Hacker News Reader

Comment by furyg3 | Hacker News Reader

Parents should focus on enabling their children to be:

Curious; Resourceful; Self-reliant (to feel they have agency in the world); Compassionate; Value personal integrity, themselves, their ideas / wishes, and time on the planet; Able to cooperate, communicate, and work as a team; Able to make sacrifices for the future versions of themselves ("I'm having a bad day today, what can I do to make tomorrow me have a better day?"); Able to enjoy life and find fulfillment (however small) even in bad times.

School subjects, economies, social constructs, technology, they all change. A human who's motivated to develop themselves on topics like the above will be the best person they can be whether they are a CEO or living in a cave underground after an apocalypse.

View on HN

Your children will, in large part, become you. It's likely about as close as we'll ever really get to 'transferring our consciousness' which never made any sense anyhow. Even if your brain was able to be scanned and then simulated atom by atom, your 'consciousness transferal' kit would be a brain scanner and a gun with one bullet.

So I think the answer is to first make yourself into somebody you're happy with, and then be yourself. Somebody who's happy with themselves is going to have a good life, regardless of how the world turns. And I think people who are happy with themselves also tend to be better humans to other people, regardless of all of these other terms and values we try to impose on this.

Like if somebody's belittling some service worker, it's not because of a lack of compassion, communication skills, emotional intelligence, or whatever else - it's because that person probably hates themselves, and they're taking out their own self loathing on others.

I understand what you mean, but I also find that my son is very much his own person. He’ll (hopefully) inherit our best traits and values, but his interests and personality are quite his own. I wouldn’t advise parents on expecting their kids to be like them, except in copying your best and worst examples (“do as I say” doesn’t work).

citation needed. i can think of several people nothing like the rest of their family in a mental sense.

they look the same for sure, but very different.

"transferring consciousness" when that consciousness is 50% different

I'm not sure what you mean by in a mental sense, but people change over time. You're presumably quite unlike yourself from 10 years ago though you're still the same person. It's a reason that it's said, and indeed even experimentally observed, that we become more like our parents as we age. Time, and the lack of, change people.

Nonetheless, this doesn't mean they'll be identical anymore than you'd be identical to yourself if you started in the world today once again. And of course also our children aren't just us, but a mixture of both their parents, with a bit of randomness tossed in for fun.

Agree at the start and disagree by the end.

People who are rude to service workers can just be arseholes, and don't have to hate themselves to be so.

Disagreeableness is an attribute, so is callousness, and so on.

> Parents should focus on enabling their children to be: Curious; Resourceful; Self-reliant (to feel they have agency in the world); Compassionate; Value personal integrity, themselves, their ideas / wishes, and time on the planet; Able to cooperate, communicate, and work as a team; Able to make sacrifices for the future versions of themselves ("I'm having a bad day today, what can I do to make tomorrow me have a better day?"); Able to enjoy life and find fulfillment (however small) even in bad times.

Could be nice to have if the parents knew how to do all that themselves ...

This list is my notes on what I'd like to be able to pass on after my limited 10 years of parenting. That learning process has been primarily an exercise about where I, too, need to develop. Parenting... you do your best even though it's not enough.

I'd also add that I struggled with the word 'teach' or 'guide' and settled on 'enable'. Different kids (and parents) have different intrinsic abilities or interest in each of these categories. Doing your best to make it at least possible for a child to see the value of them and possibly even make progress is already a great accomplishment.

Don't get me wrong I like that list and agree with everything in it. I just think, as others have said, kids are smart. They pick up on our shit and unfortunately internalize a lot of our values, insecurities, biases, anxieties.

You can't really teach/enable any of that stuff for real without living it yourself and being an example - which is very difficult because most of us weren't really raised that way ourselves, so we're not like that.

I'm not so sure what my point is other than that change is very difficult and raising children is difficult and raising them to be genuinely good people will be very hard without change.

Amen. When I realized this, it let me chill out a lot as a parent of smol kids. There's as many good parents as there are good people, is my rough heuristic now. So I try to focus on being a good person, the rest is at the margins.

How do I teach my children to be like that if I am not all that?

Maybe we'll have to improve and learn together. How do I start?

Step 1: Be honest enough to realise that and accept it. That you just did.

Step 2: Surround yourself and your children with people who are like that.

Best comment in the thread.

You can’t control or enable your children …

You can, however, be a good role-model.

>Curious; Resourceful; Self-reliant (to feel they have agency in the world); Compassionate; Value personal integrity, themselves, their ideas / wishes, and time on the planet; Able to cooperate, communicate, and work as a team; Able to make sacrifices for the future versions of themselves ("I'm having a bad day today, what can I do to make tomorrow me have a better day?"); Able to enjoy life and find fulfillment (however small) even in bad times.

77 million Americans voted to give the higher office and nuclear codes to the complete opposite of that.

Before you roll your eyes and cuss about "someone inserting politics yet again in a topic": kids aren't dumb and have enough innocence to see when adults say something and do the opposite, and not be ok with it. And it is a big part of becoming a jaded, cynical adolescent and adult.

So if you want your kids to have these qualities, show them yourself. Or be very clear with them that you don't and explain why.

And the US has the greatest economy in the world as a result. No losing millions to corrupt licensing and permitting schemes, council / tribunal approvals, certifications and mandatory examinations, etc.

As a Europoor it's sad seeing my young nephew growing up, and realising he will have far better opportunities in the US or China than here, where everything is blocked, taxed and regulated to maintain the status quo.

> realising he will have far better opportunities in the US or China than here, where everything is blocked, taxed and regulated to maintain the status quo.

Those two countries have far worse inequality than most countries in Europe. So yes, he might have better opportunities in US and China, but that's because he was born in Europe and will be in a better position to choose his future than if he had been born in a country where the inequality level meant he could not access the opportunities available in that country. You need to think about why those countries have better opportunities in the first place. They paid a price for that.

> Those two countries have far worse inequality than most countries in Europe

There is inequality because they have more super rich people, whereas in Europe there is less inequality but everyone is poorer. This is why inequality is a pointless argument.

> There is inequality because they have more super rich people

Not quite, they also have more poor people to a scale that doesn't exist in many countries in Europe.

A consequence of having more poor people: strain on the healthcare and justice systems (relatively more acutely ill people, relatively more people committing crime) and bad educational outcomes (poor people tend to score lower).

A consequence of having more rich people: democratic processes are regularly under pressure due to the influence of rich people trying to make more favourable processes. Government institutions getting swayed by money from these rich people in exchange for preferable treatment.

I am not sure where you got this dichotomy, but the appropriation process in the USA certainly has its own corruption issues, strong industrial lobbies are IMO a form of legal corruption (including campaign donations), and the current administration is in a class of its own wrt corruption and wasteful spending.

The USA certainly have the "best" (according to some metrics) economy in the world, but the reasons are complex, diverse, and mainly historical.

I will concede that some areas see fewer regulations, leading to a leaner permitting process (though it has consequences on road safety, environment pollution and gun safety, for instance).

However, it is hard to predict the future, and I am unsure if your last point will stand the test of time. For instance, if/when the AI bubble pop, the USA job market will probably suffer more than others. It is tempting to always see greener grass elsewhere, but Europe isn't in such a bad position compared to the USA.

There haven't been any good options for president in a long time. Democracy is mostly an illusion. Nearly every politician has been corrupted and co-opted by corporations, the military industrial complex, deep state, and perverse special interests. Obama was a huge disappointment, infamously bailed out Wall St and arrested zero bankers over the GFC, ACA was a massive giveaway to the private health insurance corporations, expanded mass surveillance, presided over the persecution of whistle blowers, engaged in widespread drone bombing and regime change wars in the middle east...

Biden was a senile career politician. His administration pushed for confrontation with Russia over bringing Ukraine into NATO, and did nothing about Israel's genocide in Gaza. When it became obvious Biden was effectively brain dead, much like Mitch McConnell now, the DNC appointed Kamala without a primary -- another glaring example of their subversion of touted democratic principles. She was yet another empty suit, incapable of expressing original ideas, and would have done basically the exact same things as Trump like allowing Israel to expand theirs wars of choice in the middle east.

You think Kamala would have been exactly like Trump? Really?

Just a big brain effort to wash their hands of any responsibility.

Democracy is not just voting and expecting things to fall your way. You have to convince. You have to organize. You have to nourish the civil society through sustained effort. You need to have reasonable expectations and make choices, not whine and wish you had you cake and eat it.

Of everything he mentioned, your TDS causes you to only care that he voted for the 'other' teams star player? Our country (the U.S.) is doomed and deserves it.

It's especially funny since he didn't even mention who he voted for. A mere hint of criticism of the preferred party triggered an attack mode right away.

Frankly, a lot of what he said wasn't that far off from reality, so I only responded to the thing which stood out the most. Nothing I said was an attack, and I'm really not sure how you could read it that way. It seems really clear that Trump has done things which Harris would never have done, like the frankly stupid trade wars, or the even stupider war in Iran. I doubt any other Republican candidate would have done those things either, they are uniquely Trump.

I have no love for the Democratic party, and you appear to be reading things that I never said.

You are quite right and I did jump the gun with my comment, my apologies.

To comment on Trump vs Kamala, Harris might not have done what Trump has done, but I suspect she would have done a lot of other things that Trump would not have done. I am not even sure about that stupid war - it depends on whether you believe that the President is more than a mere figurehead.

Completely delusional comment. If Harris - or Biden, or Obama - had done one tenth of what Trump is doing, there would be an insurrection from the Republicans.

Just imagine Biden boasting about taking dementia tests and changing the answer every time. Or Obama sending "his" DOJ to arrest a Republican lwmawmaker a few days before an election. Just take anything Trump - or his cabinet: just imagine Obama's secretaries and guests just fluffing him all the time, calling him the greatest and brightest non-stop - are doing and imagine for a second the violence of the outcry if any Democrat had done it.

You reach for "TDS" when Trump and his cronies can't stop talking about "Sleepy Joe" and "Barack HUSSEIN Obama". What the fuck, man. Trump is deranged, not us.

We are now discussing which President is worse, not which one is better. That's ironic. There was a reason why Trump has won, and it is not because half of the country is stupid like people on this forum like to claim, but because they were sick of the status quo. But of course voters were duped, again.

There would not be any insurrection from the Republicans because both parties are one and the same. Marx was right about that. I don't think I'll bother dragging my ass to the polls anymore. My prediction - every president will be worse than the one before.

See? It is possible to answer without getting personal, calling the other guy delusional and using foul language. I can do that, and so can you.

>See? It is possible to answer without getting personal, calling the other guy delusional and using foul language. I can do that, and so can you.

Yeah, you just have to imply without proof that there is a massive conspiracy by all of "them".

>But of course voters were duped, again.

At what moment where they duped? Trump has been known for decades as a liar, crook, conman and narcissist. The truth is that people who voted for him are either idiots or complicit but thought he would screw the "others", not them. "Leopard eating faces party" and all that.

In the end you are the best argument as for why democracy doesn't work and you are worsening the problem: never taking responsibility (like Trump!). "We were duped". No. You made the wrong choice despite having all the relevant information at your fingertips and you are rightfully punished for that. If you aren't happy with what the two parties are offering, have you tried voting in their primaries? Have you canvassed for an alternative candidate? Oh, you are outgunned by big donors? Don't you know there are organisations and candidates who want to put caps on dark money and PACs? Have you done anything to support them?

You don't like what democracy has to offer? Well, democracy doesn't "offer" anything, you are supposed to be a member and actively participate. Democracy gives the power to the people. When did you think you would have power without also having the responsibility? Garbage in, Garbage out.

Thus Trump is the supreme "representative" of the American people. He represents your hate, your greed, your apathy, your grievances, your violence, your selfishness and so on. 77 million Americans were fine with that and made the effort to go to polling places and cast their vote for him.

You still don't believe me? I am more than forty years old. I perfectly remember how Americans were out for blood after 9/11 and how they viciously attacked anyone who didn't support the "war on terror" and the invasion of Iraq. "French surrendering monkeys" and so on. I am not talking about politicians but about most Americans outside of "liberal" cities. Fucking Art Spiegelman, one of the greatest comic artist , Holocaust survivor, being silenced for very mid criticism of the bellicism.

Now the same people wail about how it was all a lie, no more foreign wars, yada yada yada. Has there been any reckoning of how hate blinded you? Any reckoning the few left-wing Democrats who were against the war were right? Nope. "We were lied to". No, you loved the lie.

Swearing on a public forum shows lack of class.

But...Yawn. Yes, it's quite sad that people have to turn to a crook with the hope of getting things changed because the other side hasn't delivered either.

You can save your "you" and "your" self-righteous rhetoric btw. I didn't vote for the current boss, and you won't be teaching me how to live either. A great example of political discussions being a waste of time. We are done here.

The self-righteousness is dripping from all your posts from the very beginning of this thread, dear Enlightened one who saw through the illusion of democracy.

Why are you assuming who he voted for? Neither he nor I mentioned it.

The grass is generally greener on the other side.

>Democracy is mostly an illusion.

This is accurate but most people will not recognize it that way because it's designed that way.

Prior to 'democracy' the peasants revolted and that occasionally had some very nasty consequences for the ruling class. Now when the peasants have the urge to revolt - you just remind them them to do a better job at 'voting'. Like they say in a democracy: Consent is manufactured.

>There haven't been any good options for president in a long time.

that does not justify voting for the worst candidate for this office in as many decades.

this argument immediately pops up. and it's easily refuted: just don't vote for the guy convicted of felonies and with a long history of boorish behavior and grift. it's really not that hard.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com