You cannot parent in isolation and outside of society. How society is structured has an huge impact on parenting. It is delusional to think of parenting as some kind of thing that exists in isolation separate from and not influenced by the rest of society. Parents often can only have little influence themselves.
This is a value neutral description. Though I do think total parental autonomy in parenting is not a worthwhile goal and also not at all realistic. As parents you have to deal with society.
What does that mean for social media bans? To me mostly: network effects are wicked strong and fighting against them as an individual parent is basically impossible. This can lead to parents only having bad choices available to them (ban social media use and exclude them from their friends, allow social media use and fry their brains). Are bans that right solution? Don’t know. I’m really not sure. But I do know that it‘s not as simple as „parent better“.
In discussions similar to this I often see parents expressing their happiness with a state taking the role of a "bad cop" so that the parents can just wash their hands off telling their children it is state's fault they can no longer use TikTok ("I can’t express how much easier it is to restrict it and not seem like a kook when authorities are also on board." from OP) instead of having a proper conversation about harms of social media with the children. This is literally a cop out for them from a proper parenting.
From my point of view I'm already paying for their brats with higher taxes, now I will also have to gradually give my documents to random web sites more and more just to reduce the "burden" of parenting on lazy parents...
You're missing the collective action problem. When 95% of kids have TikTok, telling your kid "no" doesn't just mean having a conversation about social media harms, it means making them a social outcast. Sure, you can be that parent, but you're choosing between your kid's mental health from algorithmic content versus their mental health from social isolation. Individual parents can't solve network effect problems, that's exactly what policy is for. This isn't laziness, it's recognizing that some problems require coordination beyond the family level.
You said you've seen it happen "often" and provided no examples other than the one you are using to make your point. You implied that you have heard it multiple times in different contexts. I was asking for some of those contexts because as someone who is a parent and interacts with other parents frequently, it is not something I've encountered.
The peace prize is often given to people still working on something, not having achieved something. In that way it is different from the science prizes.
I think that is a understandable approach (providing support), though it can lead to giving the prize to people who never achieve any of their goals. Whether that’s a worthy trade off I do not know.
Why dwell on the past? Currently per capita electricity consumption is higher in China than in Germany (6.5 MWh vs 6 MWh).
However, it is true that even in light of this current situation China is building out solar a bit faster (on a per capita basis, even if adjusted for consumption) than Germany. In Germany it‘s about 1 GW added each month, which adjusted for population and energy consumption is about a factor of 1.5 compared to Chinas 25 GW per month.
Wind is lagging behind in Germany but, to be honest, looking at numbers from 2024 compared to China it’s about the same factor 1.5 difference when adjusted for population (3 GW compared to 87 GW).
Germany should be and could be as fast as China – but there aren’t humongous differences between the two countries.
How fast has Germany's PV capacity expanded in recent years? In another subthread I wanted some estimate of how many hectares in Germany had PV on them, but the pages I visisted on the subject were outdated.
This is the observation: we massively overshoot in terms of the role (space, infrastructure) we assign to cars, especially in densely populated areas.
If we can create viable alternatives to driving we can make these places much, much more enjoyable. Quieter, nicer to be around, more human scale, more convenient.
That’s all. Nowhere in there is any claim that cars aren’t immensely useful. In less densely populated people. For people with disabilities. Etc.
Why can’t we have the nice things? And yeah, the nice things do include walkable cities like we had them in 19th century. Sometimes and in some places to a very limited extent the past with some modern conveniences (like trams, modern bicycles) was better.
US post pandemic economic recovery has been astonishingly great measured against other major economies.
Obviously (real) wages did take a hit like everywhere but have been recovering, too.
My working theory is that noticeable inflations makes people go crazy and trumps anything else. Completely closes people off to rational thought and that’s what sunk Biden. Despite awesome economic recovery given the circumstances.
It’s worse than that. Everything leading up to this and this reversion right now is a perfect demonstration that the current US administration cannot be trusted and behaves in irrational ways. You cannot expect consistency and enduring policies. It’s all fickle and capricious. How are you supposed to do any planning with this?
This is all so obviously dumb and I’m frankly astounded by so many people (especially here on HN) playing devils advocate or, I don’t know, honestly believing that this all makes sense.
Even if you agree with the stated (also somewhat incoherent, by the way) goals why do you think this implementation can achieve any of that?
I believe the point is power, and from that lens everything makes perfect sense. Trump is exercising available levers of global influence -- for good or for bad -- in a way that hasn't occurred since Hitler initiated World War II.
Tariffs are appealing to him because they are incredibly forceful blunt instruments over which he alone has almost complete control. They give him immense, immediate influence over the entire world. What we're seeing is that the US President today, if the full capacities of that office are pushed as far as possible without violence, is arguably one of (if not the) most powerful human beings ever.
Beyond this, Trump has said that one of his greatest weapons is uncertainty. He wants to be feared. Having people genuinely afraid of you is the next step of power that he is already flirting with by posting videos of people being blown up in warfare on social media.
And what will he do when China and rest of the world tired of his untreated Narcissistic Personality Disorder will start selling US debt, like $trillions in bonds in say less than a week? I bet you finally someone broke the secret to him today, so he reverted the policy.
This is some weird American version of Juche, not reducing dependency on China. Can you explain the dependency reduction mechanism to me?
Just as an analogy: If you were to detonate all nuclear weapons in the US inside the US you would also reduce dependency on China. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The path matters.
Sure. Might be. But you are here asking for Europe to preemptively roll over and give in to Russian wars of aggression.
From a game theory point of view how is that supposed to bring peace? That just shows Russia that they can do whatever they want and reach their goals. We already had the Minsk agreement Russia violated. Why should Russia stop when we give in to their demands? What‘s the logic there?
At some point you have to show strength. And earlier is probably better if you want to prevent WWIII
> At some point you have to show strength. And earlier is probably better if you want to prevent WWIII
Sure, EU combined already spends three times as much as Russia in "showing strength". I'm sure there must be a way to use what we have without tripling the expense. If nothing, because showing that we need 10 times their military expense to keep up with them would only show that we are in fact weaker.
Unless the goal of rearmament is only to make a few weapon manufacturers richer, then I'd say we've found the most efficient way to do it.
I don’t think re-armament is the only or the best solution. It’s just that with the US having left the picture Europe does have to show strength if it has to have any hope of keeping Russia at bay. That‘s not just arms, that’s also credible deterrence. How can Europe achieve that absent the US without spending on arms?
I do think that Ukraine is instructive in terms of Russia not being as almighty as they might seem, but in terms of outcome Putin is scary close to achieving practically all of his war aims short of Ukraine ceasing to exist. I learned that Putin is patient. He can take it step by step. He does not value human life. And that’s dangerous.
At great cost to the Russian people, sure, but does Putin care? Another five to ten years and he can give something else a go. And suddenly he is in the Baltcis or at the Polish border.
Based on the way Russia has been gradually pushing more and more. Step by step. Slowly.
They take what they want. They are appeased. A couple years nothing happens. They take what they want. They are appeased … etc.
Invading Ukraine should be a clear warning that Russia will not just stop. For appeasement to end and for Europe to seriously look for viable paths to peace. Not just yearlong pauses in fighting that allow Russia to regain strength. That is not peace.
The allies actually did create a just peace through strength in Europe during and after WWII. So I’m not sure why you are so offended by that thought? Would there have been a better way to create a peace that all in all has been lasting for more than three quarters of a century now? Would it have been better to further appease the facists?(Obviously not a perfect or complete peace. Obviously the Cold War also sucked. Not disputing any of that.)
Also, obviously I hope that this time around it’s not too late to prevent facists from burning Europe to the ground before we can defeat them.
Do you dispute that showing strength is an element to peace? (I’m not talking about killing people or invading other countries. I’m talking about a demonstrated and credible willingness to defend your values and alliances.)
> The allies actually did create a just peace through strength
They won the war, the goal was clearly defeating the axis. Did you have a shower today or did you achieve a just and long lasting personal hygiene through water?
You should at least be brave enough to say it like it is: you want to win the war.
The only problem is that this time the enemy has enough nuclear weapons to trigger a new ice age, so you resort to Newspeak.
> Also, obviously I hope that this time around it’s not too late to prevent facists from burning Europe to the ground before we can defeat them.
For how I see it we got them already in the commission and doing all they can to burn the EU to the ground.
You cannot parent in isolation and outside of society. How society is structured has an huge impact on parenting. It is delusional to think of parenting as some kind of thing that exists in isolation separate from and not influenced by the rest of society. Parents often can only have little influence themselves.
This is a value neutral description. Though I do think total parental autonomy in parenting is not a worthwhile goal and also not at all realistic. As parents you have to deal with society.
What does that mean for social media bans? To me mostly: network effects are wicked strong and fighting against them as an individual parent is basically impossible. This can lead to parents only having bad choices available to them (ban social media use and exclude them from their friends, allow social media use and fry their brains). Are bans that right solution? Don’t know. I’m really not sure. But I do know that it‘s not as simple as „parent better“.
reply