Taking sides: Children vs. (non-human) animals

i hate to be one of those people, but i do think kids at their best tend to be better people in general. before they get ruined by life. it's not just the innocence thing, it's more than that. it's that freshness. and that includes thinking. and expressing themselves. and creating. playing. they are some sort of ideal as far as people go. and i know i just said that most of them bore me. and they do bore me, but i would say 1 to 10 is kinda the coolest time to be human if you are the curious sort or excited by new things. learning can be so exciting for kids that age. and its sad that the end result can be a dull adult who trudges through life. it's the best time to watch your kids become people too. it's cool.

it's true that she was (in part) repeating things that she had been taught (hey, just like adults do!), but the more important aspect of the conversation was that she was able to answer questions I put to her by extrapolating from the facts she had learned to draw conclusions - which is complex thinking that most adults don't bother with cuz they're just "eh I'll look it up on wikipedia if I ever have to"

xp

that was you teaching your child something

we're talking about children's ability to have an interesting, deep, emotional, or intelligent conversation. at that point, your child was not even aware of those scientific phenomena so it was hardly a conversation

not to take away from any child's ability to comprehend facts and the natural operation of the world. i think most kids are very capable

― F♯ A♯ (∞), Thursday, December 15, 2016 4:27 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol this is dumb. "the conversation you had was in my opinion not interesting, deep, emotional or intelligent."

eh at this point if your argument is that children are not capable of having an "interesting, deep, emotional or intelligent conversation" i don't know why im going to bother

can't wait for you guys to agree

hey outic

its a strange thread for parents to double down on the wonderment of parenthood iycwim

― loudmouth darraghmac ween (darraghmac), Thursday, 15 December 2016 19:28 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

being as pissy as lex from the other direction is still u getting pissy as lex in an internet thread about children vs dogs literally an internet thread about children vs dogs cmon ta fuck

scott (and Picasso) otm about the creativity thing too - "all artists are children"

xp

sorry darraghmac I'll try to throw more comedy joeks in

I'm sure lex will love that

Yah I'm interested in all those brain & personality development parts of kids too, in fact between that and giving/receiving affection I think those are basically the only reasonable reasons to HAVE kids. But I would just need to keep my interactions with them to about 1-2 hours a day. Basically I would make an OK kind of dad who is never responsible for bedtime and retreats into his study after dinner, that's kind of my ideal.

darragh people have spent almost 2 decades on this site you honestly dont tihnk people are gonna get pissy, it happens it is okay

Except when lex does it, apparently.

mehhh im done

these tacos are too tasty

"mehhh im done"

spoken like a true adult.

on a message board

these tacos are too tasty and I need to poop

could you articulate your feelings more clearly plz

the chili is givin me an existential crisis

much better

it's cool. a little lite trolling never hurt anyone. if you ever want to drop some of that adult critical thinking on here though, just go for it.

marcos otm throughout obv

What a weird read! I don't know what I have done as a father. I don't feel like I especially encouraged my daughter to walk, when she wanted to stand up I helped hold her hands, and then one day , she just stood up and started walking. Same with talking, I read to her, but never feel like I was a speech therapist teaching her to speak, one day she just started talking. I'm in awe of my child everyday, because she amazes me. My heart goes out to parents with children that have needs different than my child. I'm probably a boring parent.

nobody puts Baby on a rooftop

*dirty dances away from this disaster*

if you all want someone else to complain about, I don't like dogs

I dont like dogs and i even less like owners who treat dogs like humans, call them "furbabies" and talk endlessly about them, and mourn them for 10 years after theyre dead. That just ... god, have a child.

Lol

Thorstein Veblen was a champion dog-hater, as immortalized in several passages in The Theory of the Leisure Class, so you are in distinguished company silby.

i beg your pardon, trayce, furbabies do not die, they go to the rainbow bridge, please get your "facts" straight.

people who hate kids and make everyone around them aware of how much they hate kids are creepy

UGGGGH at the cloyingness of anything to do with 'rainbow bridge'.

also getting pissy at people for mourning their pets for however long is also creepy

granted not in the same way but it sets off the same "o_0 jfc get over it" thing in my brain

i dislike the "furbaby" thing and talking about pets like they're you're children but that's an aesthetic thing, it has no bearing on how much of a shit people give about their pets

has anyone itt actually said anything in favor of either children or pets

no way of checking I suppose

well i went back to the point where multiple grown adults argued about whether or not children are good conversationalists but my eyes glazed over and now i'm dead and here's my corpse

wait is mourning a pet now unacceptable???

multiple grown adults argued about whether or not children are good conversationalists but my eyes glazed over and now i'm dead and here's my corpse

for real that was just...that any adult could argue a 5yo is as good a conversationalist just encapsulates how boring and awful people get on parenthood, when their level of conversation is reduced to talking about their child, in whom i am uninterested. it explains a lot

diversity adds perspective to a conversation

will someone please ban me from this hell

there's a deep irony waiting to be unearthed here somewhere beneath the bizarre oblivion that's required to earnestly assess children's worth, as an entire group, based on their lack of ability to converse at the level of adults.

I don't know about conversation, but for some parents, when they see their child's face, they are taken away to that special place. And if they'd stare too long, they'd probably break down and cry.

Gotta check the privilege of sitting judgement of who is boring and who is not.

I was gonna wade in last night on whether we should assess the worth of, say, adults with learning disabilities based on their ability to discuss Vorticism but then I thought "this cluster is probably fucked enough right now" so peace

the cluster cannot take any more

no one is "assessing the worth" of anyone. local garda why are you exaggerating everything??

I wasn't talking about you there lex, as I said ages ago I think a simple statement of "I don't enjoy the company of children" is understandable and reasonable

there was a whole wild tangent that ∞ was getting into about expression and communication and ideas that bears no resemblance to my experience of what individual humans - kids or adults - can share with us if we're receptive to them, or about what interactions and relationships really are about, or about any experience I recognise about being one being in a world full of beings tbh

i'll leave that for others to decide xpost.

lex started it

theyre not capable of thinking in complex ways due to their lack of real life experience

you can talk to them about social justice, the environment, equality, but it ends there. their reactions cannot be compared to an adult and are scientifically primitive

I mean, there are umpteen ways that this is just wrong, to me, but the heart of the wrongness is that somehow "complex" thinking produces the kinds of interaction most worthy of our time. I mean, to go back to animals for a minute, how much I value interacting with a dog or a cat is not remotely predicated on what I believe to be the complexity of their abstract thought

what is it that children fail to do, in conversations, which adults have learned to do?

i'll leave that for others to decide xpost.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Friday, December 16, 2016 9:57 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

others can decide what they want but you've consistently exaggerated everything i've said to a ludicrous extent. you're a fucking disingenuous weirdo for it.