T Patrick @tvpatrick

Should perhaps be titled “High-Functioning Parents Guide…” This is good guidance for thoughtful, engaged parents - the kind most Stanford students and faculty experience as the default. Low functioning parents love their kids but do not have the capacity to engage at this level. I know families that rely on school breakfast/lunch programs- not because they lack the SNAP benefits necessary to feed their kids - but because they lack the time, energy or, to be perfectly honest, executive function, to ensure their kids eat breakfast before school and pack a lunch. These parents are relieved their kids are sitting quietly in their rooms instead of getting into visible trouble. They are not researching online harms or trying to understand how to guide their kids safely through. These kids deserve support too - but no amount of parental guidance-no matter how correct and/or useful- will help them. If ISPs made it ridiculously simple to turn off internet access from, say 11pm to 5am - you might see more kids get the benefit of “assisted self-control” - and get a bit more sleep on school nights. We need to find ways to support kids of low-functioning parents- because they exist and their childhoods matter too.

@TMTLongShort @CartisMyMommy @bloopmit @pmarca Robots building mobile homes on self-driving Tesla semi platforms.

The book “Mao, The Unknown Story”, paints a picture of a psychopath who rose to power primarily because Stalin realized he was “effective” and provided essential support. He was, indeed, a bad person. Many good people infected by bad ideas enabled his rise - but it’s hard to read much about his behavior- both early career and catastrophic late career- and maintain the illusion that Mao was merely a misguided idealist.

@paulg I used to interview engineers and translate their insights for consumption by ordinary humans. I see occasional hints of AI filling that role. If that ramps up, it’s a good thing - even in bullet points. OTOH drivel is drivel whether delivered long form or in AI shorts.

@paulg Are you writing for the median person?

@kevinobriencha1 @sideeply @Thinkwert Ptsd

I was an English major in the late 80’s. We still had older professors who engaged deeply with a wide range of literature. Newer professors were different. One bragged openly about ensuring all new faculty taught from a feminist perspective. I studied Moby Dick with one of these. It was horrible. If you were not analyzing from a feminist perspective, your insights were shallow and uninteresting. The mental gymnastics required to perform analysis with zero freedom to genuinely engage with the work was painful. I can only imagine what it’s like today - now that the hiring filter has been in place for 40 years… (I’m female. I recognize I’ve benefited tremendously from the feminist movement. I’m not anti-feminism. I am, however, anti intellectual arrogance- which is what you evidence when you enforce an ideology rather than engage honestly with a range of perspectives.)

I firmly believe the myth of the poorly socialized homeschool kid comes from the fact that parents of kids with poor social skills due to autism, bpd etc pull their struggling kids out of public school at higher rates. Kids with poor social skills are often homeschooled because they struggle - not the other way around.

I was terrified of screwing up when I pulled my kids out to homeschool. My biggest early mistake was trying to follow the school calendar and cover the same subjects at the same time - an albeit using my own program. This led to absurdities like staying in an unheated cabin in Grass Valley, Ca in January - because that’s when the state program covers the gold rush. I will admit it was memorable… I made plenty of other mistakes as well - but I did a few things right - which are worth passing on: I wanted my kids to become autodidacts - and they did. The foundation of my program was reading for a minimum of one hour per day. It took some work to get all three of them engaged- because each responded to different authors/genres. I read with them and discovered my capacity to read widely and deeply improved dramatically as well. There is no substitute for regular, sustained engagement with good books. Once that foundation was laid every else was easier. History: find good books, read discussion, write. Science: read about the development of various ideas in science as well as the scientific process and then go do experiments on your own. One kid loved gardening so one year we built a program around soil science. (Teaming with Microbes is a great book, btw) For writing: I wanted to instill the idea that writing is communication- not a set of rules and formulas to memorize. We picked a topic (volcanoes, initially) - and studied it deeply- reading, visiting volcano park sites, videos - etc. once they had depth of knowledge- we worked on writing techniques. I only homeschooled through Jr High - then they participated in the IB program at our local high school. Math prep could have been better and they probably would have benefited from earlier intro to physics. The core idea though was for them to develop their own capacity to learn. With that in place they were able to overcome any and all deficits. We only needed about four hours/day of “school” time - so they had time left over to read on their own, physical activity, field trips and other hands on experiences.

@brivael Unfortunately, humans: “Things I disagree with” = AI slop

I read Crime and Punishment in (public) high school in the 80’s. I’m not suggesting I understood what I was reading at any great depth- but I benefited from the effort… My niece at the same age I was - gets assigned three page reading “packets” with endless deadline extensions for the minimal homework associated with them…

I went the other direction from Christian to Atheist. I still believe there is a lot of wisdom in the church and tremendous value around spending time every week with folks who are seeking to align their lives around the wisdom of God. The shallow, self-righteous hypocrites do exist - as do abusive bullies- but you can find their equivalent in any large community. Anti-religious reporters and others seek out the most obnoxious members and amplify them as representatives of the whole group. They are not. Most active church-going Christians in my experience are genuinely concerned with becoming better: better people, better parents, better friends, better employees/bosses, better Christians. And they are drawing on thousands of years of shared experiences trying, failing and trying again- to get this life and faith thing right.

What, exactly, would be the point of lying to the 6 people likely to see this? To boost my follower count that I don’t cultivate or monetize? I post once a year or so. You can check out my goat photos to verify if it matters to you. I reply occasionally- to the applause of 1 or 2 passing viewers. If you want to hunt AI slop manufacturers- may 60 something retired reply ladies aren’t your target. I happen to be interested in how people form the beliefs they do - and I do think it’s true that the implications of leftest ideology taken to it’s extreme has undergone less of a reckoning than extreme rightest ideology. I don’t care if you agree. I decided to state an opinion. That’s all. I don’t ai would agree if I asked but I’m not interested in ai’s opinion on this.

@PresGeorgie @Luke_Dale_ @rbnmckenna86 Fascinating. I hate that particular formulation when I see it. If I had used AI I probably would have been looking out for it and scrubbed it. Now I’m worried I’m picking up bad habits just by reading so much AI content!

@Luke_Dale_ @rbnmckenna86 Not AI. It might not be stunningly original writing but I did not use AI. Except to check the numbers. In a separate chat. I used to use em dashes frequently in a past life as a technical marketing writer. I stopped after AI claimed them for its own.

My kids are grown and gone. Traveling is what we do now because we don’t have anything better to do… No grandkids yet. But…when our neighbor asked for help with her three kids while her in-laws were out of town, we changed our travel plans so we could hang with them. Kids vs travel? Kids win even if they aren’t ours.

I agree- but it does seem as though the far left fringe is more accepting of violence than the far right fringe. I’ve actually heard individuals opine that rioting and vandalism small businesses is acceptable “resistance” to the evils of capitalism. Fundamentally I believe this reflects a failure to grapple with catastrophic horrors that resulted from communism (the far left anchor ideology). Between Stalin and Mao (Mao was identified by Stalin as an “effective” leader. He was elevated and supported by Stalin. Without Stalin, there would have been no Mao) Between them, they were responsible for between 45 and 90 million deaths. The higher number includes deaths from famine that resulted from decisions like selling grain to fund weapons and industrialization projects. There is plenty of evidence they knew the consequences of those actions and either didn’t care or considered it a feature. Starving peasants aren’t in any shape to revolt. The horrors of nationalist movements have been openly studied, widely acknowledged as contributing to the horrors of 2 world wars and the holocaust - which led to 65 to 75 million deaths by war, famine, disease, displacement, etc. It isn’t a matter of one side being better or worse than the other. It’s a matter of facing the consequences of a given world view- or not… There are people who support violence across the entire spectrum but I think you’d see less support on the far left if the far-left induced atrocities of the 20th century got the same level of attention as those of the far right. This is, of course, about the unstable fringes - not the majority on either side.

In 2002, the principal of my kids’ elementary school in Sunnyvale, ca told me that “lots of adults are bored in their jobs. Smart kids have to get used to being bored.” I was trying to stick with public school. I was trying to support all the bored, disengaged gifted kids - not just my own. I was defeated by an ideology that said it believed in sacrificing the futures of gifted kids on the alter of “equity”. I quit my job, pulled my kids out and homeschooled. The school system remains unwilling to engage with the possibility that the negative outcomes for students *of all backgrounds and ability levels* stem from its failed ideology. It has decades of data to work with - should it choose to do so.

In my past life as a technical marketing writer, I always took copious handwritten notes during interviews with subject matter experts. I have terrible handwriting. This meant I needed to transcribe my notes within 48 hours while I could still recall the concepts associated with the squiggly lines in my notebook. I’d argue that rewriting your non-verbatim notes into a more coherent form - improves cognition even more.