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

I don't think you should ever hide it. This is maybe the difference in cultural outlook. For example, if you're living in a large extended family household, you learn about sex and other real things very early. You also learn to be polite and not stare.

What children learn from parents and others in their families is mostly from example anyway. There shouldn't be attempts to confuse the issues by pretending things are a certain way when they aren't. I suppose following the opposite course is one of the luxuries of dominance. You can afford to create illusions of grandeur or whatever which most people can't do for their kids.

And it's particularly disturbing that many buy into the Disney baloney as if it ought to be a family tradition. What kind of tradition is that? It teaches among other things that you can have anything you want if you're just persistant enough, nevermind what it does to anyone else. And success is equated with marrying the prince. These are fairytales we could do without very easily.

The irony of this obsession with the individual and his/hers selfish desires doesn't foster individualism but conformity on a massive scale, conformity to the biases of mass marketing, mass politics and mass conquest. But that's what masses are for aren't they?

One possible consolation is that Disney probably died thinking he had failed. His animation empire was sputtering as the older animators approached their inevitable, natural ends and nobody was making plans for the future. The revival came long after his death with The Little Mermaid and someone's not so new vision for family entertainment.

In time, perhaps, people will come to their senses and realize the only good "masterpiece" the Disney corporation ever made was Hercules, maybe in a moment of abnormal lucidity. That's the truth children need to learn.

I must confess I always liked "The Rescuers." Although I could not tell you much about it except that there was a cool dragonfly in it. Otherwise, the mouse doesn't hold me in thrall. I always prefered stuff like the De Niro and Irons film "The Mission" or earlier yet "Apocalypse Now" mostly due to subject matter. Growing up in a heavily military environment kind of warped my childhood perspectives. I used to always think about things in terms of conflict and initiative, and appropriate levels of force. Nevermind used to, I'm still like that.
I guess my kids will be a mix of me and my wife. She is rather apolitical and finds me a bore. So my kids may be a little more laidback than me, which will probably keep them out of trouble. I just hope to give them a sense of how interrelated everything is, and maybe they will be able to take it from there.

Children are very smart and insightful. That's something to encourage and I think you're doing that and that's about all you can do really, but it's usually enough.

Whatever else they might learn, I think they should learn that they have no reason to fear the universe or feel isolated within it. People have lived in this world for hundreds of generations and thousands of years. We know how to survive, but sometimes, in our greed and laziness, we forget.

We start believing that we can go it alone, coercing or intimidating compliance with our greed, without regard or respect for our relations and, in the short term, our beliefs seem to be confirmed, but sooner or later we get rudely awakened by our responsibilities and obligations. They never go away because everything depends on balance and the balance is always restored, with or without our voluntary cooperation.

It's better if the cooperation is voluntary though. That way the adjustments are relatively small usually and easier to accommodate. This doesn't rule out the occasional catastrophy, but then nothing I know of does rule that out. No one's immune and we're all going to die anyways.

That a very "Eastern" philosophy. I like the concept of balance and hope that it is real. I seem to be trapped in a cycle of entropy where everything grows more chaotic. But maybe I just fight things too hard. I just wish everyone paid a little closer attention to things a few feet beyond there own face, and actually noticed that there is a universe out there we are a part of. Maybe we'd be less inclined to destroy everything then in the name of progress or advancement. Or maybe we should limit the lifespans of corporations and nations, that way they would have a sense of mortality and gain a moral compass of some sort. Individuals seem more maleable than groups, perhaps because groups have a different frame of reference.