Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Worrying about SOPA and NDAA

My 13 year old son has problems sleeping so he reads a lot at night. Every day he tells me about things he has read about our government and how some of our rights are in danger of being taken away. He says too many people just don't care about what is happening and that really bothers him too. He is especially worried about SOPA. No wonder he can't sleep.

He also talks me into watching Ron Paul videos and wants me to take him to the bookstore to get one of the books he wrote. I think it was called The Revolution or something like that. He watches political debates. He enjoys debating with his grandfather who gets most of his news from Fox.

I think he would enjoy reading books about political science. Can anyone recommend a good one?

Also, what do you think about SOPA?

I don't think there is any doubt that SOPA has the potential to kill the free and open internet as we know it, which is kind of the point.

If he's getting his political information from internet news sites (reddit.com's r/politics?), I would advise him to look a little more deeply into Ron Paul's actual positions, which he might find surprising.

If he's internet savvy and wants to find good books on political science, he should probably look online at the lists of required texts for political science courses at good universities that are known for their strong poli-sci programs, and then start with ones that appear on most of those lists.

Honestly, I don't think it's a good time to be a young teenager reading political information unguided (I'm not sure adults should be reading it, either). There's been a shift in the media over the last 20 years or so away from facts and towards appeals to emotion. Some of these arguments are ridiculous binary statements (ie. "If you're not with us, you're against us!") that even adults are being sucked into (which is why they're doing it in the first place). Since teenagers are already prone to thinking in absolutes, and since they're very emotional, they're particularly vulnerable to this kind of manipulation.

If he wants to read about Ron Paul, I'd suggest you pull him aside and let him know that a lot of what's said in political circles isn't really true, and is calculated to advance a particular agenda, so be sure to check the facts and hear the other side before rushing to judgement. And then make sure he's getting his news from a variety of source, especially those who hold politicians accountable for their statements, like Factcheck.org.

As for SOPA... wake me when it gets out of committee.

I think its great that he is concerned. We all should be. BUT. As the other posters pointed out, some things have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Much of the discourse today begins with the "I have a nightmare.." speech and goes from there.

What should be done is to get a deep grounding in political history and theory and then the events and claims of today can be compared to the past.

1. Read a broad survey of world history.

This is very good. Its not perfect. But it is broad, inclusive, and the attempt at synthesis sets the stage.

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Civiliz...mp;ie=UTF8&qid=1324496076&sr=1-1

2. Read biographies of great leaders and place them in the world historical context. This will tie people to historical events. Pick a leader and read about them. Then another. Rome, China, Greece, Europe, Japan, India. Think about what you might have done different. Pick a time when things went really bad and look at what was or was not done.

For example, there was a monetary and climate crisis in Europe in the early 1300s. Phillip IV of France probably did the most to bring great ruin to Europe because he responded to the various challenges of his day - and there were very many - by doing the wrong thing at each turn. On the other hand, William of Orange did all the right things in the late 1600s.

3. As you read, google the events for more perspective.

4. Read psychology and economics. Try to understand how genetics, resources, and behavior are tied to the current or past world. Think about how one gets knowledge, validates it, then uses it.

5. Finally, pick several people who are in their 50s or older who know history well, were trained as a scientist, and who have been involved with a leader or scientific or political policy, who focus on many things, and read their blogs. Pick across the political spectrum and avoid those who are strident. This will give you perspective and longer view and links to other interesting things.

I like these.

http://johnhawks.net/
http://www.monbiot.com/
http://jerrypournelle.com/jerrypournelle.c/chaosmanor/


The time to stop it is when it is in Committee.

I know he has been using Politifacts for a long time now. I don't know if he also uses Factcheck.org. He listens to Young Turks, Fox News (but doesn't think it is always "fair and balanced", and CNN, and he has online friends who discuss politics so he is trying to find out as much as he can from a variety of sources so that he can better participate in these discussions and also make up his own mind. I know he reads a from a lot of different online sources. I think Huffington Post is one of them. He usually listens to his dad's opinions, my opinions, his grandfather's opinions and the online friends who I think are 20 somethings but he makes up his own mind and then tries to convince us that he is right. He carries his iPhone around and when we say something he is usually able to quickly find something that he just read that totally contradicts what we just said and then I don't know what to say. I don't have time to read everything he is reading but I do read some of it and try to discuss things with him to the best of my ability.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your advice. He loves psychology and has read some of a very old community college economics book but he wants to learn more.

Thank you.

Young Turks, Fox News, and Huffington Post are all politically biased sources. CNN also has a strong bias, it's just that it's not towards a particular viewpoint, it's towards sensationalism. So yeah, if his diet of news involves so many negative sources, I could see why he'd be so frightened.

Political discussions online have a tendency towards increased polarization, too. Sometimes you can learn something new about the other side, but mostly you're just being trolled.

In your place, I'd recommend some more moderate sources be added to the mix. For instance, I like to make Yahoo my first stop for news, because they're just gathering things from a lot of different sources... major newspapers, TV stations, blogs, AP and Reuters, etc.

I'd also recommend looking at primary sources whenever possible, because it gives you the opportunity to access the unvarnished truth. For example, I live on the Gulf Coast, and the coverage of hurricane season is outrageously sensationalist on local TV. Given all this awful information, I turned to the internet to educate myself on the subject, and now I have a variety of primary sources I evaluate myself before ascribing to any hype about any one storm. My sources include the National Hurricane Center, the Navy's Meteorology and Oceanography Center, and the storm model output as provided by Florida State University.

It is also helpful to look at some really bad periods and compare to today.

These were some horrible times in Europe.

Each had profound consequences all across the spectrum - economics, politics, religion, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe

1300s.

How policy drives everything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Vienne

The Templars were the largest multinational corporation at the time. Philip systematically dismantled the large non-state organizations of his day thus leaving Europe with no social capital.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%931317

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Late_Middle_Ages


1600s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

And long ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

And a very influential work that tried to synthesize from many fields and is still very influential today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_%28book%29

Our tribal past is still very much with us:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments