Peterkin

I think middle-class North American parents already hover quite enough over their precious offspring. How about just giving them all some room to explore, experiment, try different roles and costumes, toys and behaviours. They don't need to be dragged to a doctor every time they throw a tantrum when they don't get their own way. But if a pre-schooler is throwing tantrums over the same issue again and again, you might need to examine and discuss that issue. Sometimes it's as simple as he won't wear an item of clothing to daycare because another kid made fun of it, or everybody else has moved on to a different favourite cartoon character. Children are very much influenced by their peers. If a child really has been labelled incorrectly, they're usually very clear about it. And, yet, sometimes it's just envy of something a child of the other sex has or is allowed to do, or imitate someone they admire. If that's the case, it'll pass. Stand back, give them some room, don't micro-manage. Also, of course, there is a wide range of aptitudes, proclivities and temperaments in all human beings - and that's another aspect of the personality they are working out between 1 and 5 years of age. Plus sibling dominance and dependency. They have a lot to figure out. If it's not hurting anybody, let 'em try it. But parents have a whole lot of hopes and dreams, plans and expectations, that they've been carrying since before the kid was conceived - or since they themselves were children. They long for the child to like what they like, want what they want - be like them, or rather their own more perfect incarnation. They can't help being disappointed when the child doesn't play with the toys they've picked out so lovingly, or don't enjoy the activities the father or mother has so looked forward to sharing with them. It's hard to refrain from pushing. It often seems to, again because of how the child wants to be regarded by their peers. If they get no pressure at home, they may still be running into problems with other children. By now, though, I think the caregiver will have been educated to deal with gender variance and discrimination.

That's easy to say from a distance. Parents don't really have the option of letting their children grow however nature intended: they have to be present, protecting, guiding, curbing destructive behaviour, encouraging the child toward social and financial success to the best of their ability and judgment. They themselves are products of a society and culture. Doing the best they know and believe, they may be seen as harmful by people with different views. They may not be aware that they're 'pushing' according to someone else's definition. Because we raise our children to fit into the world as we know it, we raise them incorrectly: we don't know the world they will inhabit.

We'll make a lot of crude oil for some future civilization. Call it by its proper name: "imperialism", and drop its corpse on the doorstep of the shitty people with power and shitty families with enormous wealth. One is that the tribalism isn't petty and the 40,000+ years in which it flourished were not particularly dark. Another: what's referred to as 'the dark ages' were not tribal even in Europe, nor as dark as they've been painted https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/d/Dark_Ages.htm ; and of course neither dark nor tribal https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/06/eac.html in Asia . It seems to me, there are a lot of late 20th century Euro-American assumptions about what's good for humanity, which may not be altogether accurate. Or sustainable. Is the problem of population collapse really not enough babies, or is it not enough white babies?

Less often than they get divorced, I imagine. They have too much invested in the political, business and social institutions. Where and how would they start over? What would it cost, in terms of lost revenues, patronage, political support? That's an even stickier ball of hot wax. You don't get to be a religious leader by shilly-shallying over your faith. Lose it once, and the congregation knows that you've lost it, you're done for. If they do change beliefs or ideologies, you can be damn sure they keep it well under their mitre.

It's a generally observed phenomenon that older people are less likely to change their position than young ones. From this, it's easy to conclude that this is due to diminished mental capacity. In my experience, the the most common cause is conviction. One has been working, reading, listening, experimenting, interacting with people, experiencing the world for x number of years. Up to a certain point, the input was fresh, novel, informative and persuasive. One has learned and formed opinions. There comes a time when these opinions and convictions feel complete, satisfactory, in line with one's own inclinations and desires. In fact, it may happen that any, or most new information coming in serves only to confirm views that have already been formed. One has figured out strategies that work, formed networks of communication, forged alliances, made commitments, based on those beliefs and convictions that coalesced in the youthful, exploratory phase. There is then less and less motivation to change beliefs or directions. In fact, people who do keep changing their minds in mid-life are usually called indecisive and unreliable. Another way to look it: It takes 18-30 years to decide what one's relationship top the world is. Once done, it would take a landslide shift conditions, or a soul-shaking disappointment, or a Damascus-sized epiphany to change it.

Very much so. The presence of grandparents and other caring adults. Peer group interaction and socializing with the community at large. I have been child-watching (I know - don't even) for decades in various environments, and I have seen cultural differences. Without getting into specifics, the boys of some ethnic backgrounds do seem more self-assertive, even aggressive, than others; some nationalities seem to raise boys more serious and mature, while others encourage childishness. However, I have observed very little cultural difference among girls. They all seem to go through the same phases at the same ages.

And no longer subtly manipulative? I'm very pleased to hear that. My middle-aged kids have changed very little, in temperament, taste or attitude or method of expression, since they were 6 and 7 years old. They may have behaved quite differently at 2 at 3.

I'm already short enough. I did not call you anything. I made a statement regarding my own state of mind: i.e. incredulity that a 3-year-old would have such a sophisticated command of language; it did cross my mind that you might have paraphrased. If the child is, indeed, a prodigy, I will make every effort never to meet her in person.

This, i suggest, is generalizing from an inadequate sample size. (Not that I believe that dialogue coming from a 3-year-old in the first place). People's characters are not determined by their genitals or hormones alone. In my household, for example, the exact opposite was true. The girl was outspoken, willful, changeable and in her mid-teens, could be volatile. The boy, one year younger, at first relied on her protection; as he grew older, he expressed his resentment of her dominance through subtle provocation: he was the innocent cherub; she was the aggressor who got reprimanded. And in spite of all that jockeying for position, the altercations and jealousies, they were the only people in the world the other sibling trusted. None of this had to do gender; it was a matter of innate temperament and early childhood experience. (We learned something of their pre-adoption history) There are as many variations to sibling relationship as there are to individual personality.

I wasn't intending anything of the sort. Though that may be part of some people's baggage, there is a lot of other stuff about gender role stereotyping: how fathers play with and talk to their boy babies and girl babies (mothers tend to treat both tenderly); the toys parents and grandparents offer each child, the behaviours they encourage (or reward) and discourage (or punish), the latitude they give each child in emotional expression; the way they dress and groom children; the way they present them to other adults. It's a very complex message a baby gets, long before it knows any words. Mine are.

Infancy, by convention, and at the 1st birthday. At two years, a toddler can consistently use the words they learn as they acquire language. By 3, they have a concept of what a girl is and what a boy is, though they may not have questioned the label they came with. So it's unclear whether that expression of identity is self-generated, until they begin to express it in other ways. When and how that happens is not so easy to be certain about. Nearly all 3-6 year olds play dress-up if they get the chance, try on different personae and appearances, partly as play, partly as exploration. You begin to see gender identity emerge when the the child insists on wearing a role-designated colours, items of clothing or hair style in public. When she or he cries if they're not allowed to wear the tiara or baseball cap to school. The odd thing is, children who are comfortable in and with their assigned role get over this phase - usually by the time they start school - and happy to dress in any way approved of by their peers, or appeal to their own aesthetic sense, including styles that are gender neutral or effeminate or tomboyish. All things at home being equal, that is. I mean, if an adult of older sibling doesn't criticize or ridicule or bully them into conformity. However, children assigned the wrong sex at birth may be distressed when they feel they're being forced into that role: they want to be called by a different name, refuse to wear unisex clothing, destroy their role-defining toys, exaggerate their imitations of the adult of the sex they themselves identify with and reject the one they're expected to imitate. (Even then, it may be a passing fancy engendered by a movie or story-book. Most little girls go through a princess phase, even nobody in their real world dresses in purple tulle; both boys and girls might have a space-suit or police uniform period, though I understand boys are more likely to be a robot or a dog, while girls are more likely to be a pony.) Quite a lot depends on environment and socialization. If the atmosphere is easy-going and accepting, children go through their developmental phases at their own rate - which varies, of course - and eventually decide who they are without many ructions. Siblings and playmates of both sexes can play with the same toys, share games and sports, pretend, mimic and perform various roles, experiment and exchange information. It doesn't need to be hostile camps. When it is, that's usually the parents' fault: offloading their own psycho-religio-social baggage onto those frail vessels.

True, it's always a factor. Something happens to the parents, even before the baby's born - some of them have very emphatic preference. And their attitude influences the child's self identification -- until it discovers its innate identity. By then, the child may be reluctant to contradict the parent's assumptions and expectations.

I already explained the differences of behaviour at various ages. Infants have no social or gender roles; their preferences - assuming a healthy, nurturing environment - are sensory, not psychological. Social roles do not become a factor until childhood, typically between the ages 3 and 5 years. And at that point, it's not the toys that show decisive gender preference, so much as the presentation of self: choice of clothing and demeanour - which adult role model they imitate.

What age do you mean by young infants? Babies reach for things that are shiny, jingly or brightly coloured, until their eyesight gains 3-D focus, at 5-8 months. At that stage, they enjoy looking at things that move and hugging things that soft and furry. At 8-12 months, they begin to prefer toys that present a challenge - things they can manipulate and figure out. Gender-appropriate preference doesn't necessarily correlate with external genitalia, and doesn't begin to present until 3 years of age. At that time, it expresses not a choice of toys, but a choice of roles. That is, the child has grasped how its culture views male and female roles, how they dress and what traits they are expected to exhibit. It will then imitate the appearance and behaviour of the adult role model whose gender most nearly approximates its own inclination There's TV and TV. Here is an easy article: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/gradeschool/Pages/Gender-Identity-and-Gender-Confusion-In-Children.aspx

How do fewer mouths to feed exacerbate food shortage? I should think nations with greater producing capacity ( largely automated already, not dependent on many juvenile farm-hands) and decreasing population would be happy to find a market for their excess. With globalization, pretty much every country is an importer. Canada has vast farmlands, wheat, soy, sunflowers, canola; vast beef and dairy herds; orchards, chicken factories, fisheries. We're forever negotiating trade deals for our exports. Yet half the labels on our supermarket shelves are printed in other countries. We all need to get serious about self-sufficiency, in energy and food, or we're all toast. Of course, at the same time, we desperately need to cut down on waste and decrease our demand for frivolous manufactured goods. And - I'm aware that this is tantamount to blasphemy - we urgently need to stop investing so much of our resources in things that serve the sole purpose of killing, maiming and rendering homeless our fellow human beings.

That's an oversimplification. Human intelligence has not changed significantly in 200,000 years. People with educational opportunities, in a society with room for upward mobility, defer reproduction while they establish a career. If women in that society also have these opportunities, and defer reproduction, couple have no time for more than one or two children. And don't need more, even though they are financially able to support more, since they have confidence in the two growing up successfully. That's not about intelligence but progressive politics and prosperity. The influence of religious organizations is not a function of relative intelligence, but does have a major effect on reproduction. (See USA, 2022; Saudi Arabia 2020) Also, periods of peace tend to encourage tolerance and social services, while war demands both economic sacrifice and human sacrifice. In precarious conditions - war zones and ghettos - people expect to die young, so they mature sexually at an earlier age and have babies sooner. It's not because they're less intelligent than the residents of upscale neighbourhoods; it's because because they have very different expectations and nature hates to miss a generation to experiment in.

Intelligence will suffice to do what? Some very clever people have engineered situation where lots of little soldiers and peons are made for the state to squander on its wars. Some other clever people have devised reliable, cheap, safe methods of birth control. High birth rate is not usually a result of sober human reflection: it's emotional and conditional. When there is a strong prospect of babies surviving to adulthood, people invest their resources in raising one or two; when infant mortality is high, they hedge their bets with six. That's one factor. Of course, there are others.

That happened following the carnage of WWII - in fact, it didn't wait for the post-war economic boom. But if that were the norm, wouldn't the prosperous nations of the 20th and 21st century have a higher birth rate than the poor nations? https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/birth_rate/ What's good about a globalized system? What's bad about it? If I really put on my thinking cap, I suspect my bad list would be longer. Why do we want to sustain a system that is so miserably failing to sustain so many of us? https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html Destabilization is inevitable anyway, what with bad governance, disrupted climate and predatory economic arrangements. The trade and defence treaties are causing more problems (e.g. Ukraine, Afghanistan, Palestine) than they solve; all that global transporting of resources and goods is killing the oceans and along with them, a major source of food for all the millions of unemployable people. If we don't move to decentralized local energy production pdq, we're done for. On top of the neverending pandemic, we're also borrowing and profiteering ourselves into a massive economic depression - which of course, given the global situation, will hurt everyone.

It might keep some fungus down, but if not applied directly to plants not much benefit. No harm, though. I can't imagine why they would waste sugar. It's no good to plants, but might be unpleasant for slugs and snails. It won't do any harm. It won't do any any good. While none of those things should go in a garbage can, the oil is no use to plants; the orange juice is okay; the yogurt encourages bacteria and moulds that the garden doesn't need, but that might not be harmful. Just put it in the compost and wait.

It can be. If you have useful information, please contribute. If you have reasonable questions, I'm sure there are people here who have answers. If you have innovative ideas, I - can't speak for anyone else - would be interested to explore them. Here's a jump-off point: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/climate-change/

Put pontoons on it and land on lakes.

To cover a car? Probably. You'd have to affix ledges and ridges to the outer surface to hold the turf, and drive slo-oo-owly, so's not to dislodge it. In a plane, you can plant a carpet, as well as seats. But, you're still just cheating. It's not a "A plane made of plants"; it's a plane decorated with redundant grass.

Fake grass, not living. Presumably, you could cover an ordinary car with some other vegetation but so what? It's still just an ordinary car. For airplanes, it would have to be on the inside - and still, so what? It's an ordinary plane with some green fuzz in the cabin.

For what purpose? Seat covers?

Sure, that's easy. Both trees and houses are rooted. Cars and planes have to move, or else they're just houses. You can make a plant-based car move if you construct it like a tumbleweed, covered in solar skin (possibly made of sunflower stem fibers) for motive power, but the passenger compartment would have to be equipped with a gyroscope, or else you'd have to hose it out every time you arrived at a destination. It may be speculated that genetic modification can achieve these combinations. Your plane would have to be glider, built on the principle of a maple key or Pterocarpus rohrii. Seeds are alive, but they don't need watering. Didn't all airplanes used to have wooden frames? No challenge in that!