How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Belinda
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by Belinda »

Henry Quirk wrote:
If parenting isn't a natural event then how, oh how, did those poor brutes get by spurtin' out young'uns *6000 years back...before experts and education came along, I mean.

Yeah, I listen to experts...sometimes I even learn sumthin'...what I don't do is let myself get rattled by them (cuz, ya know, sometimes experts are just plain wrong).









*yeah, I know, 'it took a village'...but, really, it doesn't and, no, I don't think it ever did
Even gestating and birthing are better for knowledge. Those "poor brutes" lost many babies and young children under five to accident and disease . Giving birth was more painful and dangerous for women when there was no benefit of modern medical knowledge.

Parenting is not however "spurtin' out young'uns". Parenting can be done by adoptive parents, or nannies. Contrary to you and The Doc all human skills have to be taught . By "human skills" relating to parenting I refer to empathy, first aid, childhood infectious fevers and minor ailments, nutrition, budgeting for a family, household management, expressing affection, the need to sacrifice one's energy and time, a little of child psychology including such problems as autism, depression, and dyslexia.

Back in the day, the village sort of muddled along including much unintentional cruelty to kids.Modern developed societies do in fact need to educate children in parenting, for two reasons:

1. Urbanised societies like most of the USA and like the UK for instance lack trditional village wisdom such as it was.

2. Modern education and knowledge is better in every way for kids and parents ; see my "human skills" list above.

Especially I deplore The Doc's advice on parenting which is nothing but trial and error.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

"Especially I deplore The Doc's advice on parenting which is nothing but trial and error."

Me, I think he's absolutely right...

A lot depends on the source of the expertise, an expert who has no children of their own, should be suspect when giving advice on parenting. The expert who draws on their own experience and combines it with relevant studies should be listened to. Parenting is something that is learned by doing and not by reading books. Wild animals don't seem to have any trouble parenting their young without any formal training, they do it by instinct (naturally), human parents should give some credence to instinct and stop trying to deny that humans have instinctive behaviors. I have had 3 children and have helped to raise 2 of my grandchildren, Henry is bringing up a nephew, and I will assume that you have children of your own, but correct me if I am wrong. Children don't come with an owners manual, so it's mostly learn as you go, and a good parent will learn from their mistakes and their parents mistakes.
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TSBU
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by TSBU »

Wasn't this a negociation? Ok, I'll leave it in "Three cows and a goat is ethical, but no more" and I'm losing money, only because I like you. What do you say, do we have a deal?
Belinda
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by Belinda »

Henry Quirk, why are you so intransigent? Are you ever able to learn from others who have more learning and experience than you?

First aid, nutrition and cookery, knowledge of childhood infectious fevers, home management, etc. are all important for good parenting and are not "instinctive". Isn't it at least possible that trial- and-error is a risky way to be a parent?
Last edited by Belinda on Thu Jan 19, 2017 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
thedoc
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by thedoc »

Belinda wrote: Even gestating and birthing are better for knowledge. Those "poor brutes" lost many babies and young children under five to accident and disease . Giving birth was more painful and dangerous for women when there was no benefit of modern medical knowledge.

Parenting is not however "spurtin' out young'uns". Parenting can be done by adoptive parents, or nannies. Contrary to you and The Doc all human skills have to be taught . By "human skills" relating to parenting I refer to empathy, first aid, childhood infectious fevers and minor ailments, nutrition, budgeting for a family, household management, expressing affection, the need to sacrifice one's energy and time, a little of child psychology including such problems as autism, depression, and dyslexia.

Back in the day, the village sort of muddled along including much unintentional cruelty to kids.Modern developed societies do in fact need to educate children in parenting, for two reasons:

1. Urbanised societies like most of the USA and like the UK for instance lack trditional village wisdom such as it was.

2. Modern education and knowledge is better in every way for kids and parents ; see my "human skills" list above.

Especially I deplore The Doc's advice on parenting which is nothing but trial and error.
There are some who try to deny that humans are subject to instinct but this is just not true, there are many behaviors that are instinctive. For example a mother doesn't teach a baby how to suckle, that is instinctive from birth. Parents don't teach a baby how to crawl or walk, that is instinctive behavior that only needs the baby to grow and be strong enough to do it. Empathy, expressing affection, and some child psychology are all instinctive, the these are deficient or lacking in a few parents. When my daughter developed appendicitis she was complaining to my wife that her belly hurt, and my wife wasn't sure what to do. I asked her to point to where it hurt, and as soon as she did, I said to call the doctor, and then we took her to the hospital. There was instinctive empathy that she didn't feel well, and learned knowledge about where it hurt. The trick is to know when it's just a belly ache, and when it's something more serious, there is a mix of instinct and learning. Traditional village wisdom was based mostly on instinct and trial and error, and people should not be afraid to follow their instinctive feelings and to learn from their mistakes, but first they need to admit that they have instincts, and have made mistakes.
Last edited by thedoc on Thu Jan 19, 2017 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
thedoc
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by thedoc »

There is a phrase "Paying' for your Raising", and occasionally my daughter will complain about some her children are doing that she had done to us, we just smile at her.
Belinda
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by Belinda »

The Doc wrote:
There are some who try to deny that humans are subject to instinct but this is just not true, there are many behaviors that are instinctive. For example a mother doesn't teach a baby how to suckle, that is instinctive from birth. Parents don't teach a baby how to crawl or walk, that is instinctive behavior that only needs the baby to grow and be strong enough to do it. Empathy, expressing affection, and some child psychology are all instinctive, the these are deficient or lacking in a few parents. When my daughter developed appendicitis she was complaining to my wife that her belly hurt, and my wife wasn't sure what to do. I asked her to point to where it hurt, and as soon as she did, I said to call the doctor, and then we took her to the hospital. The trick is to know when it's just a belly ache, and when it's something more serious, there is a mix of instinct and learning. Traditional village wisdom was based mostly on instinct and trial and error, and people should not be afraid to follow their instinctive feelings and to learn from their mistakes, but first they need to admit that they have instincts, and have made mistakes.
Many mothers need to be instructed by the midwife how to nurse the baby, including those mothers who have been indoctrinated with the belief that breast feeding is yucky or embarrassing.Some human and animal mothers need help to put the baby on to the nipple. The sucking instinct is not quite sufficient in itself. I guess that you are neither an animal farmer nor a midwife, The Doc.

"The trick" cannot be relied upon and your good luck might have been bad luck, if your homespun diagnosis had been wrong. If you actually are a medic as your name implies then you I hope would want patients to be well informed.There is indeed a mixture of instinct and learning. The care of young sick children (typically under the age of two ) cannot safely be left to the instinct or trial and error of parents as babies conditions can deteriorate very fast. I deplore your anti-education attitude.
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TSBU
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by TSBU »

thedoc wrote:
There are some who try to deny that humans are subject to instinct but this is just not true, there are many behaviors that are instinctive. For example a mother doesn't teach a baby how to suckle, that is instinctive from birth. Parents don't teach a baby how to crawl or walk, that is instinctive behavior that only needs the baby to grow and be strong enough to do it. Empathy, expressing affection, and some child psychology are all instinctive, the these are deficient or lacking in a few parents. When my daughter developed appendicitis she was complaining to my wife that her belly hurt, and my wife wasn't sure what to do. I asked her to point to where it hurt, and as soon as she did, I said to call the doctor, and then we took her to the hospital. There was instinctive empathy that she didn't feel well, and learned knowledge about where it hurt. The trick is to know when it's just a belly ache, and when it's something more serious, there is a mix of instinct and learning. Traditional village wisdom was based mostly on instinct and trial and error, and people should not be afraid to follow their instinctive feelings and to learn from their mistakes, but first they need to admit that they have instincts, and have made mistakes.
Maybe you should move this to epistemology or theory of knowledge, then I can show to your insctincts where are you misunderstanding many people.
thedoc
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by thedoc »

Belinda wrote:The Doc wrote:
There are some who try to deny that humans are subject to instinct but this is just not true, there are many behaviors that are instinctive. For example a mother doesn't teach a baby how to suckle, that is instinctive from birth. Parents don't teach a baby how to crawl or walk, that is instinctive behavior that only needs the baby to grow and be strong enough to do it. Empathy, expressing affection, and some child psychology are all instinctive, the these are deficient or lacking in a few parents. When my daughter developed appendicitis she was complaining to my wife that her belly hurt, and my wife wasn't sure what to do. I asked her to point to where it hurt, and as soon as she did, I said to call the doctor, and then we took her to the hospital. The trick is to know when it's just a belly ache, and when it's something more serious, there is a mix of instinct and learning. Traditional village wisdom was based mostly on instinct and trial and error, and people should not be afraid to follow their instinctive feelings and to learn from their mistakes, but first they need to admit that they have instincts, and have made mistakes.
Many mothers need to be instructed by the midwife how to nurse the baby, including those mothers who have been indoctrinated with the belief that breast feeding is yucky or embarrassing.Some human and animal mothers need help to put the baby on to the nipple. The sucking instinct is not quite sufficient in itself. I guess that you are neither an animal farmer nor a midwife, The Doc.

"The trick" cannot be relied upon and your good luck might have been bad luck, if your homespun diagnosis had been wrong. If you actually are a medic as your name implies then you I hope would want patients to be well informed.There is indeed a mixture of instinct and learning. The care of young sick children (typically under the age of two ) cannot safely be left to the instinct or trial and error of parents as babies conditions can deteriorate very fast. I deplore your anti-education attitude.
You seem to misunderstand my post, I am not anti-educational, in fact I applaud getting as much education as possible, but I oppose those who try to deny the existence of human instinct.
thedoc
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by thedoc »

TSBU wrote:
thedoc wrote:
There are some who try to deny that humans are subject to instinct but this is just not true, there are many behaviors that are instinctive. For example a mother doesn't teach a baby how to suckle, that is instinctive from birth. Parents don't teach a baby how to crawl or walk, that is instinctive behavior that only needs the baby to grow and be strong enough to do it. Empathy, expressing affection, and some child psychology are all instinctive, the these are deficient or lacking in a few parents. When my daughter developed appendicitis she was complaining to my wife that her belly hurt, and my wife wasn't sure what to do. I asked her to point to where it hurt, and as soon as she did, I said to call the doctor, and then we took her to the hospital. There was instinctive empathy that she didn't feel well, and learned knowledge about where it hurt. The trick is to know when it's just a belly ache, and when it's something more serious, there is a mix of instinct and learning. Traditional village wisdom was based mostly on instinct and trial and error, and people should not be afraid to follow their instinctive feelings and to learn from their mistakes, but first they need to admit that they have instincts, and have made mistakes.
Maybe you should move this to epistemology or theory of knowledge, then I can show to your insctincts where are you misunderstanding many people.
If you wish to move this, please do so, otherwise just answer it here.
Belinda
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by Belinda »

You seem to misunderstand my post, I am not anti-educational, in fact I applaud getting as much education as possible, but I oppose those who try to deny the existence of human instinct.
That certainly needed making explicit,Doc :)
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TSBU
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by TSBU »

thedoc wrote:
TSBU wrote:
thedoc wrote:
There are some who try to deny that humans are subject to instinct but this is just not true, there are many behaviors that are instinctive. For example a mother doesn't teach a baby how to suckle, that is instinctive from birth. Parents don't teach a baby how to crawl or walk, that is instinctive behavior that only needs the baby to grow and be strong enough to do it. Empathy, expressing affection, and some child psychology are all instinctive, the these are deficient or lacking in a few parents. When my daughter developed appendicitis she was complaining to my wife that her belly hurt, and my wife wasn't sure what to do. I asked her to point to where it hurt, and as soon as she did, I said to call the doctor, and then we took her to the hospital. There was instinctive empathy that she didn't feel well, and learned knowledge about where it hurt. The trick is to know when it's just a belly ache, and when it's something more serious, there is a mix of instinct and learning. Traditional village wisdom was based mostly on instinct and trial and error, and people should not be afraid to follow their instinctive feelings and to learn from their mistakes, but first they need to admit that they have instincts, and have made mistakes.
Maybe you should move this to epistemology or theory of knowledge, then I can show to your insctincts where are you misunderstanding many people.
If you wish to move this, please do so, otherwise just answer it here.
Quick answer then. Well, if you search for it, You'll find people who say that nobody has insctints in the way you (almost) define them, but usually, when people say that there aren't insctintcs, they are trying to say that every thought in our head is made after a process of thought (more or less complex) (if you look for people who say that the Earth is plane, you'll find them too). Of course, thinking itself is an insctint, and what we see, hear, etc, is evidently not a process of thought. if you want it that way, people who say that there are no insctints, are usually saying that they are "smaller". And EVERY human knowledge is learnt with experience, try, error, thinking and hearing. Nobody can know anything about reality only with books (or insctints)

Let's say the example you said, your daughter says that she is hurt.
You see her face and she looks truly hurt (not just the typical kid thing), even though you can't put in words all the things you see. That doesn't make the thing an insctint, you just learnt and you can't remember when, how to interpretate faces, and your daughter actions (by try and error). Or you see red and you think in danger, even though you can't say why. (That's probably an association with blood, stop signlas, etc). Or suddently you see a snake moving in the floor without knowing what is a snake and you jump (and that's just fear for the unknown learnt by getting hitten by the unknown, specially if it is moving fast in the floor)... etc. We don't have an exact plan in our brain, just very vague things that tend to end like the same plan for everybody.

The question itself can't be answered easily, and treating a boy witout knowing what the hell are you doing is as stupid as treating a boy only kowing exactly what to do. Both choices are absurd and impossible, and talking about the "better nivelation" is absurd too. This isn't a matter about citys or villages (My grandma had 6 kids in a village, she gave life in her house, one of the times, extractig milk from a cow, two of the babies died during that, you humans don't know how to make a shit, litteraly, search for it, you are making your poo in a wrong position for your body) We are not robots, nor bunnys.

Intelligent people are people who need less experience to develop better plans. And there are people who is better for some things and worse for others, there can be families with many children and compltely idiots with them, and people without them who would have been 1000 times better. "Don't take drugs if you have children, don't make childrens because you just wanted sex and you didn't have time to buy a condom" that makes many people with no children better than people with them.

Just act with what you consider truth and hear to what you consider wize, treating a children is not very different than treating an adult. And they are not equal either. No easy answers, no politics, and I want three cows and a goat.
Walker
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Re: How much wealth is it ethical to have when the person next to you does not even have enough to eat?

Post by Walker »

TSBU wrote: Just act with what you consider truth and hear to what you consider wize, treating a children is not very different than treating an adult. And they are not equal either. No easy answers, no politics, and I want three cows and a goat.
That's exactly right.

When you reach the point where you must address toddlers and children as Miss and Sir, and you have no choice about it, then the child learns his or default and natural place in the universe, as a respected and autonomous being. This is a God-given right when put in the context of considering the foundation of a nation. :wink: This really requires no rule-book or classroom instruction. You realize you have no choice about it, when you say it spontaneously, without thought or calculation.

What necessitates the imperative of the salutations Miss and Sir is that they precede a declaration of any truth spoken to child, no matter how minor in the grand scheme, in a way that respects the child’s capacity at the particular stage of development. For example: please put on your shoes now, Sir, followed later by, let me help you with those shoes, 'cause it's walkin time.

Specific techniques of child care do need to be taught, such as feeding and cleaning and keeping healthy, which is the value of the older people, who also learned from older people. It’s best to learn from people because the theory is put into context at the moment of necessity, and the necessity isn’t to earn a grade on a test issued by an institution.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

"Are you ever able to learn from others who have more learning and experience than you?"

As I say upthread: 'Yeah, I listen to experts...sometimes I even learn sumthin'...what I don't do is let myself get rattled by them (cuz, ya know, sometimes experts are just plain wrong).'


'First aid, nutrition and cookery, knowledge of childhood infectious fevers, home management, etc. are all important for good parenting and are not "instinctive".'

All those things can certainly aid in parenting but not a one of 'em 'is' parenting.

Parenting, at heart, is love evidenced by great efforts to preserve and further the child. Nuthin' is more natural.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

Doc sez : You seem to misunderstand my post, I am not anti-educational, in fact I applaud getting as much education as possible, but I oppose those who try to deny the existence of human instinct.

Belinda sez: That certainly needed making explicit,Doc

No, it didn't...Doc's meaning is as plain as his speech.
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