> It can be read negatively against boys or negatively against girls so why post it?

This part I really do not understand. The undeniable fact that boys and girls are different in several aspects does not make either superior or inferior in value or in dignity.

On the other hand, anything can be read negatively if you put enough will and effort into it, as so many people around here demonstrate.

How about being a bit more constructive in our criticism?

Yes, but also no.

I have a prioritised list, it's simply that not everything fits inside the list, because my time is limited.

Instead of "Not enough time" we could say "This is not high enough a priority".

> It also means your kid has no experience of online interactions with strangers, basically no SNS literacy, which also sounds like a disaster waiting to happen to me.

I think it would be better to allow them to be exposed to all this in a later phase, once, for example, they have plenty of experience with offline interactions with strangers. Learn how to walk, then learn how to run.

I really don't think the opposite order would work.

You would get them used to the more intimate and private interactions first ?

While doing small talk at the bus stop, telling someone you go to the middle school over there is small talk. Doing the same online is asking for problems.

Online interaction require a completely different mindset for a kid, it's a big enough gap IMHO to be treated as a separate thing that can be learned in parallel of offline interactions.

You can learn to swim while learning to walk.

And that's the root cause of many, many issues.

It's a pity so many of these issues get simply patched up through other means instead of properly addressing the real root cause.

This is like saying food is good.

It is. But then you have ultra-processed food, junk food, food you might be allergic to...

Some medicines are good, some medicines are the lesser bad, some medicines will kill you if you take them when not needed, some medicines you might be allergic too, and some medicines are just a patch to have you feel well and keep you going.

You don't need to be fake in order to be nice. Become nice, then you won't have to fake it.

One way of becoming nice is to act nice. A nice person is a person who acts nice towards other people.

You can act different than how you feel, and that is not being fake, it's being nice.

If we all acted how we felt, we'd all be dead already.

What about because something is objectively good for you?

For example, you could learn to like fermented foods (if you don't) because they are very healthy for you.

In this paradigm you describe, should we then strive to be authentic or should we refrain?

Don't you think this would open the doors to an endless amount of bad behaviours?

Yes.

No.

What if my authentic feeling and behaviour was to slap you in the face and laugh at you because you answered 'Yes.' to an 'either/or' question?

The problem is that for humanity, unrestrained behaviour will very quickly degrade into horrible things. There's scientific evidence for that, if everyday life is not proof enough for you.

> people who play music/video aloud on public transport

But that's not being authentic, that's being plain rude, and there should be a difference.

You can be authentic and still respect boundaries and be considerate towards other people.

And on the other side, if being rude is your form of authenticity, then you're not authentic, you're just another rude person, probably following a specific type of common behaviour.

> You can be authentic and still respect boundaries and be considerate towards other people.

From the point of view of the douche: why should they do that, for what gain? I suppose if they care about social cohesion they'd care, but on the flip side, people nowadays can seem to violate social norms and still get through life just fine, in the old days they might suffer if society shunned them.

Makes me think of the cafe sign that listed prices: "Coffee $5; A coffee please: $3; Good day, I would like a coffee please: $1", being pleasant helps when doing business as well, people will even avoid doing business with you if you're unpleasant (except maybe if your soup is really really good). Maybe the "loneliness epidemic" means that people are developing a tolerance to the unavailability of pleasant social interactions.

Now it makes me think maybe the Black Mirror social scoring ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcspUD0kF7g ) is a useful way to punish douches after all.

Placebo is by definition highly subjective, and not even in the sense of one's opinion, but rather that it works or not at a subject level.