+1 insightful. The only thing to be proud of here is.. Nothing.

I got that warning and noped on out of there, then I found http://english.cntv.cn/live/p2p/index.shtml. Presumably, the Chinese government is not interested in monitoring western computers.

Congratulations on the first successful lunar landing of the century China!

It's all about future investments. If they can demonstrate that they, alone, can pull this off, it will increase their technical prestige in the worlds eye. People will feel more confident investing in their technologies, people will come knocking on their door to have India launch vehicles for them, all of which will generate big revenue. It will encourage the youth to pursue sciences and technology as vocations as NASA did in the 60's, which in the years to come will boost their capabilities further. There is no bullet that can cure the problems of the country, but inspiring the people to become more by demonstrating capabilities such as this is in my eyes a wonderful thing. Even if they do not make it all the way to Mars, they have already put on a hell of a show. I can't wait to see what the next 20 years holds for them, and I congratulate them wholeheartedly for what has so far been a pretty decent mission.

It's not about trying to control behavior, that's a sure fire way to alienate your child. It's about preparing them for the realities of the ugly side of human behavior before they get caught deer-in-headlights style by it when it comes at them full force. As many have said on this topic, kids are cottonballed by their over protective parents, then loose their shit when they hit reality. It's about teaching coping skills as opposed to enforcing limits on social media access etc.

This is the point I was somewhat erratically driving towards. So to counter this lag, again, preparation is the key. You don't send a soldier into battle without teaching them what to expect from the enemy. Teaching kids how to identify the enemy will always be the problem, they trust too much, but that's just another challenge in parenthood I guess.

A valid point I had not even considered. Much the same as the perception of a more violent society due to increased media coverage. Interesting.

Ahh, I see what you're saying, and concur to a degree.

However your examples of bad times don't happen all day, every day, and don't follow you home. They are just people fucking up, as people tend to do. Granted a child is not as aware of the consequences of their actions as a drunk driver should be, but to imply they should be surprised when the shit they dropped on the victim is rubbed back in their faces is also a bit of a stretch.

No, I interpreted his subject/comment as "Wait. I can be arrested for my actions causing death of someone else?", which lead me to post my hypothetical. Of course drunk drivers are responsible for their casualties, as the trolls are responsible for Rebeccas death. His comment was ambiguous in my eyes, but I'm not sure how you managed to pull that meaning out of my comment. Would have been nice if he clarified his point, but meh.

Unless I miss your meaning, your logic suggests that drunk drivers who kill pedestrians are not culpable for their actions either?

Perhaps you should read the article.

"In December, the bullying grew so intense that Rebecca began cutting herself and was sent to a hospital by her mother to receive psychiatric care. Ultimately, her mother pulled her out of Crystal Lake Middle School. She home schooled her for a while and then enrolled her in a new school in August."

Religion has nothing to do with anything. You either act, or don't. Her parents did what they thought was best. Sadly it didn't pay off.

I feel this is a behavioral bump in the road that may disappear as my generation becomes the parental generation.

I am 30 years old. I remember a pre-WWW world (I deliberately say WWW to differentiate from chats, BBS etc, which was largely inaccessible to all but the greasiest of geeks). I have grown with the technology, and know its potential and pitfalls. My parents however have no idea of either. They got all my hand-me-down computers, they appreciated my efforts to educate them. Because I was around fro the pre WWW, analogies were easy. I knew how the postal system worked, I could easily analogise POP mail etc. But they do not know the full potential. They look up their recipes, history of [subject] info, and IMDB pages, harass and embarrass me on fakebook, but they never really matured with the technology, and never had to suffer the pitfalls. It was just suddenly there, and they shat bricks, because it was like nothing they had ever seen, and they didn't understand the dynamics. They adapted, but never understood.

I feel as my generation become the parents and out kids hit those preteen/teen years (maybe 10-15 years), the problems will go away, because we will be capable of not only being able to give good advice on troll evasion and shaming, but we will also be in a far better position to adequately monitor, and mentor, about what actually happens on the internet. We know what to look for, we know how to find it, and we know how to deal with it. Not all of my generation are savvy enough to do it, but a greater percentage of us are, as compared to the current crop of 40-50 year old who had this thrust on them by their kids demanding internet connections and fondletoys to use on them.

I feel for that girl, and her parents who were blindsided by and lost a child to a technology they had to scramble to understand. I feel for the parents of the aggressors for not knowing just how serious the shit their kids were doing. I hope and feel that my generation will be more capable than them.

And here I am with no points to mod that shit up.

I'm pretty sure the reason we have horns is to alert wayward pedestrians that they are about to get a hood ornament up their arse, or to notify other drivers that they are about to run over the front of our cars because they didn't check their mirrors before changing lane.

That is to say, emergencies.

If I hear a horn in traffic I automatically go to DEFCON 3 and eagerly watch my mirrors for the shit to hit the fan (or my rear bumper). However needing to reminding someone that they are (allegedly) in control of a tonne of steel is not an emergency, its just a display of selfishness and lack of self control. Just put the damn phone down. How hard is it?

I'd book you for parking your car in a traffic lane. How about you just pay attention to the road like the mature adult you're supposed to be.

The amount of times I have missed a red light because the dickwad ahead is fucking with their phones and failed to roll on is phenomenal. By the time said dickwad has reacted to my horn, put the phone down, and moved on, the light is often changing. Don't be that dickwad.

Well, I'm speaking from personal experience there. Her phone (in a school bag) got soaked when she got stuck out in a rain storm, and she had to use her friends phone to call me to come get her.

For a lot of reasons, I hope you never breed.