THE VPT JUNK DRAWER. The thread you need when you don't.

[stui magpie]

I've never had the donuts there. I had a hotdog for breakfast, usually go the ham and salad roll but this morning was a tad coolish.

[think positive]

Try the donuts!the real ones, not the Spanish ones, I rarely indulge in donuts, but market ones are hard to resist!

[swoop42]

Spanish donuts.

I guess they come with extra cream.

[think positive]

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👌🏿

[swoop42]

[think positive]

[Bucks5]

Not sure if this is for real or satire. They are basically saying that we shouldn't allow our children to flourish so they stay at the same level as the disadvantaged.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/reading-to-children-at-bedtime-abc-questions-value-of-timehonoured-practice/news-story/e4560b5f36eed53efe9f894c5fa44289

THE ABC has questioned whether parents should read to their children before bedtime, claiming it could give your kids an “unfair advantage” over less fortunate children.

[David]

The original story is much more interesting than that article suggests, though, fair warning, it gets into some pretty deep philosophical territory:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/new-family-values/6437058

[Mugwump]

Yes, the tabloid article is unfair on the discussion, and it misrepresents it. However, the philosophers zone discussion is still pretty lamentable. Read it, and look at how deeply saturated it is with Leftist assumptions :

1. The main problem with the family is that it may be unfair, conferring advantages on some and not others (the purpose of life being to find universal equality, apparently)
2. Biological relationships are largely a social and cultural construction.
3. That the family is "a weathered institution ever more in need of a rationale for existing".

Once you start with these types of assumptions, the conclusions (which, naturally, are that there is no normative or ideal family structure, that private schools are bad, and that you should feel occasionally guilty about giving your kid an advantage by reading to it) follow very patly. They are, of course, the standard pot-boiler conclusions of the Left. How convenient for the ABC's core demographic, nodding along on their donkeys.

A different set of philosophical assumptions might, unsurprisingly, lead to a different set of conclusions :

1. Humans do not make this world or themselves ; rather, they are born into it as a product of evolution, which in turn programmes certain instinctual forms of life (e.g. biological attachment) as predisposing to human happiness ;
2. The private family is the keystone of individual liberty, as it is a small piece, and place, of private government where the state is not routinely empowered to intervene
3. Social equality is not the ultimate goal of life. The ultimate goal is maximizing individual welfare in aggregate, and when one person receives love, or excellence or opportunity, another is not diminished by that.

We don't hear much about this alternative set of assumptions on the ABC, however. I wonder why ?

[David]

It's a highly radical view being proposed as a philosophical thought exercise by an interviewee, not 'by the ABC'. Once we get that out of the way, I broadly agree with your arguments whilst retaining some sympathy for the concept of changing the fabric of the family model as we currently know it. If family is an essential institution for the functioning of society, as it may well be, then I think we could do worse than ditching the nuclear family for more of an extended family network, whether that be actual relatives or something more communal.

Either way, nothing wrong with pulling apart all we hold sacred and see what makes it tick – on a philosophy program, it should be a regular exercise.

[Mugwump]

[swoop42]

A car has hit a pole down my way so we have an old fashioned power outage.

Haven't had one for a long while and boy you soon realise how you just take it for granted your electricity supply will work in this country.

Thankfully the stove is on gas so I can make something for tea but seeing the bloody thing will be the problem.

A torch, a few small candles and the light on my phone will have to see me through.

[swoop42]

Power back on at 6:30pm.

Man not sure how I survived those 105 minutes.

LOL.

[David]

Humanity is doomed.

[think positive]

The worst part of that is resetting everything!