Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Automated Baby Care Is So Wrong

This automated rocking crib creeps me out. Babies need human contact to learn how to be human beings. They can die from lack of touch. I can understand parents' need for relief, but that's what relatives and friends are for. Or do you want children to imprint more on machines than on humans?

O_o Now there is a disturbing idea for a science fiction story: a sentient computer takes over the Earth, and only the old people are bothered by it. The younger generation, raised by machines, feel comforted. Yee eee eee ...
Tags: news
Subscribe

  • Birdfeeding

    Today is mostly sunny, muggy, and warm. I fed the birds. I've seen house finches. I took a few pictures in the yard. EDIT 7/4/21 -- I picked half…

  • Birdfeeding

    Today is sunny and mild. I fed the birds. I've seen house finches and sparrows. I raked the firepit and laid a chimney of sticks in it. We broke up…

  • Photographs

    I took some pictures of my yard today. Read about what makes a good wildlife yard and Fieldhaven as habitat. The larger brush pile is still…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    switch
    default userpic

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
    Help
  • 74 comments
...go 7 levels up... Expand
glitteringlynx

Re: Thoughts

glitteringlynx

February 3 2009, 22:35:46 UTC 12 years ago

Well to be fair, it's the same sort of reasoning I use with my cat. You can't train a cat just by telling it to do something, you have to show them that it's in THEIR INTERESTS to do something. Mind you, with Carl body language is as important as words, since he doesn't understand English THAT well. So with kids or cats, sometimes it's important to tell them that if they continue doing what they're doing, they'll hurt themselves. Ignore the fact they might hurt others (altruism comes later in life), you have to make it about THEM. And make it easy. Cats and kids are really more similar than we like to credit, on a mental and behavioural level.

Also, I'm well aware that the frontal lobe does not attach to the rest of the brain until we're about 18 or 19, so we can't REALLY understand the consequences of our actions until adulthood. In retrospect this does make sense. When you're, say, 16, you know intellectually what could happen if you drive drunk but only because you're TAUGHT that. Any consequences were things you learned by seeing it happen to other people. If you hadn't experienced a consequence, it wasn't possible to imagine its possiblity. I'm sure all of us can recount times in high school where we hadn't known the potiential consequences of what we were doing, until the consequences met up with us.

When I was a kid, the one thing I HATED was "Because I said so" or "Because God made it that way." I knew that couldn't be the answer but I couldn't think of a rebuttal, either.
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

February 4 2009, 01:19:17 UTC 12 years ago

>>Also, I'm well aware that the frontal lobe does not attach to the rest of the brain until we're about 18 or 19, so we can't REALLY understand the consequences of our actions until adulthood. <<

For some people that's true; for others, not. I can just barely remember a few occasions when I had no anticipation of a fairly obvious consequence. Most are from when I was 2-3, and I think the last one I was maybe 6-7. I had a pretty well developed grasp of cause and effect, action and consequence, possibility and implication by then. At that age I was deeply into Dad's history books (he teaches history, so you can imagine how hardcore his personal collection is) and mapping similarities across cultures and times. Very early on, I realized that it was much safer to learn from other people's stupid mistakes, and to think about what would happen before doing something. That's not to say I never made any dumb mistakes, but I had access to a lot more extrapolative ability a lot sooner than average. And I knew a fair number of people who were the same way. Whatever it is, it's like puberty and growth spurts: you can estimate when it will happen, but some people will have it come in early or late.
glitteringlynx

Re: Thoughts

glitteringlynx

February 4 2009, 22:14:28 UTC 12 years ago

It might not be exactly 18, but it's probably no younger than 16. It's easy for us to think we can understand the consequences and I didn't believe the notion at first. But imagination and basic problem solving probably can make up for it.

It's one of the reasons that it has been discussed that the driving age should be raised to 18. The fast pace at which you need to be making those decisions (and consequences) just isn't happening on a physical scale.

Technically the brain itself doesn't stop growing/maturing until well into our 20's, one way or another.
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

February 4 2009, 22:30:39 UTC 12 years ago

I look at this kind of research, and it just makes me suspicous. Why? We've only had extended life spans for a century or two. Fertility arrives around 10-13 (barring weird hormones in food, or extreme famine) and that is Mother Nature's opinion that you're ready to start contributing to your species. For a long time, life expectancy was 20-30 years, gradually stretching to 40-50. There were always some extraordinary individuals who lived for many decades -- but historically, most people died at what we would now consider rather early adulthood.

Those were rough times; if you couldn't make decisions, extrapolate consequences, and learn from others' mistakes, you mostly died and didn't pass on your genes. If driving a car is a challenge, try walking the African savanna where some of the wildlife considers you valid lunch. You have a split second to react to the lion's target selection and defend your right to continue living.

I think we've allowed ourselves to become slow and careless, or that something in the environment has changed the development rate, and/or that something is being misconstrued. It makes no evolutionary sense for so much of the function to wait until near the end of the original design parameters of a lifespan.
glitteringlynx

Re: Thoughts

glitteringlynx

February 4 2009, 23:28:07 UTC 12 years ago

Well you also have to figure that birth/death rates you see commonly in developing nations was always typical. There was a very high likelihood you would not survive the first 5 years of life. From that point on, the chances of death drop, and if you make it to adulthood you're doing well.

But also consider that humans do not exist in isolation like many mammals. Having a large number of people provides more learning. Adults would teach their young what they know, which prevents each generation having to learn from scratch. You're also not taking into account that there were a LOT of failed attempts at humanity (extinct common ancestors) along the way in our development. Had things been slightly different, another primate may have taken over in our place, or we may naver have survived. The odds were stacked against us but, like chimpanzees, we educate each other, we work together (safety in numbers) and we use tools to accomplish goals. When you work together as a group, the normal risks of being solo are greatly reduced.

  • Birdfeeding

    Today is mostly sunny, muggy, and warm. I fed the birds. I've seen house finches. I took a few pictures in the yard. EDIT 7/4/21 -- I picked half…

  • Birdfeeding

    Today is sunny and mild. I fed the birds. I've seen house finches and sparrows. I raked the firepit and laid a chimney of sticks in it. We broke up…

  • Photographs

    I took some pictures of my yard today. Read about what makes a good wildlife yard and Fieldhaven as habitat. The larger brush pile is still…