I think you’d be cutting out a significant portion of the workforce by excluding those in early adulthood.

I’m guessing their position is very much “oh they still need to work and pay taxes…and they shouldn’t expect any more support than they currently have in order to do so…but they need to figure out how to manage it all without driving, and they should be disenfranchised as well”.

There’s more than one specific topic covered in sex ed.

We teach math to children, but nobody is suggesting that you need to get your toddler into differential equations.

Also, for many areas, a vehicle is a necessity of adult life.

If you’re not letting kids drive at 16, then for that *almost-*decade until they’re 25 you’d better provide free transportation as well.

Since that’s not about to happen, leave it as it is.

While I personally agree with most of what you said, I disagree with your assertion as to the reaction you’ll get from peers.

We’ve made admitting mistakes worse than the mistake itself these days, and it’s slowly unraveling accountability.

I associate this with boomers more than kids, but that’s subjective since an old former friend I know always used to do it.

They also used “seen” instead of “saw”, as in, “I seen dark clouds so I closed the windows.” which is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

More great points, I agree.

Also…it might just be me, but I find that I subconsciously have more respect for a person, both as a person and as a reliable source of information, if they present things with qualification, as you suggest. To me, it’s a sign of humility and an indication of an appreciation for the complexity of any given subject if someone is knowledgeable enough to both field questions and demonstrate proficiency while also being careful to qualify and delineate between what’s fact, what’s generally accepted, what’s their understanding, and what’s their opinion or guess.

I listened to a podcast last year about TOP GUN instructors and the grueling process they go through to become subject matter experts in their specific subject, and one of the things that stuck out to me was that they’re less worried about being right all the time and more worried about three qualities: being knowledgeable, approachable, and humble…with the understanding that with those three qualities, you’re going to eventually get to the point where you’re almost always right, with the added benefit that you’ve trained yourself to remove ego from the equation, so you’re less likely to fall prey to the trap of clinging to bad information/belief/assumption just because you want to look correct.

I’m glad you addressed the aversion to being wrong because I think that’s part of the core of what’s causing so many problems in America today (and maybe other places, but I can only speak to my own familiarity).

I feel like as a society we have created an environment where we demonstrate and reinforce to children from like kindergarten onward that the worst thing you can possibly do is be wrong. Someone who is always right is seen as smart, capable…in short, a winner.

Conversely, if you’re ever wrong, that completely and permanently undoes your entire argument/position and not only that, but you’re branded as unreliable/untrustworthy, uninformed, stupid, dishonest, or naive.

We expect perfection in correctness, and while being right is the expectation, being wrong is a permanent black mark that is treated as a more serious negative than being right is considered as a positive. Nobody just assumes that if you’re right about one thing that you’ll be right about all things, but if you get something wrong, there’s a very real shift toward double-checking or verifying anything else that comes after.

We even tease friends, family, and children for mispronouncing words or singing incorrect lyrics. Basically, being incorrect is so stigmatized that we reinforce to everyone, children and adults alike, that it’s better to not even try…not even make an attempt or join into a conversation…than to risk being wrong. When someone is wrong we use words like “admit” like it’s a crime, or admit defeat…and that just creates an environment where nobody is ever encouraged to speak up about anything for fear of (gasp!) being wrong.

And now we’re coming full circle on this at the highest levels, with our leaders being blatantly and objectively wrong…and absolutely dead set on avoiding having to admit that at all costs, setting a precedent that has oozed into even casual discourse among regular people. It seems like it used to be that being wrong was bad enough, but to dig in and refuse to admit it was even worse…lately it seems that admitting you were wrong is now even worse than doubling down on it…so now we have a situation where we can’t even agree on basic facts because one or more sides will be wrong but would rather insist on their position than just acknowledge​ they were incorrect.

Not to mention the entire premise of the post being, essentially, “I don’t approve of the entertainment my sibling chooses to consume. Please make suggestions for me as to other entertainment that I can then use to regulate said adult sibling, removing their entertainment that I don’t like and forcing them to consume something I find more acceptable.”

Like…I think Rogan’s whole thing is stupid and most I’ve talked to who like his stuff are similarly ridiculous…but to go from that to full out “I plan to take it away from them and force them to do something I find more acceptable” is really quite a leap.

They should have gone after the school too; that’s horrible!

Yeah that was a persistent “it’s just generally known” type of thing in the area where I grew up.

Yep, I had a bully in elementary school and my mom tried to work with the system of teachers, principal, admin, etc. for months, and nothing at all was ever done about it.

Finally when the bullying escalated to physical levels and started to impact my personality outside of school, my parents basically told me that while I might still get in trouble at school, they wouldn’t be upset with me at home if I did decide to stand up to the kid. They stressed to me the fine line between standing up for yourself and becoming a bully yourself, and sent me on my way.

A few days later, my bully found me at lunch and started messing with me. Pushing over my stack of booking, taking some food off my tray…I didn’t do anything until he tried to push me out of my seat then it was kind of blurry, but basically I just took a swing at him and knocked him back out of his seat and he hit his head against the wall and started crying.

I did get in some trouble at school but nothing too bad (especially once Mom was called in and she explained how if they tried to suspend me, she’d put them on blast for how they’d ignored the situation for so long), and that kid was nice as pie to me for the rest of our schooling.

Engine breaking destroys the engine.

Unfortunate typo.

That’s pretty disingenuous, considering the amounts of respective materials involved.

By that rationale, your home is made of paint. It just uses wood and concrete for structure.

That’s like saying cars and trucks are made of paint because they have a layer of it on the outside.

Can liners are both an extremely small portion of the overall container as well as being absolutely essential for most canned beverages.

Additionally, many/most manufacturers have or are moving away from liner materials that contain BPA.

No reason it can’t be both!

Exactly! Very well said!

Don’t make a new interest a “don’t do what interests you, do what interests me” thing.

I’m big into fishing and while people are generally pretty good to newbies, people can get ridiculously preachy over catch and release vs keeping fish, as well as safe and ethical fish handling practices.

I’m all about educating, but A) you need to do it with positivity and not guilt, B) a lot of times people get super, super anal about it…like… we’re all jamming a hook in a fish’s mouth and dragging it out of the water…in that context, laying it on some wet grass to quickly unhook it and get a picture is not the worst part of its day, and C) just because their fish handling may not be perfect doesn’t mean it’s cruel either…newbies gotta learn, and they’re going to learn better from gentle suggestion and explanation than coming at them telling them how wrong they are.

At this point, seeing behavior and responses like this in so many communities of my interests, I feel like even that gentle of an approach is still too much agenda-pushing.

Not that the agenda in question lacks for value, ethics, or good intentions, but at the end of the day, based on the newbies inquiry, it’s still some version of, “You’re wrong for wanting to explore your interest. You should do what I tell you to do instead.”

In the communities for my interests that I participate in, I try (and sometimes fail, we’re all human), to explicitly steer clear of doing anything to diminish their enthusiasm, curiosity, and desire to learn. That’s the little ember that they need to really get going, so for me, the priority is not to put that out.

Especially in a case like this where, sure, maybe a native garden is ideal…but the alternative if they get overwhelmed or shut down or forcibly redirected by the community is probably just going to be grass and weeds, or no plants at all.

I think it’s great to offer up the natives as an alternative (while explaining the benefits to both the local ecosystem as well as to the gardener), but I would also say that if you’re going to do that, one should also encourage them to get into their new interest regardless of whether they follow that suggestion or not.

If OP wants to plant tulips, fantastic, and I’ll give you any tips I can on how to do that. I may suggest natives and why they’re also a great choice, but under no circumstances will I go into negative territory in telling them they shouldn’t follow up on their interest, unless of course it’s illegal, dangerous, harmful, etc.

I think it’s elevation as much as north/south.

Pittsburgh and Philly with Kentucky in the middle!

This is absolutely reflective of my experience in PA as well. Everything you said and exactly as you said it.

Nothing is “upstate”.

NEPA is anything north of 80 and (roughly) east of where the Susquehanna splits near Selinsgrove.

Western PA is the whole state, north to south, from the Ohio border to approximately 219.

Central PA is south of 80, between 219 in the west, and east up to and including Lancaster county.

The part that’s left over is usually just called “north central PA”, but there’s not much of anything up there, so it’s usually referred to by specific county or town in that region, and most frequently when you do hear that, it’s someone describing where their hunting camp is.