Sarah Fitz-Claridge - Taking Children Seriously | The Lunar Society #15

1. 0:00 – 1:23

   Intro

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel0:00

      Right.

   2. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge0:00

      What children, what children should be learning is what they want, is what interests them, is how to solve problems. They don't learn that by being institutionalized for 12 years and, and bossed about by an authoritarian teacher who doesn't know very much. They, they just... It's, uh, uh, it's, it's an insane idea.

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel0:25

      Hey, folks, and welcome to The Lunar Society Podcast. Today, I have the great pleasure of talking with Sarah FitzClarridge. Sarah is a writer, coach, and speaker with a fallibilist worldview. She started a journal that became Taking Children Seriously in the early 1990s after being surprised by the heated audience reactions that she was getting when talking about children. She has spoken all over the world about her educational philosophy, and you can find transcripts of some of her talks on her website at fitz-clarridge.com, and the link to that will also be in the description. So, we had a very interesting conversation. I'm broadly sympathetic with Sarah's worldview, though I do have my differences, so I had a lot of fun playing devil's advocate. Uh, but whether you agree with her or not, Sarah is an incredibly original and first-principles thinker about how our society treats children. So, without further ado, here's Sarah FitzClarridge (guitar music plays)

2. 1:23 – 5:46

   Taking Children Seriously

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel1:23

      So, Sarah, can you explain what Taking Children Seriously is?

   2. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge1:27

      Yes. Taking Children Seriously is an educational philosophy that takes seriously the idea that human beings are fallible, and that includes parents. So, instead of interacting with our children coercively, we are trying to create consent with them. We're trying to find solutions to problems that don't involve coercion, because coercion decides issues under an irrational institution. It embodies the theory that might makes right, which is false.

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel2:10

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge2:10

      So, we don't do that. It's actually a new view of children in that the standard view of children is a bit like the view of women before they were emancipated, or say, Black people when they were slaves in America. It's, it's not that they're not people. They are people, this is the, the standard view, but they're not quite able to control their own lives, you know? They need a benevolent, patriarchal, uh, parent, husband, slave master to just make sure that, you know, nothing goes wrong for them. And, of course, it's, it's not that parents are trying to be dictators over their children. It's just, that is the view that really the whole world has about children, that they are not quite the same as the rest of us. They're not quite rational and creative, and so we need to manage and control them to make sure that they turn out to be citizens who can be responsible for themselves. So, I think, instead, that children are creative and rational, and that they're creative and rational from birth. You know, we're born with human minds, not just animal minds, but we have this human mind as well. And it, it just doesn't make sense to think in terms of rationality and creativity being turned on at some later stage. And so, it's there from the beginning. Uh, and, uh, you know, how does a child learn language, a baby learn language if they're not creative and rational?

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel4:07

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   6. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge4:09

      So, taking children seriously, you could say is non-coercive educational theory.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel4:14

      Yeah.

   8. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge4:14

      It's about raising children in a way that doesn't involve coercion.

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel4:20

      Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, just, just for your audience, uh, my position, uh, currently is somewhere between yours and the conventional view. So, hopefully you can nudge me closer to your view. Um, so now, now one obvious counterargument is that, uh, w- w- you know, w- w- when it came to women or other races, we view them, uh, we viewed them as a different kind of thing. But children are literally a different kind of thing, right? Like, they're biologically different from adults. Doesn't this mean that they are entitled to different rights? Perhaps fewer rights?

   10. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge4:51

       That is the same circular argument that was used in the past about women and Black people. "Well, their skin is black, so obviously they're not the same as the rest of us." "Well, they're women, so obviously there's an, there's an actual difference there. They're not men. They're not White men." It's the same circular argument. It's-

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel5:13

       Yeah.

   12. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge5:13

       ... doesn't make any sense (laughs) and I think-

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel5:15

       Although those are-

   14. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge5:17

       Sorry.

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel5:17

       Oh, uh, uh, no, go ahead.

   16. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge5:19

       I think that there will come a time in the future when people will look back at how we view children now, and they will be as horrified by that as how it seems to us when we look back at the arguments that people made in the past about Black people and women (laughs) .

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel5:37

       Yeah. No, I actually do agree with that, especially given how, uh, the schooling system works. Um, but now here, here, here's a, uh, here, just to continue that argument,

3. 5:46 – 8:08

   Are children rational?

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel5:47

      w- uh, with, uh, between different races, these are superficial differences, right? And between, uh, uh, different genders, they're not entirely superficial, but they're minimal when compared to the difference between, uh, what, you know, a two-year-old and an 18-year-old. Like, there seems to be...... uh, such a difference in the kind of person we're talking about. Um, it's entirely likely that a chimp is smarter than a two-year-old, right?

   2. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge6:10

      Yeah.

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel6:10

      Now, why is a chimp not entitled to the same rights against coercion?

   4. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge6:14

      No, no. Uh, that's, that's, that's false. Um, in the, in the relevant sense, children of whatever age are the same because we have creativity and rationality. If you, if you're talking about a baby who's just been born and knows nothing except genetic knowledge, like an animal has genetic knowledge, but basically that's all they have. But that child, by the time the child is two years old or so, the child will be speaking and doing many other things that a chimp or any other animal will never be doing. And that's because of this creativity and rationality. You know, something has happened in those two years, and it's that the child has been forming inexplicit conjectures about what words mean, about what we call different things, and about hu- a huge number of other things. It's not just language, obviously. Whereas a chimp or whatever animal is doing none of those things.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel7:21

      Yeah. Uh, I, I think-

   6. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge7:22

      So, uh, why, in case, in case w- what your question is sort of suggesting that I'm saying leave a baby to its own devices, that's not what I'm saying. (laughs) What I'm saying is coercion versus not coercion. I'm not saying that we don't assist our children. Of course we do, and we do know, we do know more than a, a baby. Um, so the question is, what do we do with this greater knowledge? Do we think that it justifies coercing the child or not?

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel8:00

      Right.

   8. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge8:01

      And when you're coercing, that is you're, you're basically saying might makes right, and it doesn't.

4. 8:08 – 14:56

   Coercion

   1. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge8:09

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel8:09

      Yeah. So I guess it would be useful, um, to define coercion in this context. How do you think about the coercion of children? What does that mean?

   3. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge8:16

      Well, coercion is, is causing someone to do something or not do something against their will, r- roughly speaking. That's, that's a way of putting it. I mean, it, there is more to it than that. I, I think that we can look at more subtle issues than that. But basically, you're, you're talking about imposing your will on someone else against their will. So that's what I would say for coercion.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel8:47

      Right. Um, so, uh, uh, I remember vaguely that chimps, uh, that they did, like, an experiment where chimps and, uh, children were given, like, something like an IQ test, but it was, like, a very basic one. And it turned out that, um, chimps actually had higher working memory. So I, but in the, they obviously have a lower capacity to learn, and, um, you know, learning requires creativity, and we could talk about that as well. Uh, so the reason that children are entitled to a right against coercion is because of the fact that they can learn, right? As opposed to, it's not just their pure intelligence. It's just, like, what they could become?

   5. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge9:24

      It's that they are creative and rational beings, and a chimp is not. A chimp, a chimp has genetic knowledge which allows a certain range of behaviors and things it can learn, but it's, it's limited, whereas human creativity is not limited. And that applies equally to children as it does to adults.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel9:51

      Uh, although, I mean, a two-year-old is limited, right? It, it's not as if-

   7. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge9:55

      That's true.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel9:55

      ... a two-year-old can do anything that an adult human can do.

   9. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge9:58

      Well, act-

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel9:58

       And why, why don't these limits, um, entail certain sorts of limitations on the rights that child has as well?

   11. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge10:04

       Well, I would say that children actually are more creative and rational than adults, not less, and especially young children. If you look at the enormous amount of stuff that young children learn and how difficult it is for many adults to, to learn things, I, if anything, they have more creativity and rationality, not less.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel10:31

       Yeah, yeah. Although, uh, uh, uh, if you, if we're act- if we're going to apply that def- uh, criterion, I mean, there are many things that adults can do that children can't do. Uh, o- one of them is just having, like, formal verbal arguments about, uh, and, like, reasoning through different, um, d- different possibilities. You know, you can talk to an adult and say, um, "You know, is this career choice the best career choice for you?" And you can go through reasons, pros and cons. You really can't do that to a toddler. And, uh, well, people would say that this is the basic definition of rationality, right? Like, can we engage in a conversation where we're both able to, um, make explicit our positions and go through the, you know, the different parts of our argument? We can't do that with children.

   13. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge11:12

       Well, um, actually we can. But if you just define rationality to exclude young children, (laughs) then obviously you're going to say, look, uh, therefore young children are irrational. But rationality means your ability to actually learn, create new knowledge. And s- so, uh, sh- as I said, babies are clearly rational because they, they learn language. That's clear evidence of rationality.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel11:44

       Right. Uh, so we'll have to come back to that 'cause that's pr- uh, that's, that's gonna be a longer discussion. Um, let's talk about something we probably both agree on, which is, um, uh, the treatment of, uh, people who are teenagers or younger than teenagers. Um, ho- how, the impact that mandatory schooling has on people within this age range. Because I would say that actually people in this age range should have a presumption against coercion and, uh, that, that the schooling system i- i- is, um, a real affront to their rights against coercion.

   15. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge12:16

       Well, one thing I just want to, um, say about that is if you're imagining that you can raise a child from birth with a coercive, top-down, authoritarian dictatorship sort of relationship, and then suddenly switch at whatever age you think that they become rational in your sense, by that time, you've already wrecked your relationship with your child. And I don't know how, (laughs) how it's going to go well. It's, um... We need to start from the beginning with a view of children that they are rational, they are creative, they are reasonable, rather than thinking that you can just change course at some later state... st- later stage.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel13:10

       Yeah.

   17. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge13:11

       So-

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel13:11

       Al- although is that tr- is that true? I mean, um, you know, most parents, I would say almost all parents raise their kids, um, at least to a certain age, as if they are inferior to them and they must obey them. And, you know, um, m- most kids have a healthy relationship with their parents. M- maybe not healthy in the way you would define it probably, but, uh, th- they don't resent them in any sort of, um, explicit sense, right? Th- there's not a animosity there.

   19. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge13:34

       I think that there is actually a lot of resentment and I'm not sure that I would say animosity, but I think that there is a lot of ani-, uh, resentment between parents and children both ways. And there is... People are, and it's, and it's the parents as well, because they have this view of children that is not, at least as far as I'm concerned, is not correct. It does create friction and it does pit parents and child against each other. So it, it does cause problems. You're-

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel14:11

       Right.

   21. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge14:12

       Instead of solving problems, you're coercing the child and, and then of course, sometimes parents who have this authoritarian mindset, um, are... also tend to be self-sacrificial with their children. Like they're thinking, "Right, I've got to do this, uh, for my child," but it's, it's not that the child is requesting something and they are sacrificing in that way. There's just a lot of... With coercion tends to come self-sacrifice, and the whole thing is not rational and problem... When problems aren't solved, people... it hurts people. And that includes the parents as well, not just the children.

5. 14:56 – 26:01

   Education

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel14:56

      Yeah.

   2. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge14:57

      Um-

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel14:57

      Can you talk about what education would look like if you were, uh... when you're parenting somebody or when you're within a, I guess, a school-like context, wh- how should children be educated?

   4. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge15:10

      Uh, children should, children sh- should be supported to learn whatever they want to learn and how they want to learn it. And f- very few children actually would want to go to school. That... School is such an inefficient way of learning anything, and it's so, it's so authoritarian. The s- the s- the whole structure of the school system is, is this incredibly authoritarian structure.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel15:42

      Right.

   6. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge15:42

      So I, I think the vast majority of children, if not under psychological or other pressure to, to, uh, lie would say that they definitely wouldn't choose to go to school. They might choose to go to some kind of formal education later when they have decided that they want to become a doctor, say, then obviously they're going to go through formal education, but it... that might not happen until later.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel16:12

      Yeah. And it, it's not mandatory in the same sense as school.

   8. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge16:15

      Absolutely not. No.

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel16:16

      Yeah. The child gets to choose. Right.

   10. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge16:18

       The, the school system is, uh, is... I think it's a sort of throwback to the past when people were trying to turn out good factory workers. (laughs)

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel16:31

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge16:31

       It's, uh... (laughs) You know, we, we... In our knowledge-based society now and moving forward, that's not... we're not looking for good factory workers who will obey and just do, do the, the mindless task that someone is setting them. We're looking for people who are creative, who come up with new ideas that will solve problems so that the world will be improved and will make progress and-

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel17:00

       Yeah.

   14. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge17:00

       ... suffering will be ended and, you know...

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel17:04

       Right.

   16. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge17:04

       The system is... just damps down people's creativity. It's stultifying from-

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel17:12

       Yeah.

   18. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge17:12

       ... for the vast majority of people.

   19. DPDwarkesh Patel17:14

       Right. Uh, the objection people have to this view is even if you want people to be creative and come up with their own ideas, there's a certain base of knowledge or the need to be able to engage with problems on the frontier in the first place. And that you need... Uh, children are just not going to want to go through the, uh, preliminary steps of, uh, that are necessary to get up to that high level where they can get to solving their own problems, and therefore, you need to coerce them at a younger age to learn the basics so that they can eventually become creative.

   20. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge17:45

       The problem with this body of knowledge idea is that if everyone has the same body of knowledge, where are the new ideas going to come from? If you think about it, in the past before schools, the new ideas came from people whose history was completely different from other people's history, who had learnt something for the sheer joy of learning that thing. They didn't think, "Oh, I have to do this. I have to study this body of knowledge, these, this foundation of knowledge."... and then I'll have all the ideas I need to come up with something new. No. It's, uh, new ideas are more likely to come from people who s- who haven't got the same body of knowledge as everyone else. So I, I just think that's, that idea is a mistake.

   21. DPDwarkesh Patel18:38

       Right. A- and, uh, uh, furthermore, even if that idea was true, the idea that the modern schooling system, or anything that even closely resembles it, gives you a useful body of knowledge in the first place is, um, uh, and it, it, it's, it's rebutted by an experience of just, like, s- w- visiting school for one day, right?

   22. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge18:56

       Yes.

   23. DPDwarkesh Patel18:56

       You're memorizing the difference between, like, alliteration or, and assonance, or, uh, you know, uh, what date was this battle fought and, you know, some person is droning on. And also the idea that, uh, then they get to decide when you can use a bathroom or when you can eat.

   24. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge19:11

       Mm-hmm.

   25. DPDwarkesh Patel19:11

       Um, like, uh, th- somehow the, this, this level of coercion is necessary to give people just, uh, a basic foundation to be able to interact with the world.

   26. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge19:19

       Yeah.

   27. DPDwarkesh Patel19:19

       Uh, that seems improbable to me.

   28. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge19:21

       Absolutely. I, I'm 100% with you (laughs) in that.

   29. DPDwarkesh Patel19:24

       Yeah.

   30. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge19:25

       Yeah.
6. 26:01 – 30:41

   Authority, discipline, and passion

   1. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge26:01

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel26:02

      Right. So now another worry about this, uh, way of raising children is the view that school, uh, teaches people, um, e- even if the knowledge itself is not useful or necessary, just the act of, um, uh, uh, just like get- getting instruction and following it, that teaches people self-control, discipline, executive function. It, it let- lets them know how to engage with authority and with hierarchy when they enter the real world. So they'll know how to interact with their boss or how to, you know, uh, exist within a company, within a community, and so on.

   3. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge26:36

      Um, tha- that's, that's ridiculous. To the extent that they will encounter authority, work situations, that kind of thing, later on, they can, they can learn, they can learn how to navigate that kind of thing then. Th- the idea, this idea of teaching children self-discipline by coercing them, by, by disciplining them, is, is an equivocation on the word discipline. It's, it's mis- it's making a... it's, it's suggesting that the disci- the self-discipline that say, um, a concert pianist or an MMA fighter has is, is the thing, that, that self-discipline is what you instill by coercing children. That's, that's rubbish. In, in the case of the Olympic athlete or the MMA fighter or the concert pianist, this is something that they, that they live for, and it's, it's their own passion, and so they are pursuing it fully, wholeheartedly. It... that is a completely different thing from disciplining children. Disciplining children says, "Don't pursue your passions wholeheartedly. You need to do what I say." So it's, it's like the opposite. It's actually training children not to be able to follow their passions with full heart and really going for it.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel28:08

      Yeah. That's a good point. Um, now there's a concern that, uh, why should we expect the passions that children have to reflect the actual s- skills and knowledge they will, uh, or they should h- have to be able to function well in the world? Um, you know, p- people have plenty of passions, but maybe, maybe there's certain things that children, uh, need to learn regardless of what their passions are, um, and that the child is not in a good place to understand what, what these things are that he must... he or she must learn, uh, because ap- he has not been... he or she has not been exposed to the world yet to know what problem situations will arise.

   5. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge28:44

      Well, if you have a non-coercive relationship with your children, then you can talk about these things, and you can st- and you can express your, your concerns about, you know, the... "You need to know this because of this," and, and you can have a conversation. You can-

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel28:59

      Yeah.

   7. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge29:00

      ... you can persuade by reason. Uh, if you, if you just impose it, then the child, um, p- probably is still not agreeing with you and you don't... The effect of that is, is not predictable. So you might find that these little bits of coercion that you want to get in there because you're worried about some future thing that might never happen but sort of make everything go wrong in the present, and really what matters is how we're living in the present, not that we can't have goals and things that we think are important for the future, and we can have those conversations, but if you're making life miserable in the present, then what you're teaching the child is that life is miserable-

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel29:54

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge29:54

      ... and that you, that in life you can't actually solve problems, you can't get what you want, so you might as well just give up.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel30:02

       Yeah.

   11. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge30:02

       That is not conducive to anything important that, that, that the child would want to do, to... w- you know, doing something important, it, it doesn't help to have coercion added to that. It just doesn't help. It just... it, it, uh, it's telling the child to... that he can't trust himself, that he has to just live for the approval of someone else. That's not, that's not the s- the kind of state of mind that that, uh-... concert pianist is in or, or that Olympic athlete. That's, that's not how it is.

7. 30:41 – 33:29

   The psychological harm to children

   1. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge30:41

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel30:42

      Yeah, yeah. Uh, no, that's a very good point. Now, um, is there a way we can actually know the psychological impact of this kind of, uh, the, the, the conventional way of raising children? I, I am skeptical that it does have the, um... On most people, it has a trauma- uh, very traumatic effect because, um, uh, just generally, just changing people's personality or their, um, the, the way they interact with the world, it, it's, uh, it, it's just very hard to do that. Uh, parents, uh, you, you can... Uh, for example, there's a lot, a lot of literature with twin studies where, you know, twins that are separated at birth and are adopted by different parents. Um, regardless of how different the parents are, u- usually most of the difference... Uh, usually the twins are actually pretty similar even if they're raised in different households. And so I'm skeptical of the idea that raising children this way will significantly, uh, will make them significantly different than they would have been otherwise. Now, that doesn't mean that justifies the current, uh, treatment of children, right? Like, uh, you don't... You're not changing adults by coercing them, but that still me- that still doesn't make the coercion of adults okay. But it do- does mean that, uh, I doubt that there's some sort of deep psychological harm that's done by the conventional approach.

   3. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge31:53

      Does the f- does... Suppose you're right that there's n- it makes no difference. Does that make immoral behavior unobjectionable?

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel32:03

      No. There, yeah. So there, the, the, just, just as I said, yeah.

   5. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge32:05

      When it comes to adults, we're not, we're not looking at the adult and saying, "Well, um, there's no ill effect from coercing my wife. You know, if... I think she needs to be kept under control and you, you show me the studies that show me, show that there's a, there's a bad effect. So it's fine." Obviously, when it comes to adults, we don't use those arguments. We, you know, we don't say, "Oh, uh, the, the research shows that, um, that corporal punishment of, of children, uh, causes a problem, you know, later and therefore, um, you probably shouldn't do it." We're not, we don't say that when it comes to adults. We say, "It's wrong to, it's wrong to hit someone," you know? (laughs)

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel32:55

      Yeah.

   7. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge32:55

      So it's... Uh, thinking about the effects is not the point. That's, that is an example of this different view that we have of children. This, this, this view of children that is, I think, a mistake.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel33:13

      Right. Yeah, you don't get to lock somebody up for 11 years in an institution and say that it's not a big deal because it doesn't, we can't tell if there's any long-lasting effects from that.

   9. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge33:21

      Exactly. Yeah. That's, that's a, uh, so, an immoral, it's an immoral argument. You wouldn't make the same argument of an adult, about an adult.

8. 33:29 – 40:08

   Dealing with toddlers

   1. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge33:29

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel33:29

      Right. Uh, so now how do you respond to the needs and demands... not the demand, sorry. But the, like the needs and wants of a, a, a very young child who might have unreasonable demands or even a nonverbal toddler who it's even harder to know what the needs, um, and desires are?

   3. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge33:46

      Um, well, for a start, I don't think it's unreasonable. As I said, I think that children have reason just like we do. (laughs) So, it, so, uh, with, with pre-verbal, I think that this is another example of, of the difference in view actually. Because most people have this view of babies say, as just being unreasonable and, and just crying and, and so on, they're not paying attention to the signals that the baby is giving. And so the baby is ignored, the baby's signals are ignored, and so the baby starts really screaming and then parents do things like, "Right, I'm going to force the child to learn to sleep through, through the night by ignoring her cries." The, the problem with that is, number one, you're, you're, you're teaching the baby that the baby can't have an effect on the world, that problems are not soluble. Um, but also, as I say, you're, you are causing this conflict-ridden relationship to be created. Whereas if you're taking your baby seriously, then you're paying attention and you are trying to make conjectures about what it is that the baby might be wanting or not wanting and so you're responding positively at a much earlier stage. And so you don't have the screaming, you know, the sort of terrible stuff that you get in, in most homes. Like this idea of, um, the terrible twos and temper tantrums, that doesn't happen if you're taking your children seriously. It just doesn't happen. Because you're never, it's never getting to where it's that kind of a problem.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel35:48

      Yeah.

   5. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge35:48

      You're actually responsive to your child.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel35:52

      Right. Uh, uh, uh, so you have more experience with children than I do.

   7. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge35:56

      (laughs) .

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel35:56

      So, uh, I- I'll, I'll defer to you there. Uh, so I, I, I just don't have a strong position on how children turn out based on how they're raised. Um, my, I guess my null hypothesis is that if, uh, until I see the evidence that it makes a difference, uh, or the evidence that, like, the kids won't have, uh, temper tantrums if they're raised this way, um, I- I'll... It seems safe to assume that they will. Um, but p- probably just experience and life would, uh, let me know otherwise.

   9. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge36:23

      Yeah. Of course.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel36:23

       If it's otherwise-

   11. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge36:25

       Uh, why, why would someone end up, uh, end up that upset if they weren't, if their needs weren't being ignored at a much earlier stage? It's, it's, it-

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel36:40

       I, I, I guess you could ask the same thing of... Okay, so l- let's take a person who's an adult-

   13. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge36:45

       Mm-hmm.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel36:45

       ... but is mentally ill, right? Now, he might have tantrums and-

   15. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge36:49

       Well-

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel36:49

       But you would never suggest that, uh... Or you could suggest that it's because, uh, well, actually that's just a response to what's going on in this world. But you could say, "Well, it, uh, uh, a better explanation for what's going on is that he's just mentally ill," right? "And there's probably some things that are accepted, uh, uh, uh, upsetting him. The proximal cause of his tantrums is the fact that he's mentally ill." And you could say the same thing about a two-year-old. It's like, okay, so there might be things that are upsetting him or her, but, like, the proximal explanation is just that these are the terrible twos.

   17. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge37:17

       Well, it's, it's not true. That is a, that's a myth that if you, if you do raise children non-coercively, you will discover that that's just a myth.

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel37:30

       Yeah. Yeah. I'll have to find that out for myself (laughs) at some point.

   19. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge37:35

       Uh, y- when you're, when you're paying attention to your very young child, then you're noticing, uh, when, you know, when, when people are, are not completely happy, when there's, when a problem h- when, when there's a problem, you see it in their eyes. Why is, why is the parent not noticing that there's a problem until the child is in a screaming, traumatics, you know, traumatized state on the floor? Like, why is that happening?

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel38:05

       Right. Yeah, uh-

   21. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge38:06

       It doesn't need to happen. It just doesn't need to happen. And children who, who have experience of their needs being met and not being thwarted, they trust that there's (laughs) , you know, that their needs are going to be met.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel38:23

       Yeah, so I think my parents' philosophy on this was, they explained it to me at some point, uh, and you'll, you'll disagree with this very much, but th- their idea was if you respond to tantrums, uh, you're teaching the child that the way you get a response is by throwing a tantrum. Whereas if you ignore the tantrums and then respond to the child when he or she is being more reasonable, then you're teaching the child that, uh, uh, you know, tantrums are not the way you get what you want. And, but that if, if you're in another mood, then th- that's the way you should interact with the world.

   23. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge38:54

       Yeah. Using, um, dog training techniques on children is, I think is just immoral. And if you think about it from a young child's perspective, what that is doing when you are shunning them, ignoring them, you're basically withdrawing love. And it... For a child, a young child, that is absolutely terrifying. So I, I think that if parents could put themselves in their young children's minds and see how it is for those children, I don't think that they would want to do that.

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel39:33

       Mm-hmm.

   25. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge39:33

       Um, and, you know, we are not animal. I mean, we are animals, but we have a human, a human mind. So the, the question is whether you want to be training your children by dog training techniques, by behaviorist operant conditioning, or classical conditioning, or whether you want to use reason.

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel39:56

       Right.

   27. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge39:56

       Coercion decides issues under an irrational institution. And so you can't get the right answer that way.

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel40:05

       Yeah. Um, now-

   29. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge40:06

       One-

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel40:06

       ... one objection that I've encountered

9. 40:08 – 47:38

   Are we too optimistic about uncoerced children?

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel40:08

      people... Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Uh-

   2. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge40:09

      Oh, no. Carry on.

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel40:11

      Yeah. Uh, one objection people seem to have when I, uh, talk about these ideas, they worry that children in their natural state are uncurious, um, lazy. Or not necessarily lazy, but just unmotivated by the kinds of things that would probably make them have a better life when they're adults. So may- they, they would probably spend all day, like, watching TV or playing video games or something like that. They aren't going to do the things that we would optimistically hope they would do with their free time if we just let them non-coercively spend their days. So they're not gonna be, you know, exploring and learning and reading and all those things.

   4. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge40:45

      Well, speaking as one who was raised in the standard way, not the way I'm suggesting, I tried to do everything I could to escape from the, the coercion and the fighting and the endless stuff that was... My time was, you know, school and homework and ballet lessons and piano lessons and violin lessons and ballet lessons, acrobatics, and all the other stuff. And I would escape to my room whenever I could. And in my case it... This was before computers and computer games, so in my case it was reading. But I, I think it's (laughs) in no way surprising if children raised in the standard way need an escape into things like video games. Um, who wouldn't? It's, it's a... It helps people to relax and calm down, and it's... So I think that a lot of that, a lot of what y- what you might see as laziness and, um, doing something that you might think is mindless, although actually I don't think it's mindless at all, I think it's very educational to play video games, is, is (laughs) th- just needing to just calm down from all the stress of life in the, in the coercive family and the... with all the schooling and everything. So, so-

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel42:16

      Yeah.

   6. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge42:16

      ... there is that. So I... For a start, I don't think it's true that children... Well, it's not true. Children left to their own... I mean, it's not left to their own devices, but not coerced would do nothing but play video games. But even if they wanted to do that, I think that that might well be a, a positive thing. Now, it is possible that it could be a negative thing. It could be that a child has no other real options, in which case-... obviously, that's a mistake. The parent is, is not, um, giving the child enough real options that are interesting, that are engage the child's interest and attention. But apart from that, without caveat, I think that doing things like playing video games and watching television are incredibly educational. I mean, if you think about it, if an alien came from outer space, what would the quickest way to learn about our culture be? Well, it would probably be doing things like watching soap operas on television, um, rather than someone trying to teach them in a school situation. They would learn much more inexplicitly from watching television than they would get from lessons about it.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel43:38

      Right. Yeah, that's a good point.

   8. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge43:39

      So I think that people are mistaken about how educational these things are. And it's completely mistaken to think that, that children who aren't coerced are not curious. It's the... It's entirely the opposite. Do, do we not notice how children's curiosity when they're a young child seems to just disappear in their later childhood? I... Can it not be something to do with (laughs) with, uh, the, the way that they're educated and raised?

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel44:09

      Right. Yeah, i- it would be astonishing if millions of years of evolution resulted... Uh, w- w- we decided that the, that the best way to, uh, produce a survival machine would be to have something that lays around for 18, uh, the first 18 years of its life and does nothing, right?

   10. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge44:23

       Right.

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel44:24

       Just, uh, like from first principles, you can anticipate that there's probably a reason that, um, we spend the first part of our life as children and that, you know, pro-... Uh, you would just expect evolution to have trained us to be curious and to explore because-

   12. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge44:36

       Yes.

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel44:36

       ... you know, that's probably the reason why we're, we're children in the first place.

   14. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge44:38

       Yes.

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel44:39

       Um...

   16. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge44:39

       Yeah.

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel44:40

       And, uh, as far as the video games go, I, I always tell my friends when they make this objection that they're just gonna play video games all day, it's like, where is the evidence that this is any worse a time, way to spend time than, uh, going to school, right? If you just look at the studies on the efficacy of school, you know, they're, they're wasting their time there anyways. But the fact is that, that they're getting... Uh, they're suffering, uh, while they're spending their time there.

   18. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge45:01

       Yeah.

   19. DPDwarkesh Patel45:01

       So at least they're not suffering whi- while they're playing video games, right?

   20. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge45:06

       Yeah.

   21. DPDwarkesh Patel45:06

       Um, (overlapping dialogue)

   22. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge45:06

       Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I think it's more positive than that, but yes.

   23. DPDwarkesh Patel45:09

       Right.

   24. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge45:09

       And what children, what children should be learning is what they want, is what interests them, is how to solve problems. They don't learn that by being institutionalized for 12 years and, and bossed about by an authoritarian teacher who doesn't know very much. They, they just... It's, it's, it's an insane idea.

   25. DPDwarkesh Patel45:35

       Yeah. Yeah. I, I think back to, you know, uh, like my years in schooling and it just... The amount of, um, not only wasted time, that I was bored or, uh, uh, uh, or j- just didn't want to be there, but also the opportunity cost, just the things I could have learned-

   26. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge45:50

       Yes, exactly.

   27. DPDwarkesh Patel45:50

       ... at a much younger age.

   28. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge45:51

       Yes.

   29. DPDwarkesh Patel45:52

       Um, right? Like the, this time when the child's, uh, um... Oh, there's first of all the fact that, you know, children have a different sleep cycle than adults and so you're... They're sleep-deprived and that's probably messing them up-

   30. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge46:03

       Yeah.
10. 47:38 – 53:48

    Why is everyone wrong about children?

    1. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge47:38

    2. DPDwarkesh Patel47:38

       Yeah.

    3. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge47:38

       It's scientism.

    4. DPDwarkesh Patel47:41

       Yeah. And then speaking of the treatment of women, uh, that... Uh, one, one question to ask is, uh, w- w- how could it be that every society that has ever existed has been wrong on this very basic moral question, right? But then the response is, you know, every society before the Enlightenment, before like 100 years ago, was very wrong on the treatment of women, so it's not that surprising that societies would, uh, universally get a moral question wrong. Um, now here, the response is, well, at least there was a way there where one part of the population could... Uh, did not have to experience the pain of another part of the population and so could sub-... You know, um, oppress them in this way. But, uh, when it comes to children, we've all been children, so it's... If we all realize the, um... If we all experience the coercion and the trauma of, uh, this, uh, of the conventional way of raising children, why are we not realizing that as adults?

    5. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge48:33

       Yeah. Um, with regards to, uh, how this could have evolved, um, you might want to read David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity. I think it's chapter 16, The Evolution of Creativity. I, I think that the interesting thing is how we, how we c- got from a static society...... to the enlightenment and creativity, and all the rest of it. So, uh, I think of taking children seriously as, like, the final phase of the enlightenment. Or it pro- maybe not the final phase, but it is certainly, um, one area that we haven't applied enlightenment thinking to. So, yeah, uh, I- I- I think that, as I said, I think that in time people will look back on 2021 and how the people view children and they will be as horrified as we are when we look back at how women were viewed in the past.

    6. DPDwarkesh Patel49:32

       All right. Uh, but do you have an idea for why, um, despite having been children ourselves, we still, when we grow up to become adults, most people still adopt the same authoritarian, uh, uh, authoritarian practices that they experienced themselves?

    7. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge49:46

       Yes.

    8. DPDwarkesh Patel49:46

       And to which they presumably suffered from?

    9. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge49:48

       Yes. And again, this is something that is in The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch, which is the idea of anti-rational memes. So, um, whereas rational memes replicate themselves with criticism, like criticism doesn't hurt a rational meme, it's- it's- it's wonderful for a rational meme to be in a- in a- under critical scrutiny. But anti-rational memes, um, disable their holder's ability to criticize them. And so people brought up with these- with- in this way, in this anti-rational way, develop the same hangups, the same anti-rational memes that cause them to do the same thing to their children. I mean, not that it's 100%, you know, that you can, if you're aware of the idea of anti-rational memes, you can- you can criticize and- and- and using creativity, uh, at least to some extent, overcome them. And that's how we have over the years, things have- have liberalized somewhat for children. But we still have this view of children that is- that is, uh, pre-enlightenment, I think. So, but yes, anti-rational memes, uh, is a- is an explanation, I think, for why people grow up and do the same thing to their children.

    10. DPDwarkesh Patel51:15

        Yeah. Uh, do- do you, um ... Is there a way you expect the evolution of these ideas will go? Will it be enabled by ... Uh, for example, in the United States and maybe elsewhere as well, there's a growth of something called Montessori schools, um, which kind of approximate this philosophy of children, where they can and will learn, uh, just by their own curiosity. Uh, h- h- how do you expect this movement to grow?

    11. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge51:39

        I think that- that- that the- the shift will come in a similar way to the shift that came, uh, when women were emancipated. It wasn't all in one go, you know, that women got the vote, um, I don't know which order things happened in actually, but it didn't all happen at once. And peop- and the- the idea of women in the culture changed gradually and then there were certain things that happened, like women got the vote, that- that did make a difference. But for example, even in 1933, my own grandmother lost the job that she loved when she told her boss that she was getting married. And she said, "That's just the way it was. If you were- if you were married, you couldn't- you couldn't have a job." So, even, you know, in my grandmother's lifetime, uh, things were still changing, uh, quite some time after women had got the vote in England.

    12. DPDwarkesh Patel52:41

        Okay

    13. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge52:41

        So, I think it's gonna be a similar kind of thing. I think, um, I hope that my book might- might make a difference, you know? (laughs)

    14. DPDwarkesh Patel52:49

        Okay.

    15. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge52:49

        That, uh ... 'Cause once you see- once you see this view, how the view of children is like the- our view of women was in the past, and Black people in the days of slavery, once you see that, you can't unsee it, you know? It's-

    16. DPDwarkesh Patel53:03

        Yeah.

    17. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge53:04

        ... it's sort of, wow. (laughs)

    18. DPDwarkesh Patel53:07

        Right.

    19. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge53:07

        And, uh, I- I think that people are going to start to see it, and then that's going to start making a difference and it's- it'll just be, you know, a sort of domino effect and- and then gradually children will be being taken seriously more and more.

    20. DPDwarkesh Patel53:25

        Is it ... So this book coming out soon?

    21. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge53:29

        Uh, well, I keep thinking it's nearly finished but (laughs) um, I'm- I'm- I'm doing a re- another rewrite, so I'm not sure when it will be, but I hope not too long.

    22. DPDwarkesh Patel53:41

        Oh. Yeah, I'm excited to read it. Uh, I'd love to have you back on once it's published so we can talk about it.

    23. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge53:45

        Yeah. Absolutely, love to.

    24. DPDwarkesh Patel53:47

        All right.

11. 53:48 – 56:43

    Child labor

    1. DPDwarkesh Patel53:48

       Um ... Oh, uh, just a question that occurred to me while you were talking about the treatment of women.

    2. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge53:52

       Mm-hmm.

    3. DPDwarkesh Patel53:52

       Uh, one- you know, one of the ways obviously we- uh, that society coerced women and oppressed them was they weren't allowed to work, right? Because they were seen as incapable of making the decision, um, uh, to work or to be able to perform well. Uh, should we get rid of child labor laws if the similar kind of coercion is also, uh, uh, similar kinds of rights are also, um, to be expected of children?

    4. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge54:11

       I s- I suspect, and this is just a conjecture, um, I ... Although I am a libertarian, I'm not a utopian libertarian. I'm a Popperian libertarian. So, I don't actually know what the future will look like. But I would imagine that at some point in the future, uh, uh, some of these things will change. Um, uh, the child labor laws definitely do cause problems for, uh, for example, young entrepreneurs. Um, I- I've met someone who, uh, was a brilliant person and started a business at the age of, I think it was 11. And, um, and he had to lie about his age, and- and so now he's been banned from that- the particular financial, uh, (laughs) online financial service that he was using because he lied about his age. But, you know, those- those laws are- are- do make it very difficult for children.

    5. DPDwarkesh Patel55:13

       Right.

    6. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge55:13

       Although, it's weird because when I was a child, lots of children worked. Not, um... Not in full-time jobs, because obviously they were at school, but lots of children worked a lot more than they do now, especially in America. So, I don't know. I think that, that will... I think that that's one of the things that will change, yeah.

    7. DPDwarkesh Patel55:33

       Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, people have this idea because, because of when child labour laws were banned, uh, like the kind of dangerous jobs that children were doing, that that's not the kind of jobs that 11 years, uh, 11-year-olds would be doing if they were allowed to now.

    8. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge55:45

       Yeah.

    9. DPDwarkesh Patel55:45

       Except, you know, just imagine the job that a 14-year-old does when he's allowed to.

    10. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge55:48

        Yeah.

    11. DPDwarkesh Patel55:48

        Like he's a clerk at H-E-B or Walmart or something.

    12. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge55:51

        Oh.

    13. DPDwarkesh Patel55:51

        He would just do that... He'd be allowed to do that at 11.

    14. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge55:53

        Yeah.

    15. DPDwarkesh Patel55:53

        Uh, I wouldn't, uh, expect that that is far more... Oh, j- let me just connect my battery, um... (batteries rattle) I would expect that that's far more pleasing to the child than to be forced to stay in an institution, whereas he gets to choose to work and he gets paid for his labour, and, you know, he has a voluntary relationship with his boss and so on.

    16. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge56:12

        Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, obviously in the past, um, parents forced their children to work in dangerous conditions, uh, you know, out of a g-... A desperation for survival. Um, so, you know, I, I under... The people who, who brought in those labour laws obviously had very good intentions. It's just, we're in a different problem situation now, and certainly going into the future, things, things will be different. So, I'm sure that that will

12. 56:43 – 58:14

    Age of consent

    1. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge56:43

       change.

    2. DPDwarkesh Patel56:44

       Oh, um, and how about sexual consent laws? So age of consent laws.

    3. SFSarah Fitz-Claridge56:48

       Well, uh, at the moment, because childr- because people have this view of children that is, uh, problematic, uh, those, those laws do at least try to protect children. But I can imagine some time in the distant future when children are taken just as seriously as everyone else is taken when they might also not be needed. Um, I, I think that any kind of, any kind of, um, sexual relationship where there is a, a different-... A differential of power and au- and authority is going to be dangerous. And so, I don't know what, what it will (laughs) be like in the future, so I'm just speculating. But, um, many of these laws obviously w- were needed to protect children, and maybe still are in some respects, but may not in the future when children are taken seriously. (instrumental music plays)

Episode duration: 58:14