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What the schools can (should) do is serve a menu expertly composed of tasty, cheap and still reasonably healthy food. Schools could definitely do that no problem if the state mandated it.
They should also be hard-promoting physical exercise as the most natural thing ever, based on us being animals and other cool stories. Just get the fat kids to move so they can understand how good it feels by providing a variety of non-competitive exercise options and hyping it non stop.
Then, the kids can go home and tell their parents about it.
Destitute people with over two kids, no time and no money, especially the single parent type, are a messy fucking problem, sure. It's just the way humans are, we seem to procreate even harder when everything around us is falling apart.
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On February 14 2018 03:57 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 03:53 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:44 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 14 2018 03:42 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:34 Plansix wrote:On February 14 2018 03:19 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:13 Plansix wrote:On February 14 2018 03:06 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:03 Plansix wrote:On February 14 2018 02:53 Mohdoo wrote: [quote]
In a general sense, I advocate for child protective services having significantly more power. Parents are given a somewhat executive power when it comes to raising their children. I think that is madness. Checks and balances should ultimately allow the state to play a much more active role in ensuring children are raised to a minimum standard and are given a minimum standard of health.
If I can get even more comfortable explaining my unobtainable positions, I think having children should require a license in the same way we adopt children. We have already decided as a society that adopting a child should not be easy. But we let people just blast kids out their ass so long as they were the ones to create them. It makes no sense.
Overall, we should feel more obligation to children. We should be doing more to make sure humans are given a fair shot at life and are not tragically hindered by shitty parents. Poor parenting is costing us a lottttttttttttt of money every year. This is some dystopian hand maiden’s tale in reverse shit. The key to true reform and durable progress is to not design systems that can easily be abused. If people want to address child abuse, focus on the children, not some misguided system to prevent potential bad parents from having kids. Why should it be easier to have children biologically than to adopt? The ability to have children is a basic human right, not to be infringed upon by goverment without good cause. You want to talk about making the adoption process cheaper and easier without putting the child's welfare at risk, I'm with you. But let me put it to you another way, do you want this administration to have to the power to decide who can and can't have kids? What demographics do you think would be denied the right to have children? What common trait do you think those couples would have? And what do we do to people who break the law? I'm not convinced the problems you are onlining couldn't be addressed. I don't subscribe to the idea that an issue being complicated and messy for government means the government shouldn't try. Even a system where it is more like getting a driver license would be an enormous benefit. "True or false: (insert dietary nutrition question here)" *anything* beyond just kinda rolling over one day and deciding to be pregnant is a huge benefit. The effects of a rough childhood are too intense for us to be letting anyone do whatever the fuck they want. Plain and simply, I believe children are more entitled to a proper upbringing than I believe parents are entitled to raising their own children. In my thought experiment regarding parenting licenses, systematic issues like denying blacks would be worked out. I'm not outlining a piece of policy. I am outlining the reasons the way our society views parenthood is fundamentally flawed and we suffer a lot because of it. Well first off, it would be very likely be unconstitutional as a basic violation of the right to life, liberality and the pursuit of happiness. The entire concept is so wild that the first instance of a judge prohibiting pregnancy in a criminal proceeding didn’t happen until 1993. Since then I have been able to find two appeals to similar rulings that were overturned on the grounds that the court does not have the power to prohibit someone from having children as punishment. Second of all, we can barely assure that blacks and other minorities are treated fairly by police and their own jobs. It took decades of work to get lending laws in place to prevent racial discrimination. I still have to deal with deeds and other recorded property documents that restrictive covenants(the deed prevents the sale to blacks/Jews/Non-Christians) in the year of our lord 2018. Some of them recorded less than 10 years ago. So your claim that this system wouldn’t be abuse sounds naïve at best. An appeal to tradition/law is not a valid counterargument against an issue of ethics. Something being unconstitutional does not mean it is unethical or wrong. You are describing a systematic reason this would be difficult to do, not describing why the current situation is more ethical than the one I am describing. The crux of my argument is: Parental rights are in excess as compared with children's rights in modern day society. Parents should have significantly less dominion over the ways they raise and feed their children. A wealth of psychological and physical issues facing American society have their roots in poor parenting. Suffering could be minimized by parents being held to stricter standards. Childhood obesity should result in your kids being taken from you the same way starving your kid does because both have significant impacts on long term health. In many ways, we are allowing parents to torture their children. Do you have children mohdoo? No, and if you're hoping that's a good reason to ignore my perspective, you're wrong. Parents let their own stress and anxiety let themselves justify doing a shitty job. It is natural and we do it throughout our lives. Some people do it more than others. Better parents do it less. Allowing your kids to be raised on processed food is doing it to a critical extent. I'm really not interested in hearing how parenting is difficult. If it is too difficult for you, don't do it. No one is forcing you to have kids. If you are going to create a human consciousness, I believe you are obligated to make sure it goes well. People often moan about how "you just don't get it", yet many people do just fine. Lots of healthy kids out there. Take a step back. Breathe. It was a question so I could gauge how to respond. When you've collected yourself and lower the hostility, I'll respond in kind.
You're not the first to respond to my criticisms of parents by asking if I am one. Once you've made an argument, you'll get a different response.
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I'd rather we start redefining failure to vaccinate children against measles as child abuse before tackling dietary issues. At least California removed the boneheaded "philosophical exemption."
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Oh noes...
For 200 years, Remington has been one of the most famous names in guns, supplying arms to soldiers in the civil war, both world wars and to generations of gun enthusiasts. Now it has met its match: the gun-friendly presidency of Donald Trump.
After a golden era of sales under Barack Obama, America’s gun manufacturers are in trouble. Sales have tumbled, leaving the companies with too much stock on their hands and falling revenues. The crunch claimed its biggest victim this week when Remington filed for bankruptcy.
The move does not mean the end. Remington is using the US’s chapter 11 bankruptcy law to offload $700m of its $950m in debt, and to restructure the company. But it does underscore the level of distress in the industry.
In December, American Outdoor Brands, the owner of Smith & Wesson, reported that its profits had fallen 90% year over year, from $32m to just $3.2m. Sales fell 36%. Last October, Sturm Ruger, the US’s largest firearm manufacturer, announced its quarterly revenues had fallen 35%. Both companies will report their latest results shortly but neither is expected to announce a dramatic increase in sales.
“They call it the Trump slump,” said Robert Spitzer, a professor at the State University of New York at Cortland and the author of five books on guns.
“Gun sales have become politicized to a great degree,” he said. “Gun purchases recently have been made not just because someone wants a new product but to make a statement; not just because of fears that there might be tighter regulation but also to make a statement against Obama.”
With Trump in the White House, said Spitzer, gun sales had sharply defaulted to their long-term trend of declining ownership rates.
“Gun ownership has been declining since the 1970s and there are now fewer gun owners than ever,” said Spitzer. Fewer people are hunting, younger people are less interested in gun ownership and the gun industry has had little success in its attempts to appeal to women and minorities.
The US has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world with 88 guns for every 100 people. But just 3% of the population owns an average of 17 guns each, with an estimated 7.7 million super-owners in possession of 140 guns apiece.
The surge of gun purchases under Obama was largely driven by sales to existing gun owners. Sales spiked on Obama’s re-election and after his calls for new laws in the wake of tragedies like the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, which claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults.
Remington, owned by Cerberus Capital Management, made the Bushmaster AR-15 style rifle that was used in the Connecticut shooting. The company is being sued by the parents of the victims in the Connecticut supreme court.
After the shooting, Cerberus, whose billionaire chief executive Stephen Feinberg was a major Trump supporter, came under pressure from its investors to sell Remington.
But Cerberus struggled to find a buyer for the company and settled for letting its investors sell their shares in the company. The bankruptcy agreement will let Cerberus sever its ties with Remington.
Mass shootings continued apace every year since 2012, including the worst attack in modern US history last year, when a gunman killed 58 people and himself in Las Vegas. But with no threat of tighter gun laws, the gun industry has not seen the sales boost that mass killings produced under the Obama administration.
Spitzer said there may be better news aheads for the gun companies. In November, Americans return to the polls again for midterm elections, raising the possibility of major gains by Democrats, given Trump’s historically low poll numbers and a pattern of poor performance for the president’s party in midterms.
“If the Democrats do well, the gun industry and the NRA [National Rifle Association] will no doubt use it as an opportunity to issue dire warnings about gun rights. Their aim is to press as many guns into the hands of as many people as possible,” Spitzer said.
Source
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On February 14 2018 03:56 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 03:54 Jockmcplop wrote:On February 14 2018 03:42 Mohdoo wrote:
To a degree, yes. If nothing else, a parent should never have the ability to raise an obese child. The psychological and physical damage caused by childhood obesity are too extreme.
I'm not saying let's have a list of approved story books. I'm saying children are given almost zero personhood and it is totally fucked up. Trust in government's ability to get things done is at an all time low. I'm sure letting them into our houses is a recipe for absolute disaster. What will happen the first time some kid gets taken off their parents for being 3 pounds overweight and then dies in a car accident on the way into care?There's already enough examples here in the UK of social services taking kids off their parents for matters where practical concerns meet ideology (vaccines and other conspiracy stuff which you're not allowed to believe if you're a parent). Its a very short walk from there to having kids taken from parents because they are a bit racist or sexist. Is this what you think I am arguing against? A little bit of chub? Unvaccinated children *should* be taken from parents. I'm not interested in the average citizen's view of government. I am making an argument of ethics.
If this is purely theoretical then I concede. If there is any element at all of wanting this to actually come into the real world then these practical concerns need to be addressed because they are important.
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On February 14 2018 04:02 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 03:56 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:54 Jockmcplop wrote:On February 14 2018 03:42 Mohdoo wrote:
To a degree, yes. If nothing else, a parent should never have the ability to raise an obese child. The psychological and physical damage caused by childhood obesity are too extreme.
I'm not saying let's have a list of approved story books. I'm saying children are given almost zero personhood and it is totally fucked up. Trust in government's ability to get things done is at an all time low. I'm sure letting them into our houses is a recipe for absolute disaster. What will happen the first time some kid gets taken off their parents for being 3 pounds overweight and then dies in a car accident on the way into care?There's already enough examples here in the UK of social services taking kids off their parents for matters where practical concerns meet ideology (vaccines and other conspiracy stuff which you're not allowed to believe if you're a parent). Its a very short walk from there to having kids taken from parents because they are a bit racist or sexist. Is this what you think I am arguing against? A little bit of chub? Unvaccinated children *should* be taken from parents. I'm not interested in the average citizen's view of government. I am making an argument of ethics. If this is purely theoretical then I concede. If there is any element at all of wanting this to actually come into the real world then these practical concerns need to be addressed because they are important. A child might die in a car accident after having been taken away so we shouldn't do it? Horseshit.
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On February 14 2018 04:04 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 04:02 Jockmcplop wrote:On February 14 2018 03:56 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:54 Jockmcplop wrote:On February 14 2018 03:42 Mohdoo wrote:
To a degree, yes. If nothing else, a parent should never have the ability to raise an obese child. The psychological and physical damage caused by childhood obesity are too extreme.
I'm not saying let's have a list of approved story books. I'm saying children are given almost zero personhood and it is totally fucked up. Trust in government's ability to get things done is at an all time low. I'm sure letting them into our houses is a recipe for absolute disaster. What will happen the first time some kid gets taken off their parents for being 3 pounds overweight and then dies in a car accident on the way into care?There's already enough examples here in the UK of social services taking kids off their parents for matters where practical concerns meet ideology (vaccines and other conspiracy stuff which you're not allowed to believe if you're a parent). Its a very short walk from there to having kids taken from parents because they are a bit racist or sexist. Is this what you think I am arguing against? A little bit of chub? Unvaccinated children *should* be taken from parents. I'm not interested in the average citizen's view of government. I am making an argument of ethics. If this is purely theoretical then I concede. If there is any element at all of wanting this to actually come into the real world then these practical concerns need to be addressed because they are important. A child might die in a car accident after having been taken away so we shouldn't do it? Horseshit. No I'm saying people are gonna go fucking apeshit if you start taking their kids off them because they don't live the way you want them to, and rightly so. It would only take one mistake to make this whole policy look like an Orwellian nightmare.
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On February 14 2018 03:59 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 03:57 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 14 2018 03:53 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:44 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 14 2018 03:42 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:34 Plansix wrote:On February 14 2018 03:19 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:13 Plansix wrote:On February 14 2018 03:06 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:03 Plansix wrote: [quote] This is some dystopian hand maiden’s tale in reverse shit. The key to true reform and durable progress is to not design systems that can easily be abused. If people want to address child abuse, focus on the children, not some misguided system to prevent potential bad parents from having kids. Why should it be easier to have children biologically than to adopt? The ability to have children is a basic human right, not to be infringed upon by goverment without good cause. You want to talk about making the adoption process cheaper and easier without putting the child's welfare at risk, I'm with you. But let me put it to you another way, do you want this administration to have to the power to decide who can and can't have kids? What demographics do you think would be denied the right to have children? What common trait do you think those couples would have? And what do we do to people who break the law? I'm not convinced the problems you are onlining couldn't be addressed. I don't subscribe to the idea that an issue being complicated and messy for government means the government shouldn't try. Even a system where it is more like getting a driver license would be an enormous benefit. "True or false: (insert dietary nutrition question here)" *anything* beyond just kinda rolling over one day and deciding to be pregnant is a huge benefit. The effects of a rough childhood are too intense for us to be letting anyone do whatever the fuck they want. Plain and simply, I believe children are more entitled to a proper upbringing than I believe parents are entitled to raising their own children. In my thought experiment regarding parenting licenses, systematic issues like denying blacks would be worked out. I'm not outlining a piece of policy. I am outlining the reasons the way our society views parenthood is fundamentally flawed and we suffer a lot because of it. Well first off, it would be very likely be unconstitutional as a basic violation of the right to life, liberality and the pursuit of happiness. The entire concept is so wild that the first instance of a judge prohibiting pregnancy in a criminal proceeding didn’t happen until 1993. Since then I have been able to find two appeals to similar rulings that were overturned on the grounds that the court does not have the power to prohibit someone from having children as punishment. Second of all, we can barely assure that blacks and other minorities are treated fairly by police and their own jobs. It took decades of work to get lending laws in place to prevent racial discrimination. I still have to deal with deeds and other recorded property documents that restrictive covenants(the deed prevents the sale to blacks/Jews/Non-Christians) in the year of our lord 2018. Some of them recorded less than 10 years ago. So your claim that this system wouldn’t be abuse sounds naïve at best. An appeal to tradition/law is not a valid counterargument against an issue of ethics. Something being unconstitutional does not mean it is unethical or wrong. You are describing a systematic reason this would be difficult to do, not describing why the current situation is more ethical than the one I am describing. The crux of my argument is: Parental rights are in excess as compared with children's rights in modern day society. Parents should have significantly less dominion over the ways they raise and feed their children. A wealth of psychological and physical issues facing American society have their roots in poor parenting. Suffering could be minimized by parents being held to stricter standards. Childhood obesity should result in your kids being taken from you the same way starving your kid does because both have significant impacts on long term health. In many ways, we are allowing parents to torture their children. Do you have children mohdoo? No, and if you're hoping that's a good reason to ignore my perspective, you're wrong. Parents let their own stress and anxiety let themselves justify doing a shitty job. It is natural and we do it throughout our lives. Some people do it more than others. Better parents do it less. Allowing your kids to be raised on processed food is doing it to a critical extent. I'm really not interested in hearing how parenting is difficult. If it is too difficult for you, don't do it. No one is forcing you to have kids. If you are going to create a human consciousness, I believe you are obligated to make sure it goes well. People often moan about how "you just don't get it", yet many people do just fine. Lots of healthy kids out there. Take a step back. Breathe. It was a question so I could gauge how to respond. When you've collected yourself and lower the hostility, I'll respond in kind. You're not the first to respond to my criticisms of parents by asking if I am one. Once you've made an argument, you'll get a different response. Being a parent and not being a parent requires different tactics in talking to them. I know parents from the income spectrum and I've seen firsthand how they're children are raised and how they turn out as adults. So I might have some sympathy for your argument. What I will not endorse is taking away autonomy from the family structure because you think some are doing a bad job, so that means all must be punish. Punishing the mass because of the few will never work.
Now, the wealthy parents and upper middle class households I witnessed (before the UMC was erased), had a lot of fresh vegetables and fresh cooked foods. Mothers were either stay at home or they had a maid. They kids were active and drank juice and water. Soda only when friends came over or parties. I remember drinking milk and water at breakfast, bland vegetables, and eating crackers and peanuts as snacks when I was at their homes. At mine, different story altogether. Food was fresh, but the junk food was everywhere. Gorged myself on that as a kid. Was never obese because I was active. That is a major thing that needs to be reinforced, which has already been stated. Getting kids outside instead of giving them a phone will help.
The poor families, similar to mine but far worse, almost always went overboard on the junk aspects of food. Everything was processed, too much salt, and never really exercised. You could see this manifest physically in the difference in the kids as they grew up. Whereas I was relatively in decent shape, the poorer kids were obese. Alarmingly so. The wealthy kids stayed in pretty healthy shape and never seemed to be under or overweight.
Yes, parenting is a major factor in raising a child and if you are doing a shitty job, you don't deserve to have children. But as Gorsameth posted, when they're working 2-3 jobs and raising 3-4 kids, it gets a bit tougher. Cost of Living is rising but wages aren't. That means the cheap and unhealthy food wins out 8 out of 10 times. Warn the parents that their children are at risk of being removed while at the same time helping them reduce their workload and to give them the knowledge they need to make better nutritional choices. For the kids and themselves.
You cannot be judge, jury, and executioner over the family autonomy because you have a noble cause. This is human instinct and you invite more harm and danger to kids by saying their parents aren't good enough parents, when the parents really are doing the best they can with what they have.
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On February 14 2018 03:59 Kickboxer wrote: What the schools can (should) do is serve a menu expertly composed of tasty, cheap and still reasonably healthy food. Schools could definitely do that no problem if the state mandated it.
They should also be hard-promoting physical exercise as the most natural thing ever, based on us being animals and other cool stories. Just get the fat kids to move so they can understand how good it feels by providing a variety of non-competitive exercise options and hyping it non stop.
Then, the kids can go home and tell their parents about it.
Destitute people with over two kids, no time and no money, especially the single parent type, are a messy fucking problem, sure. It's just the way humans are, we seem to procreate even harder when everything around us is falling apart.
All those programs are being implemented across the U.S. every day (well, fewer after slashes to public health funding from the ACA). It doesn't help that we don't actually know anything about what makes a "healthy" person, and what we do know suggests that weight and BMI are pretty terrible measures of it, so it's hard to even evaluate the programs. As far as we know from the markers we use, education and in-school alterations just don't really seem to get much if any bang for their buck.
(also, exercise doesn't really "feel good" for many fat kids-their brains are literally rewired. You can lie to them about that if you want I guess, but we can't even prescribe placebos these days so)
I think it's hard to overstate the degree to which obesity is a supply-side issue. Maybe at some point we'll learn allowing commercial sale of addictive substances is questionable morally even if we can't immediately identify negative health effects. Nah, because then we couldn't pop caffeine pills.
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On February 14 2018 04:06 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 04:04 Gorsameth wrote:On February 14 2018 04:02 Jockmcplop wrote:On February 14 2018 03:56 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:54 Jockmcplop wrote:On February 14 2018 03:42 Mohdoo wrote:
To a degree, yes. If nothing else, a parent should never have the ability to raise an obese child. The psychological and physical damage caused by childhood obesity are too extreme.
I'm not saying let's have a list of approved story books. I'm saying children are given almost zero personhood and it is totally fucked up. Trust in government's ability to get things done is at an all time low. I'm sure letting them into our houses is a recipe for absolute disaster. What will happen the first time some kid gets taken off their parents for being 3 pounds overweight and then dies in a car accident on the way into care?There's already enough examples here in the UK of social services taking kids off their parents for matters where practical concerns meet ideology (vaccines and other conspiracy stuff which you're not allowed to believe if you're a parent). Its a very short walk from there to having kids taken from parents because they are a bit racist or sexist. Is this what you think I am arguing against? A little bit of chub? Unvaccinated children *should* be taken from parents. I'm not interested in the average citizen's view of government. I am making an argument of ethics. If this is purely theoretical then I concede. If there is any element at all of wanting this to actually come into the real world then these practical concerns need to be addressed because they are important. A child might die in a car accident after having been taken away so we shouldn't do it? Horseshit. No I'm saying people are gonna go fucking apeshit if you start taking their kids off them because they don't live the way you want them to, and rightly so. It would only take one mistake to make this whole policy look like an Orwellian nightmare. Then say that instead of talking about kids dying in a car accident.
(just to make sure. I don't think it would be remotely a good idea but something needs to be done about increasing obesity and a generation being raised on junk food)
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On February 14 2018 04:06 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 04:04 Gorsameth wrote:On February 14 2018 04:02 Jockmcplop wrote:On February 14 2018 03:56 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:54 Jockmcplop wrote:On February 14 2018 03:42 Mohdoo wrote:
To a degree, yes. If nothing else, a parent should never have the ability to raise an obese child. The psychological and physical damage caused by childhood obesity are too extreme.
I'm not saying let's have a list of approved story books. I'm saying children are given almost zero personhood and it is totally fucked up. Trust in government's ability to get things done is at an all time low. I'm sure letting them into our houses is a recipe for absolute disaster. What will happen the first time some kid gets taken off their parents for being 3 pounds overweight and then dies in a car accident on the way into care?There's already enough examples here in the UK of social services taking kids off their parents for matters where practical concerns meet ideology (vaccines and other conspiracy stuff which you're not allowed to believe if you're a parent). Its a very short walk from there to having kids taken from parents because they are a bit racist or sexist. Is this what you think I am arguing against? A little bit of chub? Unvaccinated children *should* be taken from parents. I'm not interested in the average citizen's view of government. I am making an argument of ethics. If this is purely theoretical then I concede. If there is any element at all of wanting this to actually come into the real world then these practical concerns need to be addressed because they are important. A child might die in a car accident after having been taken away so we shouldn't do it? Horseshit. No I'm saying people are gonna go fucking apeshit if you start taking their kids off them because they don't live the way you want them to, and rightly so. It would only take one mistake to make this whole policy look like an Orwellian nightmare. The slippery slope fallacy still applies here. Not vaccinating a child is straight up child abuse. Schools around my country have had to change rules to prevent unvaccinated children from attending because they are a risk to other students. Just becomes someone calls it a “belief” doesn’t make it less risky or stupid. We had that fight in the early 1900s and it should have ended there.
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On February 14 2018 04:02 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 03:56 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:54 Jockmcplop wrote:On February 14 2018 03:42 Mohdoo wrote:
To a degree, yes. If nothing else, a parent should never have the ability to raise an obese child. The psychological and physical damage caused by childhood obesity are too extreme.
I'm not saying let's have a list of approved story books. I'm saying children are given almost zero personhood and it is totally fucked up. Trust in government's ability to get things done is at an all time low. I'm sure letting them into our houses is a recipe for absolute disaster. What will happen the first time some kid gets taken off their parents for being 3 pounds overweight and then dies in a car accident on the way into care?There's already enough examples here in the UK of social services taking kids off their parents for matters where practical concerns meet ideology (vaccines and other conspiracy stuff which you're not allowed to believe if you're a parent). Its a very short walk from there to having kids taken from parents because they are a bit racist or sexist. Is this what you think I am arguing against? A little bit of chub? Unvaccinated children *should* be taken from parents. I'm not interested in the average citizen's view of government. I am making an argument of ethics. If this is purely theoretical then I concede. If there is any element at all of wanting this to actually come into the real world then these practical concerns need to be addressed because they are important.
If I am being honest, this is a case where I think my discussions of GH have changed the way I view things. We should always discuss practical, effective, actionable issues. But we should also be willing to discuss dreams and ideals. We should have more faith in ourselves and be willing to talk about "what is actually wrong" rather than what sorts of bandages we can easily slap on a situation for momentary relief.
A great deal of issues facing humanity can be traced to poor parenting. A big step towards correcting a lot of health issues facing our society is to recognize that children deserve more personhood and protection from parents. I am making arguments centered around the idea that parents are too unaccountable, have too much freedom and that children, and most notably poor children, suffer because of it.
Arguments like "but that isn't constitutional" or "but parents are pretty protective about this stuff" don't change the current situation and it doesn't change the fact that this is an issue so pronounced that it deserves attention, despite how it makes people uncomfortable.
When we let ourselves disregard issues as "too messy" we not only do our own brains an injustice, but we fail to make the world a better place. People before us fought some very messy, very uncomfortable fights. We did nothing to deserve the world they built for us. We should be willing to do the same in all aspects, not just the comfortable ones.
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it's just important to make sure you don' tmake mistakes in all the messiness; well-intentioned people making implementation mistakes can cause awfully large amounts of harm. also, the issue does receive attention, the only question is about which attention and how to go about the fixes. a tremendous amount has already been done on these topics in the last 50 years alone, and more continues to be done, so it's not like there's inaction. it's inapt to call some of the fixes that have been done mere bandaids, as if comprehensive solutions were readily available. sidenote: as this is the us politics thread rather than a generalized ethics thread, people bring up the practicality/legality issues alot.
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On February 14 2018 04:15 zlefin wrote: it's just important to make sure you don' tmake mistakes in all the messiness; well-intentioned people making implementation mistakes can cause awfully large amounts of harm. also, the issue does receive attention, the only question is about which attention and how to go about the fixes. a tremendous amount has already been done on these topics in the last 50 years alone, and more continues to be done, so it's not like there's inaction.
I don't think I have ever seen the question of "Do parents have too many rights and protections? Do children have too few?" posed in any national context.
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On February 14 2018 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 04:15 zlefin wrote: it's just important to make sure you don' tmake mistakes in all the messiness; well-intentioned people making implementation mistakes can cause awfully large amounts of harm. also, the issue does receive attention, the only question is about which attention and how to go about the fixes. a tremendous amount has already been done on these topics in the last 50 years alone, and more continues to be done, so it's not like there's inaction. I don't think I have ever seen the question of "Do parents have too many rights and protections? Do children have too few?" posed in any national context. How familiar are you with the history of the topic? cuz from what modest amount I know, an awful lot has been done, though the discourse may not use the terms in that way; and it would tend to occur more at the state legislature level since that's where most of the applicable laws would be. are you doubting the amount of change that has occurred in the last 50 years on the topic?
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On February 14 2018 03:29 Kickboxer wrote: You guys want the state to have invasive power over the way people raise their children? Your children? Have you thought this one through? It seems like an absolutely insane idea.
The license-to-kids one isn't bad, though ^__^ as long as an AI decides what the rules are. People who clearly don't want children shouldn't have them. It makes no sense.
We already have "measures" against eating crap & not taking care of your body btw. It's called being fat. If that doesn't motivate people, I don't know what will. An AI would almost certainly decide that black people shouldn’t have children, because they are most at risk for poverty, violence etc. An AI reproduces existing biases.
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On February 14 2018 04:21 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 03:29 Kickboxer wrote: You guys want the state to have invasive power over the way people raise their children? Your children? Have you thought this one through? It seems like an absolutely insane idea.
The license-to-kids one isn't bad, though ^__^ as long as an AI decides what the rules are. People who clearly don't want children shouldn't have them. It makes no sense.
We already have "measures" against eating crap & not taking care of your body btw. It's called being fat. If that doesn't motivate people, I don't know what will. An AI would almost certainly decide that black people shouldn’t have children, because they are most at risk for poverty, violence etc. An AI reproduces existing biases. Then you remove the racial component and only look at family history and income, plus some other factors.
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On February 14 2018 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 04:15 zlefin wrote: it's just important to make sure you don' tmake mistakes in all the messiness; well-intentioned people making implementation mistakes can cause awfully large amounts of harm. also, the issue does receive attention, the only question is about which attention and how to go about the fixes. a tremendous amount has already been done on these topics in the last 50 years alone, and more continues to be done, so it's not like there's inaction. I don't think I have ever seen the question of "Do parents have too many rights and protections? Do children have too few?" posed in any national context. The balance between the rights of children, the rights of parents, and the rights of the state with respect to both parents and children has been a legal issue with a long line of legal precedent stretching back to the turn of the 20th century.
The prominence of the vaccine debate also suggests that these rights are being discussed, if not only by implication. Homeschooling and school choice are another area where this balance is implicated all the time.
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On February 14 2018 03:59 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 03:57 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 14 2018 03:53 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:44 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 14 2018 03:42 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:34 Plansix wrote:On February 14 2018 03:19 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:13 Plansix wrote:On February 14 2018 03:06 Mohdoo wrote:On February 14 2018 03:03 Plansix wrote: [quote] This is some dystopian hand maiden’s tale in reverse shit. The key to true reform and durable progress is to not design systems that can easily be abused. If people want to address child abuse, focus on the children, not some misguided system to prevent potential bad parents from having kids. Why should it be easier to have children biologically than to adopt? The ability to have children is a basic human right, not to be infringed upon by goverment without good cause. You want to talk about making the adoption process cheaper and easier without putting the child's welfare at risk, I'm with you. But let me put it to you another way, do you want this administration to have to the power to decide who can and can't have kids? What demographics do you think would be denied the right to have children? What common trait do you think those couples would have? And what do we do to people who break the law? I'm not convinced the problems you are onlining couldn't be addressed. I don't subscribe to the idea that an issue being complicated and messy for government means the government shouldn't try. Even a system where it is more like getting a driver license would be an enormous benefit. "True or false: (insert dietary nutrition question here)" *anything* beyond just kinda rolling over one day and deciding to be pregnant is a huge benefit. The effects of a rough childhood are too intense for us to be letting anyone do whatever the fuck they want. Plain and simply, I believe children are more entitled to a proper upbringing than I believe parents are entitled to raising their own children. In my thought experiment regarding parenting licenses, systematic issues like denying blacks would be worked out. I'm not outlining a piece of policy. I am outlining the reasons the way our society views parenthood is fundamentally flawed and we suffer a lot because of it. Well first off, it would be very likely be unconstitutional as a basic violation of the right to life, liberality and the pursuit of happiness. The entire concept is so wild that the first instance of a judge prohibiting pregnancy in a criminal proceeding didn’t happen until 1993. Since then I have been able to find two appeals to similar rulings that were overturned on the grounds that the court does not have the power to prohibit someone from having children as punishment. Second of all, we can barely assure that blacks and other minorities are treated fairly by police and their own jobs. It took decades of work to get lending laws in place to prevent racial discrimination. I still have to deal with deeds and other recorded property documents that restrictive covenants(the deed prevents the sale to blacks/Jews/Non-Christians) in the year of our lord 2018. Some of them recorded less than 10 years ago. So your claim that this system wouldn’t be abuse sounds naïve at best. An appeal to tradition/law is not a valid counterargument against an issue of ethics. Something being unconstitutional does not mean it is unethical or wrong. You are describing a systematic reason this would be difficult to do, not describing why the current situation is more ethical than the one I am describing. The crux of my argument is: Parental rights are in excess as compared with children's rights in modern day society. Parents should have significantly less dominion over the ways they raise and feed their children. A wealth of psychological and physical issues facing American society have their roots in poor parenting. Suffering could be minimized by parents being held to stricter standards. Childhood obesity should result in your kids being taken from you the same way starving your kid does because both have significant impacts on long term health. In many ways, we are allowing parents to torture their children. Do you have children mohdoo? No, and if you're hoping that's a good reason to ignore my perspective, you're wrong. Parents let their own stress and anxiety let themselves justify doing a shitty job. It is natural and we do it throughout our lives. Some people do it more than others. Better parents do it less. Allowing your kids to be raised on processed food is doing it to a critical extent. I'm really not interested in hearing how parenting is difficult. If it is too difficult for you, don't do it. No one is forcing you to have kids. If you are going to create a human consciousness, I believe you are obligated to make sure it goes well. People often moan about how "you just don't get it", yet many people do just fine. Lots of healthy kids out there. Take a step back. Breathe. It was a question so I could gauge how to respond. When you've collected yourself and lower the hostility, I'll respond in kind. You're not the first to respond to my criticisms of parents by asking if I am one. Once you've made an argument, you'll get a different response. The main problem, which imo I don’t think you can get around, is that most people are bad parents, so that if you have some scheme of disciplining bad parents it runs the risk of producing overbearing state intervention. A surveillance state where every parent is constantly at risk of losing their children, where people can inform on each other, where poor parents can be held accountable for the impoverished condition of their children, and so on.
Also, consider the alternative solution of gym classes, school lunches, school nutrition and cooking lessons, taxing unhealthy foods, free sport club memberships, ensuring that vegetables are cheap and accessible in every neighborhood etc. Communal programs that insulate children against bad parenting choices.
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