Category: Q & A

The entire principle of giving out a general-purpose diploma is the core flaw in the question. Rather, everyone should be trained from the beginning of their schooling towards a certain set of "certifications", qualifying one for tasks or jobs of varying difficulty levels, or which have given pre-requisites.

Thus, rather than producing HS grads who are all over the map as far as skills and working capacity, and seeing a need to encourage a greater amount of self reliance generally, it may be wiser to start measuring when each student becomes "ready to work at McDonalds" versus "ready to be the assistant manager at McDonalds".

Rather than being a means to leave at-risk or learning-disabled children behind, such a system could (with the exception of legal requirements to work certain jobs) eliminate age as a factor in learning, reducing the feeling of pressure to perform and/or conform with one's nominal age-based peer group. Further, since no high school diploma would exist to signify the "end of compulsory education", follow-on courses of study could simply target themselves directly at the appropriate qualifiers, along an ever-evolving life-learning path throughout one's lifetime, without a stigma of "leaving the real world to go back to school", and hopefully without an equally outmoded sense that higher education as well need follow strict 2/4/6 year lengths for any work-practical reasons.

Given that nearly everyone entering school now will change career paths multiple times before retirement, this changed format overall may help reduce the "abandonment factor" experienced currently by seasoned workers whose fields disappear due to outsourcing/automation/other factors.

What would the impact be if high schoolers had to demonstrate the skills to start and run a small, local, service business in order to receive a diploma?

Having just watched my almost three year-old switch to the next episode of Doctor Who (Tom Baker – The Ribos Operation) after the first one completed on Amazon Instant Streaming (thanks for the free shows, Prime), I'm a bit worried… But I've known this day was coming since she started borrowing my iPhone so she could hit the App Store and show me which apps I should get for her next.

Still, she doesn't know any of my passwords, so all she can do is watch/download the free stuff on her own. And, watching those Doctor Who episodes is something we do together as a family (much to her mother's chagrin when I'm not around)… So she even "gets" that certain things require a parent to do, or at least approve of (in the case of the App store).

I'd say negotiate what you can, while they still treat you as their nominal superior. Also, try to be fair and consistent above all else – that's really the main key to having sensible and obedient children. When those cracks of "because I said so" start showing through, every existing rule becomes a line to be crossed just to see what will happen.

At what ages should children be allowed to use the Internet without supervision?

The answer exactly mirrors the answer to "at what age should I stop bringing my opposite-sex child into Japanese hot springs?", which is to say "when it starts making them uncomfortable."

Seriously, there's no "right" age. Stop overthinking it. Do it until it doesn't work for the child, and they let you know. If you do it too soon, you may turn sexuality into a traumatic/bad thing unwittingly, as they link the opposite sex to a bad memory of switching bedrooms, etc.

Just like education, linking certain skills/expectations to age alone is a terrible mistake. Whenever you get the chance, appreciate and treasure the opportunity to treat your child as an individual, and allow them to grow at learn at their own pace.

At what age should a child no longer share a room with someone of the opposite sex?

Shocked at how many people don't understand that children are, and forever will be, a specific kind of asset class.

That the valuation fluctuates highly, is hard to measure empirically outside of pure financial return (and even then largely ignoring losses that would occur if children did NOT receive investment). And yes, it's a strange almost "derivative class", but instead of bundling up separate assets into an easy to manage mess, you divide an ostensibly simple asset "wholly owned" by a set of parents (in most cases), then apply addiitonal external effects on business growth potential and GDP. Which also explains why there ABSOLUTELY should be governmental influence on one's children and their upbringing – the effects thereof are felt most explicitly at the macro level, not individually.

All that said, it's also true that because people don't like to think of other people as assets generally (which also causes people to instinctually dislike prenups), the evolution of laws governing the care, maintenance, and exploit of these assets hasn't kept up with the times.

What's really needed is a hard-nosed look at the costs of investment, and the DESIRED returns, and then reshuffle the whole health/education/work system to optimize payouts… Heck, give every teacher a cut of their students' future earnings, and you'll hear a lot fewer complaints about pay and benefits. 😉

Should we stop investing in our children, because they generate lower rates of return than other asset classes?

I'd recommend a search engine query for "bad words list", there are quite a few out there, though you'll need to decide how strict you want to be – there are many "bad" words – like cock, bitch, taxes, douche, and ass – which have completely non-profane use cases.

A couple quick picks from my own search:

http://www.bannedwordlist.com/ – quick source for a largish list in xml, txt, csv formats

http://urbanoalvarez.es/blog/200… – a list in txt format, along with a simple MySQL database featuring swear words and replacements

Also, I'd just like to highlight that bad words are not the only moderation issue you face… Take the following examples:

http://yoursite.net/f_u_c_k_o_f_f
http://yoursite.com/eonmyfaceplease
http://yoursite.gov/shhhhhhhhhit
http://yoursite.org/y-at-your-mo…

Suffice to say there are a lot of ways around auotmated filtering systems… I'd reframe the issue this way: implementing something to satisfy everyone is a huge drain on development resources…

If your site becomes hugely popular as a URL shortener, then the profanity will get lost in the mix, mere background noise. If you never gain popularity, then manual moderation or even just "living in obscurity" can probably keep you out of trouble with your boss, customers, and the law.

Where can I find a definitive list of "cuss words" that should be blocked from (for example) blog comments?