Comment by serf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by serf | Hacker News Reader

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I don't disagree with your points, but have you ever considered it strange that you're unable to relate to why someone would want to do something for fun?

you answer your own perplexity by yourself in the same sentence; they do it for fun. I know this because I was a shithead vandal teenager, and I did it for two reasons , 1) fun at the moment and 2) to impress my peers and sex partners.

I think the frustrations of youth are undersold here, and I think the expectation of "You're born, now conform to being a cog in this machine that you had nothing to do with or necessarily any interest in." is also somewhat fundamentally flawed, even if the kids have nice bathrooms due to their own efforts to shit in.

a society that repairs itself and allows a certain level of vandalism is better, I think. It allows for the rebellious youth to get through these psychological phases without much possibility of a misstep that allows them to throw themselves into incarceration for life, it offers leeway for personal growth, and it doesn't pin them into programs that they hate and wouldn't integrate into, anyway.

Tell me, how does the whole 'kids take care of their own bathrooms' thing work out for bullies?

answer: they love it. They don't have to work. Asia hasn't solved the bullying thing yet even with their perceived perfect unitary social one-ness.

I don't disagree to your points, but Asia (Japan specifically for me, since I had the opportunity to attend both school system) have vandalism and delinquent just the same as America/Europe.

They just showed their delinquency very differently. Some weird form of "honor among thieves/不良/yakuza" deal, which mostly meant they were aggressive, hanged out late (loitering around convenience store asian squatting with a cigarette in their hand) and driving around in loud bikes and fight each other. Breaking public things was a rare overstep.

So I still don't get it no. There are many ways to have "delinquent fun" so to say, so why at one place the same need is put out on public things vs the other place it is taken out on... Each other(?) is a mystery to me.

>Tell me, how does the whole 'kids take care of their own bathrooms' thing work out for bullies?

This is the most predictable counter argument I get when the public responsibility in school in Asia is brought up, and it sounds fair on the surface on it but it is a red herring; bullying exist independent of collectivism or individualism nor collective responsibility or not, and neither address it, and neither is anyone claiming it addresses bullying.

And no bully don't usually love it. Because there's something called a teacher that checks in if everyone is doing their part and if a malicious actor is not, they get reprimanded. This is ofc not perfect and doesn't solve "teachers pet/favoritism" issue, but it does its job of teaching the students that "if everyone collaborate, one can circumvent race to the bottom Nash equilibrium when no one cleans the room." which I would say is a much better systemic approach than "idk individualism, things are shit because we are too lazy to think about responsibilities nor systemic way to uphold some trust in social settings"

"If your system is built on the assumption of every actor acting ideally, that's a broken system."

> have you ever considered it strange that you're unable to relate to why someone would want to do something for fun?

What a bizarre extrapolation. They just don't see why smashing up bus stops is fun. Maybe you can answer, what's fun about it? I don't get it either. I was a teenager once, I don't see why destroying things that are useful for everyone (including you) would be fun.

It's fair game. In short, it reads like, "I don't understand the motivations behind this behavior, and here's what needs to happen to stop it."

If you want to change something, understanding it is a very good first step. Usually it means you're on the path toward finding a cure rather than simply treating symptoms.

Of course understanding is a good first step. However the onus is I think on the antisocial one to explain themselves. Of course I did ask exactly what you suggested, and they didn't reply. So maybe just stopping them without understanding would be ok in this case.

I think the onus is on the one who wants to enact change, but I'm curious how you came to prefer sorting it by sociability.

"the one who wants to enact change" is not really meaningful. They want to change the working bus stop into a smashed bus stop. I want to change the people who smash bus stops into people who don't smash bus stops. I don't think the abstract framing is helping you to think about it (or helping me to understand you).

My feeling about this is very simple. I think the position "I want to smash up public infrastructure to impress my sexual partners" is destructive and immoral. I don't see any reason we should allow it to happen. If someone wants to do that, I think we should punish them. I am not sympathetic to that position at all. Why do you think I should be? That's all I'm asking.

I do think it's closely related to women, because like you say, girls go for runabouts. Girls think the communal farm hippie is romantic, the satan-woshipping metal band member is romantic, the (2000s) kid rock punk trailer trash is romantic. Girls who have looks but are born poor seem to have no choice but encourage it. Murphy's law rules: if it's stupid (breaking windows) but it works (she likes me), it isn't stupid.

I feel like society kinda ran out of rebelliousness with kid rock and then rap culture (late 2000s Jay-Z, Chris Brown). It seems to have dried up. Modern lookmaxxing and gym rat culture, travel vlog, influencers are now the cool kids, van-life and nomadic travel are the new stick-it-to-the-man.

Young people are going to look at Ukraine and realize that flower power and stick-it-to-the-man are utterly bizarre. Who in Ukraine is doing the John Lennon routine? John Lennon's message is totally bizarre now.

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