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Comment by aaron-lebo | Hacker News Reader

You don't get it. These parents aren't trying to ruin their kids' lives (they care about them more than you do - they actually did the hard stuff like raise and support them), they just don't know any better (lack of education) and they want to keep their families together and presumably what is best for their kids.

It's not that hard to understand if you try and put yourself in their shoes and don't assume they are "disgusting, stupid, and small-minded". You aren't any different than them in your judgement of other societies, you just happen to have a potential advantage in education. What is your excuse for such derision?

You act like these people are animals and you aren't ever going to reach them and you are going to exacerbate the same impact you are talking about. Do you have the same view of all poor people embedded in a national culture?

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The discussion is not about caring and supporting the kids. The parents' best intention is not questioned but rather the method on how to apply the best intentions on their children.

As I was born in a conservative background and I found my way out in a long journey in a totally different country, I agree that people with the conservative background regardless of any country have a tendency to see the education, tech, big cities or most of the new things as poisonous to their core values. So that, they are trying to hinder their children to have access to these just because they love them and care them. They just want their kids to be happy and stay in the family as themselves who were kept by their parents.

In my opinion, this is not a new thing. This has been going for a very long time throughout the history. I understand that the change is scary from the conservative point of view. This is why; I try to not to judge anyone. But, I just see it as a puny fight against the windmill in the long run.

> They just want their kids to be happy and stay in the family as themselves who were kept by their parents.

The most important choices in parenting are mutually exclusive "good" options.

I have the same view of anyone who tries to hold anyone, especially their kids, back from getting an education and having a decent life because of their own stupidity. Stupidity is disgusting in a society that provides opportunities for education and betterment like the US does. They may not be the best opportunities or all that abundant in some places, but those opportunities exist. This isn't about poor people at all, it's about stupid people who choose to stay stupid. Plenty of poor people strive to not be stupid and strive especially hard for their kids to not end up stupid and to have a decent life. I do, however, deride those who have opportunities to do so but do not take advantage of them and try to promote their own stupidity and actively prevent their children from taking advantage of opportunities because they think their stupidity is somehow part of a culture worth preserving. It's not. Such "culture" of stupidity is indeed quite sick to me and forcing something like this onto children borders on abuse. I never said such people couldn't be reached, however, nor that this is a trait of those in poverty. In fact, there's plenty of people far removed from poverty that hold tight to their own stupidity to the detriment of their children all over the world. Doesn't make it any less disgusting.

Poor people? I don't think that demographic is being discussed. They're not poor, they're assholes. That's the common thread.

It is exceedingly hard understand their point of view, because their point of view is inconsistent and their beliefs are phantasmagoric. Derision against this kind of willful ignorance is the minimum.

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