April Questions

[avatar (Alistair Young)]

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@R.C. <richardjacole84@hotmail.com> on 2018-04-30 06:39:42 wrote

So, presumably Breysvard Young Ladies’ Academy is a university/finishing school. If higher education is mainly for adults, rather than minors, was Jynel Cerron-ith-Cerron expecting to gain her IQI and become a citizen-shareholder before attending?

@Specialist290 <carpentereli@outlook.com> on 2018-04-30 16:39:18 wrote

…there may be more said on the topic when and if I receive an inspiration, but you do realize that in this general form that’s like asking the Pope for a complete and comprehensive taxonomy of sin, right?

I plead guilty to intentionally casting a wide net to see what I can catch.

To refine a bit, though, running with the analogy (and playing a bank shot off of another topic in this post): Would it be possible for us to get a peek at the “catechism” on the topic as taught in the Decad?

@Alistair Young <athanasius.skytower@arkane-systems.net> on 2018-04-30 19:15:56 wrote

They’re theological concepts - you learn those in the temples, not in your formal education. And we’ve already seen some of that with regard to the six major ones - Balances .

@Specialist290 <carpentereli@outlook.com> on 2018-04-30 23:57:41 wrote

I’m aware of that post; it’s what prompted the question in the first place. I was hoping for more of a “spotlight” on each one in turn (at your leisure, of course).

@Specialist290 <carpentereli@outlook.com> on 2018-05-04 16:11:57 wrote

If you want to stand out as an individual, fashion is the way to do it, because what you were born with, everyone you know was born with, and there’re only so many variations to go around.

Something about this isn’t gelling for me: If, as you’ve said elsewhere, you aren’t supposed to be using comparisons to others as your personal yardstick of excellence, why would you care about “standing out” in the first place?

@Alistair Young <athanasius.skytower@arkane-systems.net> on 2018-05-05 00:37:11 wrote

Permit me to suggest that it’s your human perspective that leads you to conflate differentiation with hierarchy, which two concepts don’t necessarily go together. If you’re not human.

@Specialist290 <carpentereli@outlook.com> on 2018-05-05 14:41:46 wrote

Allow me to phrase it a different way: If your only focus should be on your own individual improvement, why should you care whether or not you’re different at all, one way or the other? If your own chosen purpose places a premium on something else ahead of mere aesthetic self-decoration, what’s it to anyone else if you don’t Iook like you’re standing out?

@driagledd <driagledd@aim.com> on 2018-05-06 07:35:42 wrote

I’d guess that’s where the “If you want to stand out as an individual” comes in. If you don’t particularly care about aesthetic differentiation, the point is somewhat moot. But IF you do, you do it with fashion. Aesthetics is a good way expressing who you are to everyone around you, I guess.

@Alistair Young <athanasius.skytower@arkane-systems.net> on 2018-05-11 01:52:42 wrote

Because it’s not your only focus, sophonts being complex, multifaceted individuals and not paragons of institutionalizable monomania. (And, as a social species of individualists, tend to care about standing out in the crowd because differentiation is not the same thing as hierarchy.)

Please understand, therefore, that when telling rather than showing, I necessarily speak in generalities, not absolute statements; which can no more reflect this complexity in toto any more than I can accurately describe every characteristic of the seven billion people on Earth by saying “humans are a short-lived tribal species of plains ape who excel at dominance games and sucking”.

@specialist290 <carpentereli@outlook.com> on 2018-05-11 12:10:07 wrote

Fair enough.

@nothing <gromitrules78@gmail.com> on 2018-05-20 22:35:35 wrote

What ?

@Specialist290 <carpentereli@outlook.com> on 2018-06-16 12:07:33 wrote

A few questions about children and their place in society, since they seem tangential, to what’s already been discussed.

First, referencing this:

As for self-control: well, any young citizen-intendant who doesn’t learn to show an adult’s self-control will likely be culled by the age of 12 or so, simply because they’re too bloody dangerous to keep around. This is acknowledged as harsh, but also as regrettably necessary; when temper tantrums can shatter bones and blow out walls, you can’t afford to permit them.

Would it be correct to infer a generalization from this that, essentially, the head of an Imperial household has some measure of power analogous to the old Roman patria potestas ( Patria potestas | Roman Empire, Paterfamilias, Slavery | Britannica and LacusCurtius — Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities/Patria_Potestas.html for reference) over their minor dependents? Aside from axiomatic self-ownership, what sort of rights do children (or other wards) have, particularly *vis a vis the “veto power” of their parents or guardians?

As a sort of sub-topic of that: How do eldraeic parents go about disciplining unruly and disobedient children? What are, for instance, local attitudes toward corporal punishment?