alt Hacker NewsHuman brain capabilities are truly amazing, imagine if people didn’t treat their children as if they are stupid and didn’t constantly lie to them, because kids are stupid right, they wouldn’t understand. What heights could be reached.
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They aren't stupid, but they aren't quite ready to handle the full responsibilities of the world and worry about things they don't need to worry about.
My son is very worried about black holes lately when he learned anything that goes into one can't get out. He's pretty concerned astronauts could get stuck in one some day. So I explained to him that Hawking radiation does actually mean you can eventually get out; it just takes some time.
I didn't think it pertinent to mention spaghettification, the fact anywhere near a black hole will be really hot, or that cosmic censorship means whatever Hawking-radiates from a black hole wouldn't be an astronaut anymore.
It was also fun to hear Hawking speak. He wanted to know if Hawking was a robot. I said no, but he has a robot talk for him. Not quite true, but close enough.
Because god forbid that childhood, the one time in your life when you don't have any responsibilities, should be fun.
We don’t treat children like they’re stupid, we treat children like they’re children. A stupid adult is treated very differently than any child.
Adults are expected to have their world models approximately correct in terms of physical environment so they won’t accidentally kill themselves by falling off a cliff; then there are the social norms which adults are expected to conform to so everyone is kinda predictable to everyone else so adults don’t kill each other too often over food or mates. Understanding of neither is expected from children.