe View Post
    Are we... plants?
    No, we are human beings. We don't have to fit into some grand category that includes other organisms on this earth. We are just... human.
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  25. #81
    Quote Originally Posted by Sam I am View Post
    People have the following traits

    They're alive
    They're composed of large numbers of cells
    They move around

    Sounds like animals to me.
    If those are the only requirements to be called an "animal", then yes, but the real fault of modern science (not good science, mind you) is that it makes no distinction between humans and soulless creatures that care only for their own survival. The worst kind tyranny happens when people are taught at a young age in their public school system that they have no special purpose that distinguishes them from other forms of life. People like that are more easily controlled. People like that have no agenda except their own personal satisfaction.
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  26. #82
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    Quote Originally Posted by PaulConventionWV View Post
    No, we are human beings. We don't have to fit into some grand category that includes other organisms on this earth. We are just... human.
    Higher level brain functions raise man above his animal brethren. The ability to distinguish between right and wrong, which is seriously in jeopardy after reading this thread. LOL

  27. #83
    What traits do you believe "separates us from the animals"?

  28. #84
    Quote Originally Posted by PaulConventionWV View Post
    If those are the only requirements to be called an "animal", then yes, but the real fault of modern science (not good science, mind you) is that it makes no distinction between humans and soulless creatures that care only for their own survival. The worst kind tyranny happens when people are taught at a young age in their public school system that they have no special purpose that distinguishes them from other forms of life. People like that are more easily controlled. People like that have no agenda except their own personal satisfaction.
    Proof that humans have a soul?
    Proof that animals are soulless?

  29. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    What traits do you believe "separates us from the animals"?
    Compassion - Ever seen a pride of lions back off a young cape buffalo that was impaired by a leg injury?
    Ingenuity - I'm patiently waiting for a 10 story condominium complex to be erected at the metro chimpanzee exhibit.
    Last edited by AuH20; 07-27-2012 at 04:41 PM.

  30. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by PaulConventionWV View Post
    If those are the only requirements to be called an "animal", then yes, but the real fault of modern science (not good science, mind you) is that it makes no distinction between humans and soulless creatures that care only for their own survival. The worst kind tyranny happens when people are taught at a young age in their public school system that they have no special purpose that distinguishes them from other forms of life. People like that are more easily controlled. People like that have no agenda except their own personal satisfaction.
    Not good science? Let me correct you sir, I think you're confusing "modern science" with the dominant paradigm behind science today that is naturalism. Science cannot address moral speculation because it is not based on empirical evidence. You're entering into the realm of philosophy here. Stop bashing the factual evidence of modern day science. What you seem to have a problem with is the naturalist worldview.

  31. #87
    Quote Originally Posted by AuH20 View Post
    Compassion - Ever seen a pride of lions back off a young cape buffalo that was impaired by a leg injury?
    Ingenuity - I'm patiently waiting for a 10 story condominium complex to be erected at the metro chimpanzee exhibit.
    This. And the quest for knowledge for knowledge's sake.
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  32. #88
    Quote Originally Posted by AuH20 View Post
    Compassion - Ever seen a pride of lions back off a young cape buffalo that was impaired by a leg injury?
    Ingenuity - I'm patiently waiting for a 10 story condominium complex to be erected at the metro chimpanzee exhibit.
    Termites build incredible structures- compared to their size, some would be up there with our biggest skyscrapers. And the design includes air conditioning to control the interior temperature. Bees and wasps build elaborate structures. Many species build nests and shelters. Animals use tools- monkeys have been observed making and using spears to either kill prey or even attack each other and dig out grubs and termites from logs to eat. Birds use twigs for the same purpose. And are you saying that dogs are not compaionate?

    Other examples: http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2570.htm
    Last edited by Zippyjuan; 07-27-2012 at 04:47 PM.



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  34. #89
    Quote Originally Posted by 1stAmendguy View Post
    Not good science? Let me correct you sir, I think you're confusing "modern science" with the dominant paradigm behind science today that is naturalism. Science cannot address moral speculation because it is not based on empirical evidence. You're entering into the realm of philosophy here. Stop bashing the factual evidence of modern day science. What you seem to have a problem with is the naturalist worldview.
    You are correct. That is what I meant by modern science, by which I am implying a sort of pseudo-science which is popular but loaded with bias and fallacies. Naturalism is not part of science, although it is assumed to be so today, since we have been told the only legitimate science is that which reaches a naturalist conclusion.
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  35. #90
    Quote Originally Posted by GunnyFreedom View Post
    Categorically untrue. If it were, then white landowners children from 1770 to 1850 would have been running far more amok than they are today, and that did not happen. We as a society (aside from the minority racial civil rights struggle) are markedly less free than we were in the 1960's, and the kids today are far worse and more violent. Sure, there have always been hooligans, going back thousands of years I am sure, but your idea that freedom necessarily means that kids will be disrespectful is first rate poppycock. Not only does correlation not imply causation, but there is no correlation in the first place. A fallacy built on a falsehood. Folks around here are too smart for that action.
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