I agree. While I'm sure there is a lot of room for improvement in the education system, the people I saw cheating when I was in school just plain didn't want to have to put effort into anything.

They're the same people who grow up and do the absolute minimal amount of work they can get away with at their jobs.

How about an elderly patient with dementia or alzheimer's, living in a nursing home? Or a patient who gets rushed to the ER with a stroke or heart-attack, gets stabilized (with meds administered by IV), and then gets transferred to an ICU or med/surg unit with a list of newly prescribed meds?

You can't just assume everyone is in a position to say "Wait, let me research those meds you're prescribing before I take them."

Will Microsoft also be relocating those 2 million people to India so they can actually find jobs with their new skills?

For $20-30, possibly (much better entertainment-hours per dollar ratio than movies). But for $50? Not worth buying, for me.

Don't be stupid, he was obviously talking about Die Hard.

I don't recall seeing research specifically on that subject. The closest thing I can think of is hearing (indirectly--I didn't see the research myself) that, in terms of crime and punishment, the chance of getting caught seems to have more of an effect on deterring crime than the severity of the potential punishment. Of course, I'm sure there's some threshold of severity that needs to be reached for someone to care about being caught; the point was being made in the context of arguing against the efficacy of capital punishment.

From a pure behavior modification standpoint, I would guess that the threat of punishment for certain behaviors (by seeing others receive the punishment) would have an effect similar to receiving the punishment oneself--escape and avoidance behaviors.

No, you completely missed the point. I'm not saying abuse and non-damaging corporal punishment are the same, I'm saying that the threat of pain for being bad (and, yes, most physical abuse is a (over)response to the kid being "bad"--it's not just random) generally does not result in kids gaining any kind of internal desire to be good. It results, if anything, in escape and avoidance behaviors, and often psychological problems. Obviously, there is a difference in the likelihood and degree of problems that might arise from spanking, vs. slapping, vs. punching, vs. covering someone's arm in cigarette burns.

You know, it's subtle and certainly not something you would end up in a mental hospital for, but if you were spanked then I'm not surprised that you are inclined to handle our disagreement by personally insulting me. Mild corporal punishment--mild social problems.

Anyway, I've had my share of experience with altering the behavior of kids that terrorized foster parents (not to mention my coworkers), so I suspect I'm not as ignorant as you would like to think.

I'd rather a nation of people who understand the difference between a misbehaving child and a situation that actually requires violence to resolve.

Do you really know you wouldn't have turned out well, though? I mean, maybe you're right, but I've noticed that most people are generally inclined to justify however they were brought up, whether it was with or without spanking. I wasn't spanked (except by one boyfriend my mom had when I was young, who spanked my brother and I maybe 2 or 3 times--I don't remember him fondly, not surprisingly) and I feel like I turned out well. I also feel like I would probably be more resentful and less compassionate toward other people if I was spanked.

But I can't say for sure; it's an educated guess. And I don't think you know for sure that your parents couldn't have come up with a set of privileges that you would have been motivated to earn and keep with "good" behavior.

One thing I do know is that I've seen even kids who were badly abused or molested justify what their parents did, and they will often say "I deserved it". So it doesn't surprise me to see someone justify being spanked a few times, even though the research suggests it's not the healthiest approach.

The quantity of medication we use, especially with kids, is highly unfortunate. IMO our biggest problem with our kids is that the knowledge of how to do things right really hasn't been passed on to the general public well enough for parents to make use of it. (And, in some cases, parents are a bit too lazy--doing things right requires planning ahead and being proactive.)

You mean the 10,000 years in which humans have generally treated each other like crap (war, abuse, slavery, sexism and racism, predominance of authoritatianism in governments and religions)?

I'm not saying you can't control people through punishment, I'm saying that the control comes through FEAR, and that generally results in 1) a lot of negative psychological effects, and 2) a lack of internalized motivation to do what one is being coerced into doing.

You're right, I concede; anecdotal evidence is far more valid than piles of empirical research. I mistakenly thought I was on a website for geeks who place some value on the scientific method.

Oops, I forgot something I meant to add to my last post.

I agree that we have a serious parenting problem in our society. In a nutshell, though, I don't think our problem isn't that we're not spanking--it's that most parents haven't learned and/or implemented the healthier replacement for spanking.

Research on behavior modification shows that punishment (like, say, spanking) results in escape and avoidance behaviors and usually results in people reverting to the unwanted behavior once the source/threat of punishment is taken away. Positive reinforcement for wanted behaviors (and removing the reinforcement in response to unwanted behaviors) is more effective, longer lasting, and generally results in a more psychologically healthy individual.

And, just for some anecdotal evidence, I worked for 3 years in a group home for abused and emotionally disturbed children. The ones who were physically beaten seemed to have learned from their parents not how to behave properly, but that anger and violence are the way to respond to someone who does something you don't like.

There's certainly potential for misunderstanding, but the phrase is perfectly sensible considering it's referring to a game being released for a FOSS OS.

Yeah, it's not news for FOSS to be used in the development of a game, but I'd say it's news (on a site like Slashdot, at least) for a game that gets reviews as good as WoG's to be released natively for Linux.

Great party guys! I'll see you all 2361 to celebrate 12345678900!

I'm pretty happy with my Centro.

I tried a Blackberry first and it died within a week. I switched it for a Centro, which does more, cost less, and (best of all) didn't croak.