I asked my son Alex to post this because I’m proud of his writing skill, but also to show a challenge of raising a child without religion. He is far from obsessed with death, and told me he is thinking of death less than 1% of the time. Still, it would be comforting to be able to honestly tell him that he has nothing to fear from death, although knowing Alex he would use this as a counterargument when I tell him to be safe by, for example, buckling his seat-belt or looking both ways when crossing the street.
but also to show a challenge of raising a child without religion
Is this considered new? There are people in parts of Europe esp. post-Commie lands where even their grandparents had hardly any, or even their great-grandparents considered it more of a social ritual than personal faith. I was about 8 when one grandfather died, my parents simply said he is with us in our memories and that was it. There was nothing particularly difficult about it. If I may put it this way, I did not get a very optimistic upbringing, we expected life to be hard and rather painful and this was simply one of the pains, to lose loved ones. Also, as a child I was not really able to imagine or care about my own death, my parents usually rather scared me with maiming or disfigurement when I was doing unsafe things like not wanting to buckle the seatbelt or similar things. I don’t remember the details, but living ugly or disabled looked far worse than just being dead. There may be a bit of an inferential distance here, so I will try to reword it: the idea of playing a particularly low-status or boring or painful game of life was scary, but simply not playing it anymore was not too scary.
Interesting, so the cost of raising a non-religious child is higher the nicer your family’s life. Once, when my son was about 4 I told him not to stare at the sun else he go blind. He responded by saying that being blind wouldn’t be so bad because he could read using braille. I wonder if a consequence of schools teaching inclusion of the physically disabled is that children don’t fear as much becoming disabled themselves and so take more risks.
Yes, but I also have a different suspicion here—you may have already at 4 strongly pushed your son towards intellectual pursuits if he already thought reading is far more important than looking at cute or pretty things. Or people. Even being able to read before school is fairly rare, but already liking it so much more than say drawing, that is really rare.
Our life was nice enough, but I suspect it is more about e.g. American culture being in general optimistic no matter how bad is your life, Eastern Europe more pessimistic no matter how nice is your life.I suspect these come from centuries long historical habits, not about how nice your personal life is.
Quite frankly, I would like to learn to be more optimistic. But it is interesting that one part of me considers that “shallow”. That must be a weird sort of rationalization.
That’s an interesting thought; I feel just the opposite about the pessimism/optimism spectrum. To me, it seems that to allow the negative to affect your mindset overmuch is a far greater negative than a positive. That’s not to say, though, that I think pessimism doesn’t have its place, or that optimism is always a good thing; just that as a mindset, it’s of greater personal benefit to be an optimist. Interestingly enough, more of my beliefs came from Japan (in the form of video games; the Mother series, and The World Ends With You in particular) than from the US.
I’ve always felt that to allow oneself to fall to pessimism is the easier path (optimism is a constant struggle for me, though I put on a mien as if it were otherwise), and largely more painful. I used to be quite a bit more pessimistic, but found that, while it’s a lot of effort, to push myself toward optimism leads to a higher happiness default point for me. Can you explain your view?
That’s an interesting thought; I feel just the opposite about the pessimism/optimism spectrum. To me, it seems that to allow the negative to affect your mindset overmuch is a far greater negative than a positive
Of course, that is why I try to overcome but it still “feels deeper”.
Negativity simply tends to “feel deep”. And “feel wise”. I am an adult, but you see really a lot of it amongst teenagers, goths etc. basically the more angst and cynicism they have “deeper” and “wiser” they feel.
Or for example look at media like Game of Thrones, it is generally the most negative quotes that “feel deep”. “Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don’t ever believe any different.” “You’re awful.” “It is the world that is awful.” This sort of stuff tends to “feel deep” far more than something cheery.
Adults have different reasons for being negative (such as habit), but there is still a certain sense of “feeling deep” lurking which impends developing positivity.
Of course pessimism is far easier! But it still “feels deeper”. Most people including me are lazy. If something is easy and has some sort of a reward at all (you feel bad, but at least you feel “deep”), we are likely to do it. Why else you think fast-food driven obesity is such a big deal thes days? :-)
Similarly, a very basic human feature is the sour grapes effect. Optimism is hard, so let’s find an excuse to not do it. Well, the excuse is that it is “shallow”.
I wonder how it is not so for you… perhaps you are of the minority who is not inherently lazy, who does not automatically go for the smallest resistance, the easiest path and then make excuses. But I am.
Quite frankly, I would like to learn to be more optimistic.
I don’t know if this will work for you, but the possibility of a positive singularity combined with the many-worlds hypothesis makes me optimistic. In most worlds I’m dead after around 50 years, but in a significant percentage I get to live in utopia until the end of the universe, giving me an astronomically high expected utility.
children don’t fear as much becoming disabled themselves and so take more risks.
This looks like a counterfactual to me :-) I suspect that children nowadays take considerably less risks than 50 years ago, never mind a hundred or two.
You should definitely write about your experiences raising a child as a rationalist. I am not kidding; this would be immensely beneficial to a large number of people.
Gwern might disagree. According to studies parents have little effect on their children’s deveopment. But I disagree with that. I’d guess that James’ parenting is his genes way of ensuring Alex’ develops as well as James’. And I’d be very interested to compare mehods.
I asked my son Alex to post this because I’m proud of his writing skill, but also to show a challenge of raising a child without religion. He is far from obsessed with death, and told me he is thinking of death less than 1% of the time. Still, it would be comforting to be able to honestly tell him that he has nothing to fear from death, although knowing Alex he would use this as a counterargument when I tell him to be safe by, for example, buckling his seat-belt or looking both ways when crossing the street.
Is this considered new? There are people in parts of Europe esp. post-Commie lands where even their grandparents had hardly any, or even their great-grandparents considered it more of a social ritual than personal faith. I was about 8 when one grandfather died, my parents simply said he is with us in our memories and that was it. There was nothing particularly difficult about it. If I may put it this way, I did not get a very optimistic upbringing, we expected life to be hard and rather painful and this was simply one of the pains, to lose loved ones. Also, as a child I was not really able to imagine or care about my own death, my parents usually rather scared me with maiming or disfigurement when I was doing unsafe things like not wanting to buckle the seatbelt or similar things. I don’t remember the details, but living ugly or disabled looked far worse than just being dead. There may be a bit of an inferential distance here, so I will try to reword it: the idea of playing a particularly low-status or boring or painful game of life was scary, but simply not playing it anymore was not too scary.
Interesting, so the cost of raising a non-religious child is higher the nicer your family’s life. Once, when my son was about 4 I told him not to stare at the sun else he go blind. He responded by saying that being blind wouldn’t be so bad because he could read using braille. I wonder if a consequence of schools teaching inclusion of the physically disabled is that children don’t fear as much becoming disabled themselves and so take more risks.
Yes, but I also have a different suspicion here—you may have already at 4 strongly pushed your son towards intellectual pursuits if he already thought reading is far more important than looking at cute or pretty things. Or people. Even being able to read before school is fairly rare, but already liking it so much more than say drawing, that is really rare.
Our life was nice enough, but I suspect it is more about e.g. American culture being in general optimistic no matter how bad is your life, Eastern Europe more pessimistic no matter how nice is your life.I suspect these come from centuries long historical habits, not about how nice your personal life is.
Quite frankly, I would like to learn to be more optimistic. But it is interesting that one part of me considers that “shallow”. That must be a weird sort of rationalization.
That’s an interesting thought; I feel just the opposite about the pessimism/optimism spectrum. To me, it seems that to allow the negative to affect your mindset overmuch is a far greater negative than a positive. That’s not to say, though, that I think pessimism doesn’t have its place, or that optimism is always a good thing; just that as a mindset, it’s of greater personal benefit to be an optimist. Interestingly enough, more of my beliefs came from Japan (in the form of video games; the Mother series, and The World Ends With You in particular) than from the US.
I’ve always felt that to allow oneself to fall to pessimism is the easier path (optimism is a constant struggle for me, though I put on a mien as if it were otherwise), and largely more painful. I used to be quite a bit more pessimistic, but found that, while it’s a lot of effort, to push myself toward optimism leads to a higher happiness default point for me. Can you explain your view?
Of course, that is why I try to overcome but it still “feels deeper”.
Negativity simply tends to “feel deep”. And “feel wise”. I am an adult, but you see really a lot of it amongst teenagers, goths etc. basically the more angst and cynicism they have “deeper” and “wiser” they feel.
Or for example look at media like Game of Thrones, it is generally the most negative quotes that “feel deep”. “Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don’t ever believe any different.” “You’re awful.” “It is the world that is awful.” This sort of stuff tends to “feel deep” far more than something cheery.
Adults have different reasons for being negative (such as habit), but there is still a certain sense of “feeling deep” lurking which impends developing positivity.
Of course pessimism is far easier! But it still “feels deeper”. Most people including me are lazy. If something is easy and has some sort of a reward at all (you feel bad, but at least you feel “deep”), we are likely to do it. Why else you think fast-food driven obesity is such a big deal thes days? :-)
Similarly, a very basic human feature is the sour grapes effect. Optimism is hard, so let’s find an excuse to not do it. Well, the excuse is that it is “shallow”.
I wonder how it is not so for you… perhaps you are of the minority who is not inherently lazy, who does not automatically go for the smallest resistance, the easiest path and then make excuses. But I am.
I don’t know if this will work for you, but the possibility of a positive singularity combined with the many-worlds hypothesis makes me optimistic. In most worlds I’m dead after around 50 years, but in a significant percentage I get to live in utopia until the end of the universe, giving me an astronomically high expected utility.
This looks like a counterfactual to me :-) I suspect that children nowadays take considerably less risks than 50 years ago, never mind a hundred or two.
True.
You should definitely write about your experiences raising a child as a rationalist. I am not kidding; this would be immensely beneficial to a large number of people.
Gwern might disagree. According to studies parents have little effect on their children’s deveopment. But I disagree with that. I’d guess that James’ parenting is his genes way of ensuring Alex’ develops as well as James’. And I’d be very interested to compare mehods.
I was raised agnostic. The day I learned about mortality was pretty awful; it effected me for quite a while.
Thanks for asking him to post that!