When parents yell at you about a thing, they’re alienating you from actually learning the thing.
“&#@* GABBLE GABBLE you LOST the thing??? how could you it was expensive???!!!”
The child learns what they must fear is their parent’s reaction to the thing, not the thing itself.
Of course they do. When you’re that small, your parent’s reaction is much more real and visceral a danger to you.
Of course your body learns to correctly and accurately prioritise learning that fear, over anything else.
The problem with that fear is as children grow up, they correctly come to care less about getting yelled at.
Then they find they are just insensitive to the world.
They never learned the micro-sensitivity to attune to the micro-problem of losing a couple $10 bucks in the world.
Their nervous system was focused on a pain much larger and more immediate.
You.
It takes them a while to send out grappling hooks in the world and learn again.
To learn from trial-and-error.
@ejames_c
2/ The study of learning in real world environments is known as macrocognition.
Fancy name, simple meaning: it just means that these theories aren't constructed by observation of humans in a lab, but are instead formed from real world observation. https://t.co/ut3QIFrDeD https://t.co/CPQ6pjTrdD
Give them $100, have them experience the budget loss of losing $30, and you don’t think they’ll learn?
Bitch please, these are the same kids that will pull insane speed-running hacks to save 0.1s off a Mario wall-run.
@AskYatharth
You want a kid to learn something?
You give them autonomy.
They connect with their sense of actual control. Whatever is happening in the environment—they now suddenly care about it. It’s 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢. Linked to the main thing the mind cares about: predictive control.
At the very least, even if they don’t know how to stop losing things, you can step in to offer them:
“hey, want some tips to stop losing things?”
And they’re like YES>!! thank you. they feel helped by you, in learning how to navigate the world
@AskYatharth
There’s a Christopher Alexander quote that goes: Can a program can make people feel helped in their lives, “on the same level that they are helped by horses, and roses, and a crackling fire.”
(“oh no, if I do this, my parents will yell at me!” 😖❗️)
2. the internalised, updateable, trial-and-error one
(kids playing video games)
The emotional, fear-based one is a great way to install Lindy programs, actually.
It’s this frozen emotional memory that never really goes away, even after the kids have moved out and are no longer actually scared of their parents.
No wonder it gets used. It must be so tempting to hardwire the Lindy traditions that kept you alive and that could keep your child alive—that thing you so desperately want to keep alive, keep from staying from ruin, oh god.
It’s so easy. Just yell.
Overwhelm their nervous system. Do it enough times and it will be formed as a persistent emotional memory until the unlikely day they learn about coherence therapy, or medium doses of acid, or some esoteric shit and dissolve it.
@AskYatharth
When you let your part make sense, you let it be you (consciousness).
it’s one way to understand what teenagers are doing in the world
they’re trying to get their environment to sound louder they their own head
they’re trying to become their own person
@visakanv
the magic word to understanding teenagers I think is "sovereignty". They will do weird and pointless-seeming things because they *can*. Like how when 240chars was first introduced on twitter, people posted one-char-a-line tweets. Because they could
or in fact, rebel against it the old-fashioned way—become increasingly unhappy with the rules until you act out!
become a teenager. get into enough shit that the *actual environment rewards* finally start to feel bigger than the loud emotional voices that’d drown everything out
@AskYatharth
it’s not just a psychological safety thing either. uttering those truths out loud, especially before you fully believe them, is how you taste their truth on your lips, how you integrate what parts of it you believe and how you believe it
it’s true, you can see the parents as merely, simply reacting to their internal environment
they don’t know what better to do so they yell
but you have to think about where they learned to yell, and why that system got stuck in place
sure the parents are not drawing up a pedagogical lesson plan, “i will yell at my kids and so they will brutally internally internalise [harmuphh!!!]” 😤
maybe they literally just can’t take it
but still . . . one reason it stuck around is it is lindy to yell and pass down
the truth is:
like homeschooling, etc., it will never scale
it requires specialised, individual resources
it requires emotional capacity, no financial burning stress
it requires a supportive partner and fluent emotional upbringing
it requires a lot of things that can’t be expected of people
it’s not going to stop me from stanning the people trying
(and sometimes all it requires to get started is just a commitment to a value)
to sovereignty
@visakanv
In every child is the seed of a sovereign individual, with their own hopes and dreams and desires and identities. If you really appreciate this, you can have wonderful relationships with them, even learn a lot from them. If you don’t, you’re both gonna have a bad time https://t.co/fGPcxV9hZu
good clarification thread on how this centering individual autonomy is *not* historical, not universal, and certainly not the *Good* either
@ben_mathes
@AskYatharth FWIW… this is a preeeety recent ideological thing to center the individual so much. A medieval prince maybe slept in a great hall with everyone around. Some amount of self-autonomy seems intrinsic, but the more recent completely-sovereign individual ideas are… novel.
When parents yell at you about a thing, they’re alienating you from actually learning the thing.“&#@* GABBLE GABBLE you LOST the thing??? how could you it was expensive???!!!”
The child learns what they must fear is their parent’s reaction to the thing, not the thing itself.Of course they do. When you’re that small, your parent’s reaction is much more real and visceral a danger to you.
Of course your body learns to correctly and accurately prioritise learning that fear, over anything else.The problem with that fear is as children grow up, they correctly come to care less about getting yelled at.
Then they find they are just insensitive to the world.They never learned the micro-sensitivity to attune to the micro-problem of losing a couple $10 bucks in the world.
Their nervous system was focused on a pain much larger and more immediate.
You.It takes them a while to send out grappling hooks in the world and learn again.
To learn from trial-and-error.That’s how kids learn, you know.
𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭.
Give them $100, have them experience the budget loss of losing $30, and you don’t think they’ll learn?
Bitch please, these are the same kids that will pull insane speed-running hacks to save 0.1s off a Mario wall-run.At the very least, even if they don’t know how to stop losing things, you can step in to offer them:
“hey, want some tips to stop losing things?”
And they’re like YES>!! thank you. they feel helped by you, in learning how to navigate the worldThe job of parents is not to Be the world to their children, the arbitrary Sky-god, arbiter of both rewards and punishments in the world
but to Show them the world, the one outside, and help them learn the rules to that.Then you become kid’s Helpers instead of the Authorities to hack.
Any kid who doesn’t end up hacking your system is either content with their place or unsovereign.The problem with yelling in the first place is it was trying to cause violence on the child’s nervous system. Violence they would hopefully remember.So the child’s only options are
1. stay under yoke of violence forever
2. become strong enough to not care about such violence anymore, but oops
now they are in an undifferentiated world
They have to learn now.they never really internalised the actual cost of losing something.
in fact, they’re further away from it
because they have something to unlearn nowIt was an attempt to teach a Lindy rule.
“if you wince at every $30 lost (like me), you will be okay”
But sometimes lindy rules aren’t kind. Because such lindy rules are based on violence and they are based on lies.The attempt of the parent was to brutalise the child hard enough that anytime the child lost $30 in the future, they would wince 😣
Even if the $30 wasn’t a big deal, and even if they weren’t scared of their parents anymore, the emotional memory would stay & they would wince 😣They’re unlearning the lie that it was 𝘣𝘢𝘥 to lose $30.
They’re unlearning the lie that it’s a 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘭 to lose $30.
It’s none of those things actually.
Losing $30 isn’t a big deal.
But acting as if it was WAS a lindy rule to keep you from ruin.In short, there’s two kinds of learning systems
1. the emotional, fear-based one
(“oh no, if I do this, my parents will yell at me!” 😖❗️)
2. the internalised, updateable, trial-and-error one
(kids playing video games)The emotional, fear-based one is a great way to install Lindy programs, actually.
It’s this frozen emotional memory that never really goes away, even after the kids have moved out and are no longer actually scared of their parents.No wonder it gets used. It must be so tempting to hardwire the Lindy traditions that kept you alive and that could keep your child alive—that thing you so desperately want to keep alive, keep from staying from ruin, oh god.It’s so easy. Just yell.
Overwhelm their nervous system. Do it enough times and it will be formed as a persistent emotional memory until the unlikely day they learn about coherence therapy, or medium doses of acid, or some esoteric shit and dissolve it.I tried to get my ego to sound just as loud as my super-ego until I could finally hear it.
developing ego ~= becoming an individuated personit’s one way to understand what teenagers are doing in the world
they’re trying to get their environment to sound louder they their own head
they’re trying to become their own personor in fact, rebel against it the old-fashioned way—become increasingly unhappy with the rules until you act out!
become a teenager. get into enough shit that the *actual environment rewards* finally start to feel bigger than the loud emotional voices that’d drown everything outresponse:
it’s true, you can see the parents as merely, simply reacting to their internal environment
they don’t know what better to do so they yell
but you have to think about where they learned to yell, and why that system got stuck in placesure the parents are not drawing up a pedagogical lesson plan, “i will yell at my kids and so they will brutally internally internalise [harmuphh!!!]” 😤
maybe they literally just can’t take it
but still . . . one reason it stuck around is it is lindy to yell and pass downthe truth is:
it’s never really this simple
doing this the (2) “teach kids to internalise the world way” is way harder
and imo no one gets to judge parents until they’ve been parents themselves, and not even thenthe truth is:
like homeschooling, etc., it will never scale
it requires specialised, individual resources
it requires emotional capacity, no financial burning stress
it requires a supportive partner and fluent emotional upbringingit requires a lot of things that can’t be expected of people
it’s not going to stop me from stanning the people trying(and sometimes all it requires to get started is just a commitment to a value)
to sovereigntyyou can’t let their autonomy be a nuisancegood clarification thread on how this centering individual autonomy is *not* historical, not universal, and certainly not the *Good* either
When parents yell at you about a thing, they’re alienating you from actually learning the thing. ... “&#@* GABBLE GABBLE you LOST the thing??? how could you it was expensive???!!!”
The child learns what they must fear is their parent’s reaction to the thing, not the thing itself. ... Of course they do. When you’re that small, your parent’s reaction is much more real and visceral a danger to you.
Of course your body learns to correctly and accurately prioritise learning that fear, over anything else. ... The problem with that fear is as children grow up, they correctly come to care less about getting yelled at.
Then they find they are just insensitive to the world. ... They never learned the micro-sensitivity to attune to the micro-problem of losing a couple $10 bucks in the world.
Their nervous system was focused on a pain much larger and more immediate.
You. ... It takes them a while to send out grappling hooks in the world and learn again.
To learn from trial-and-error. ... That’s how kids learn, you know.
𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭.
Give them $100, have them experience the budget loss of losing $30, and you don’t think they’ll learn?
Bitch please, these are the same kids that will pull insane speed-running hacks to save 0.1s off a Mario wall-run. ... At the very least, even if they don’t know how to stop losing things, you can step in to offer them:
“hey, want some tips to stop losing things?”
And they’re like YES>!! thank you. they feel helped by you, in learning how to navigate the world ... The job of parents is not to Be the world to their children, the arbitrary Sky-god, arbiter of both rewards and punishments in the world
but to Show them the world, the one outside, and help them learn the rules to that. ... Then you become kid’s Helpers instead of the Authorities to hack.
Any kid who doesn’t end up hacking your system is either content with their place or unsovereign. ... The problem with yelling in the first place is it was trying to cause violence on the child’s nervous system. Violence they would hopefully remember. ... So the child’s only options are
1. stay under yoke of violence forever
2. become strong enough to not care about such violence anymore, but oops
now they are in an undifferentiated world
They have to learn now. ... they never really internalised the actual cost of losing something.
in fact, they’re further away from it
because they have something to unlearn now ... It was an attempt to teach a Lindy rule.
“if you wince at every $30 lost (like me), you will be okay”
But sometimes lindy rules aren’t kind. Because such lindy rules are based on violence and they are based on lies. ... The attempt of the parent was to brutalise the child hard enough that anytime the child lost $30 in the future, they would wince
Even if the $30 wasn’t a big deal, and even if they weren’t scared of their parents anymore, the emotional memory would stay & they would wince ... They’re unlearning the lie that it was 𝘣𝘢𝘥 to lose $30.
They’re unlearning the lie that it’s a 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘭 to lose $30.
It’s none of those things actually.
Losing $30 isn’t a big deal.
But acting as if it was WAS a lindy rule to keep you from ruin. ... In short, there’s two kinds of learning systems
1. the emotional, fear-based one
(“oh no, if I do this, my parents will yell at me!” ️)
2. the internalised, updateable, trial-and-error one
(kids playing video games) ... The emotional, fear-based one is a great way to install Lindy programs, actually.
It’s this frozen emotional memory that never really goes away, even after the kids have moved out and are no longer actually scared of their parents. ... No wonder it gets used. It must be so tempting to hardwire the Lindy traditions that kept you alive and that could keep your child alive—that thing you so desperately want to keep alive, keep from staying from ruin, oh god. ... It’s so easy. Just yell.
Overwhelm their nervous system. Do it enough times and it will be formed as a persistent emotional memory until the unlikely day they learn about coherence therapy, or medium doses of acid, or some esoteric shit and dissolve it. ... I tried to get my ego to sound just as loud as my super-ego until I could finally hear it.
developing ego ~= becoming an individuated person ... it’s one way to understand what teenagers are doing in the world
they’re trying to get their environment to sound louder they their own head
they’re trying to become their own person ... or in fact, rebel against it the old-fashioned way—become increasingly unhappy with the rules until you act out!
become a teenager. get into enough shit that the *actual environment rewards* finally start to feel bigger than the loud emotional voices that’d drown everything out ... response:
it’s true, you can see the parents as merely, simply reacting to their internal environment
they don’t know what better to do so they yell
but you have to think about where they learned to yell, and why that system got stuck in place ... sure the parents are not drawing up a pedagogical lesson plan, “i will yell at my kids and so they will brutally internally internalise [harmuphh!!!]”
maybe they literally just can’t take it
but still . . . one reason it stuck around is it is lindy to yell and pass down ... the truth is:
it’s never really this simple
doing this the (2) “teach kids to internalise the world way” is way harder
and imo no one gets to judge parents until they’ve been parents themselves, and not even then ... the truth is:
like homeschooling, etc., it will never scale
it requires specialised, individual resources
it requires emotional capacity, no financial burning stress
it requires a supportive partner and fluent emotional upbringing ... it requires a lot of things that can’t be expected of people
it’s not going to stop me from stanning the people trying ... (and sometimes all it requires to get started is just a commitment to a value)
to sovereignty ... you can’t let their autonomy be a nuisance ... good clarification thread on how this centering individual autonomy is *not* historical, not universal, and certainly not the *Good* either
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
Update
