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Comment by soligern | Hacker News Reader

That doesn’t sound right. For all of human history bullies who were bigger and stronger made the rules. The weak were ostracized. If anything, what you’re doing in homeschooling is reverting away from the norm and creating a sheltered environment. This is a double edged sword, you can turn your kids into fragile beings incapable of dealing with a harsh world but at the same time they will probably have productive, predictable and carefree childhoods.

The best case scenario is to be rich enough so you can create a bubble for your kids that lasts from birth all the way to their graves. It’s very possible, all the wealthiest people do it.

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Bullying as in age-segregated schooling doesn’t exist in the real world. Adults and older children police any antisocial children, and the community of adults polices itself (because they’re adults and have mental faculties children lack).

> The best case scenario is to be rich enough so you can create a bubble for your kids that lasts from birth all the way to their graves

You don't have to be extra rich for that. Just don't associate, that's the whole point. To avoid a bully it's enough to not go to the same building with him every weekday.

> That doesn’t sound right. For all of human history bullies who were bigger and stronger made the rules. The weak were ostracized.

That requires more than a little bit of backup before using it as a basis for claiming that homeschooling is bad.

>> For all of human history bullies who were bigger and stronger made the rules.

It takes a unique character of not only being bigger and stronger, but also of being more generous and giving and sharing to become a leader or ruler. Leaders who were only bullies and cruel could maybe beat up or kill any individual man, but could not stand against a group and would be destroyed or ostracized if he was cruel enough to alienate a big enough group around him.

If you weren’t bullied growing up then maybe we can find some for you now, as you seem to be advocating this for kids.

Definitely not advocating for bullying, just pointing out that you can’t harken back to antiquity and call homeschooling a continuation of that paradigm in this particular sense.

Firstly, what I said can be true in one scope of reference and what you say in another. It's not mutually exclusive.

I feel your perspective is more about lots of the world after the rise of nation states and dense civilization.

For me I'm actually thinking back to the Pirahãs tribe from Daniel Everett's book as how we realistically lived as tribes. Conflict might arise, but a group might split off and go live in an entirely different patch of forest permanently, at which point the conflict is done without fuss. Things can be much less pleasant with permanent settlements and all land being owned by someone else.

A couple, man and woman, possibly with children, might also do something like this and just reject the benefits of being part of a larger community as loners.

Not all conflict is existential, we all choose to live facing a certain amount but also have our limits. Kids have way less flexibility to make the call and it is the cause of much misery

> For all of human history bullies who were bigger and stronger made the rules

This is why firearms and high explosives have been such blessings to humanity.

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