Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch (Post 484289)

Marry me.

The other cultural shift is that midway through the 20th century we decided that institutions should expand beyond their traditional role of responding to things like crimes and wars and disasters and actually do things to prevent them. I don't think many people realize the extent to which something like "crime prevention" or "suicide prevention" would sound insane to the average person before the 1970s. Deterrence, yes, through punishment, but prevention? " Interventions"? No. And the idea that the government can prevent a tragedy by outlawing something that's harmless 99.9% of the time but tragic 0.1% of the time would have struck our parents and grandparents as nuts. Ask the inventor of Buckyballs how this plays out now.

And anti-bullying is a species of "suicide prevention" plus the idea that adult unhappiness is always a product of childhood trauma. Make the bullies better people and we'll finally have a generation of well-adjusted nerds, gays and girls.

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 484297)

Jesus, even when I agree with you, I can't agree with you. And it's because you're so full of shit.

While I believe children need to learn how to deal with bullies in order to learn how to deal with how unfair life is, what you said about boys and girls is flat-out stupid. . . .

TM

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 484294)

I was wrong. The anti-bullying alarmists aren't seeking to pass laws against it. They have already done so: http://www.stopbullying.gov/laws

And given the rule no self-righteous zealot is ever satisfied, we can expect a whole lot more where that came from... Clogging already understaffed police departments and courts with ridiculous technical claims.

I don't see "kids will be kids" as macho bullshit. The worst bullying doesn't involve men at all. In almost every horror story about bullied kids killing themselves, the culprits are female. Guys will physically attack each other, or talk shit to one another, but the conflict has an end. They ague, fight, and it's over. Girls never forget. They never let go. The torture persists indefinitely, passive-aggressively, and corrosively over weeks, months, and even years. The real face of bullying is a female between 9 and 18.

Your sex should be better than that.

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch (Post 484289)

Marry me.

The other cultural shift is that midway through the 20th century we decided that institutions should expand beyond their traditional role of responding to things like crimes and wars and disasters and actually do things to prevent them. I don't think many people realize the extent to which something like "crime prevention" or "suicide prevention" would sound insane to the average person before the 1970s. Deterrence, yes, through punishment, but prevention? " Interventions"? No. And the idea that the government can prevent a tragedy by outlawing something that's harmless 99.9% of the time but tragic 0.1% of the time would have struck our parents and grandparents as nuts. Ask the inventor of Buckyballs how this plays out now.

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 484298)

You know nothing (of) John Snow.*

It's a public health thing, which is also a fairly recent development. I'm for public health, as various letters behind my name can attest. Small pox and (most) polio and a variety of other awful diseases have been eradicated because of public health efforts, and many, many health problems are behavior based these days.


*Really awful public health / Game of Thrones joke that .00001 percent of the population gets AND finds funny.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 484302)

Recent as in last two or three hundred years? Quarantines go way, way back, of course, but I think the development of the smallpox vaccine at the end of the 18th century put government public health measures on steroids.

With the puritan influence, Massachusetts had a history from 1620 on of regulating all sorts of things that would surprise us now, all for the greater good and the spiritual and physical health of the community. We had laws on what could be eaten, what could be worn, and what could be read, all in the name of preventing bad behavior.

Originally Posted by dtb (Post 484300)

I see. So if it's a "girl problem" it's definitely not worth thinking about. What's a few dead girls who couldn't take a little cruelty?

Got it.

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 484303)

The John Snow reference was to 1854 and the mark of modern epidemiology.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 484305)

But where does game of thrones come in?

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 484306)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkyy57iMaB0

(As with most GoT, there's a NSFW version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNIWmLC-i-U)

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 484304)

My position on male bullying is perhaps macho. But male bullying isn't a typically lethal form of bullying. There are nowhere near as many stories circulating about males killing themselves after being bullied by other males as there are about females killing themselves after being bullied by other females.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 484307)

This is lamentable, and should be stopped through intervention of teachers, school admin, etc. Not by passing another fucking law that'll wind up having all sorts of negative unintended consequences.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 484307)

This is a tricky one. I'll admit, it is hard to change the behavior of someone dumb enough to shame a girl for hooking up with him, thus likely precluding future hook ups. A guy who doesn't grasp that he's screwing up his own good thing is probably hopeless.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 484307)

Neither do I. But I know we've got more important shit to address as a nation. And more silly laws and zero tolerance ordinances are the last things we need.