Things I've Said

Category: Social Issues

  • What’s Wrong With This Generation?

    Did you turn out okay?  Would it be an improvement if the next generation behaved more like your generation?

    As long as I remember, older people have been criticizing younger generations.  “They are immoral.”  “They are lazy.”  “They are undisciplined.” “They feel entitled.”  Whatever the complaint may be.

    Maybe all those complaints are accurate, or maybe older people are just cranky.  All I know is that it is the older generation who raised the younger generation.  Maybe the father bears some blame for the sins of the sons?

    Cultures are developed over many generations.  The trials and errors in child rearing of our ancient ancestors were passed down through all those generations as wisdom.  Throughout most of history and most of the world, families have stayed close to one another, communities have worked closely together.  Mothers, older sisters, and neighbors taught new mothers how to care for their children.  Sons took on the trades of their fathers.  Communities shared the wisdom that had been passed on through countless generations before them.

    Not so in the modern world, where children move away from their parents.  They develop their own theories on how to raise the next generation.  They read books that quote all the studies done by the greatest minds on child rearing.  This is real science, not superstitious rubbish and “inherited wisdom.”  No sir, we’ve thought through this whole child rearing thing, and we’ve got our own ideas on how to do it.  And we’ve got science on our side.

    Well, theories are good.  But I’ve watched more of my water-tight theories sink than I’ve seen float.  And science is good.  But what is science other than a controlled set of trials and errors?  Perhaps hundreds of generations of trials and errors actually have something over a couple of modern controlled studies.

    The modern world is the outcome of our parents theories on child rearing, and modern children are the experiment for our theories.  If you want the next generation to turn out the way you did, you should raise the next generation the same way your parents raised you.

  • The Irony of Narrow Mindedness

    I read an interesting exchange between two people, in which one of the writers stated “I’m sorry you have such a narrow perspective on this subject”.
     
    That got me wondering “Is he sad that her perspective is ‘narrow’, or is he sad that her perspective is different from his?”
     
    It occurs to me that people with broad perspectives don’t often accuse others of having a narrow perspective. People with a broad perspective can embrace or at least understand a wide range of different and conflicting ideas. Therefore, they can see how the narrow-thinking person’s ideas fit into the realm of possibilities.
     
    It is the narrow minded person who says “your idea is different from mine, you should broaden your range of thinking to include what I believe”.
     
    Those who cannot broaden their own thinking are most likely to think others have narrow minds.

  • Gun Laws and Gun Violence

    You’ve probably seen the 2014 map of the US from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (LCPGV) claiming that the highest gun death rates are in the states with the loosest gun laws, and vice versa.

    I’ve taken it upon myself to transfer their grades to the chart below, along with the reported gun murder and gun death rates as listed in Wikipedia.

    Of the ten states with the lowest gun murder rate, 6 are rated “F” for gun laws by the LCPGV (A = strict guns laws, F = loose gun laws). Of the ten states with the highest gun murder rate, 6 are rated “F”. Maryland has the third highest gun murder rate in the country, and is one of five states with an “A-” (no states are rated “A” or “A+”).

    Gun murder rate and gun death rate are different.  So sorting the data by Gun Deaths per 100,000, we see that Washington, South Dakota, and Maryland are are ranked 12, 13, and 14.  Similar gun death rates, yet the grades from the Law center are C, F, and A- respectively.  Yes, Maryland, with the highest gun death rate of the three, gets scored as A-.

    Now it is true that the states with the highest gun death rates are all given Fs.  Well, except for Alabama, which pulled off a D-, despite being the third highest in the country for gun deaths.  Meanwhile New Hampshire, with the 7th lowest rate of gun deaths, is also graded D-.  As previously mentioned, South Dakota gets an F at postion 13, while 11 states  with higher gun death rates are graded higher by the Law Center.

    And it’s hard not to notice California.  California is rated A-, yet it has a higher gun death rate than 32 states, and a higher gun murder rate than 37 sates.

    Here’s the wikipedia article

    Here’s a link to the data in a spreadsheet, so you can sort it however you like

    Here’s the WCPGV graphic