October 30th, 2007
Try taking the safety off
There has been some research into the fact that fears over child safety has inhibited their development.
Let them fall out of trees. It teaches you to hold on tighter.
Let them play with feral animals. It teaches you to be wary and alert.
Let them play in the road. It teaches you… well, it teaches you not to play in the road.
Philip J Schadenfreude on
I need some of that bubble wrap.
A lot of people can’t be taught something by being told, they have to experience it for themselves to get the point. Those people are inferior and will probably eventually be extinct. I myself learn by example, therefore I am superior and my genes will continue down through history just like Blackadder.
i think every single adult should be able to kill one child. the world might be a better place.
Ok, backs slowly from shi….
Take the warning labels off of every thing.
Well if accidents make you smarter, then I am a certified genius.
Hey, some good news, I scored off the charts on my uni entrance exam.
I got in the 96th percentile for verbal skills and only 79 for quantitive.
So I am almost guarenteed a place.
Just thought I’d share.
Congratulations Ben, that’s really good news.
…and Shi, you’re not thinking of any child inparticular are you?
just the naughty ones. i’m like santa clause.
Great job Ben! All those accidents have finally paid off: now I bet you’re greatful for the extra smarts they gave you, eh?
Ah, Shi, that’s a twisted version of Santa Clause… presents to the good little boys and girls, DEATH TO THE NAUGHTY!
I’ve always seen Santa Claus as akin to those perverts that break into peoples’ houses and steal their underwear. Think about it, if someone broke into your house and left you a bunch of nice presents, you’d still call the cops and get a better security system installed. Santa’s a total dick.
I have to say, that article does hold some truth. It’s the “helicopter parent” thing: over-protective, over-involved parents who instill in their children an insane paranoia about the world, and never really let them out to play, or even breathe without parental supervision. It’s really quite depressing.
Aw, Joe, that’s horrible. I love Santa. And Rudolph.
I don’t understand how anyone could have a problem with an old man sneaking into their home in the middle of the night while everyone’s asleep. I mean, he’s SANTA. He gives you CANDY. The fact that you’ve never met the man is completely irrelevant.
And congratulations, Ben. =)
I’m a bit nervous about my college entrance exams. Never mind the fact that I’ve already taken the tests several times and did excellently. I tend to over analyze everything and stress out about minor things. It gets rather annoying.
Well done Ben. Accidents do pay off eventually.
Easca-one word. medatation.
never done college entrance exams, but i know that if you start stressing out, just focus on one thing and block all other thoughts out. breathing is a good one. just think “in, out, in, out” and you’ll find yourself calm and ready to continue.
i hope that helps a little bit!
Shi-you said what we’re all secretly thinking. very very secretly.
My parents never bubble wrap me. when i do something stupid, they repeatedly point out how stupid it was and how little common sense i have. dontcha just love parents?
@joe: unfortunately, i think we’ve passed that point in our evolution. now our evolution will mostly take place with our ideas (fundamentalism, exe.)
@tia: Even though natural selection is mostly irrelevant at this point for humans so long as the number of people who can’t learn by example dying before they have reproduced in each generation is larger than the number of people who can learn by example dying before being able to reproduce, over the course of many generations the inferior gene will be less and less common until it eventually is eradicated completely. This will probably not happen as the likelihood of dying in accidents caused by stupidity is fairly low whereas the likelihood of stupid people accidentally reproducing is fairly high, but the logic is sound.
Thanks, Maddie. =)
It’s really more before the test that I have a problem, though. While I’m taking it I do okay. Waiting for the score report isn’t very fun, either.
@joe: I think it’s also fair to point out that the stupid people aren’t always the ones to die in the accidents they cause. Sometimes it’s the innocent, much more intelligent bystanders that end up dead. And then the stupid people can still reproduce, whether intentionally or accidentally.
TGJB
http://www.darwinawards.com/
Have a look, it is alot of “research” into your logic.
easca, yeah I am the same. Even once I get the results and see what errors I made on a test, I am still nervous. I see the questions I got wrong and realise how simple they were and think that they will be held against me, cos only an idiot would get that wrong. Even when I get perfect scores, I get annoyed. At least I’m not a perfectionist.
Is it just me, or does TFFU (that looks like a really really naughty acronym) attract a higher than average intellect readership? Or atleast commenters?
Or, does the comment threads just allow ppl of normal intellect to express a side of themselves that society normally represses…?
http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/
This the science site that I go to for intelligent discussions, but recently I have been finding that the level of intelligent discussion has been better here, than there.
Hence my previous comment.
I myself am probably the smartest man in the universe. But rather than associate with people of similar intellectual aptitude I prefer to show off to people of lesser intelligence so I seem incredibly impressive by comparison (present company excluded, of course).
I would say that TFFU (yes, that really is a lovely acronym.) does attract people of higher than average intellectual capacity. Probably because the less intelligent people wandering around the internet can’t understand anything that goes on here.
I definitely get what you’re saying about tests, too, Ben. Personally, I get really irked when I get just about anything wrong. Especially with math. Because usually my problem there is that I either can’t read, can’t write, or just can’t think (Oh, look, -3 times 1 is two, and three times three is one, yay math!)
Amen to this comic! I grew up among two kinds of over protective; it is so incredibly damaging, and most of the time it isn’t true. I would agree that heli-parents definitely instill a paranoia, but I want to add that they also tend to skew their children’s view about the world–namely, they tend to encourage pessimism, which I see as something of an epidemic.
Yeah, I didn’t get my pessimism vaccination when I was a child, but fortunately I only suffer a mild infection of it.
But do you find, now that you enter the stage often (mis-)referred to as grown-up that an over-protective upbringing has had any major impact on your life?
It’s definitely made me instinctively fear being out alone when it is at all dark. For the most part I have been affected in a contrary fashion, however, and also since my parents encouraged xenophobia to a certain extent I had to struggle to learn how to socialise through trial and err.
Overall though, it taught me what not to do.