domain:noahpinion.blog
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
4hr ago
Sure, but everybody's acting like no one would know about the video barring Greenwald's actions themselves. So I'm asking what context justifies the conclusion.
HonoriaWinchester
4hr ago
Thanks!
I had special needs that couldn't be met in a school, and so do my offspring (and honestly from what I've read of their writings on this, same kinda thing applies to Caplan's and Friedman's kids). This both means that school wouldn't be better, and also that homeschooling can be imperfect and still be the best of a bad bunch of options...and still be imperfect. (See here and Ctrl-F "for Jason" for more detail; see also the comment thread started by "Dr. Dad.")
I grew up in a blue bubble; my good private school handled my needs very badly partly because of our blue cultural milieu. Then, starting shortly after Racefail '09, my well-intentioned efforts to lend my analytical skills to the cause led to a couple defenestrations.
So you could say I'm a mirror image of a /r/homeschoolrecovery or self-declared "ex-fundie" type. As they were harmed by their attempted "education," I was harmed by mine; as they were harmed by (an aspect of) red culture, I was harmed by (an aspect of) blue culture. And when I encounter such people, my impression is typically that they're well versed in the flaws of their own experience, but very naive about the flaws of others. So that's why I wonder about the flaws of homeschooling.
Our problem is that the same thing that makes school a bad fit also makes it hard to find social opportunities (which also means school is not a good solution). So far we have the local gym's "kids' get-togethers," which is at least unstructured multi-age social time, but it's not with the same kids every week; we have the occasional gathering with coreligionists, but our weirdo religion is so far-flung that these gatherings are rare; and same for our family. We're on the waiting list for the secular homeschool co-op (but it seems like co-ops around here get founded and fail pretty quickly so IDK). Girl Scouts seems like the best bet so far (well, for girls), but there's no open troops near here, so right now we have a Juliette (hopefully we'll eventually have a troop, in the meantime she enjoys the badge activities and is proud when she's helpful and I remind her she's fulfilling her Girl Scout Promise)...
4-H starts at a comparatively old age; what did you do for social interaction before then, or were you OK at home until 4-H age?
As an autodidact, I had the problem I mentioned of going out into the world and assuming all sorts of things were common knowledge that...weren't. I wonder how avoidable that really is; experts are famous for forgetting that their "jargon" isn't common knowledge, after all. It may be that any good education, no matter where it comes from, will set graduates up for that. Did you have that experience too?
Anyway, thanks again!
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
4hr ago
Yeah looks like parentheses are in order. I meant anti-(woke-right), not (anti-woke)-right.
Following Trump's recent victory, some anti-woke centrists decided they need to make sure the pendulum does not swing back too far in the other direction, and started attacking people to their right. They coined the term "Woke Right" to show that their actions are justified by the more extreme elements on the right being functionally the same as the woke left.
It's these people that suddenly decided that boosting leaked videos showing you're a paypig findom-enjoyer is a valid angle of attack on someone.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν
4hr ago
There's a big post on Substack making the rounds talking about similar ideas:
It is not healthy for children to be locked in their homes, only to leave it to go to school and come back. It is also not fair to children to keep them away from society on remote farms and homesteads in order to safeguard them from criminals and sexually corrupting media. But this is what parents have been reduced to offering their children in the modern world. Residents of the city of Birmingham report on conversations on X that when they were children in the 1970s, they could walk around the whole town perfectly safe, but now, their grandchildren cannot go beyond one block or even leave their own backyards because, practically, it is just not safe anymore. Children can no longer enjoy the vibrant culture of cities like London, Paris and New York as they could even in the 1980s because the people who run such cities have more empathy for criminals than for children.
Foremost, it is children who have a right to cities.
Cities should be constructed to be safe and hospitable to them primarily. When children have access to safe cities, they develop more independence, courage and can develop more maturity. They can make friends and do projects in the real world. They can be more involved in their local community and therefore exist more in the real world which they stand to inherit. Instead of this, however, due to the leftist concept of “rights” for homeless crackheads, children only have the right to play video games in their bedrooms and develop toxic social media addictions.
I like this conception, especially with regards to child independence. I think the fact that we care more about the rights of gay and trans people to express themselves in public than the rights of children is very telling about our priorities as a society.
PokerPirate
4hr ago
You've correctly pointed out a very real failure mode of our modern atomized lifestyle, and highlighted that many people do in fact fail because of their own ineptitude. I agree with all of that but also think it sucks for Dennis that he failed in this way and that it sucks for all of the other people who also fail in this way. Maybe I have too much sympathy for people who suck at modern life.
DradisPing
4hr ago
Antibiotics are interesting because bacteria do develop resistance to them, however that resistance fades over time.
So it's possible that penicillin was discovered multiple times but abandoned when it mysteriously stopped working.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
5hr ago
That would be the first time I'd have tried such a thing. I'll keep it in mind, but so far I don't think I've had any actual problems wearing them even indoors.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
5hr ago
Who doesn’t value being young and attractive?
Confucian societies?
Tree
5hr ago
Ah I may as well simp to the end.
Aella really likes being valued more for her innate characteristics than for accomplishments she has to work hard for
I don’t think that’s fair. Who doesn’t value being young and attractive? She merely wants to advertise and enjoy all the advantages and opportunities being young and attractive confers upon her, without being slowed down by old rules no one really understands, and the self-interest of less desirable rivals.
Why can’t you be valued for both, innate characteristics and accomplishments (innate consciousness, ha) ?
hydroacetylene
5hr ago
I am not interested in the personal lives of eccentric prostitutes(quite literally, I noped out of learning about Aella at the ‘showered 20 times a year’ stat- this was also the first time I heard much about her). It’s entirely possible that she’s less screwed up than I’d gotten the impression of. I am simply noting that girls raised in a sheltered, conservative manner often emerge from experimenting with hookup culture as broken women.
My read is that Aella’s problems are a combination of:
A: Pretend Patriachal Upbringing
I. Her father wants to fulfill his role as leader of the family. This social technology has basically been lost by the 80’s and 90’s, so he fills the gap with a untested hypothesis.
II. But he’s not actually the leader of the family, the government is, and deep down, everyone knows this. It’s why the image of the father subtly threatening his daughter’s garbage boyfriend is an image of hilarity in the modern era. Everyone knows Dad is completely emasculated.
III. He can try to raise her right (and be bad at it, possibly, but directionally correct.) Also, being blunt, he seems ignorant of certain commonsense items, such as paying to send his daughter to a college in line with his ideals, whether he thinks he’s the perfect daughter or not. Better to send your “troublesome” daughter to Pensacola Christian where she can meet a good man, than throw her to the world’s lions.
IV. But once she’s 18, at the latest, she is free to do anything she wants, and as a young attractive woman, in a world where women are wonderful, she discovers she can wrap a lot of people around her finger and potentially is naive to the fact that they may very much not have her best interests in mind.
B: Women are Human Beings
I. As was alluded to elsewhere in the thread, it’s not surprising that Aella wants to be valued primarily for her innate characteristics. She’s a woman, that’s par for the course. Hence the joke about battle writing in women’s fantasy novels vs. men’s fantasy novels.
II. Aella eventually and unsurprisingly discovered that her most marketable asset is her sexuality. This has been common knowledge, although not phrased that same way, for all of human history prior to the last 100 years or so.
III. As I previously mentioned, at this point no one in her family has any capability whatsoever to pull her back from the brink, either by force or by reason. For example, we would have much less of a drug problem if parents could bring their children of any age back into the family home, legally and by force, to separate the kid from the drugs. A good, or even mediocre, father is very likely to think the same way about his daughter and prostitution, but is in the same fashion stymied to prevent it.
IV. Aella, at the center of a number of failures and bad incentives, turns to sex work because then she doesn’t actually have to accomplish anything to earn her money, and can receive market value for her innate characteristics.
V. One of her innate characteristics is being an undeniably smart wordcel, so she is able to justify all this by making it sound cool and empowering, and she is in the Bay Area sphere where lots of excellent rationalizers both live and want to fuck her.
VI. *Et voila*, here we are talking about her.
To summarize, mostly I just feel bad for her. If she converts to traditionalist Catholicism in her 60’s, it won’t surprise me at all. I think she is papering over many terrible things with her mental firepower, eventually it will all catch up to her, it will turn out the money and the fame were fleeting, and she will turn that high IQ to higher things at last.
Additionally, as a father myself, I think fathers should be very aware of the very real limits placed on our ability to lead our families. I don’t know what the best solution is, but cosplaying as Abraham ain’t it. Be as unemasculated as possible, without going to jail, I guess.
anti_dan
5hr ago
I think you are right, but also I don't think hollywood wants to portray healthy, heterosexual relationships. That thing is basically culture war poison for them. And they would probably love to sneak homosexual and trans things into everything, but you still have to have a product that sells, and that stuff just does not.
anti_dan
5hr ago
There are so many varieties of non-romantic relationships that go underexplored on screen because the writers have to make space for an obligatory romance arc.
I dont watch much superhero stuff anymore but I am fairly certain this is not happening either. We aren't getting Frodo and Sam 2.0. Instead the often poorly written romances are just replaced with nothing.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν
5hr ago
Those work now! Weird. Also man Scott is way more instrumental than I thought.
Tree
5hr ago
So would a less restrictive, less religious childhood, combined with sexual liberation, be less damaging then? If not, what does your theory predict? Everything, based on anything?
If her parents were blue tribe perverts who raped her and beat her and she grew up without a father, would that not be easier for you to explain? And even easier for your worldview, if aella was more of a trainwreck than she is. I think this is part of the reason why so many conservative people complain about her (and ‘have never been interested in finding out more about this woman’), because for all her whoring she doesn’t seem all that damaged. Weird for sure, but not more than other rationalists.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν
5hr ago
Most of publishing is different sub genres of bdsm werewolf erotica, so I don’t think ‘entertainment industry thinks relationships are a dead end’ is the explanation.
As I said in another comment, it's not that they are dead ends. It is that treating romantic partners as disposable leads to a more shallow exploration of emotional depths you can reach via deep connection in relationships.
hydroacetylene
5hr ago
It is not. What you’re describing sounds like hippie bullshit of the sort Americans would call ‘child led parenting’ or something of the sort. The stereotypical free range parent in America spanks their kids, expects chores, etc- either in a negative stereotype of being borderline neglectful, or in a positive stereotype of that’s how to train a child for extra independence.
hydroacetylene
6hr ago
Not George, but religious conservative upbringing does not combine well with sexual liberation in adulthood and this making a damaged woman is… not a weird thing.
hydroacetylene
6hr ago
Isn’t paranormal romance the best selling genre out there? Werewolf porn hitting it big is consonant with your predictions.
hydroacetylene
6hr ago
Hollywood writers come from hyper-liberal blue tribe backgrounds, yes? I don’t know what courtship norms look like in those bubbles, not really, but if they’re assuming apps and hookups turn into a relationship, there’s some obvious reasons that’s less on the screens- both that it’s harder to introduce and possible ratings issues.
Most of publishing is different sub genres of bdsm werewolf erotica, so I don’t think ‘entertainment industry thinks relationships are a dead end’ is the explanation.
I'm mildly interested in her due to the overlap of Christian homeschooling, which my childhood was adjacent to, and the Bay Area Ratosphere, which I became interested in from Scott's writings. I want one of them to write a social novel, something like Tom Wolfe, about their culture. And there are several fine writers there, but as far as I know they're all bloggers, not novelists. (Unsung excepted, but it's philosophical fantasy more than social observation)
Adding:
“aella is lazy and superficial, because child aella cried after being publicly embarassed”
Something that I find interesting about her stories is their ambiguity. It's unclear whether she was being publicly embarrassed (by her parents enrolling her in a class of much younger children), or if they were doing the normal thing, she would have worked her way out soon enough had she chosen to pursue it, and she just felt embarrassment due to social anxiety or something. I took it as the latter, because she related it to not liking to hit a piñata because the other kids would look at her, not to something most people would find humiliating. The freaking out, crying, begging her parents to let her leave, probably in front of the instructor, and trying to run away does sound very embarrassing, for both her and her parents.
hydroacetylene
6hr ago
The Building Trades representative talks about any bill which doesn't mandate union labor as being tantamount to murder because the working conditions and the produced buildings will be unsafe.
Building trades unions are basically guilds; just giving them what they want might raise costs a bit, but it won’t stop anything from happening- they do actually do their jobs at high quality standards(and, admittedly, equivalent prices).
Gold Gloves have always been the worst of the classic baseball awards. While they've generally not been awarded to true butchers, Jeets aside, they've historically been handed out more on offensive measurables than on defensive ones.
It's such a shame the pirates have been unable to put together a real team in so long. The gorgeous stadium alone should make it work. One of the best stadiums and one of the worst teams.
It's funny the grudges you have as a fan. The biggest hatreds I have are for players who play poorly for my team, then play well for a rival. Al Horford, oh boy. JA Happ. It's the random ones I really have a deep hatred for.
Tree
6hr ago
After “aella is dumb, because child aella was afraid of pain”, OP chimes in with “aella is lazy and superficial, because child aella cried after being publicly embarassed”. After these two unflattering bits of psychoanalysis (by two women), you lament the “male obsessive fawning“ over her.
This doesn't change my mind about her--it is, in fact, exactly what I might have expected had I ever given it much thought.
Is it, though? Would you say: religious conservative upbringing leads to damaged girls?
Or perhaps: abusive parenting leads to sexually liberated women?
But someone’s worldview must be in shambles, and maybe all.
This also matches, for what it's worth, personal experience of Ethiopian Orthodox churches - humble, friendly, and they take very good care of their places of worship. I have nothing but positive things to say about them, and their attitude towards non-Ethiopian churches, at least in the West, is very gracious.
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