Not quite—mainly because finishing high school even if you didn’t want to/really give it much thought is more likely to be an overall benefit, whereas getting married even if you didn’t want to/give it much thought is unlikely to turn out happily.
Without more information, I’m not sure that “do your math homework” is going to be as useful as “learn to cook and clean”.
I think the VERY best outcome would be to train children as early as possible to make independent and well-informed decisions, and then a better phrasing would be “If your plans [still] involve graduating high school, it would help you to do your math homework”, or possibly “it would help you to drop this class, since you are obviously not inclined to do your math homework”. But I’m not sure how long before ~graduating-age that’s even developmentally possible.
Given how much people use the skills they learned during math homework later in life I think it would be fair to argue that cooking and cleaning skills are more valuable for the majority of people.
The only skills I ever learned during math homework were:
“How do I rephrase this question so that the answer becomes retrospectively obvious?”
“I don’t know where to even start; let’s try something that’s been useful before to see if I can break down the problem and identify a path towards the solution.”
I might not quite be an unbiased, population-representative sample, but given how much I use these skills versus how much I use my cooking skills (about half an hour per month, on average), and the respective impacts they have on my life, I think it would be fair to argue that what I learned while doing math homework would be far more valuable for the majority of people.
The key turning point being that not all people learn the above from math homework—not all people learn the above at all.
“Not quite—mainly because finishing high school even if you didn’t want to/really give it much thought is more likely to be an overall benefit, whereas getting married even if you didn’t want to/give it much thought is unlikely to turn out happily”
The speaker isn’t trying to get his daughter to marry whether she wants to or not. He is trying to get her to want to, or to not question whether she wants to (or more likely not considering whether she wants to, but nevermind that at the moment). What influences the desires a person has? Few people choose to choose their desires, and while a lot is innate, I don’t think there is anything wrong, fundamentally, with trying to influence your childrens desires and assumptions toward what you understand to be good ends.
I don’t think there is anything wrong, fundamentally, with trying to influence your childrens desires and assumptions toward what you understand to be good ends.
I have friends who were protested outside of abortion clinics before they were old enough to vote, and I doubt one could swing a cat on LessWrong (if one were so inclined) and not hit someone who came to rationality feeling like they wasted (n) years of their life following Jesus and not asking questions.
So I am unconvinced that there couldn’t be rather a lot wrong with trying to influence your children’s desires & assumptions towards what you understand to be good ends. (eta:) I could be way off base here, but isn’t drawing your OWN conclusions kind of what rationality is about?
Well, because there’s a bad method of doing something doesn’t mean that there are no good methods, so I don’t think your example is a refutation. I’m not fond in general of using children as political props, even if that helps them to absorb those political ideas; but I don’t see that as analagous to presenting a normative situation in casual conversation.
However, on the broader point, it is worth thinking about. I assume by “drawing your own conclusions”, you mean each person independently arriving at the truth, rather than each person arriving at a unique set of conclusions, because the latter strikes me as more postmodernism than rationality.
Upon reflection, I’ll say that children as children I don’t expect to be rational enough to draw their own conclusions, but as they get more so I do expect them to question my conclusions that I try to impart, and then either to convince me I am wrong or vice versa. I’d rather we both be right than both be independent, but I don’t want them to be unquestioning of imparted ‘knowledge’ either. Does that make sense?
The speaker isn’t trying to get his daughter to marry whether she wants to or not. He is trying to get her to want to, or to not question whether she wants to (or more likely not considering whether she wants to, but nevermind that at the moment).
These seem pretty significantly different to me. Also, why are we neverminding consideration of what the daughter wants?
Not quite what I meant; sorry for being unclear. I meant, the most likely case is that the words weren’t very thoughtfully spoken in general, but I wanted to address the sentiment that might have been behind them if they were designed for effect.
I’ll speak for myself, here. I wouldn’t verbally or physically force a daughter of mine (I have two or three) to get married, but I will present it as normative because I believe she will be happier if she does so (after careful selection of a mate, etc.). So I could easily see myself saying “Wow, I’m glad to see you learning to cook, that’s something your husband will really appreciate one day.” If I have a son, I’ll likely expect him to pick up some cooking skills as well, but I don’t think that those skills are as attractive to a potential wife as vice versa.
Not quite—mainly because finishing high school even if you didn’t want to/really give it much thought is more likely to be an overall benefit, whereas getting married even if you didn’t want to/give it much thought is unlikely to turn out happily.
Without more information, I’m not sure that “do your math homework” is going to be as useful as “learn to cook and clean”.
I think the VERY best outcome would be to train children as early as possible to make independent and well-informed decisions, and then a better phrasing would be “If your plans [still] involve graduating high school, it would help you to do your math homework”, or possibly “it would help you to drop this class, since you are obviously not inclined to do your math homework”. But I’m not sure how long before ~graduating-age that’s even developmentally possible.
Given how much people use the skills they learned during math homework later in life I think it would be fair to argue that cooking and cleaning skills are more valuable for the majority of people.
The only skills I ever learned during math homework were:
“How do I rephrase this question so that the answer becomes retrospectively obvious?”
“I don’t know where to even start; let’s try something that’s been useful before to see if I can break down the problem and identify a path towards the solution.”
I might not quite be an unbiased, population-representative sample, but given how much I use these skills versus how much I use my cooking skills (about half an hour per month, on average), and the respective impacts they have on my life, I think it would be fair to argue that what I learned while doing math homework would be far more valuable for the majority of people.
The key turning point being that not all people learn the above from math homework—not all people learn the above at all.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought explicitly like that before encountering Less Wrong.
What pretty much everybody (including me) complained about http://xkcd.com/1050/.
“Not quite—mainly because finishing high school even if you didn’t want to/really give it much thought is more likely to be an overall benefit, whereas getting married even if you didn’t want to/give it much thought is unlikely to turn out happily”
The speaker isn’t trying to get his daughter to marry whether she wants to or not. He is trying to get her to want to, or to not question whether she wants to (or more likely not considering whether she wants to, but nevermind that at the moment). What influences the desires a person has? Few people choose to choose their desires, and while a lot is innate, I don’t think there is anything wrong, fundamentally, with trying to influence your childrens desires and assumptions toward what you understand to be good ends.
I have friends who were protested outside of abortion clinics before they were old enough to vote, and I doubt one could swing a cat on LessWrong (if one were so inclined) and not hit someone who came to rationality feeling like they wasted (n) years of their life following Jesus and not asking questions.
So I am unconvinced that there couldn’t be rather a lot wrong with trying to influence your children’s desires & assumptions towards what you understand to be good ends. (eta:) I could be way off base here, but isn’t drawing your OWN conclusions kind of what rationality is about?
Well, because there’s a bad method of doing something doesn’t mean that there are no good methods, so I don’t think your example is a refutation. I’m not fond in general of using children as political props, even if that helps them to absorb those political ideas; but I don’t see that as analagous to presenting a normative situation in casual conversation.
However, on the broader point, it is worth thinking about. I assume by “drawing your own conclusions”, you mean each person independently arriving at the truth, rather than each person arriving at a unique set of conclusions, because the latter strikes me as more postmodernism than rationality.
Upon reflection, I’ll say that children as children I don’t expect to be rational enough to draw their own conclusions, but as they get more so I do expect them to question my conclusions that I try to impart, and then either to convince me I am wrong or vice versa. I’d rather we both be right than both be independent, but I don’t want them to be unquestioning of imparted ‘knowledge’ either. Does that make sense?
These seem pretty significantly different to me. Also, why are we neverminding consideration of what the daughter wants?
Not quite what I meant; sorry for being unclear. I meant, the most likely case is that the words weren’t very thoughtfully spoken in general, but I wanted to address the sentiment that might have been behind them if they were designed for effect.
I’ll speak for myself, here. I wouldn’t verbally or physically force a daughter of mine (I have two or three) to get married, but I will present it as normative because I believe she will be happier if she does so (after careful selection of a mate, etc.). So I could easily see myself saying “Wow, I’m glad to see you learning to cook, that’s something your husband will really appreciate one day.” If I have a son, I’ll likely expect him to pick up some cooking skills as well, but I don’t think that those skills are as attractive to a potential wife as vice versa.