Selentelechia
No content on this page itself — see linked references below.
2 linked references
November 24th, 2021
- sort of a response to something Selentelechia asked about
- re changing diapers and noncoercive parenting
- and about how coercion is different from control
- using the lens of control systems & PCT
- withholding stuff
November 17th, 2021
- jamming with Selentelechia re
- S > was reading "The Good Wives"
- an overview of what you can infer about puritan / New England colonial settlers, and the women's role
- and it was interesting the extent to which women didn't want to earn any prestige
- dignified death = if all people had to say about you was that you were pious and a good wife
- and it seemed like women weren't directly engaged in the wage economy, insofar as it resembles anything today
- but they did a lot of mgmt of the household finances, they did a lot of bartering
- if you had extra of anything, you were expected to go around the neighborhood and trade it, for anything you'd want
- a lot of women became assistants to their husbands (trades etc)
- there was a provision in the law, of like, men could deputize their wives to act in their name
- "yeah, my wife is representing me in business matters"
- very involved in financial & logistics side of household
- weren't really expected, even as young man, to strike out on your own
- would room with other men
- M > I remember something you posted from that book
- there's almost no way to allow people to escape pretty nasty situations, without some concept of the individual as an economic unit
- being able to go out and get their own job
- M > also applies to kids/teens
- weird that we call it "emancipation"
- S > child labor & teen labor are pretty different
- "adolescence is really awkward for the legal system"
- S > kids and teenagers aren't full economic participants until adulthood
- M > seems that by age 12 or so, you should get some more rights
- S > yeah, like, by age 12, you can open your own bank account and it's yours and your parents can't take it
- M > weird that it's hard to convert your kid bank account to an adult bank account
- S > oh that's right
- M > yeah, the question of whether individuals exist (as economic units), begins in adolescence
- S > yeah!
- S > sense of "not really an adult unless you're married"
- M > mhm!
- S > applied at least somewhat to men as well
- although definitely more to women
- S > once industrial machinery, people who are smaller or weaker (kids/women) can go earn money
- M > even with farming tho... some stuff?
- S > yeah, but based on The Good Wives, unclear if that really quite worked
- especially if tons of babes to take care of
- S > finances as an individual is weird
- M > well two income streams is weird too!
- S > oh true.
- M > image of a community that has some people playing a more internal role (cooking cleaning) and really enjoying doing that
- S > yeah, and lots of people, in poly or coparenting situations or similar, would want to do this
- S > but it's hard to home brew it... you probably would want to consult a lawyer, and most people aren't gonna do that
- S > I want to read more about charter city projects
- S > but also chesterton's fence
- nerds thinking they can reinvent saner systems
- M > multiperson global wayfinding
- S > simultaneously feels way too costly
- but also feels like what most people do most of the time
- M > I think the basic thesis is that it's possible to rewire your brain so that the automatic stuff is sanity-inducing rather than crazymaking
- S > feels frustrating more people aren't trying to figure out how to make the unified economic arrangement good
- M > could write with some likeminded women, something like "the feminist case for Mom as a career"
- we're collectively struggling to grok how to do power relationships that aren't hierarchical [but not totally autonomous]
- S > & how do you make the transition between hierarchical and nonhierarchical?
- because obviously parents have absolute control over babies
- this can be more or less well-attuned etc
- but sometimes need to hold baby's legs down to change her diaper
- (but then obviously at some point a transition to teenagehood & adulthood)
- S > liability law is almost all case law
- so there's a lot of stuff that's technically legal except that everyone knows someone could get sued if something goes wrong