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Comment by polishdude20 | Hacker News Reader

I say, let the kids learnt these dynamics naturally without adult suggestions. These political ideas emerge from fundamental ways of social behavior. Let the kids learn these from a bottom up approach rather than a possibly flawed and skewed top down approach.

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Sure, then a bunch of kids end up learning the lesson "I'm better than my peers" and a bunch of other kids end up learning the lesson "My peers are always out to hurt me".

have you ever worked with young children? the method you propose will lead to bullying and fights. there needs to be some moderation.

Usually that's the goal of people that suggest this kind of treatment of children. It's usually backed up by a circular is-ought that the kids who are the victims in the bullying and faults are culpable and ought to become stronger if they wish to avoid that happening to them.

There has long been this subculture of actively encouraging bullying amongst children in order to "weed out the weak", and it's disgusting every time it's suggested.

What does weeding out the weak even mean here? Like they might identify the ones who aren't good at defending themselves, but then what? Are they planning on taking all the weak children out back and putting them down?

It's a flavour of social darwinism. The argument essentially goes that you encourage darwinian evolution of society where the weak are indeed weeded out, and that we should encourage people to "evolve" and become "strong".

In my experience it's usually a rationalisation by those who wished to do the thing already, but now even more than apathy, there's a moral obligation to bully people, which is quite appealing if you want to do those things.

Your comment doesn’t appear to answer any of the questions in the one it’s replying to.

my early adulthood was totally screwed because of just that. I learned some bad coping mechanisms, because nobody took what happened seriously.

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