(Dec 3, 2017 06:20 AM)C C Wrote: The only problem with this simple account is that for most of human history infanticide was a common and accepted method of family planning, and the perceived innocence of children was less likely to win them special care and more likely to make them seem like ideal sacrifices to a bloodthirsty god. Evidence suggests that, while extreme protectiveness of children is hard-wired in the human brain, it exists alongside a predilection for murdering them shortly after they are born....

MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/the-roots-of-infanticide-run-deep-and-begin-with-poverty

(Dec 3, 2017 11:46 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: Do you remember the highly controversial article that Pinker wrote for the New York Times?

Why They Kill Their Newborns

(Dec 3, 2017 10:35 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Met a pregnant woman, not poor, a while ago who expressed to me her massive disappointment when she found out the baby is a girl. What kind of societal pressure could make a potential mother exhibit such behavior? I don't think she will toss the baby over a cliff when it's born but what a start for the child, having a mother who is probably going to be guilt ridden about this for the rest of her life. She's not from China if that's what everyone's thinking. Wonder just how many women feel so guilty about not giving birth to a boy that a baby girl ends up either abused or in the morgue?

Asha belongs to the growing number of daughters of blue collar workers who are now the main support of their families, helping them move to a better house, buy fancier TVs and, sometimes, even jewellery for their mothers. As Birbal Chaurasia, who runs a panshop in New Delhi, says of his two daughters who have good white collar jobs: "Betiyon ne baap ko chaand pe pahuchaya. (My daughters took me to the moon)."

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/spotlight/Bringing-in-a-salary-and-a-smile/articleshow/5650657.cms

(Dec 4, 2017 02:25 AM)C C Wrote: On a somewhat unrelated note, I'm glad the Josef Fritzi headlines are still safely in 2008. I'd really feel freaked-out if that had been retconned to the '90s by ECCO.

(Dec 3, 2017 10:35 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Met a pregnant woman, not poor, a while ago who expressed to me her massive disappointment when she found out the baby is a girl. What kind of societal pressure could make a potential mother exhibit such behavior? I don't think she will toss the baby over a cliff when it's born but what a start for the child, having a mother who is probably going to be guilt ridden about this for the rest of her life. She's not from China if that's what everyone's thinking. Wonder just how many women feel so guilty about not giving birth to a boy that a baby girl ends up either abused or in the morgue?

(Dec 3, 2017 06:20 AM)C C Wrote: https://aeon.co/essays/the-roots-of-infanticide-run-deep-and-begin-with-poverty

EXCERPT: If there’s one thing we can still agree on in this era of political polarisation, it is that the life of a child is sacred. A mass shooting, air strike or natural disaster in which children are killed is considered far worse than one that slaughters only adults. When the ethicist Peter Singer suggested that, in theory, a baby’s life might be less worthy of protection than an adult’s because its consciousness is less developed, there were irate calls for him to lose his job. There is – our culture assumes – no love so great as that of a parent for a child, and no crime so unequivocally evil as the murder of an innocent infant. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to suppose that this attitude is genetically determined. What could be a more basic evolutionary imperative than to protect one’s offspring from harm?

The only problem with this simple account is that for most of human history infanticide was a common and accepted method of family planning, and the perceived innocence of children was less likely to win them special care and more likely to make them seem like ideal sacrifices to a bloodthirsty god. Evidence suggests that, while extreme protectiveness of children is hard-wired in the human brain, it exists alongside a predilection for murdering them shortly after they are born....

MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/the-roots-of-infanticide-run-deep-and-begin-with-poverty

Quote:10. The ’American Bar Association’ Journal [August 1996]:

Quote:“1275 English common law criminalizes statutory rape- sex between a man and a woman below the age of consent, which was first set at 12 years.
1576 Common Law age of consent lowered to 10 years.
1700s-1800s Statutory rape at common law adopted in the united states. States set the age of consent at 10 or 12 years.” [10]

11. Sinikka Elliott

Quote:“The statutes governing the minimum age under which sex cannot be legally consensual, and laws concerning marriage and workers rights, were modified to reflect these changing discourses around childhood. Age of sexual consent, for example, rose from 7 during colonial times to 10, 12, and eventually as high as 14 during the eighteenth centuries. By the late 1800s, the average age of consent in the United States was 14. Across the nation, however the age of consent was raised slowly, unevenly, and with great reluctance.” [11]

(Dec 3, 2017 06:20 AM)C C Wrote: If there’s one thing we can still agree on in this era of political polarisation, it is that the life of a child is sacred.

Quote:When the ethicist Peter Singer suggested that, in theory, a baby’s life might be less worthy of protection than an adult’s because its consciousness is less developed, there were irate calls for him to lose his job.

Quote:Furthermore, it seems reasonable to suppose that this attitude is genetically determined. What could be a more basic evolutionary imperative than to protect one’s offspring from harm?

Quote:The only problem with this simple account is that for most of human history infanticide was a common and accepted method of family planning

Quote:and the perceived innocence of children was less likely to win them special care and more likely to make them seem like ideal sacrifices to a bloodthirsty god.

Quote:Evidence suggests that, while extreme protectiveness of children is hard-wired in the human brain, it exists alongside a predilection for murdering them shortly after they are born....

(Dec 4, 2017 04:30 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: Never heard of the Fritzl case before. That is way worse than that movie Room.

You know, when I googled his name a twitter account popped up. Do you think there’s any way that prisoners in Austria have internet access?

Inmates are not allowed to tweet directly, but with specific approval, they can express themselves through Twitter. I run a program at San Quentin called the Last Mile and we provide "tweet sheets" for each of the men once a week. These sheets have a 140 character box for each day of the week for them to use. We collect the sheets every week and load them into Twitter using the Socialoomph scheduling tool. [...] The men express their feelings, talk about their daily activities, and provide an insight into what they are going through. It provides an outlet for them and also an opportunity for people to see that they are intelligent, articulate and genuine.

Recently, I called an inmate in the California state prison system to get the low-down on the availability of smartphones in prison, what they're used for, and how much they cost. My source told me that prisoners are posting to Facebook, uploading videos and photos to Instagram, and tweeting directly from their cell blocks. There have been plenty of reports about this trend, but most of them have centered around the use of contraband and illegal cell phones and the prison authorities' attempts to combat their introduction and use.

But as a former prisoner I know that you don't need a cell phone to gain access to social media. I began my career as a writer from inside, enjoying all the social media platforms available to people on the outside. With the growth of the internet, the world has opened up, even to prisoners. The technological advances we take for granted have made their way into the darkest corners of America. With most prisoners enjoying access (of a sort) to email these days, it's made it that much easier for them to get on social media.
(How Prison Inmates Get on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram)