• Welcome to the Internet Infidels Discussion Board.

California Doing California Things

My introverted kids could have cared less about being grounded. Send me to my room where my books and lego are? Yipee! My extroverted kids felt that being grounded for an afternoon was akin to being drawn and quartered.
:LOL: Me. My sister. My poor parents, grounding just wasn't a punishment. At one point my mom lamented that they can't very well take away books and paper as punishment for me. On the plus side... I was never really bad in the first place so I didn't get grounded much.
 
My introverted kids could have cared less about being grounded. Send me to my room where my books and lego are? Yipee! My extroverted kids felt that being grounded for an afternoon was akin to being drawn and quartered.
:LOL: Me. My sister. My poor parents, grounding just wasn't a punishment. At one point my mom lamented that they can't very well take away books and paper as punishment for me. On the plus side... I was never really bad in the first place so I didn't get grounded much.
I remember that as a very small sprout, the teacher would "punish" the glass by denying us recess outside. "We're turning the lights off and you'll all put your heads down on your desks for a half-hour!"

Oh gosh, oh golly, no, please no...please...(*yawn*)...no... 😅
 
My introverted kids could have cared less about being grounded. Send me to my room where my books and lego are? Yipee! My extroverted kids felt that being grounded for an afternoon was akin to being drawn and quartered.
:LOL: Me. My sister. My poor parents, grounding just wasn't a punishment. At one point my mom lamented that they can't very well take away books and paper as punishment for me. On the plus side... I was never really bad in the first place so I didn't get grounded much.
I remember that as a very small sprout, the teacher would "punish" the glass by denying us recess outside. "We're turning the lights off and you'll all put your heads down on your desks for a half-hour!"

Oh gosh, oh golly, no, please no...please...(*yawn*)...no... 😅
I always detested group punishment further the bad behavior of a few.
 
My introverted kids could have cared less about being grounded. Send me to my room where my books and lego are? Yipee! My extroverted kids felt that being grounded for an afternoon was akin to being drawn and quartered.
:LOL: Me. My sister. My poor parents, grounding just wasn't a punishment. At one point my mom lamented that they can't very well take away books and paper as punishment for me. On the plus side... I was never really bad in the first place so I didn't get grounded much.
I remember that as a very small sprout, the teacher would "punish" the glass by denying us recess outside. "We're turning the lights off and you'll all put your heads down on your desks for a half-hour!"

Oh gosh, oh golly, no, please no...please...(*yawn*)...no... 😅
My favorite "punishment" story is when Captain Kirk restricted Scotty to quarters for starting the bar fight with the Klingons. Actually, the best scene of the episode, IMHO. Scotty is such a lovable nerd:

 
Why do you actually care what someone on the internet thinks of you?
Because I think it is entirely unjust that some people be expected to tolerate bullying just because it makes the bully unhappy to be called out for their poor behavior.
And these are mostly guys we’re arguing with and they grow up insulting each other a lot worse than anything I’ve seen here.
Excusing their behavior because they're men doesn't really work for me. Boys also tend to be more aggressive and violent than girls, but that doesn't mean we should tolerate wife beating because of it.
If you think someone is being insulting, it’s better to ignore it or call it out for what it is and then to just make your points . You can’t change other people. Let the pigs wallow. Don’t climb down in the mud.
You know the fastest way to teach a kitten not to bite your hand? Bite their ear when they do. Not hard enough to draw blood, not hard enough to cause serious damage. Just enough to hurt and get their attention.

Being patient hasn't been effective. Being polite and employing reason and civil argument hasn't produced a change in behavior. Perhaps being subjected to the same kind of invective they feel empowered to dish out will remind them of the golden rule. It might not, and I'm aware of that. That's fine.

It is now entirely their choice how we interact. Treat me with civility and they will receive the same. Treat me with contempt and they will receive the same. I won't instigate it, but I also won't tolerate it meekly and subserviently.
My mother told me she stopped me biting by biting me back. So when my oldest got to that age, with great trepidation, I but him back.
It works. That is how my mother stopped my eldest sister (but younger than me) from biting her siblings.
Mind you it was in a doctor's surgery and the surgery was full......
It was 1969 Australia. Nobody batted an eyelid.
Try that these days and the police would be there in 37 secs.
Well, in your opinion, it worked in your family. My experience was quite different. I also figured out that different kids responded differently to different types of punishment. My introverted kids could have cared less about being grounded. Send me to my room where my books and lego are? Yipee! My extroverted kids felt that being grounded for an afternoon was akin to being drawn and quartered.
Of course kids are different. A very wise parent will know the best way to shock/awe their child.
Worked with my sister. Would not have worked with our brother.
 
My introverted kids could have cared less about being grounded. Send me to my room where my books and lego are? Yipee! My extroverted kids felt that being grounded for an afternoon was akin to being drawn and quartered.
:LOL: Me. My sister. My poor parents, grounding just wasn't a punishment. At one point my mom lamented that they can't very well take away books and paper as punishment for me. On the plus side... I was never really bad in the first place so I didn't get grounded much.
Show off.

My parents were surprised I made it to 16, they thought either the circus, the gyspies or the plods would have taken me by then.
 
My introverted kids could have cared less about being grounded. Send me to my room where my books and lego are? Yipee! My extroverted kids felt that being grounded for an afternoon was akin to being drawn and quartered.
:LOL: Me. My sister. My poor parents, grounding just wasn't a punishment. At one point my mom lamented that they can't very well take away books and paper as punishment for me. On the plus side... I was never really bad in the first place so I didn't get grounded much.
I remember that as a very small sprout, the teacher would "punish" the glass by denying us recess outside. "We're turning the lights off and you'll all put your heads down on your desks for a half-hour!"

Oh gosh, oh golly, no, please no...please...(*yawn*)...no... 😅
My favorite "punishment" story is when Captain Kirk restricted Scotty to quarters for starting the bar fight with the Klingons. Actually, the best scene of the episode, IMHO. Scotty is such a lovable nerd:


The thing is, we all know Chief O'Brien threw the first punch.

And don't ever fucking call the 1701 a garbage scow.
 
My parents were surprised I made it to 16, they thought either the circus, the gyspies or the plods would have taken me by then.
This happened to me a number of times. They always brought me back home. It was a while before I figured out why the circus folks were handing my parents money when they did.

Anyway, a little summary of a favorite topic:
 
My introverted kids could have cared less about being grounded. Send me to my room where my books and lego are? Yipee! My extroverted kids felt that being grounded for an afternoon was akin to being drawn and quartered.
:LOL: Me. My sister. My poor parents, grounding just wasn't a punishment. At one point my mom lamented that they can't very well take away books and paper as punishment for me. On the plus side... I was never really bad in the first place so I didn't get grounded much.
I remember that as a very small sprout, the teacher would "punish" the glass by denying us recess outside. "We're turning the lights off and you'll all put your heads down on your desks for a half-hour!"

Oh gosh, oh golly, no, please no...please...(*yawn*)...no... 😅
My favorite "punishment" story is when Captain Kirk restricted Scotty to quarters for starting the bar fight with the Klingons. Actually, the best scene of the episode, IMHO. Scotty is such a lovable nerd:


The thing is, we all know Chief O'Brien threw the first punch.

And don't ever fucking call the 1701 a garbage scow.

The guy that played Scott, his name escapes me at the moment, had lost some fingers off of one of his hands fighting in WWII. The producers of Star Trek made sure they never showed that hand.
 
That's James Doohan. He was in WWII and lost his middle finger on D-Day from a barrage of bullets (friendly fire...oops). Another bullet hit him in the chest and would have killed him except the cigarette holder in his pocket stopped the bullet. There is one scene in ST where you can clearly see his missing finger, otherwise they did hide it well. IIRC, I think it was Doohan himself who wanted to hide it though. They should have used the missing finger in a plot line early on in the show, so he could freely use his hands later on. Like the middle finger got infected with a rapidly spreading alien virus, and he quickly severed it so it wouldn't spread to the rest of the hand. They could have called the episdoe, "The Needs of the Many Fingers Outweighs the Needs of the One."
 
"It literally looks like the third world"



Billions of dollars spent on "the homeless" and it gets worse every day. This is all over California.

Fourth largest economy in the world! (y)
 
I always detested group punishment further the bad behavior of a few.
Sometimes they work though. At least to an extent.

There's sort of a range of "common misbehavior" that occurs in most social groups. Many times, punishing the single bad actor for something that seems like a small transgression can backfire, and the authority figure ends up bearing the ire of the entire group. But if the group as a whole is given a punishment that is inconvenient and disliked but not actually harmful, then the ire is turned on the group member who transgressed. It increases the likelihood that the group will enforce behavioral expectations itself. If done appropriately, it increases group cohesion and morale in a way that is net beneficial. It's a very common approach in the military, but it's not limited to that.

There's some art to it though, and it can backfire if the punishment is too harsh, or if the misbehavior is always a single individual.

Hypotheticals, of course :)

If there are 20 kids in a class, and 19 of them always follow the rules but 1 of them consistently and persistently talks back during class, calls the teacher and other kids bad names, and starts fights then it's likely NOT effective to punish the class as a whole. There's a single easily identifiable source of problem. In that case, it's more effective to punish only the problem kid, because it serves to protect and shelter the other kids from their actions.

On the other hand, if 6 of them talk during class and cause minor disruption, it's harder to tackle on a one-off basis. It ends up being a bit of whack-a-mole. If the teacher ends up in a position where they're frequently trying to redirect several students, then the teacher ends up being disruptive just by trying to do their job. On the other hand, if the teacher punishes the whole class with something that is inconvenient or unpleasant (taking away privileges or class clean-up stuff) then the teacher has to intervene much less often. The kids are more likely to be angry with the one who misbehaved in that instance. And they're more likely to self-police and apply social pressure on all of the kids (especially the 6 who are the most common offenders) in order to avoid unpleasantness for everyone.

It's something I've ended up dealing with at work over the past couple of years. Covid hit and everyone was working from home, and for the first couple of years it was fine, and productivity remained high. But then productivity started to drop, people not paying attention and not being responsive increased, work started to slip. At first, the direction from leadership was that it's on management to address it as a performance issue - taking it up with individuals on a one-off basis. But that didn't actually curb the problem, and it was widespread enough and dispersed enough in small infractions that it really couldn't be addressed effectively. So now everyone has to go into the office once a week - even those who were highly effective working from home without supervision. Everyone is unhappy about it, everyone feels like they're being punished for someone else's poor behavior. But productivity and responsiveness has increased back to a level where we can address the behavior of outliers as a performance issue. It sucks, but... "this is why we can't have nice things".
 
So now everyone has to go into the office once a week - even those who were highly effective working from home without supervision. Everyone is unhappy about it, everyone feels like they're being punished for someone else's poor behavior. But productivity and responsiveness has increased back to a level where we can address the behavior of outliers as a performance issue. It sucks, but... "this is why we can't have nice things".
... because sucky bosses like you infantilise your workforce, and genuinely believe that collective punishment (and indeed making everybody feel unhappy and badly mistreated) is appropriate and justified, as long as it makes your life easier and increases productivity?

Yep, that's exactly why we can't have nice things.
 
Everyone is unhappy about it, everyone feels like they're being punished for someone else's poor behavior. But...
...you think there's a "but" that can take that statement about the consequences of your decisions and make it OK??

That's one of the most damning self-indictments I have ever read.

I pity your employees; And once again find myself wondering why US workers still haven't risen up in bloody revolution against their mistreatment.
 
So now everyone has to go into the office once a week - even those who were highly effective working from home without supervision. Everyone is unhappy about it, everyone feels like they're being punished for someone else's poor behavior. But productivity and responsiveness has increased back to a level where we can address the behavior of outliers as a performance issue. It sucks, but... "this is why we can't have nice things".
... because sucky bosses like you infantilise your workforce, and genuinely believe that collective punishment (and indeed making everybody feel unhappy and badly mistreated) is appropriate and justified, as long as it makes your life easier and increases productivity?
This is you being an asshole in an unecessary way.
Yep, that's exactly why we can't have nice things.
And assholes like you don't seem to understand human and group dynamics. You also seem to relish making malicious assumptions and being a dickhead for no good fucking reason.

Or you could grow the fuck up and have a discussion like an adult rather than a petty child.
 
Everyone is unhappy about it, everyone feels like they're being punished for someone else's poor behavior. But...
...you think there's a "but" that can take that statement about the consequences of your decisions and make it OK??

That's one of the most damning self-indictments I have ever read.

I pity your employees; And once again find myself wondering why US workers still haven't risen up in bloody revolution against their mistreatment.
Fuck off you asshole. You're making a fuck ton of malicious assumptions about a corporate decision that I didn't fucking make, but which I understand the necessity for. You're being a rude, insulting fuckhead for no good reason. Stop acting like an impetuous toddler who thinks that name calling and being a brat is somehow accceptable behavior.
 
So now everyone has to go into the office once a week - even those who were highly effective working from home without supervision. Everyone is unhappy about it, everyone feels like they're being punished for someone else's poor behavior. But productivity and responsiveness has increased back to a level where we can address the behavior of outliers as a performance issue. It sucks, but... "this is why we can't have nice things".
... because sucky bosses like you infantilise your workforce, and genuinely believe that collective punishment (and indeed making everybody feel unhappy and badly mistreated) is appropriate and justified, as long as it makes your life easier and increases productivity?
This is you being an asshole in an unecessary way.
On the contrary, it is me being angry in a very necessary way indeed. In stark contrast to your contentless tirade in your next post.
Yep, that's exactly why we can't have nice things.
And assholes like you don't seem to understand human and group dynamics. You also seem to relish making malicious assumptions and being a dickhead for no good fucking reason.

Or you could grow the fuck up and have a discussion like an adult rather than a petty child.
... says the person trying to defend their active decision to make "Everyone … unhappy about it, everyone feel … like they're being punished for someone else's poor behavior". That's indefensible assholery, and worse, it is the condition under which vast numbers of employees labour.
 
So now everyone has to go into the office once a week - even those who were highly effective working from home without supervision. Everyone is unhappy about it, everyone feels like they're being punished for someone else's poor behavior. But productivity and responsiveness has increased back to a level where we can address the behavior of outliers as a performance issue. It sucks, but... "this is why we can't have nice things".
... because sucky bosses like you infantilise your workforce, and genuinely believe that collective punishment (and indeed making everybody feel unhappy and badly mistreated) is appropriate and justified, as long as it makes your life easier and increases productivity?
This is you being an asshole in an unecessary way.
Would you prefer:

"... because sucky bosses infantilise their workforce, and genuinely believe that collective punishment (and indeed making everybody feel unhappy and badly mistreated) is appropriate and justified, as long as it makes their life easier and increases productivity; And you agree with them on this?"

It's the exact same information, minus the attribution to you of the things you say you didn't do, but just agree with.

Does it change anything substantive, other than your pointless emotional response?

This is NOT ABOUT YOU.

If the cap fits, that's for you to worry about. I don't care what you wear.

Yep, that's exactly why we can't have nice things.
And assholes like you don't seem to understand human and group dynamics.
I wasn't aware that I was being graded on my ability to understand human and group dynamics. Are you saying that I am right, but should not be expressing my rightness in a manner you dislike?
You also seem to relish making malicious assumptions and being a dickhead for no good fucking reason.
Are you talking to a mirror? Or looking for an excuse to ignore the substance of my objection to what you said?
Or you could grow the fuck up and have a discussion like an adult rather than a petty child.
One of us is trying to do just that. The other is you.
 
Hanging out in my favorite Californian city this weekend. :)

1000019420.jpg
1000019418.jpg

If they ever check me into an "open air psych ward", I hope it is even half as beautiful, half as lively, or half as habitually kind as San Francisco, CA.
 
Last edited:
Saw some dolphins just off the shore near Land's End; I was very surprised, as you don't often see them from terra firma. But there was a big school of fish in close too, so it was no mystery what had drawn them in! The birds were likewise going absolutely bonkers over the buffet. The fish, presumably, were far less ecstatic about the confluence of circumstances.
 
Back
Top Bottom