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Reedx

To dismiss as dangerous is silly. Here are the 12 rules.

Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back

Rule 2: Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping

Rule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you

Rule 4: Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today

Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them

Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world

Rule 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)

Rule 8: Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie

Rule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t

Rule 10: Be precise in your speech

Rule 11: Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding

Rule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/jo...

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Its interesting how wildly different in scope they are, as if its designed more to keep your attention than have meaningful advice.

1-4 are "respect yourself".

5 is.... I think legitimate bad advice as worded, but I'm sure as expounded it makes more sense. Maybe its designed as a hook (the "wtf" that drives views).

6-8 are general advice you'd find anywhere

9-11 are how to effectively deal with other people without saying the word "empathy"

12 is kinda spurious

On it's surface, I would interpret #12 as an exercise in empathy too. And patience. :)

> Rule 2: Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping

I've never seen someone turn the Golden Rule inward like this. I like it.

> Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them

Other people will do what they do. The only thing you have control over is your own reaction. Most adults understand this.

> Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world

Nobody's house is in perfect order. Internalizing the tu quoque fallacy of relevance is not good philosophy.

> Rule 8: Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie

I'd mention the "Jew in the attic" thought experiment, but there's probably some way to successfully hide the Jew without telling a "lie" if you're clever enough about defining what a "lie" is and what precise statements you make.

> Rule 11: Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding

Unless this conflicts with Rule 5, I suppose.

(I don't have any issue with the statements I didn't respond to.)

I've only made it to Rule #2 in the book so far. But it is thought provoking. (Not strongly, in a Plato sense. But reflective.)

It mentions studies (or parables? Who cares?) of people taking better care of their dogs post-surgery than they take of themselves. It rings true, and speaks to anyone who thinks or knows they aren't taking good enough care of themselves.

Has certainly been an enjoyable read so far.

Most of these seem fine to good, but number 5 is kind of just removing agency from children entirely. Its the same mindset of people who kick their kids out for being gay

Possibly but this is more to counter letting your kids go wild such that as they grow up you don't like to around them. By ining them how to behave well you equip them will the tools to interact in society.

Of course if you are a horrible person you might dislike them for their good behaviours. But if you're a horrible person chances are you'll mess up your kids with or without that rule.

I don't think people "let" their kids go wild so much as run out of parenting skills. That's what makes the idea irrational: use your parenting skills to make up for your lack of parenting skills. All you have to do is decide to do so!

This may be one of those cases where thinking about something explicitly is already half of the way to success.

That’s the same process we use at work everyday. When people run out of programming skill they get better by study and practice. All you have to do is to decide to.

> I don't think people "let" their kids go wild so much as run out of parenting skills.

There is a difference between not being able to control your child fully, and not even trying. In my experience, most parents are trying, but I have met one or two who did not care, seemingly believing that whatever their kid does is perfectly okay, because hey, it's just a small child... completely ignoring that fact that other kids around, of the same age, are well behaved.

Now, this strategy of making excuses may work well while the child is small. Like, adults will look at a misbehaving 4 years old and only think "what a horrible child... and what a horrible parent" and walk away. But as your child grows up, the environment becomes less forgiving, and it becomes more difficult for you to instill good habits. If the child's behavior irritates you, as a parent, you can bet that it irritates unrelated people at least twice as much. This creates a spiral, when the environment and your child become hostile to each other.

On the other hand, if you succeed to instill pleasant behavior in your child, it can create a positive spiral, when other people enjoy the presence of your child and by their attention reward the nice behavior, and your child has more pleasant life and more opportunities to further improve social skills.

It really isn’t the same mindset as intolerance. Why would it remove agency? Do you dislike children?

It’s about setting a boundary where it is most productive, children who are not socialised by the age of four hit problems in later life. Parents and kids who go to war help no one.

I think it comes from that the rule is titled "Do not let your children do anything that...". The language states to restrict the child's agency if you disagree with it.

I was fortunate enough to grow up with good parents, but there were times where they were misguided and myself disobeying them helped us both in the long run.

Language policing one line without the backing context is missing the point.

Those times you disobeyed were also met with decades of limiting your agency. Not letting you cover yourself in peanut butter or fight with other kids, or mistreat pets, or spend infinite money.

Jp sees resentment and pride as the ultimate source for being a rapscallion or monster, putting responsibility on the parent to keep their child in the ‘liked’ category is a very elegant way to keep a kid from destroying your house but also make a parent confront/channel any resentment or excessive pride into productive directions.

Rule 12 caveat 1: If it lets you.

Rule 12 caveat 2: And wash or disinfect your hands immediately afterwards, because Lord only knows what that cat is carrying on its fur.

Yep.

How I caught ring worm

Cats are filthy creatures

Rule 6 taken together with the maxim "Nobody's perfect" means a world where nobody can criticize anything, ever. Doesn't sound ideal to me.

Rule 10 is self-contradictory, since it doesn't specify what "precise in your speech" means.

Rule 11 is oddly-specific (why just skateboarding and not any other risky activity?), and reads like it's thrown in there to look "cool" ("how do you do fellow kids?" meme).

Rule 12 is vapid fluff. It's also potentially dangerous, since a unknown stray cat may carry rabies, or be fearful of humans and claw you up bad.

I think you may be judging a book by the cover here. I'd imagine that those 12 rules are metaphors, and expounded upon.

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