We are family! And that is not a good thing. Controversy ahead!

[Domen]

You could also look at Spain, Portugal and Greece, all the myriad nations which Germany has been exploiting for years, not to mention that one of the biggest reasons for the current wealth of the German nation (that is mostly its ruling class, not the entire people)

According to these sources, average Germans (or mean not average, I'm not sure) are actually poorer than average Spaniards:

But also take a look on differences between West Germany and Post-Communist Germany:

http://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Pressemitteilungen/BBK/2013/2013_03_21_phf.html

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...verage-Italians-and-Spaniards-says-Bundesbank

http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/ecbsp2en.pdf

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtscha...in-drittel-reicher-als-deutsche-12121631.html

I have read the thread all the way through, and I am a bit confused by the OP's proposed solution- take kids away from their parents and raise them how? What system will replace the current family system?

I'm not confused, because I know that the OP's proposed solution was already implemented in several countries throughout history.

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

Another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system

This also counts: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/pran-cambodia.html

And also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_children_by_Nazi_Germany

Etc., etc.

Well yes, we just have to make ethics and culture equal across the board*, then a mix of communal upbringing and artificial intelligence should do the trick.

*Socialist Unity Culture FTW!

FTW!

 

[Narz]

As for how annoying 1st graders can be, imagine being a primary school teacher and having them for 5 or 6 hours a day, en masse!

They should get paid 6 figures.

 

[aelf]

Today, The prime minister of Singapore said no to gay marriage. His statements were greeted with cheering and declarations that "Every child has the right to have a father and a mother" (and linking of articles about how gay marriage harms society). It made me think of this thread.

 

[warpus]

Well, maybe they'll join the rest of the civilized world eventually. There's always hope for the future!

 

[aelf]

I guess this brings out the frustration in me over any kind of dogmatism about the family.

I'm kind of being the Farm Boy here: If we're going disagree that a child must have a father and a mother to have a healthy childhood, why stop there? Why decree that children with no primary caregivers will be less healthy, even they have good caregivers who don't raise children individually but as a group? The science might be somewhat unfavourable at present, but it isn't exactly like physics.

 

[Hygro]

I guess this brings out the frustration in me over any kind of dogmatism about the family.

I'm kind of being the Farm Boy here: If we're going disagree that a child must have a father and a mother to have a healthy childhood, why stop there? Why decree that children with no primary caregivers will be less healthy, even they have good caregivers who don't raise children individually but as a group? The science might be somewhat unfavourable at present, but it isn't exactly like physics.

Funny how this reads more like the OP's position than its opposite.

I don't see why a society without traditional family structures would necessarily enforce homogeneity or absolute equality. And this is the crux of the other view: Families have also been used as very potent tools to promote nefarious agendas and cultural homogeneity/hegemony. Not to mention they are the very root of clannish tribalism and its associated ills: Nepotism, blood feuds and tremendous inequality.

So when it comes to promoting noble ideals, the family isn't necessarily all that much better. What we have, then, are the happy experiences that many people have growing up in loving families (as well as practical/logistical issues, of course, but it takes a certain kind to be so hung up on them that it's impossible to discuss hypotheticals) - sources of emotional attachment and support, which are psychologically crucial, but which I would still contend can be replaced, albeit not overnight and not without some other pressing reasons. The result could be worse, certainly, but it could also be better. How much of a stretch of the imagination that requires is entirely dependent on our current situation. If we were having this conversation a thousand years from now, the picture could look very different.



It depends on your perspective, obviously. As I said before, I'm playing the devil's advocate here insofar as the idea is applied to human society as we know it, for the sake of discussion. But I'm also interested in science fiction and entertaining this idea is certainly interesting and worthwhile from that perspective.



The answer would depend a lot on your definition of what constitutes being human. I'm not too hung up on biology when it comes to this question either.



I doubt you have a firm answer to that question yourself, but I imagine an end would be to eliminate suffering as much as possible while enabling lives with a high level of enlightenment and agency.

I would be more interested in the hypothetical if we were arguing how to make it work rather than if it's the right thing to work in the face of the present age.

I think all other things equal, more equality is cooler than less, so I'm down. I don't think equality is the point though. It's a means to better ends, and its an aesthetic value. More equality means more agency for actualization individually and collectively. But people are pretty happy with justified inequalities in life.

 

[Narz]

I guess this brings out the frustration in me over any kind of dogmatism about the family.

I'm kind of being the Farm Boy here: If we're going disagree that a child must have a father and a mother to have a healthy childhood, why stop there? Why decree that children with no primary caregivers will be less healthy, even they have good caregivers who don't raise children individually but as a group? The science might be somewhat unfavourable at present, but it isn't exactly like physics.

You're right, physics is still uncertain & changing constantly whereas the understanding that children need parents who love them has been known & unchanged for centuries. Experiments involving separating children from their parents & raised them as a group have been performed over & over and always failed.

It's a nice idea because child rearing is a large pain in the azz & if it could be outsourced it would free up lots of time for adults to do more productive things than read "Goodnight Moon" or supervise math homework but the shortcuts never work.

 

[Farm Boy]

than read "Goodnight Moon"

Heh. That's one of my favorite moments of the day. When it happens.

We're on to Goodnight Digger for the moment.

 

[aelf]

Funny how this reads more like the OP's position than its opposite.

The OP is the OP. People asked why abolishing families might be a good idea and I answered.

I would be more interested in the hypothetical if we were arguing how to make it work rather than if it's the right thing to work in the face of the present age.

Isn't that what I've effectively been doing, trying to outline a scenario where this is possible and not necessarily inferior to our present arrangement? I've even repeatedly said so. Maybe you're just too engaged in fighting for dogma to see it.

I think all other things equal, more equality is cooler than less, so I'm down. I don't think equality is the point though. It's a means to better ends, and its an aesthetic value. More equality means more agency for actualization individually and collectively. But people are pretty happy with justified inequalities in life.

You can learn to be happy with something while not knowing that there's something else that will actually be better for you. After all, you're not going to say that heroin addicts are pretty happy if they can get their next shot, and so the best thing to do is to keep giving it to them.

Oh wait, did I just 'compare' families to heroin addiction? Cue the outrage of dogma defenders.

I guess one father and one mother is the way, as I'm hearing again and again.

 

[Borachio]

I don't think one father and one mother is "the way" at all. It's certainly one way, but not necessarily the best.

What a young child needs above all is one (just one because there can only be one) primary care-giver. That one primary care-giver can have helping care-givers, and the more the better, though just one helping care-giver is... um... helpful, but mainly to give the primary care-giver a bit of help. And not because the young child needs more people involved in its care.

The gender of the caregiver(s) doesn't matter much at all, I don't think. What does matter, above all, is stability and consistency.

As the child gets older, maybe they also need same gender and opposite gender role models. And maybe they don't. I do think they need substantial interaction with peers and other people, though. And maybe the more the better. But it's still a matter of stability of consistency that's overwhelmingly important, imo. And that's precisely what children being brought up institutionally lack, it seems to me. And why they generally have such a hard time of adjusting to the world around them.

 

[Farm Boy]

Yea, it always depresses me when people take something so good as functional and loving family units and mangle them into a justification for something so ugly as "herpaderp no marriages for ze gays, they don't deserve good things because the rest of us are a-holes."

 

[Narz]

I don't think one father and one mother is "the way" at all. It's certainly one way, but not necessarily the best.

What a young child needs above all is one (just one because there can only be one) primary care-giver. That one primary care-giver can have helping care-givers, and the more the better, though just one helping care-giver is... um... helpful, but mainly to give the primary care-giver a bit of help. And not because the young child needs more people involved in its care.

The gender of the caregiver(s) doesn't matter much at all, I don't think. What does matter, above all, is stability and consistency.

As the child gets older, maybe they also need same gender and opposite gender role models. And maybe they don't. I do think they need substantial interaction with peers and other people, though. And maybe the more the better. But it's still a matter of stability of consistency that's overwhelmingly important, imo. And that's precisely what children being brought up institutionally lack, it seems to me. And why they generally have such a hard time of adjusting to the world around them.

Having two loving caregivers has been proven over and over by research to be better than one. More than 2, probably even better, I certainly know I'm a better parent when I feel like I have social support in the community. As someone was actually lived institutionally, as opposed to part of a family unit, for much of my adolescence (bunch of weird boarding schools, often not even talking to my folks for months at a time), my experience is that no one is going to care about you as much as your parents, even for really bad parents and not just in my experience but other people there tend to feel very abandoned by their families.

I don't think anyone's making the argument here that your family has to consist of one mom and one dad, or even necessarily blood relatives, bless people who adopt, its an amazing thing but institutional "caregivers" just can't live up to familial standards. like you said, consistency and reliability are just not going to be there when you're caring for someone for a paycheck rather than out of love.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. But my point is that one primary consistent caregiver is the essential that an infant cannot do without and thrive. Having more than one caregiver is irrelevant for the child, per se. Except that the strain on one caregiver is likely to be more than that one person can handle.

 

[classical_hero]

Having a loving mother and father is the very best way to grow up in and no other situation will be as good as that situation.

 

[Borachio]

Yup. No ifs and buts about that, then, I see. Straight down the line: it's mum and dad or you're sunk, my boy.

Let's not bother with any of this namby pamby research or speculation nonsense. We know where it's at without doing anything at all. Why do we bother our little curly heads about this stuff when the solution is staring us straight in the face all the time, eh?

It's blindingly obvious now I come to think of it. It's a good job you're here to put me right, Mr Hero.

 

[Flying Pig]

To quote Stephen Colbert, he looked it up in his gut.

 

[Narz]

Yes. But my point is that one primary consistent caregiver is the essential that an infant cannot do without and thrive. Having more than one caregiver is irrelevant for the child, per se.

Irrelevant to it's basic survival maybe but any additional support a child can get will increase its chances.

Except that the strain on one caregiver is likely to be more than that one person can handle.

One factor among many, probably the most notable.

It takes a village but it also takes parents within that village.

 

[aelf]

Having a loving mother and father is the very best way to grow up in and no other situation will be as good as that situation.

Well, to be fair to you, arguments for traditional familial relationships do tend to take very similar forms. For example...

One kid who grew up in a Lesbian family environment felt regret that he hasn't got a chance to experience the role model of a dad. Likewise, a kid who grew up in a Gay family would feel the same without the experience of a mom role model. Don't mess up your children emotions!!

...also cites emotional health benefits in arguing for families with heterosexual parents as the best environment for a child.

Apparently, there is at least one serious study that supports heterosexual parenting:

The study unearthed alarming disparities between the two family models, from suicide attempts and unemployment rates to sexual abuse.

One statistic found children of lesbian mothers are nearly 12 times as likely to say they were sexually touched by a parent or adult as those raised in intact biological families. Asked if they had ever been raped, 31 percent of those raised by lesbian mothers and 25 percent of children raised by gay fathers answered yes, compared to eight percent of those from intact biological homes.

Regnerus had noted that previous studies on the issue suffer from considerable sample bias, including the widely noted National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, which drew its information from volunteers responding to advertisements targeting lesbians.

Regnerus based his study on a large random sample of American young adults from the data collection project New Family Structures Study, and unlike most others, uses the responses of children rather than parents.

Yep, that's science talking. And it claims higher incidence of child abuse in the 'wrong' type of family, just like Narz!

Hygro says you need one parent (and has the science to back it up), Narz says you need two (no citations, IIRC), classical hero says you need one mom and one dad (and potentially has the science to back it up). Who's right?

 

[Narz]

Yep, that's science talking... just like Narz!

OMG someone used sketchy science to "prove" that homosexuals are worse that means all science is evil & so is Narz, btw it also implies Narz is probably a homophobe in case you didn't get the airtight connection there.

Aelf's argument is beyond doubt. Send your children off to live @ Aelf Inc. where they will get far more love & wisdom that they could with your puny nuclear or even extended family!

 

[aelf]

Can your argumentative skills get any poorer?

Since when does adopting formally similar arguments make you argue for the same thing? I even explicitly stated your position in the last paragraph as opposed to classical hero's (tell me if I'm mistaken), but I guess you don't even have enough intellectual honesty to acknowledge it.

Anyway, could you elaborate on what makes the study sketchy science? Or did that claim just come out from somewhere deep inside you?