Originally posted by Doctor Q
...most of us go through a "stupid" phase somewhere between age 12 and age 25. You know, that period when you don't think you need to back up your computer or wear a seatbelt. People can learn the computer backup lesson the hard way, but we really don't want them all learning the seatbelt lesson the hard way, so the imposition of authority (parents and teachers being good choices) prevents us all from expiring before we get old enough to turn smart again.
That's a good point, because it illustrates the difference between an "every man for himself"/"only the strong survive" society, and the far opposite, a world where a mother goes to court because of "inadequate railing coloring" when she just wasn't paying attention to her 2 year old.
Stupid people, especially ones on their way to adulthood (since 99.9% of humans go through that phase, and always have) need some *guidance*. Someone telling them not to do stupid things. What they don't need is someone holding their hand through every step of their lives, and then blaming someone else if they manage to do something so boneheaded that even their bubblewrapped surroundings can't save them.
Here's an interesting social contrast [begin rant]: In the US we've somehow built a society where everybody wants their kids to grow up they way they imagine they (or their parents) grew up (with strict but loving parents--it's an ideal, accurate or not). But, parents are too busy to actually do what it takes to raise a kid properly, so they just try to sanitize and litigate a safe environment, and take no responsibility themselves, nor put any on their kids.
In Japan, they've got the other half going on: the current generation of parents can't handle dicipline at all; many see their kids more as friends than people in need of guidance and don't even have a concept of what dicipline is. Hence, you've got kids who don't blame anyone else for their problems, they're just idiots with no skills or dicipline whatsoever--like a high tech Neverland gone horribly wrong.
I'm exaggerating the state in both cases a bit, and I'm not sure if they're different, or if Japan is just at the next step in the decay of self reliance the US is going through, but I have a bad feeling it's the latter.
[end rant]
I'm really glad to see that at least people here have a sense of how to take care of themselves (say... maybe taking care of your own computer is good training!).
