Suicide Victims are Cowards?

[EquALLity]

^Yeah, basically.

I'm still going to respond to brimstone though.

[PsYcHo]

Having known 2 people closely who have committed suicide, I think people call it cowardly because they are angry. Angry that someone they cared for did something, despite the reasons, that is the epitome of selfishness. After a close female friend of mine killed herself as a teenager, I felt angry and hurt, but that was an example of my being selfish as well. As I have gotten older, I consider the possibility that instead of being selfish, perhaps especially in the case of my female friend, she was just taking control of her life in the most extreme was possible. I was angry not only because I would have helped her, but I was really angry at myself for not realizing she was in such a place in her life.

[Red]

You know I've never thought of that before. That actually explains a lot more than I could ever have.........

[EquALLity]

Then when somebody says something like "suicide is cowardly", you should reply with something like "Maybe, but don't you agree that seeking treatment for depression is brave?".

If you just negate what the person says, then not only are you likely wrong on a factual point, but he or she will just continue to say it without understanding how to qualify it to be more helpful.

Ok, but it also makes it wrong to call a person with anxiety a coward like you were suggesting before.

Not all people who identify as Emo are all about that stuff.

Blah, whatever. People define it in different ways, and it really doesn't matter anymore.

People are afraid to seek treatment because it means admitting they have depression and seeing a therapist, and if people with depression are stigmatized -- or people seeing therapists are stigmatized -- they don't want to be put in that box and be subject to being stigmatized.

Oh, I think I see what you're saying.

What stigma are you advocating for exactly?

See the top of this post.

The part about clarifying things to people? I don't see how that explains it.

Then it's he said she said. Did you intend to attack him? No. Did she intent to attack you? Yes. One says yes, one says no. Just a big misunderstanding.

Perhaps in a very small amount of cases, but usually it's pretty obvious.

If it's an insult/knocking over books/glaring/rumors it's obviously meant to attack, for example.
What's a situation you would find unclear?

What if it was done out of concern? What if it's legitimate criticism?

...Rumors and calling people fat, out of concern?
Calling people 'fat' isn't constructive criticism. It's just being an asshole.

If people are torturing a cat in front of you, you'd better not call them mean or suggest they are cruel to animals, since it might hurt their feelings. Right?
There are legitimate reasons to criticize people. And some your teachers might not agree with.

There's a huge difference between criticizing a person for being immoral and criticizing someone in a way that is obviously intended to hurt that person just to hurt that person.

And it seems pretty dismissive to diminish bullying to 'hurting peoples' feelings'.
This is a real and serious issue. Bullying has clear links to mental health issues.

It's because there's no way to limit that without restricting legitimately important speech -- like criticizing people for their actions, or expressing concern for a peer.

What situations are you thinking of in which there could be confusion whether or not something is expressing concern or bullying?

"Goddamn fat bitch!"
"What, what did I do?! I was just expressing concern!"

There are things that I would say, without it being the intent to bully but rather persuade, that would be banned under any such provision.
Invent a provision that will allow me to say anything I might legitimately need to say while effectively squashing mean spirited bullying, and I'll be behind it.

What things?

Religion is empirically and logically false.
Informing somebody that he or she is overweight can be empirically true.

'Informing' somebody?

"Goddamn fat bitch!"
"What, I was just informing her! I'm trying to help her! I just want to make sure she knows that, because obviously she doesn't. Just looking out for peoples' health."

Come on.

You have to rely on an authority with a scientific world view. Science is the most objective and bias free standard you will find, which is the only reason I'd trust it.

I don't think that can work in practice. If we can ban those ideas, why can't we ban other ideas deemed wrong by those in power?

Nope, quite the opposite: It's much more subjective. There is no formal logic which will prove it on paper, and there is no instrument available to measure it.

This is why in Christian schools, for example, Christian teachers allow Christian students to bully atheist students by telling them they're going to hell, etc. but will discipline an atheist student severely for saying anything in reply.

You see that kind of bias on forums too, when the prevailing mindset is interrupted; lots of one-sided moderation (not intentional, but as a result of a bias in perception).
As an atheist, you may have experienced that on other forums, where you have to walk on egg shells, but the theists can let it all out at you. If not, you should probably have a try, and see how one sided it gets even when the moderators think they're upholding an impartial position and being even handed -- they will see things you say as attacks when they are not, and they will see things theists say in attack as just poorly worded but well-intentioned.

It's not obvious, and the judges are highly subject to bias on these issues. This has been my experience throughout life, and it's a big problem in research on psychology (evaluation being so subject to bias). Minorities need fear bias.

I don't have time at the moment, but try to look up some studies on bias in psychology when it comes to attitude or tone/interpretation of what people say.

Ok, in certain cases, it can be less clear, but it's often very obvious.

What you're talking about with Christian teachers is merely an issue of extreme teacher bias, though.

Looks at the litigation Jihad, and the political over-sensitivity to Muslims generally in the liberal media.

The 'litigation jihad' doesn't seem like a real threat. It's just some radical group calling for radicalism, but it's not really getting anywhere. I can't find any recent articles about it, and a lot of the stuff I am finding about it is related to Pamela Geller, who's crazy.

What are you referring to when you say 'liberal media'?

I won't want to allow it, but we must because we can't stop it without interfering with more important things (and I don't think mechanisms in place trying to stop it are useful).

I'm not convinced that this is the case.

I think it's dangerous to child development to employ the methods desired to stop bullying, and I don't think it would work either.

Well, I think bullying is dangerous to child development.

How are the methods desired to stop bullying damaging to child development?

Now if all of the teachers and administrative staff were atheists and vegans, then I'd probably be fine with whatever policy you wanted in place, since the bias would only be against the carnist and theist kids, and nobody sharing good ideas or providing legitimate criticism would be stifled; although it may still destroy the potential for important education on critical thinking by creating an echo chamber.

That would still create bias though, and that's not fair. It doesn't matter if they disagree with reasonable positions; they should still be able to share their ideas. You can't oppress the free exchange of ideas without building resentment.

[brimstoneSalad]

Ok, but it also makes it wrong to call a person with anxiety a coward like you were suggesting before.

Like I said, there are two ways to see it, depending on how the person identifies and reacts to it. It can be identified with and be considered existential cowardice, OR it can be seen as a disease (something other than the person) that the person is brave to seek treatment for.

What stigma are you advocating for exactly?

A stigma on denial of the disease, and on not seeking treatment.

See the top of this post.

The part about clarifying things to people? I don't see how that explains it.

I don't know what this is about anymore.

Perhaps in a very small amount of cases, but usually it's pretty obvious.

It may seem obvious to you, but you have biases too when you look on these situations; you can easily misread them.

If it's an insult/knocking over books/glaring/rumors it's obviously meant to attack, for example.
What's a situation you would find unclear?

It wasn't an insult, it was a badly worded friendly jab by mistake. It wasn't deliberately knocking over books, it was an accident. It wasn't glaring, it was staring off into space and thinking about math. It wasn't starting rumors, it was a miscommunication.

Nothing outside of mathematics and rigorous logic is so obvious that it is not open to interpretation.

Saying the meaning of human interactions is clear or obvious is like saying the "true" meaning of the bible is obvious too; yet people will probably never agree on it.

...Rumors and calling people fat, out of concern?

Yes. Wasn't it you talking about your friend's association with a gang? That could easily turn into a nasty rumor somehow, and unintentionally.
It's easy to express legitimate concern for somebody's weight, health, or diet. It's also easy to veil an insult in feigned concern. It's impossible for an observer to reliably tell them apart.

Calling people 'fat' isn't constructive criticism. It's just being an asshole.

It can be constructive criticism, or an insult. Depends on the intent. And since you can't read people's minds, and people are frequently offending each other by accident even with good intentions (have you NEVER in your life accidentally offended somebody?) so you can't rely on the recipient either, it's impossible to really know which it was.

There's a huge difference between criticizing a person for being immoral and criticizing someone in a way that is obviously intended to hurt that person just to hurt that person.

It's rarely obvious. As soon as you ban overt insults, kids adapt and start using more veiled insults and condescension to hurt each other.
You should take a look at some forums that forbid personal attacks -- they are not nicer or more hospitable places, and they are far from free of bullying.

It just doesn't work. People just change their means of attack and stay every bit as nasty, if not more so because it's all "bottled up".

And it seems pretty dismissive to diminish bullying to 'hurting peoples' feelings'.

That's what it is. I said if you have a way to stop it that would work and wouldn't have other serious negative consequences to development, that would be fine.

This is a real and serious issue. Bullying has clear links to mental health issues.

A better method is to address that, and provide more counselors for kids, and give them the tools to fight back against bullies, and learn more innate self esteem to help them survive the assaults.

What situations are you thinking of in which there could be confusion whether or not something is expressing concern or bullying?

"Goddamn fat bitch!"
"What, what did I do?! I was just expressing concern!"

That's pretty benign. When you ALLOW personal attacks, they become more trite, repetitive, and easier to ignore. You know who your enemies are, and everything is out in the open.
As soon as you force the bullies to be more creative, the attacks become much more personal and nasty, and hit much harder.
When people are cruel under the guise of being nice, it can cut so much deeper.

What things?

Saying that certain beliefs and actions make somebody a bad person in some respect, for example.

'Informing' somebody?

"Hi, wasn't your name..."
"Julie"
"Right, sorry. We haven't talked much before, can I sit here?"
"...Sure" (happy)
"You seem like a sweet person, I hope we can be friends."
"I... yes, I'd love that" (so happy)
"That's great. As your friend, I hope I can be honest with you."
"I guess"
"You know, I'm worried about you. I think maybe you have been misled. The "healthy at any weight" thing is a myth, you know?"
"..."
"Yeah, obesity is really terrible for you. I can tell by looking, your BMI is really unhealthy, you need to stop eating so much. The only way to lose weight it calories in vs. calories out. I'd say you could do some exercise, but you know how people will judge you if they see your exercising... so terrible. You just have to have some self control. Stop eating all of those cooking and ice cream, you know? Take care of yourself"
"It's my genes"
"That's a myth too. Anybody can be thin if they just have some self control. Anyway, all of that food you're eating is also wasteful. There are people starving on the streets, and you're eating enough for two or three people. How can you call yourself a good person when you're being so wasteful, and the only result is to make you more obese and less healthy? You're going to die soon, you're wasting your life, and the lives of others who are dying so you can be morbidly obese."

Read that with a tone of sarcasm and condescension, or with compassion. Where's the line?
And a slight rewording in either direction would still be just as blurry, but could cut MUCH harder, or soften the blow and add encouragement.

I don't think that can work in practice. If we can ban those ideas, why can't we ban other ideas deemed wrong by those in power?

If those who are in power are scientists, then you're doing pretty well. But that restricts their ability to judge right and wrong ideas to those which are making scientific claims. That's the key point here, and the theme of both of these discussions. There have to be lines, and you can't ban things based on opinions which are subject to bias.

Ok, in certain cases, it can be less clear, but it's often very obvious.

The only reason it's obvious in your school is because the students are not reliably punished for making is obvious. As soon as you punish obvious attacks, they evolve, and become much less obvious, but often much more cruel too.

What you're talking about with Christian teachers is merely an issue of extreme teacher bias, though.

All teachers are biased. They favor the teacher's pet, or the students they like, whose constructive criticism they will interpret as well-intentioned (whether it was or not), and whose adversaries' words they will view as attacks (whether they are or not).
It goes beyond that, too, to various degrees of bias across gender, race, religion, academic performance, etc.

The only teachers who wouldn't be biased are robots.
If you want to put robots in control, then we may have something, but then the task is in coming up with computer software that can detect insults and distinguish them from non-insults. This is non-trivial.

What are you referring to when you say 'liberal media'?

The stuff Sam Harries criticizes with regard to its apologia for Islam, and cry of Islamophobia.

I'm not convinced that this is the case.

You don't need to be. And I don't need to be. We should agree to not do it because there is no evidence of it being more effective than harmful.
When it comes to policy, the burden of proof usually lies on the people making the argument that we should enact a certain policy (expend resources).

If there's no evidence for this yet, there are many other things we can do with those resources that have evidence (after school programs for at risk youth, etc.).
We should err on the side of non-intervention when we're not pretty sure what we're doing will have good results and be cost effective.

Now, that said, I would be fine with instituting these policies in some schools with the intention of collecting data and performing a social experiment, since the information itself is a good that can come out of it. Kind of like Think About This's thread on the lamb.

Well, I think bullying is dangerous to child development.

It's a bit of a sink or swim life lesson. We could do a lot better. But people who survive bullying can develop life skills that help them cope with conflict later in life. The sad thing is that not everybody survives.

How are the methods desired to stop bullying damaging to child development?

You can't protect them forever. And unfortunately, we don't have many better systems in place to teach people to deal with bullies in the real world beyond letting bullies teach them in the slightly safer environment of a school.

That would still create bias though, and that's not fair.

Yes, it would be a bias. But I don't care about it being "fair" (that's subjective, and I don't think it has much meaning), I just want it to have good outcomes. I'm fine with a bias against religion and meat eating if it might discourage those practices.

It doesn't matter if they disagree with reasonable positions; they should still be able to share their ideas.

How is that useful, aside from promoting critical thinking (as I said)?

You can't oppress the free exchange of ideas without building resentment.

Then how do you stop bullying without just making it worse?

Anyway, of course you can. That's how religion has worked for thousands of years. When Islam took over a region, it stamped out everything else. There aren't meaningful secret pockets of extinct religions surviving in little bubbles resenting the new one.

The problem, as I see it, is dogma, and a lack of critical thinking, which is dangerous in its own way.

[EquALLity]

Like I said, there are two ways to see it, depending on how the person identifies and reacts to it. It can be identified with and be considered existential cowardice, OR it can be seen as a disease (something other than the person) that the person is brave to seek treatment for.

So it is your position that a person trying to fix a mental illness is not at fault for it, and only that a person who refuses is?
I think that this contradicts other things that you've stated, but if that's your position now, then ok.

A stigma on denial of the disease, and on not seeking treatment.

Oh, ok. I'm not sure if I agree with that.

Instead of stigmatizing people who already have mental issues, we should just encourage them to get help.

I don't know what this is about anymore.

I know I take a long time to reply sometimes, but you could just re-read that small section...
I asked if you were suggesting that, prior to trying to heal, that people with anxiety are automatically cowards. Not cowardly (as in they are more cowardly than they would be if they were getting treatment), but actual cowards.

It may seem obvious to you, but you have biases too when you look on these situations; you can easily misread them.

Everyone has bias to an extent, but as a teacher, you are supposed to fight your bias.

It wasn't an insult, it was a badly worded friendly jab by mistake. It wasn't deliberately knocking over books, it was an accident. It wasn't glaring, it was staring off into space and thinking about math. It wasn't starting rumors, it was a miscommunication.

Nothing outside of mathematics and rigorous logic is so obvious that it is not open to interpretation.

Saying the meaning of human interactions is clear or obvious is like saying the "true" meaning of the bible is obvious too; yet people will probably never agree on it.

Perhaps if something questionable happens once, it can be let go.
But after a student reports that a specific person has been doing questionable acts consistently, it's not so open to interpretation anymore.

Yes. Wasn't it you talking about your friend's association with a gang? That could easily turn into a nasty rumor somehow, and unintentionally.
It's easy to express legitimate concern for somebody's weight, health, or diet. It's also easy to veil an insult in feigned concern. It's impossible for an observer to reliably tell them apart.

I see how rumors can accidentally happen, ok. But I think other forms of bullying are more clear.

It can be constructive criticism, or an insult. Depends on the intent. And since you can't read people's minds, and people are frequently offending each other by accident even with good intentions (have you NEVER in your life accidentally offended somebody?) so you can't rely on the recipient either, it's impossible to really know which it was.

There's a difference between what something actually is and what that something is intended to be.
A person might be trying to give constructive criticism by calling someone a fat bitch, but in reality, that person is just being a douche-bag.

That's what it is. I said if you have a way to stop it that would work and wouldn't have other serious negative consequences to development, that would be fine.

I see no reason to believe that bullying has serious negative consequences to development.
Do you have any evidence to support that claim? It seems like you're largely speculating.

A better method is to address that, and provide more counselors for kids, and give them the tools to fight back against bullies, and learn more innate self esteem to help them survive the assaults.

I think that's a good idea too, but you still can't just let the bullies go unchecked.

That's pretty benign. When you ALLOW personal attacks, they become more trite, repetitive, and easier to ignore. You know who your enemies are, and everything is out in the open.
As soon as you force the bullies to be more creative, the attacks become much more personal and nasty, and hit much harder.
When people are cruel under the guise of being nice, it can cut so much deeper.

People can still be creative if you allow personal attacks.
If they want to be mean, and they think that being more tricky about it will hit harder, then they'll do that anyway. So you might as well ban the obvious bullying.

I also don't consider calling someone a 'fat bitch' benign.

Saying that certain beliefs and actions make somebody a bad person in some respect, for example.

It might sometimes be useful to do that, but the slight positive that comes out of that is insignificant compared to the harm that comes from bullying.

"Hi, wasn't your name..."
"Julie"
"Right, sorry. We haven't talked much before, can I sit here?"
"...Sure" (happy)
"You seem like a sweet person, I hope we can be friends."
"I... yes, I'd love that" (so happy)
"That's great. As your friend, I hope I can be honest with you."
"I guess"
"You know, I'm worried about you. I think maybe you have been misled. The "healthy at any weight" thing is a myth, you know?"
"..."
"Yeah, obesity is really terrible for you. I can tell by looking, your BMI is really unhealthy, you need to stop eating so much. The only way to lose weight it calories in vs. calories out. I'd say you could do some exercise, but you know how people will judge you if they see your exercising... so terrible. You just have to have some self control. Stop eating all of those cooking and ice cream, you know? Take care of yourself"
"It's my genes"
"That's a myth too. Anybody can be thin if they just have some self control. Anyway, all of that food you're eating is also wasteful. There are people starving on the streets, and you're eating enough for two or three people. How can you call yourself a good person when you're being so wasteful, and the only result is to make you more obese and less healthy? You're going to die soon, you're wasting your life, and the lives of others who are dying so you can be morbidly obese."

Read that with a tone of sarcasm and condescension, or with compassion. Where's the line?
And a slight rewording in either direction would still be just as blurry, but could cut MUCH harder, or soften the blow and add encouragement.

Teens who call people fat are overwhelmingly not trying to help the person they are insulting.

It's pretty hard to read some of those sentences with compassion. Being overweight doesn't make somebody a bad person.
How are they wasting the lives of others?

Also, I thought there were genetic factors that can come into play with being overweight/obese?

If those who are in power are scientists, then you're doing pretty well. But that restricts their ability to judge right and wrong ideas to those which are making scientific claims. That's the key point here, and the theme of both of these discussions. There have to be lines, and you can't ban things based on opinions which are subject to bias.

The republicans don't even believe in science!

The only reason it's obvious in your school is because the students are not reliably punished for making is obvious. As soon as you punish obvious attacks, they evolve, and become much less obvious, but often much more cruel too.

Actually, I don't really see that stuff in my school. My school is pretty nice, and very anti-bullying, seeing as we have clubs that promote tolerance and we watch documentaries about bullying in health class and have discussions about it.

When you say that schools shouldn't try to stop bullying, that would mean stopping things like units in health class largely about the negative impacts of it. But how would that stifle free speech?
There are a lot of other things that are not open for interpretation to the extent you are describing, like cyber-bullying.

All teachers are biased. They favor the teacher's pet, or the students they like, whose constructive criticism they will interpret as well-intentioned (whether it was or not), and whose adversaries' words they will view as attacks (whether they are or not).
It goes beyond that, too, to various degrees of bias across gender, race, religion, academic performance, etc.

The only teachers who wouldn't be biased are robots.
If you want to put robots in control, then we may have something, but then the task is in coming up with computer software that can detect insults and distinguish them from non-insults. This is non-trivial.

I've never heard of students pretending they were constructively criticizing someone like you seem to be suggesting happens often.

About the bias, that's pretty much just a problem with not hiring good teachers. Teachers are supposed to put their religious/political/whatever views aside.

The stuff Sam Harries criticizes with regard to its apologia for Islam, and cry of Islamophobia.

I'm not very familiar with what Sam Harris has been saying about that. What media are you referencing?
Are you talking about the mainstream media, or new media? There's a huge difference when it comes to that stuff there.

You don't need to be. And I don't need to be. We should agree to not do it because there is no evidence of it being more effective than harmful.
When it comes to policy, the burden of proof usually lies on the people making the argument that we should enact a certain policy (expend resources).

If there's no evidence for this yet, there are many other things we can do with those resources that have evidence (after school programs for at risk youth, etc.).
We should err on the side of non-intervention when we're not pretty sure what we're doing will have good results and be cost effective.

Now, that said, I would be fine with instituting these policies in some schools with the intention of collecting data and performing a social experiment, since the information itself is a good that can come out of it. Kind of like Think About This's thread on the lamb.

What resources are being expended on bullying, other than educational parts of courses (like documentaries) that don't restrict free speech?

It's a bit of a sink or swim life lesson. We could do a lot better. But people who survive bullying can develop life skills that help them cope with conflict later in life. The sad thing is that not everybody survives.

Perhaps they *can*, but seeing as it has such strong links to mental illnesses, it's still overall extremely negative.

You can't protect them forever. And unfortunately, we don't have many better systems in place to teach people to deal with bullies in the real world beyond letting bullies teach them in the slightly safer environment of a school.

Bullying prevention is harmful because... bullying is actually good?

You can't protect them forever, but it makes sense to protect them while they are developing.
It's not safer for people to deal with bullying when they are younger, because that's when they are most vulnerable.

Yes, it would be a bias. But I don't care about it being "fair" (that's subjective, and I don't think it has much meaning), I just want it to have good outcomes. I'm fine with a bias against religion and meat eating if it might discourage those practices.

How is fairness subjective?
If something is unfair, chances are it has a bad outcome.

How is that useful, aside from promoting critical thinking (as I said)?

Because that, and because the free exchange of ideas leads to societal progress.

Then how do you stop bullying without just making it worse?

Anyway, of course you can. That's how religion has worked for thousands of years. When Islam took over a region, it stamped out everything else. There aren't meaningful secret pockets of extinct religions surviving in little bubbles resenting the new one.

The problem, as I see it, is dogma, and a lack of critical thinking, which is dangerous in its own way.

Bullying is not the free exchange of ideas. It's being a jerk with the intent of being a jerk.

[brimstoneSalad]

So it is your position that a person trying to fix a mental illness is not at fault for it, and only that a person who refuses is?

Sort of. If a person says "I don't have a mental illness, I'm just a sad person: it's part of who I am, don't try to change me!" then that person has identified with the quality, and is fully at fault for it because it's an inherent part of the person's existential self.
On the other hand, if a person says "I want to be happy, this isn't a part of me, it's like some sadness that has attached itself to me, a disease leeching off my happiness, I would love it to go away." etc. then that's NOT part of identity, so it's not that person's fault, since it's not a part of the person proper, but something "other" that is affecting the person.

I would say "sort of" because based on behavior, if a person is trying to fix it, that person has probably already taken the first and often most essential step of identifying it as "other" and not part of the self, and as a problem to be fixed instead.

I think that this contradicts other things that you've stated, but if that's your position now, then ok.

As far as I know, that has always been my position. Not sure what you're seeing as contradictory. This is why my argument about what disease really is was so important.

Instead of stigmatizing people who already have mental issues, we should just encourage them to get help.

Carrot and stick. Sure, encourage them to get help, but any encouragement is implicit condemnation if they don't take the advice.

I asked if you were suggesting that, prior to trying to heal, that people with anxiety are automatically cowards. Not cowardly (as in they are more cowardly than they would be if they were getting treatment), but actual cowards.

Where do you draw the line between coward and non-coward? Is there a line?

Everyone has bias to an extent, but as a teacher, you are supposed to fight your bias.

Supposed to, maybe, but they rarely do, and probably never succeed. Fighting biases outside a scientific context where there are proper controls to eliminate them is bound to fail.

Perhaps if something questionable happens once, it can be let go.

Then it becomes randomly or erratically enforced. Or some kind of unfair "three strikes" policy.

But after a student reports that a specific person has been doing questionable acts consistently, it's not so open to interpretation anymore.

Or, that student is lying, or provoking it, possibly doing the same thing in return and not reporting that. Who exactly do we trust?

I see how rumors can accidentally happen, ok. But I think other forms of bullying are more clear.

Physical contact can be more clear. Punching, kicking, fights, dunking a student's head in a toilet. That's why we have laws against assault, but not against offending somebody.

There are grey areas there like bumping in the halls and tripping, but there are much more clear black and white areas too.

Most forms of bullying are far from clear, otherwise it would be easy to stop.

A person might be trying to give constructive criticism by calling someone a fat bitch, but in reality, that person is just being a douche-bag.

That's not the kind of example I gave, but who is going to decide that? Do you decide based on whether the person is offended?

I see no reason to believe that bullying has serious negative consequences to development.

What? I didn't say it did.
I said certain ways of stopping it might.
If you stop it by putting all of the kids in bubbles so they can't interact with each other, that would probably have serious consequences (do you disagree?). These things have to be tested, you can't just experiment on huge populations of children with radical social restraints and expect them to be well adjusted.

I think that's a good idea too, but you still can't just let the bullies go unchecked.

You can stop most of the physical assault.
You can even ban certain "bad words", but the bullies will just get around those with new words and hurtful euphemisms (seems like a waste of effort and money).
You can set decibel restrictions on speech, so they don't shout.
You can move students around when there are serious problems (this is sometimes effective in classrooms).

There's only so much you can do, though, before you start imposing serious restrictions in normal socialization.

People can still be creative if you allow personal attacks.

Sure, but they're lazy and often don't feel the need to. Restrictions teach creativity as a matter of necessity.

If they want to be mean, and they think that being more tricky about it will hit harder, then they'll do that anyway.

Not necessarily, if they have easier options like just making irritating noises or calling somebody "fat bitch". You're giving kids too much credit for being nefarious; they'll generally take the path of least resistance.

So you might as well ban the obvious bullying.

How do you know that?
You're talking about spending a LOT of resources on enforcement, and if they'll just resort to something else (which may or may not be worse), why?

I also don't consider calling someone a 'fat bitch' benign.

This is why it's probably better to put the resources into counseling. She's going to get that all of her life, when there aren't bully police around to protect her.

It might sometimes be useful to do that, but the slight positive that comes out of that is insignificant compared to the harm that comes from bullying.

Can you prove it? That sounds like a guess.

Again, you're the one saying we need to expend resource here. If we're acting to DO something expensive, there should be evidence that it does a lot more good than harm, and that it's more cost effective.

How does this compare to (spending the same amount of money) the good done by counseling, which doesn't have the negative of restricting free speech?
How does it compare, even, to a fitness program and better food choices and education to just help students not be fat to begin with?

Everything costs money, and we're dealing with limited resources here.

Teens who call people fat are overwhelmingly not trying to help the person they are insulting.

Sure, but while fat shaming may not be very useful, if you close the door to all conversations about this, you also lose all the the helpful things (like advice on exercise, weight loss, etc.) that are sincere, and that's certainly not helpful either.

The same thing for discussions on religion, or anything else.

Being overweight doesn't make somebody a bad person.
How are they wasting the lives of others?

Wasting resources. People who are overweight eat too much.

Also, I thought there were genetic factors that can come into play with being overweight/obese?

Yes and no. People who are overweight eat more than they need to eat. Calories in vs. calories out is basic physics, and genetics can't overcome that.

Most fat people are fat because of "fat logic". Eating in excess of 3,000 to 10,000 or so calories a day and not exercising enough to burn it off. Rationalizations to excuse lifestyle abound.

There is a small genetic difference in that some people's basal metabolic rate is a little faster (more body heat, etc.). Others tend to fidget more. But this only accounts for a few hundred calories; enough to make somebody a little on the thin side, or a tiny bit chubby. Not enough to cause the level of obesity Americans consider fat.
If somebody has a legitimate thyroid condition, there's medication for that. And you can tell when people have rare conditions, like their butts and legs will be huge and swollen, and the rest of their bodies look completely normal (body weight distribution issues).
Most people claiming that excuse [thyroid] have just self-diagnosed as an excuse to be fat and not feel responsible for it (and, in fact, have no such condition).

But either way, being fat is absolutely a matter of what and how much is put in one's mouth.
Much of the time it's eating enough for two or even five people, and that is incredibly wasteful (unless you're really tall and need to eat that much).
And some people, due to genetics, just don't need to eat quite as much as others. Some people can't eat much junk food, because they can't afford the extra calories since they don't burn them (or if they do eat it, they have to work out a LOT more to make up for the basic difference in metabolic rate).

Now height, on the other hand, is something you have very little control over at all; that's mostly genetics, as long as you weren't malnourished. People who are taller or skeletally larger DO need to eat more to just maintain their weight. But that's not the same as fat.

People have a tendency to shame obesity because, unlike pretty much anything else about appearance, it's a legitimate issue of behavior and choice.

If it's fair to shame somebody for wearing fur, it's fair to shame somebody for being fat. The more important question is: Is it effective?
Approach is important.

The republicans don't even believe in science!

This is a big problem. Thankfully the Chinese government (where I was saying in the other thread that certain restrictions may be OK) is science based. They take the advice of experts; scientists, engineers, economists. I would not trust the US government to do that.

Context is incredibly important when we're talking about restrictions on freedom of speech. And the kind of speech being restricted is important too (it needs to be speech which can be analyzed without bias as much as possible -- something with clearly definable scientific or logical claims).

Actually, I don't really see that stuff in my school. My school is pretty nice, and very anti-bullying, seeing as we have clubs that promote tolerance and we watch documentaries about bullying in health class and have discussions about it.

Student run anti-bullying clubs could be a great approach, since it's free (doesn't expend district resources), and it's a kind of self policing which will be better received and influence peers more.
And since there's not authority or formal punishment behind it, it doesn't impose hard limits on freedom of speech when something is important. I hope it doesn't promote a chilling atmosphere though.

Documentaries and discussion on bullying -- the time could probably better be spent on teaching children health and good diet and lifestyle practices -- but that is at least providing information, and not using force.

When you say that schools shouldn't try to stop bullying, that would mean stopping things like units in health class largely about the negative impacts of it. But how would that stifle free speech?

It's good to provide information and encouragement, as long as it's not force. I'm just worried about the opportunity cost, and what they're not teaching in its place.

There are a lot of other things that are not open for interpretation to the extent you are describing, like cyber-bullying.

Those are usually acts of fraud, and are punishable as criminal offenses. But also: people (but particularly minors) should not be on the internet except anonymously. That's one great way to prevent cyber bullying.

About the bias, that's pretty much just a problem with not hiring good teachers. Teachers are supposed to put their religious/political/whatever views aside.

It's an inherent human problem. But there's a shortage of good teachers. It's not a simple solution. Pay is too low, and it's a thankless job. There are not resources to hire better teachers.

Are you talking about the mainstream media, or new media? There's a huge difference when it comes to that stuff there.

Both. They talk about this kind of stuff on liberal shows like TYT. Somebody else probably knows more about this than I do, since I don't follow them carefully. There are a couple of threads on the "Islamophobia" in the media, I think.

What resources are being expended on bullying, other than educational parts of courses (like documentaries) that don't restrict free speech?

Serious enforcement policies are very resource intensive. If it's just documentaries, that's a little cheaper, but we're still dealing with opportunity cost. What did they NOT teach so they had time to show that documentary instead?

Perhaps they *can*, but seeing as it has such strong links to mental illnesses, it's still overall extremely negative.

Maybe, maybe not. You would have to compare it to a situation in which bullying is somehow non-existent.
The example of keeping kids isolated in bubbles would be one. How else could it be accomplished?
This could be incredibly detrimental to child development.

The problem is, if you can't find a comparison, it's impossible to make claims about it.

Looks into language deprivation, and feral children:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_ ... xperiments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

It's hard to say how important certain kinds of social interaction are to children -- even a little bullying -- because there are no reliable experiments or case studies withholding these.

There's probably some perfect level of bullying -- just enough for growth, but not too much to cause emotional scarring. But we don't know what that is or how to achieve it.

Bullying prevention is harmful because... bullying is actually good?

A little bit of it -- having adversaries and learning how to deal with that -- could be essential to childhood development and creating well adjusted adults.

Now, this would probably be ideally accomplished by paid actors who are hired to be "just a little bit mean", and other peer actors who are hired to be supportive and teach the child. Some super sheltered and optimized Truman Show level of control.
That's not necessarily cost effective, though.

You can't protect them forever, but it makes sense to protect them while they are developing.

But what if, in attempting to do so, you inhibit their development and make them socially retarded in some way?

It's not safer for people to deal with bullying when they are younger, because that's when they are most vulnerable.

There's no reason to believe that. It's very likely when they are vulnerable because they haven't learned to deal with it yet. That is: Children may only be so "vulnerable" because of what they have yet to learn in social interactions.
If you isolated a child from bullying and put that child into the real world as an adult, it would likely be just as vulnerable -- or maybe more so, since children are usually more emotionally resilient.

How is fairness subjective?
If something is unfair, chances are it has a bad outcome.

See the Francione/Deontology thread and my discussions with Inator there over the last few pages (from where he starts to post). It's all about that.

Here's a link: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 703#p15703

Because that, and because the free exchange of ideas leads to societal progress.

The free exchange of bad ideas does not. But they have to be demonstrably bad or incorrect, not just subjectively so or offensive to some people. That's where science based standards are so important.

Bullying is not the free exchange of ideas. It's being a jerk with the intent of being a jerk.

You can't reliably tell the difference. That's the point.

[EquALLity]

Sort of. If a person says "I don't have a mental illness, I'm just a sad person: it's part of who I am, don't try to change me!" then that person has identified with the quality, and is fully at fault for it because it's an inherent part of the person's existential self.
On the other hand, if a person says "I want to be happy, this isn't a part of me, it's like some sadness that has attached itself to me, a disease leeching off my happiness, I would love it to go away." etc. then that's NOT part of identity, so it's not that person's fault, since it's not a part of the person proper, but something "other" that is affecting the person.

I would say "sort of" because based on behavior, if a person is trying to fix it, that person has probably already taken the first and often most essential step of identifying it as "other" and not part of the self, and as a problem to be fixed instead.

Hm...
Does it really matter if people consider things apart of themselves or not, as long as they're trying to get better?

As far as I know, that has always been my position. Not sure what you're seeing as contradictory. This is why my argument about what disease really is was so important.

That's not what it seemed like:

Or anxiety could just be defined as a condition of chronic cowardice.

You said anxiety, as in the disease, not anxiousness, as in a quality.

Carrot and stick. Sure, encourage them to get help, but any encouragement is implicit condemnation if they don't take the advice.

How would you word it so that there'd be implicit condemnation?

Where do you draw the line between coward and non-coward? Is there a line?

Of course there's a line. It's comparable to the line drawn between good person and bad person.
If you are more good than bad, you are a good person, while if you are more bad than good, you are a bad person.
If you are more brave than cowardly, you are a brave person, while if you are more cowardly than brave, you are a coward.

The only quality that doesn't abide by this rule would be rationality, since it is based largely on consistency.

Do you disagree with that?
Before you said that 'very rarely is a person defined by one action', or something like that, seemingly supporting that you agree with what I'm saying here.

Supposed to, maybe, but they rarely do, and probably never succeed. Fighting biases outside a scientific context where there are proper controls to eliminate them is bound to fail.

What makes you think this?

Then it becomes randomly or erratically enforced. Or some kind of unfair "three strikes" policy.

How would that be unfair?
And I thought you didn't care about fairness?

Or, that student is lying, or provoking it, possibly doing the same thing in return and not reporting that. Who exactly do we trust?

Hear both sides of the story, and get third party opinions to try to figure out the truth.

Also note that kids who go out of their way to report bullying are probably being honest.

Most forms of bullying are far from clear, otherwise it would be easy to stop.

I don't see why that's necessarily true.

That's not the kind of example I gave, but who is going to decide that? Do you decide based on whether the person is offended?

Who is going to decide whether or not calling someone a 'fat bitch' is an attack or not?

What? I didn't say it did.
I said certain ways of stopping it might.
If you stop it by putting all of the kids in bubbles so they can't interact with each other, that would probably have serious consequences (do you disagree?). These things have to be tested, you can't just experiment on huge populations of children with radical social restraints and expect them to be well adjusted.

Whoops, I meant to say: I see no reason to believe that bullying prevention has serious negative consequences to development.
But wait, do you believe that there is no reason to believe that bullying has serious negative consequences to development?

Sure, but they're lazy and often don't feel the need to. Restrictions teach creativity as a matter of necessity.

Perhaps, but do you have evidence about this more creative bullying?
What would be an example? Like pretending to be friends with a person to get information to gossip? Why couldn't we punish that?

But we can at least prevent cyber bullying (being that it's clearer than verbal bullying), physical bullying, and some instances of verbal/emotional bullying. If one kid is consistently being picked on, that's not as unclear as other instances of bullying. And schools can still have campaigns and lessons against bullying.

Can you prove it? That sounds like a guess.

Again, you're the one saying we need to expend resource here. If we're acting to DO something expensive, there should be evidence that it does a lot more good than harm, and that it's more cost effective.

How does this compare to (spending the same amount of money) the good done by counseling, which doesn't have the negative of restricting free speech?
How does it compare, even, to a fitness program and better food choices and education to just help students not be fat to begin with?

Everything costs money, and we're dealing with limited resources here.

Helping students be healthy to begin with doesn't address the core of the problem. Bullies are always going to find things to bully people for, because they want to bully.

As for the proof, just think of the instances of personal criticism from one student to another, and how often they happen compared to instances of bullying.
Which do you think happens more often? I think it's almost certainly bullying. I can't think of examples of constructive criticism that would happen in high school more than rarely.

Sure, but while fat shaming may not be very useful, if you close the door to all conversations about this, you also lose all the the helpful things (like advice on exercise, weight loss, etc.) that are sincere, and that's certainly not helpful either.

The same thing for discussions on religion, or anything else.

It's not closing the door on all conversations about it. The only part when it becomes a problem is when fat shaming comes into play.

Wasting resources. People who are overweight eat too much.

That doesn't automatically make them bad people.

Not enough to cause the level of obesity Americans consider fat.

Actually, people said that the star of the Hunger Games was too 'fat', even though she wasn't even overweight.

But either way, being fat is absolutely a matter of what and how much is put in one's mouth.

Usually, ok.

People have a tendency to shame obesity because, unlike pretty much anything else about appearance, it's a legitimate issue of behavior and choice.

If it's fair to shame somebody for wearing fur, it's fair to shame somebody for being fat. The more important question is: Is it effective?
Approach is important.

It is often about behavior, but the reason people shame obese people is because of stereotypes associated with the obese and aesthetics. They don't usually care about the obese peoples' health.

This is a big problem. Thankfully the Chinese government (where I was saying in the other thread that certain restrictions may be OK) is science based. They take the advice of experts; scientists, engineers, economists. I would not trust the US government to do that.

Context is incredibly important when we're talking about restrictions on freedom of speech. And the kind of speech being restricted is important too (it needs to be speech which can be analyzed without bias as much as possible -- something with clearly definable scientific or logical claims).

I don't think the Chinese government is as good as you seem to in what they are doing with that stuff, but that's the other topic (sorry, it's been awhile).

I hope it doesn't promote a chilling atmosphere though.

How would an anti-bullying club promote a chilling atmosphere?

I think bullying promotes a chilling atmosphere.

Documentaries and discussion on bullying -- the time could probably better be spent on teaching children health and good diet and lifestyle practices -- but that is at least providing information, and not using force.

Health classes teaches about that stuff also.
There's no reason why it can't teach about both.

But also: people (but particularly minors) should not be on the internet except anonymously. That's one great way to prevent cyber bullying.

Some types.

Both. They talk about this kind of stuff on liberal shows like TYT. Somebody else probably knows more about this than I do, since I don't follow them carefully. There are a couple of threads on the "Islamophobia" in the media, I think.

Are you putting quotes around the term Islamophobia as an implication that it's not a real thing?
If you're under the impression that Islamophobia refers to 'irrational fear of Islam', that's not the case. It's irrational fear of Muslims, which clearly is prevalent in America.

I agree with you that TYT often discussions Islamophobia, but I don't think they take it too far. Do you have an example?
As for the mainstream media, I'm really going to need evidence there, because from what I've seen it's highly conservative.

Serious enforcement policies are very resource intensive. If it's just documentaries, that's a little cheaper, but we're still dealing with opportunity cost. What did they NOT teach so they had time to show that documentary instead?

What very resource intensive policies are you thinking of?

And that documentary was important, because it showed real kids who were bullied and their struggles.

Maybe, maybe not. You would have to compare it to a situation in which bullying is somehow non-existent.
The example of keeping kids isolated in bubbles would be one. How else could it be accomplished?
This could be incredibly detrimental to child development.

The problem is, if you can't find a comparison, it's impossible to make claims about it.

Looks into language deprivation, and feral children:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_ ... xperiments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

It's hard to say how important certain kinds of social interaction are to children -- even a little bullying -- because there are no reliable experiments or case studies withholding these.

There's probably some perfect level of bullying -- just enough for growth, but not too much to cause emotional scarring. But we don't know what that is or how to achieve it.

Do you have any evidence to support the idea of this perfect level of bullying?

And it's comparable to the kids not being bullied. Compared to kids who aren't bullied, kids who are bullied have a lot more mental problems. There is evidence on this.

But what if, in attempting to do so, you inhibit their development and make them socially retarded in some way?

That's not the case, considering that the kids who aren't bullied are mentally healthier.

There's no reason to believe that. It's very likely when they are vulnerable because they haven't learned to deal with it yet. That is: Children may only be so "vulnerable" because of what they have yet to learn in social interactions.
If you isolated a child from bullying and put that child into the real world as an adult, it would likely be just as vulnerable -- or maybe more so, since children are usually more emotionally resilient.

Perhaps they are vulnerable largely because of inexperience (but also because their minds are still developing), but the evidence shows that it's still better for them not to be bullied.

See the Francione/Deontology thread and my discussions with Inator there over the last few pages (from where he starts to post). It's all about that.

Here's a link: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 703#p15703

Alright, I'll read that in depth later, and possibly reply to it.

The free exchange of bad ideas does not. But they have to be demonstrably bad or incorrect, not just subjectively so or offensive to some people. That's where science based standards are so important.

The free exchange of bad ideas does also, because the free exchange of ideas leads to the good ideas winning and people realizing the bad ideas are false.

You can't reliably tell the difference. That's the point.

It sounded like you were suggesting that bullying is the free exchange of ideas.
Never-mind if not though.

[brimstoneSalad]

Hm...
Does it really matter if people consider things apart of themselves or not, as long as they're trying to get better?

If the person considers it part of his or her self and is trying to improve, he or she already recognizes it as a personal fault. That's a mature way to look at it, and it's the kind of (rare) person who actually responds well to shaming by accepting responsibility, recognizing he or she is wrong, and changing.

That's not what it seemed like:

Or anxiety could just be defined as a condition of chronic cowardice.

You said anxiety, as in the disease, not anxiousness, as in a quality.

Anxiety is a feeling, characteristic of 'disease' or an inherent character trait.
My point was that it's a matter of perspective. It's a question of whether it's part of the self, or not. It's a question of, also, how others see it (you might disown something, but others can deny this).

How would you word it so that there'd be implicit condemnation?

It already is. "It's good to seek treatment" It's bad not to. "You're a brave person to seek treatment" You're a coward not to.

Of course there's a line. It's comparable to the line drawn between good person and bad person.

How so?

If you are more good than bad, you are a good person, while if you are more bad than good, you are a bad person.

We can measure that based on your effect on others; upon the world around you.

If you are more brave than cowardly, you are a brave person, while if you are more cowardly than brave, you are a coward.

How exactly do you weigh those? Where's the balance point?

The only quality that doesn't abide by this rule would be rationality, since it is based largely on consistency.

Explain.

Do you disagree with that?
Before you said that 'very rarely is a person defined by one action', or something like that, seemingly supporting that you agree with what I'm saying here.

Yes, but one action can also reveal a tendency or habit that underlies that action. We very often are our habits.

What makes you think this?

The failure of religion to come up with consensus, for example, or move beyond dogma. Without science, there is no guaranteed objectivity, and human nature being what it is, it's bad practice to rely on it.

How would that be unfair?
And I thought you didn't care about fairness?

Look into the effects of three strikes.
Fairness (or the perception of it) is important in law (legal fairness, equality before the law), otherwise it takes away its ability to discourage bad behavior, since people see it as unfair and random -- they perceive being punished as a matter of bad luck, rather than a result of causality based on their actions. This has a compounding effect that can promote more bad behavior in the people who feel they are being punish unjustly.
This can be seen in everything from criminal justice to parenting.

Hear both sides of the story, and get third party opinions to try to figure out the truth.

Now we're talking about setting up courts and trials. One of the most expensive parts of our society. Forget teaching, that's an unnecessary waste of resources, we need to run trials all day instead.

Like I said, if you can automate this with a bully detecting computer program that had little to no cost, that would be a very different matter (it would also be much more consistent).

Also note that kids who go out of their way to report bullying are probably being honest.

If you take their words for it, people will exploit that. The honesty of reporting would no longer be a good assumption. People would use reports of bullying to bully each other.

I don't see why that's necessarily true.

If it were unambiguous it could be punished consistently, and being consistent in its bad result for the bullies they would not bully anymore.
This relates to the psychology of fairness in law I talked about above.

Who is going to decide whether or not calling someone a 'fat bitch' is an attack or not?

Right. Who decides this?

But wait, do you believe that there is no reason to believe that bullying has serious negative consequences to development?

Like I said, some bullying may be important to childhood development. It may have positive consequences that outweigh the negative.

Perhaps, but do you have evidence about this more creative bullying?

The burden of proof is on you here if you're trying to expend more resources on preventing bullying. I'm presenting examples of how your arguments are not inherently true.

What would be an example? Like pretending to be friends with a person to get information to gossip? Why couldn't we punish that?

It's harder to catch, and even more ambiguous. Very hard to consistently punish, which makes it pretty much useless to do so.

But we can at least prevent cyber bullying (being that it's clearer than verbal bullying),

Anonymity is fine for that.

physical bullying,

Yes, that's called assault. And the police will help you with that in the real world too.

and some instances of verbal/emotional bullying.

This is not as easy. Note how you said "some"; when it's inconsistently enforced, it's not necessarily useful. Also, some innocent people will be punished.

And schools can still have campaigns and lessons against bullying.

At what cost? And to what benefit?

Helping students be healthy to begin with doesn't address the core of the problem. Bullies are always going to find things to bully people for, because they want to bully.

Well, you don't necessarily know that.
But even if it doesn't stop bullying, it's still useful.
Anti-bullying campaigns may be completely useless and a waste of resources.

We have to consider effective altruism here.

Which do you think happens more often? I think it's almost certainly bullying. I can't think of examples of constructive criticism that would happen in high school more than rarely.

This is not proof. We need data on costs and benefits -- hard data.

"We spent $500 on this program and prevented 9 suicides."
"We spent $1,000 on this program, and it prevented one suicide and caused twenty suicides -- bullies killing themselves because we made them feel so bad about being bullies."
etc.

The only part when it becomes a problem is when fat shaming comes into play.

Again, ambiguous. When does it become shaming?

Look at social justice warriors, particularly in the Atheism plus debacle, and how they railed on people who were trying to make sensible and fair minded points just as they did on the trolls. These people are rearing to go on witch hunts and destroy careers over nothing, or something that was just honestly a little poorly worded (or just honest and well worded, but that they don't agree with).

That doesn't automatically make them bad people.

When you're using two to ten times the resources of every other human being, the odds are extremely good. Unless you build an orphanage every weekend to make up for it, you're probably a bad person.

I think it's safe to say that highschool students who are obese are not building orphanages every weekend. It's a fair guess, one in which you will be right 99.999% of the time.

Actually, people said that the star of the Hunger Games was too 'fat', even though she wasn't even overweight.

That's people being dumb, public figures will always have detractors.
Those who get seriously bullied for it are the ones who are significantly overweight.
Bullies will pick on the lowest hanging fruit. Be less weird or ugly than the kid next to you, and you should be safe.

It is often about behavior, but the reason people shame obese people is because of stereotypes associated with the obese and aesthetics. They don't usually care about the obese peoples' health.

It's not just a problem of aesthetics, though, it's objectively unhealthy. The main reason it's aesthetically negative is because of that (going back to evolutionary psychology). If somebody is unfit, evolutionarily, they'll tend to be considered unattractive (even if people don't know why).

Anyway, that's irrelevant to the point that obesity shaming is rightly substantiated because it's an objectively negative quality. The only problem is that it doesn't work very well to encourage people to not be obese.

How would an anti-bullying club promote a chilling atmosphere?

Witch hunts. People are terrified to say anything that might be interpreted as the least bit offensive for fear of being branded a bully and be bullied by the anti-bullying bullies.

I think bullying promotes a chilling atmosphere.

It can, but usually doesn't because it typically focuses on people rather than ideas or free expression.

But, say, if Christians were bullied for being Christians, they might be discouraged from proselytizing (their expression of ideas being chilled). This could be a good thing. Maybe they'd give up Christianity if they were bullied enough about being Christians, or at least give up literalism or whatever extreme form they hold.

Health classes teaches about that stuff also.
There's no reason why it can't teach about both.

Opportunity cost. You only have so many days of classes, and there's a LOT more to teach about than bullying, and much more depth that can be gone into regarding health and nutrition. If you teach about bullying, you are sacrificing the ability to teach something else.

If you're under the impression that Islamophobia refers to 'irrational fear of Islam', that's not the case. It's irrational fear of Muslims, which clearly is prevalent in America.

Muslims are not a race. They are people who subscribe to the doctrines of Islam, which are appropriately terrifying to some.

As for the mainstream media, I'm really going to need evidence there, because from what I've seen it's highly conservative.

I don't watch conservative media (Fox, etc.).

And that documentary was important, because it showed real kids who were bullied and their struggles.

Was it useful? I'd need to see statistics.
Again, we're talking about doing something and expending resources.

Do you have any evidence to support the idea of this perfect level of bullying?

As I said, it's not necessary. The person trying to implement a resource intensive program is the one who needs to provide evidence that it is or will be effective.

And it's comparable to the kids not being bullied. Compared to kids who aren't bullied, kids who are bullied have a lot more mental problems. There is evidence on this.

This may be a result of too much bullying, or too extensive bullying. There's little research on the effects of no bullying, since it's just not a reality anywhere. You also need much better research than is available, which uses controls and looks at long term results (not immediate results, which are easy to study). The immediate result of a kid getting a shot is the kid crying -- from that you may think it's wrong -- but the long term results are immunity.

That's not the case, considering that the kids who aren't bullied are mentally healthier.

Everybody's bullied. Even bullies are bullied. Usually by abusive parents too.
See above about too much bullying.

Perhaps they are vulnerable largely because of inexperience (but also because their minds are still developing), but the evidence shows that it's still better for them not to be bullied.

Evidence on no bullying does not exist.

The free exchange of bad ideas does also, because the free exchange of ideas leads to the good ideas winning and people realizing the bad ideas are false.

Or, you can just wait a generation, and the people with those bad ideas who weren't allowed to share them die off, and the bad ideas go extinct.
Also, socially, if the bad ideas are ridiculed enough, people will just stop holding them because they don't want to identify with something all of their peers consider bad.

Also: Good ideas don't always win. Or sometimes they take many generations to do so, the bad ideas causing so much damage in the process.
Can non-human animals afford to wait for vegan ideas to win over carnist ones?
Can girls who are having their genitals mutilated right now afford to wait for secular ideas to win?

You can't reliably tell the difference. That's the point.

It sounded like you were suggesting that bullying is the free exchange of ideas.
Never-mind if not though.

No, bullying is just indistinguishable from the free exchange of ideas; you can't totally stop one without stopping the other too.
And beyond that, bullying may be important to child development in other ways (learning to cope with something that one will experience in the adult world).

[EquALLity]

If the person considers is part of his or her self and is trying to improve, he or she already recognizes it as a personal fault.

But since that's only dependent on what the person categorizes the problem as, and that's the only difference between that person and a person with a disorder, why would you condemn a person for that if that person is trying to fix the issue?

That's a mature way to look at it, and it's the kind of (rare) person who actually responds well to shaming by accepting responsibility, recognizing he or she is wrong, and changing.

When you say that it's 'accepting responsibility', it sounds like an implication that people who don't consider it apart of themselves are just pretending they are not responsible.
Is that what you're saying?

So kids who are severely bullied and become depressed... Their fault?

Anxiety is a feeling, characteristic of 'disease' or an inherent character trait.
My point was that it's a matter of perspective. It's a question of whether it's part of the self, or not. It's a question of, also, how others see it (you might disown something, but others can deny this).

Anxiety is the name of the disorder, and your response there was to my comment about anxiety specifically identifying it as a disorder.
You didn't say it was a matter of perspective anywhere in that post.

But fine if that was your position. It just didn't seem that way.
I'm also not sure that's your position now, based on what you've replied.

So you're saying that, even if people don't consider things apart of themselves, other people who say those things are apart of those people are just as right?
This contradicts the idea that people who have mental illnesses are not at fault.

It already is. "It's good to seek treatment" It's bad not to. "You're brave to seek treatment" You're a coward not to.

Or it could be neutral not to. I'm not saying that's true, but the opposites aren't the only options.

We can measure that based on your effect on others; upon the world around you.

And we can measure bravery/cowardice by whether or not your bravery is more significant than your cowardice.

How exactly do you weigh those? Where's the balance point?

How do you weigh how cowardly or brave an action is?

You had a metric before:
"Confessing, or giving up your friends, would be more cowardly than bearing the pain. It's a spectrum, or a ratio, that would take into consideration the degree of pain and fear, and the magnitude of the betrayal of your original will or duty."

By what seems like your logic of doing one cowardly act makes you a coward, a person who gives information from torture is a coward. So by your logic everyone (because everyone would do that eventually) is a coward, and the word is completely meaningless.

Explain.

If you're knowingly irrational, you're not a rational person, because rationality is based on being consistent in that respect.

Yes, but one action can also reveal a tendency or habit that underlies that action. We are very often our habits.

It *can*, but not necessarily.
You said that it very rarely does before, and now you seem to be saying that it usually does.

The failure of religion to come up with consensus, for example, or move beyond dogma. Without science, there is no guaranteed objectivity, and human nature being what it is, it's bad practice to rely on it.

Religion is all about bias, though. Religion isn't about removing your bias in the way that teaching is supposed to be.

Look into the effects of three strikes.
Fairness (or the perception of it) is important in law (legal fairness, equality before the law), otherwise it takes away its ability to discourage bad behavior, since people see it as unfair and random -- they perceive being punished as a matter of bad luck, rather than a result of causality based on their actions. This has a compounding effect that can promote more bad behavior in the people who feel they are being punish unjustly.

Ah, I see. Ok, I guess that's not a good metric.

Now we're talking about setting up courts and trials. One of the most expensive parts of our society. Forget teaching, that's an unnecessary waste of resources.

What? I never said anything about trials.

"Excuse me, Kelly, what did you see Bill do to John?"
"Bill, what did you do?"
"John, what did he do?"

Nobody has to go to court for that.

If you take their words for it, people will exploit that.

Hm, yeah, that's true.

But in cases where it's pretty clear, like the kid being bullied has sources and stuff, it should be punished.

If it were unambiguous it could be punished consistently and, being consistent in its bad result for the bully, they would not do it.
This relates to the psychology of fairness in law I talked about above.

It may sometimes be unambiguous, but I don't see reason to believe most forms of bullying are this way.

Right. Who decides this?

Calling someone a 'fat bitch' is obviously an attack.
It wouldn't vary much with who you ask.

Like I said, some bullying may be important to childhood development. It may have positive consequences that outweigh the negative.

You don't have evidence for this, and the evidence available contradicts it.

The burden of proof is on you here if you're trying to expend more resources on preventing bullying. I'm presenting examples of how your arguments are not inherently true.

What resources?

It's harder to catch, and even more ambiguous. Very hard to consistently punish, which makes it pretty much useless to do so.

Why would that make it useless?

Anonymity is fine for that.

Not necessarily.

This is not as easy. Note how you said "some"; when it's inconsistently enforced, it's not necessarily useful. Also, some innocent people will be punished.

Why would it not be useful when it's less consistent?
It might be less useful, but the threat of getting in trouble remains.

Innocent people might be punished occasionally, but it wouldn't happen that much where it'd outweigh the good done from people being punished rightfully.

At what cost? And to what benefit?

The cost could be an easy informational assembly with a power-point, and the benefit would be less bullying.

Well, you don't necessarily know that.
But even if it doesn't stop bullying, it's still useful.
Anti-bullying campaigns may be completely useless and a waste of resources.

We have to consider effective altruism here.

I think you do, for most bullies. They want to bully to put other people down so that they feel better about themselves. It doesn't matter what they use to put a person down, so long as they have something.

This is not proof. We need date on costs and benefits -- hard data.

"We spent $500 on this program and prevented 9 suicides"

Well, I found this: https://www.bullyfree.com/school-progra ... eness-data

In 2010, the program was piloted in ten school districts. Both formative and summative evaluation strategies were used to test the effectiveness of the program. The school districts used the first year to train school personnel and to plan. The second year they implemented the strategies and curriculum (Bullying Prevention Lesson Plans). The following is a summary of a few of the findings when pre- and post-program data for the elementary, middle, and high schools were analyzed. After looking at the t-test statistical significance (p < .05), improvement was found in 50 of the 59 behavior items measured by the survey. The following is a sampling of the findings in two areas: What Students See and What Happens to Students.

Again, ambiguous. When does it become shaming?

Look at social justice warriors, particularly in the Atheism plus debacle, and how they railed on people who were trying to make sensible and fair minded points. These people are rearing to go on witch hunts and destroy careers over nothing, or something that was just honestly a little poorly worded (or just honest and well worded).

It becomes shaming when it becomes a personal insult as opposed to critiquing a behavior.

When you're using two to ten times the resources of every other human being, the odds are extremely good. Unless you build an orphanage every weekend to make up for it, you're probably a bad person.

I think it's safe to say that highschool students who are obese are not building orphanages every weekend. It's a fair guess, one in which you will be right 99.999% of the time.

Are they actually using ten times the resources of the average person?

Anyway, they also might not be aware of their wastefulness.

Also, if you spend a lot of money on food that are better for the environment, would that be a good thing, because it would cause people to be more likely to invest in those foods instead of animal products?

That's people being dumb. Those who get seriously bullied for it are the ones who are significantly overweight.
Bullies will pick on the lowest hanging fruit. Be less weird or ugly than the kid next to you, and you should be safe.

Er...
There are always going to be kids who are the most 'weird' or 'ugly'. I'm not sure what your point is.

It's just just a problem of aesthetics, though, it's objectively unhealthy. The main reason it's aesthetically negative is because of that (going back to evolutionary psychology). If somebody is unfit, evolutionarily, they'll tend to be considered unattractive (even if people don't know why).

Anyway, that's irrelevant to the point that obesity shaming is rightly substantiated because it's objectively negative. The only problem is that it doesn't work very well to encourage people to not be obese.

In reality, it's not mainly a problem with aesthetics. When it comes to fat shaming, it is.
I don't see why it matters why it's aesthetic.

It shouldn't be obesity shaming, though. It should be against the actions, not the result of them. Being obese isn't inherently unethical; it's the actions that lead to it that are.
If you say, "It's wasteful for you to consume that much food, because you don't need it, and it's harmful to the planet", then that's fine, and it's not obesity shaming.

Witch hunts. People are terrified to say anything that might be interpreted as the least bit offensive for fear of being branded a bully and be bullied by the anti-bullying bullies.

It doesn't create that effect at all in my school.

The anti-bullying bullies?

It can, but usually doesn't because it typically focuses on people rather than ideas or free expression.

It creates a chilling atmosphere in that it makes people afraid to be bullied, and in that it makes those who are bullied afraid to go to school.

Opportunity cost. You only have so many days of classes, and there's a LOT more to teach about than bullying, and much more depth that can be gone into regarding health and nutrition. If you teach about bullying, you are sacrificing the ability to teach something else.

Yes, but bullying is an important topic.

Muslims are not a race. They are people who subscribe to the doctrines of Islam, which are appropriately terrifying to some.

What? Where did that come from? I never suggested that Muslims are a race.
They're a religious group, yes, and it's bigoted to be discriminatory towards them.

I don't watch conservative media (Fox, etc.).

I'm not just talking about Fox. I'm talking about the mainstream media in general.
When have they been politically correct? They refuse to even call Donald Trump racist.

Was it useful? I'd need to see statistics.
Again, we're talking about doing something and expending resources.

See that link.

This may be a result of too much bullying, or too extensive bullying. There's little research on the effects of no bullying, since it's just not a reality anywhere. You also need much better research than is available, which uses controls and looks at long term results (not immediate results, which are easy to study). The immediate result of a kid getting a shot is the kid crying -- from that you may think it's wrong -- but the long term results are immunity.

It is a reality. Not everyone is bullied.

Everybody's bullied. Even bullies are bullied. Usually by abusive parents too.
See above about too much bullying.

There's a difference between one kid saying one comment and bullying.

Evidence on no bullying does not exist.

Again, there's a difference between one asshole saying one thing and bullying.

Or, you can just wait a generation, and the people with those bad ideas who weren't allowed to share them die off, and the bad ideas go extinct.
Also, socially, if the bad ideas are ridiculed enough, people will just stop holding them because they don't want to identify with something all of their peers consider bad.

Also: Good ideas don't always win. Or sometimes they take many generations to do so, the bad ideas causing so much damage in the process.
Can non-human animals afford to wait for vegan ideas to win over carnist ones?
Can girls who are having their genitals mutilated right now afford to wait for secular ideas to win?

The ideas won't go away on their own because people can't publicize them. People will pass them onto their kids etc..
And it'll create resentment.

They win on the Internet, where we have the free exchange of ideas.

No, bullying is just indistinguishable from the free exchange of ideas; you can't totally stop one without stopping the other too.

I agree that you can't totally stop bullying without stopping the free exchange of ideas in practice, but there are still many situations in which bullying can be stopped in practice without hurting the free exchange of ideas.