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I thought Amy Chua gave a great interview, although I certainly haven't made up my mind about her. I agree with most of the philosophy presented, in the sense of not coddling children and presenting them with realistic expectations of how life works, but I'm not sure how outspoken she was willing to be on the show. For example, she mentions that many Chinese children could benefit from more Western socialization, but according to her own story did not allow her daughters to attend sleepovers or playdates. She also laughs off most of her criticism and is correct that her daughters don't hate her, but that doesn't change the fact that she actually did call her child garbage and threatened to withhold everything from holidays to food. The interview seemed like a call for moderation between the dichotomy of styles, but I got a bit of a sense that she toned down her fervor for discipline to appeal to a wider audience. I have no basis for that assumption, but it does make me want to read her book to see just how reasonable her parenting was. Still, I do agree with the general theory behind "tiger moms."
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May 21, 2011 23:42
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DVD Drive posted:Actually, Kurzweil is an idiot. I think Hofstadter has a better opinion on him, which I mostly agree with. Kurzweil has insane and ridiculous ideas as well as provocative and brilliant ideas, but he unfortunately mixes them together so much that it's difficult to figure out where the line between hard science and science fiction is. Some of his more radical transhumanist ideas do a pretty big disservice to a lot of the rigorous work he's done with technology. Ror fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Jun 19, 2011 |
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Jun 19, 2011 09:10
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Agreed that Hoover made my blood boil. Hearing her shout about having facts, like the debt doubling under Obama, even as Spitzer tries to explain causation to her makes me seriously concerned about the logic and critical thinking of the political elite. As someone who works in a psychiatric hospital chiming in about Breivik, the word crazy is pretty meaningless. Around some of the units people use the word crazy for anyone who has mental issues or a reason to be in in-patient treatment, even people with really bad depression or whatever. So using that criterion for crazy, I would say that yes, he's quite crazy. As in, assuming he's not a rare horror movie antisocial psychopath, he would benefit immensely from psychiatric treatment. Homicidal ideation (and behavior) and the type of obsessive thinking that makes one write a manifesto are generally considered abnormal in psychology. It's unclear whether he has any actual psychotic symptoms though, which is what a lot of people mean when they say crazy. No maniacal, irrational behavior, no evidence of experiencing hallucinations. He doesn't even seem to be delusional; he has what most of society would consider extreme views but they are all based in reality. My point is that one does not need to be psychotic for their psychological profile to be considered abnormal. Moreover, the point is that trying to quantify brain chemistry as a binary status of crazy or not is a bit worrying. Even a sliding scale of crazy wouldn't do, it describes a massively wide array of mental characteristics going in all different directions. So I agree that we should not dismiss him as a mad man, but we should certainly call into question his mental facilities and consider that he may exhibit some "crazy" types of thinking and question what those are.
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Jul 31, 2011 04:33
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pkd88 posted:Obama is a Christian. Mormons are no different then the other ones. I think the difference is that most Mormons are active and devout. For example, I've known plenty of people for months or years at a time before finding out they identified themselves as Christian. On the other hand, I've known every Mormon's religion within our first several interactions. Christian is a nice a loose term. I was raised Catholic, but I could just slide over to generic Christian and then I wouldn't have to worry about pedophilia or pretend cannibalism. It's kind of hard to deny the magic underwear and fanciful take on world history when you call yourself a Mormon though. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in God and in the grand scheme of things both religions are very silly. But there are far more Christians out there who just believe in God and Jesus and stuff. Keep it nice and simple.
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Oct 21, 2011 10:53
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