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The Brothers Krynn's avatar

Agreed the men of Rohan ought to be everyone's guides. It's why in my serials I write mostly of heroic men like them.

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Mike Volodarsky's avatar

Interesting idea about words representing ideas, so without words it comes more difficult to conceptualize and distinguish the idea itself. It’s like a hashtable key, if you don’t have a key for an item, it may be in the array, but you can’t find it. Or maybe you can with a scan, but its too computationally difficult to do in practice. Maybe biologically similar, we need a retrieval cue for an object in the environment to access it. Otherwise perhaps it has no direct route to access, and therefore, maybe also does not get reinforced enough to permanently store.

This reminded me of the Jordan Peterson’s rule to always tell the truth, or at least do not lie. That lying leads to an eventual inability to distinguish the truth itself. It’s such a simple, powerful concept. And it works, broadly.

Coming from the former Soviet Union, there is something that happens to people who live in an authoritarian society where you can’t speak the truth. You learn to change what you say in order to survive, which leads to strategic thinking. And these strategies often backfire long term. You game yourself. I’ve had to forcefully embrace being authentic, even at the perceived strategic disadvantage short term. It was very hard at first. But it definitely is better in the long run.

Can you write something about how to help children with learning this? Specifically, if you discipline a child, you may teach them to lie or hide things that go wrong in order to avoid punishment. But it’s better to teach them to be honest with the parents, even if they are in trouble. I usually do something along the lines of “if you are honest, I’ll help you fix it, and the consequences won’t be as bad as if you hide it”. Aha. I think it could work only in a fair system, a system of consequences not punishment. It’s not fair to deprive a child from the ability to survive if the system is unfair.

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