h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mycroft,

You said:'Why should the responsibility fall solely on the parents? Surely children should have to demonstrate their fitness to enter society as well.'

How do you propose to test that, and at what age. Schizophrenia does not usually manifest in males until age 18, and females until age 20. Antisocial Personality Disorder is irremediable by age 7, and frequently goes totally unnoticed except by the people on whom the APD preys.

Should children with social-anxiety, or delayed speech development be 'weeded out', while the genuinely psychotic (not to say there are not many very functional schizophrenics) and criminally insane get 'in'?

Silly proposition. Unworkable, and unworthy of you and your ability to reason.

Sara, for LeKZ

My mistake, 'Spearcarrier', I gave you too much credit. You said 'hundreds', not 'thousands'.

You said: 'As a species we are improving all the time. Per capita crime is dropping, average life expectancy is increasing, quality of life is increasing...everything is getting better all the time.'

Whatever it us that you're using, drop by your local Child Welfare office and give the social workers some. They could use a break from taking care of children in settings that Amnesty International would call 'atrocities'.

Don't read the headlines. Go out and work in the trenches.

Auntie, for LeKZ

I think that what we need is to remove this line of discussion from this thread as it is obviously off topic. I've started a new thread - Population Control - Good/Bad/Ugly? - on my homepage. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F67990?thread=124713 Rama

1000/5 000 000 000 = 0%
100/5 000 000 000 = 0%

Why are we going so far off topic, by the way?

Good idea, Rama
(as she *sighs* and watches yet another conversation turn into a forum for Arpeggio to tell people that they are wrong)

I want a pint of that will first cure you of a headache and then make sure you don't get one the next day.

Rama

mmmm.....

Sara/LeKZ/Arpeggio, of course it's a silly proposition. Welcome to the wide, wide world of irony. Enjoy your stay .

See y'all in Rama's forum, then

{well, those who commented, anyway... }

'Mother of God, Empress of the Universe'

If I have the facts, and you don't, should I keep my mouth shut and listen to people talk b*****t about things that are important to the species as a whole? Evidently, you think so.



Auntie, for LeKZ

*as she vomits in revulsion at the aggressive ignorance of the permanently stagnant who make child abuse an ongoing social problem.*

Oh dear. I'm afraid I may have come on just a little bit strong there. It is not always easy for me to remember just how much of an advantage I have, with 20 years' background in the social sciences. I guess I made the mistake of assuming everyone was on the same page as I...

I can see how some people, particularly those who are uninformed or even simply insecure, might take my strong statements to imply that they should *change* somehow. I would never take it upon myself to suggest anything like that. I try to be *realistic* in my expectations. I make statements of fact, and of course, it is up to the individual to do what s/he feels is morally right, given the facts. I suppose I could really count on people to do that, any way.

The truth of the matter is that *most* people do not want to know the truth about society. I guess my 'informing' them must just get on their nerves. I hate doing that. I *am* too adamant in my explanations about what is actually going on in the world. I know, it's off-putting to some. Pity. The problems just keep getting worse, and it is difficult for me not to be emotional about them. And the people who *cause* the problems are right in our own front yards.



Sad, that. But yes, I definitely came on a bit strong. So much for trying to help abused children by outreach on the Internet. Silence is golden, ignorance is bliss, and childhood is hell.

Auntie, who needs a fly-swatter, for LeKZ



I would like a cyber-shovel. Someone needs to invent a cyber-shovel.

Hmmm..

Well said in posting 150 Arpeggio.
I think you see the need to just relax it all a bit.

A cyber shovel sounds really great, by the way.

I would like a device that would make people just listen for 5 mins instead of ranting on and on and on.

Also if it could be tweaked so that they hear what you are actually saying and not what they think you are saying, that would be doubly cool. Agree?

Oh yes, and an effective anti-midge device for us in the Scottish Highlands is an absolute must.

Ommigosh,

'Midge' - is that those wretched tiny insects who hang around in cloud-formations?

The altitude here seems to not be encouraging to them, but we had 'em where I went to uni. The clouds *follow* a person, too.

Definite midge-cloud spray solvent (eco-friendly, midge-specific).

Also something, and it has to be a BIG something, to handle 'bag-worms'. Not only unsightly, but also deadly to the trees they live in, they are a sort of caterpillar who live in grotesque HUGE caterpillar-silk communities that are all over certain kinds of tree. They eat the tree, then pupate in the silk, forming it into a bag (bigger than a brown paper shopping one), hundreds of them at a time, and then the moths <> decimate the tree on their way out. Repulsive.

Not keen on slugs, either. But they're a sort of mollusk, so that figures.

Auntie, for LeKZ

re: posting 100(device that tells you what people's real emotions and feelings are) i have to disagree here and say that that would be terrible! how would you like people to always know what you are feeling? there are many times when it's a good idea to hide your emotions. such as when something that someone in a position of authority (boss/teacher/counseler/principle/parent) has just said something abysmaly(spelling?) stupid or something that you strongly disagree with. if you just go right out and say that, you will likely get in big trouble, and your feelings at that point would likely reflect that. if someone is hateful and makes a nasty comment about you, then would you want them to how much it hurt, or would you rather they think it didn't effect you and leave you alone(possibly, well, more likely than if they knew.)? would you want someone you fancied to know about it, particularly if they are already (what's a good, pc word for this?) attatched to someone else? not to mention all the times when you are thinking about something else than the situation at hand and your emotions right then do not jibe with it. terribly embarassing to be asked about it and have to explain, "well, i know that you were talking about how {insert serious topic here}, but i was thinking about {insert unrelated and wildly innapropriate topic here}", or, "well, yes i'm bored, you are just a boring person." complete honesty about your opinions is not always a good idea.
on the other end, do you really *want* to know other people's emotions most of the time? sure, sometimes it might be nice, but i think it would be unpleasant to be on the receiving end of that explanation of why their reading on the emot-o-meter seems inconsistant with the topic/situation. or to know that someone you don't care for likes you.
and it seems this device would *have* to be at least partially automatic, otherwise to use it you would need to be rather conspicuous about it, and it would be very embarassing to have them know that you think they're not being upfront about things, especially if they are. and, basically,this would be forcing everyone to wear their emotions on their shirtsleeve, for everyone to see. why not take it a step further and have a device that lets you read minds? could you ever be comfortable around someone with this device? i know i couldn't.

sorry for the out-of-placement, but i just finished reading the dots of backlog after a day of not being here and just noticed that post.


a device that prevents people from reading over your shoulder. this could be in the form of glasses with each lens displaying the screen that connects to the moniter so that if you want to show someone what you are doing, then you can flip a switch on the side and the glasses go clear, allowing you to see without taking them off, and the screen goes to the moniter screen. of course they would be amazingly hi-tech and would 1) weigh no more than and look just like ordinary glasses and 2) make it seem just like you were wearing ordinary glasses by also showing verything whereever you look. i guess what i mean is something that filters out the blocking signal on the screen(the one that prevents someone without the glasses plugged into that particular moniter from seeing it) but leaves everything else alone.

Yoursweeping Goddessness, is "spoken for" a PC enough phrase for people who are "attached to someone else?

Arpeggio,
Yep, midges are those clouds of horrible biting tiny insects which knock several million pounds of the Scottish tourist industry each year.

Another thing which should be invented is a hand held device which points in the direction of your parked car (for use in vast car parks wheer you just have no idea where you left it).

"

To say nothing of eating several thousand pounds of tourist in Scotland every year... greedy little things.

Arpeggio: I don´t think anybody on here has said the world isn´t a terrible place. They just said it is better than it used to be.

Taking a test to become a parent, that sounds like a good thing to me. But how would you stop people from becoming parents without it. And judging from everything else, the criterias for parenting would probably be completely wrong.

Here in Denmark you can sometimes hear them talk on the news sometimes about how we have to get an increased immigration, because birth rates are dropping. So we need people so we can take care of our elders. Seems to me it´s the same mentality behind those pyramid games.

Xanatic,

Obviously, Denmark needs to start importing Italians and other poorer Europeans, to do their dirt work. Hey, it works for Switzerland. It works for France (Algerians). It works for the US (Mexicans and Puerto Ricans).

What we need is nonsentient robots to do the dirt work, raising the poverty line to actual subsistence level, so no humans should die at 40 breaking hir arse for a richer country in order to send slightly hard currency home.

Got that, roboticists? I know you'll get right on it.

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

LeKZ,
You are making some assumptions that you might want to reconsider. I believe you even said something on your page along the lines of asking questions before attacking (no I won't go hunt it down and make a direct quote). Why do you feel that courtesy ought to be granted to you when you continually refuse it to others? Because we're all a bunch of mollusks? <--- note question. (Yeah, I read what you posted the other day about mollusks, lithps and . Makes it difficult to go along with your party line that you AREN'T arrogant and don't ridicule people.)

If you were interested in what I think you might have responded to my post before last, which was an on-topic invention idea that I'd like to see. Not fully developed, but an idea I had from reading the backlog. I could be wrong, but I think that's how these threads often work. If people only posted their thoughts in their ares of expertise, this would be an awfully barren place.

I do not think, and never said, that you should keep your mouth shut and listen to people talk b******t about things that are important to the species as a whole. What I meant by my parenthetical remark is that it's a shame that someone with your particular talents, knowledge, and capacity for expressing yourself clearly does not seem to be able to join a conversation without being abrasive and ultimately turning a lot of people off to the information which you're sharing because your approach is so aggressive. I hope that most of the people following this thread understood that.

Finally, you might want to think about whom you consider to be aggressively ignorant. Most of the posts I've seen on h2g2 are short. I don't believe anyone expects them to be taken as a complete treatise on anything. That's what Guide Entries are supposed to attempt, and they are just a jumping off point for everyone to contribute their knowledge to. These lil posts are often designed to generate discussion, to promote thinking, maybe even to help develop better informed opinions. Some are sarcastic. Some are meant to be plain silly. There's nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. Take it for what it's worth.

*uff* such a rant! I don't know that I've ever done that here before, but I felt she had to be answered, even though this might not be the most appropriate place for it. Sorry, y'all I just don't care for being called aggressively ignorant, permanently stagnant, and especially one who makes child abuse an ongoing social problem. And I suspect I'm not alone in that, even though there was a rationalization for hir behavior in the following post. It's not good enough.

MoG

re: post 157 & 158 Rama's suggestion was good - can we take parent tests and economic immigration to the same place? Related issues, perhaps: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F67990?thread=124713