[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> Surely there would be people like me who could resist the dancing plague.

Intelligent humans are in some ways the dumbest humans. You assume that your consciousness/will is the only "code" executing inside your skull.

It isn't. You're just unaware of the rest. What is it doing, and how much influence or control does it have on your overt behavior? Well, wouldn't you like to know.

The biggest part of the illusion that "you" are in control, is your capacity to re-interpret your behaviors after the fact. Someone asks you, "hey, why'd you A?" and your brain panics at the idea of blurting out "I honestly don't know". There has to be an answer. You're not exactly lying when you come up with that answer, it's more like your best guess. I think in some ways, all those teachers and other authority figures that punished you extra if you said "I dunno" when they asked why'd you break the rules have something to do with this too.

Finally, if you could be the one person immune to so-called dancing plagues... would you really want to be the inhuman freak who didn't?

[jazzyjackson]

Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders What the part that isn't thinkin', isn't thinkin' of Should you worry when the skullhead is in front of you Or is it worse because it's always waiting Where your eyes don't go

Where your eyes don't go a part of you is hovering It's a nightmare that you'll never be discoverin' You're free to come and go, or talk like Kurtis Blow But there's a pair of eyes, in back of your head

Where your eyes don't go a filthy scarecrow waves its broomstick arms When you turn around to look it's gone behind you On its face it's wearin' your confused expression Where your eyes don't go

[dmvdoug]

I don’t know of any teachers, who punish teenagers extra when they say they don’t know why they did something. Honestly, they’re just being honest. They really don’t know why they do impulsive things.

[maxbond]

I dunno about teachers, but I definitely remember being a kid and adults having explosive reactions to my saying, "I don't know why."

I think, at least here in the States, we've improved our cultural understanding of how to appropriately talk to/discipline children since then, however.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I read alot. I probably see 5-10 new "theories" on how to raise children per year, and have for the past few decades.

I've never seen anything even resembling a "don't punish kids if they say they don't know why they misbehaved". I do remember being chastised for it when I was a child myself. And in the last 3 or 4 years, I've seen hints of a few psychological studies that have posited that people often don't know why they do things, but make up reasonings for their behavior after the fact.

But never has anyone put two and two together that I am aware of.

I could write books on the evidence I have for why we've not "improved our understanding of how to discipline children".

[maxbond]

> I've never seen anything even resembling a "don't punish kids if they say they don't know why they misbehaved".

I don't know very much about parenting strategies (I don't have any children yet so I've never taken the time), but I feel like that's compatible with some things I've heard about responsive parenting. I'm guessing you'd know more though?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I wouldn't claim I'm anything other than "well read". Definitely not an expert.

Based on past exchanges, there's a 20% chance of someone linking to something from 10 or 15 years ago titled "Don't punish your kids if they say they don't know why they misbehaved".

If so, I'll be happy to see it. If not, still a decent chance that it's out there, and no one knew it to link to it.

But I'm unwilling to assume it exists merely because I'd like to live in a world where it was true. Someone's going to have to show me.

[AbrahamParangi]

Highschool does typically reward bullshit (especially in the humanities where the bar for "verifiably bullshit" is much higher) over "idk lol"

[dmvdoug]

My response to post-hoc rationalizations is to stare and go, “Mmm hmmm, you have no idea do you?”

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

For the ones you can recognize as post-hoc, sure.

[dmvdoug]

I just assume they all are. Then, when someone gives me an actually thought-out reason for why they did something and it seems plausibly pre-hoc (so to speak), I can be legitimately surprised and delighted. But in all honesty, I’m talking about early-to-mid teenagers, for whom most random outbursts are just that, random. Which is not, as it turns out, that big a deal. Adults get huffy because they take it personally. Dudes and dudettes, they’re teenagers. Chill.

[bigfryo]

Yes, humans are evolved to be very conformist and to act in accordance with the rest of the tribe, even though we are evolved also to see ourselves as independent actors.. sociobiologist E O Wilson said that mankind is the primates species that adopted the social model of the ants bees and termites.. and those insects are of course highly conformist and they imitate each other

[maskedinvader]

Alright fair that as a human myself I wouldn’t know what I’d fall prey to, but until we can see this in modern times with video recordings and learn more about the actual mechanism here , I’d like to continue believe this is BS and probably an urban myth.

[lostlogin]

You assume there isn’t a disease process at play. There could have been, eg Sydenham’s chorea.