[minitrollster]

Here's the thing: actions have consequences. Bad actions result in bad consequences. Such is the learning process of lots of species. Do you think training pets by reinforcing good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour is modern and supported by "state propaganda", whatever that means?

I do believe that prison systems can be good at rehabilitation. Maybe not in the US, where you seem to be from, but it's working in many other countries in the world, look at the Nordic countries' prison system if you want proof. And even if the prison system doesn't manage to rehabilitate the person, it serves as a punishment. I don't see what's wrong with punishing behaviour that has been deemed unacceptable by society. At least it's better than doing nothing, and in my opinion has more of an impact than doing nothing and surrounding him "with a loving community".

[yelsgib]

Who do you trust to administer punishment?

What did they do to earn that trust?

The concept that one class of humans is the "punishers" who are teaching the other class(es) underlies most (if not all) fascist/authoritarian/racist ideologies of the last 3 centuries.

Of course you don't see what's wrong with punishing behavior that has been deemed unacceptable by society. Unfortunately, behavior that society is largely OK with (e.g. drug use) is punished nontheless - unfortunately, society can (and has often been) quite wrong about what should be punished (homosexuality, female sexuality, prostitution, sexual "perversion," drug & alcohol use, to name a few).

The fact is that the kid involved in this story didn't do anything "wrong" that could be easily trained out of him. Probably he has a whole set of complicated complexes of problems. For instance, one thing that many people in the US and UK (and other places) seem to suffer from is sexual/touch deprivation. Maybe if the kid were getting laid instead of playing on his laptop he wouldn't have engaged in such weirdo behaviors. I'm just sayin' - legalize drugs and prostitution and 99% of these problems go away.

[xentronium]

> I'm just sayin' - legalize drugs and prostitution and 99% of these problems go away.

While I mostly agree with you, this statement is quite a long shot.

[minitrollster]

>The concept that one class of humans is the "punishers" who are teaching the other class(es) underlies most (if not all) fascist/authoritarian/racist ideologies of the last 3 centuries.

So I'm Hitler now.

>legalize drugs and prostitution and 99% of these problems go away.

Seriously?

[yelsgib]

I don't feed trolls.

[Tichy]

Do you think kids should be trained like pets? It seems a lot of people do, they also think they own their kids somehow. Sad...

As I said in another comment: personally I hope my kid will end up doing what is right because he believes it the right thing to do, not because of fear of punishment.

Not saying that punishment is never necessary (I am not sure). Obviously it works, because people (and animals) can learn from pain. You learn if you touch the stove that it is hot and will burn you, so you will not touch it again.

Smart people might realize that their parents or society punishing them is not quite the same as a stove burning them, though. The one is a law of nature (heat burns), the other is just man made laws that can be resented and broken. Once you have installed that resentment against society and obedience in a person, you might have a real problem on your hands.

[minitrollster]

I do not think that kids should be trained like pets. They are more intelligent and react to a more nuanced approach. My point about punishment just means that bad actions should be sanctioned and good actions rewarded.

My parents never physically punished me, but as soon as I was old enough to understand what was going on, just knowing that I'd disappointed them would make me feel extremely bad. There's no resentment there. They taught me how to behave in a way that is acceptable in society and if I misbehaved I was aware that I was wrong. Hopefully that's how everything would go.

But as always, there will be bad apples (and good ones, too). What do you do when someone's such a sociopath that they don't care when they hurt other people? That's when I believe that punishment should be carried on by the society and not the parents, in the form of jail, probation, juvenile court, etc.

[Tichy]

Sure - I think if people endanger other people, they should be locked away. In some (most?) cases we don't know how to "cure" criminals yet.

[philwelch]

> Do you think kids should be trained like pets?

Is there any empirical evidence that operant conditioning doesn't work on humans?

[Tichy]

I am pretty sure it works, my question is do you want it for your kids?

[philwelch]

Operant conditioning isn't actually harmful, as long as you're not operant conditioning your kids into doing harmful things or into not doing important things.

[Tichy]

Well it seems to go against my values. I want my kids to think for themselves, not merely be executors of my authoritarian commands. I am not their boss.

[philwelch]

Children are not small adults. There's a point in their lives when not throwing temper tantrums in public is what you want out of them and they're just not mature enough to negotiate with reasonably. This is also the age where hopefully you're going to have to install some sort of conscience, since kids aren't really born with one, either.