At 11:56 AM 1/26/96 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote:

I have known too many adults that believe that by restricting their kids access to information, they can prevent them from growing up. In these parent's minds, such information is what makes them want to hump their little brains out. Biology has nothing to do with it in their limited way of thinking. Cluelessness does not just cover computers with these people. It also covers any other topic that required more than two brain cells to understand.

Actually, if you place a child in one sort of environment or another you do get a different "product." The behavior of Amish children raised on farms in rural Pennsylvania differs significantly from the behavior of children raised crack-addicted parents in Bed-Stuy. In fact, you get almost non-overlapping bell curves for every characteristic. I would guess too that if you switched kids at birth between these two populations, the final results wouldn't differ by much. What parents are attempting to do when they restrain their children's access to "sex and drugs and rock and roll" (or Republicanism for that matter) is to mediate their "spiritual" environment to keep them from becoming hardened. They know the kids will grow up, they just want them to grow up in a nice way. Children who listen to Vera Lynn's singing and Cole Porter's songs will end up quite different from those who favor louder, less vocal music. Note that in spite of what liberals might think, fundamentalist christians are less likely to divorce, less likely to report spousal beatings, less likely to kill themselves, and more likely to measure high personal satisfaction levels on standard psychological tests than are, say, readers of The Nation. The cypherpunks relevance of all this is that it should soon be possible to create completely mediated environments for ourselves and our children. Through the use of implants and real-time VR processing, it will be possible to edit our "interface" with the Real World such that unpleasant aspects are edited out. We will be able to change the attire, hair, facial expressions, voice, and even smell of those around us to conform to our own esthetic desires. Likewise with our physical surroundings. Safety may discourage making a complete transformation in one's surroundings, but one can certainly soften the edges. Note that this is just an easier-to-implement version of what we can do already with our own minds. It will be interesting to see the effects on people who live in these mediated worlds. DCF "My grandmother didn't like to use the word 'Democrats' in the presence of the children. She called them 'bastards' instead." -- PJ O'Rourke