Should we give Halloween candy to kids?

Psyche said:

lwu02eb said:

Having thought about this a little more it also seems to me that it would be much more useful to light a candle or spare a though for all the tens of millions, if not billions, of children worldwide who are either starving, mentally or physically diseased or disabled, traumatised or abused and degraded by their families and the world at large. I'm sure this process would include self-reflection for many on this forum. There are so many, and have been so many suffering children, that it defies comprehension and yet nothing changes. Humanity continues on with the same mechanic behaviour.

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I lit up a candle. Your thoughts are very timing for this day, the 1st of November, and I hope every single person calling himself or herself part of humanity will come to realize this.

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints%27_Day

All Saints' Day...often shortened to All Saints, is a solemnity celebrated on 1 November...

All Saints' Day in Mexico, coincides with the first day of the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) celebration. Known as "Día de los Inocentes" (Day of the Innocents), it honours deceased children and infants.

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And depending on where you are, there is a trans-cultural way of living, around work, children ask for candies in this day, many come from very restricted, if not misery income. With children, I still fall in this matrix illusion, just to see them smile, so I bought candies for them.

I will lit up a candle after getting home (its prohibited at work). Earlier, I saw an image from this article: http://www.sott.net/article/252999-At-halloween-nothing-is-more-terrifying-than-the-reality-of-war, it reflects precisely what lwu02eb wrote.

mabar said:

And depending on where you are, there is a trans-cultural way of living, around work, children ask for candies in this day, many come from very restricted, if not misery income. With children, I still fall in this matrix illusion, just to see them smile, so I bought candies for them.

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Maybe you will laugh at me but I am torn between "let's please the children" and "candies are really no good !"

Maat said:

mabar said:

And depending on where you are, there is a trans-cultural way of living, around work, children ask for candies in this day, many come from very restricted, if not misery income. With children, I still fall in this matrix illusion, just to see them smile, so I bought candies for them.

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Maybe you will laugh at me but I am torn between "let's please the children" and "candies are really no good !"

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I think in this case it's what they're asking for, so giving it to them isn't harming them per-se (rather, I guess, they're asking to be enabled to harm themselves via self-serving pleasure). Considering the alternative that might be objectively healthy and positive (giving them butter and explaining why candy will kill them slowly and painfully or how and why its evil?), I think it's more externally considerate to give the kids candy who come around asking for it on a holiday that's setup for them to do so.

Just my take, FWIW.

I don't eat candy/sweets for good reason, that is, they are highly toxic to the human body (and the environment). With this in mind, it seems like rather twisted logic to say that it is externally considerate to give children candy/ sweets because they ask for it. And besides, what has Halloween actually got to do with candy/sweets? Why would you want to perpetuate thoughtless consumptive behaviour? To me, it would appear in this instance that not giving is giving. The money that you spend on candy/sweets to give to kids that eat them everyday anyway could be better spent. I may have misunderstood your points but this is what it looks like to me.

lwu02eb said:

Having thought about this a little more it also seems to me that it would be much more useful to light a candle or spare a though for all the tens of millions, if not billions, of children worldwide who are either starving, mentally or physically diseased or disabled, traumatised or abused and degraded by their families and the world at large. I'm sure this process would include self-reflection for many on this forum. There are so many, and have been so many suffering children, that it defies comprehension and yet nothing changes. Humanity continues on with the same mechanic behaviour.

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That is so true. I have a cousin who has recently given birth to a little boy. She is a drug addict and an alcoholic and doesn't have a job. She had been trying for two years to get pregnant with her on again off again boyfriend who lost his job because he's also an alcoholic, because she thought it would help her quit drugs. She broke up with her boyfriend shortly after getting pregnant and is now living with her parents, who are raising the baby for her while she spends her time partying. And she complains about having to be a single mother, which was predictable. In all of this, I don't think she ever thought once about her baby or the kind of life he will have or how she would provide for him. It was all about her and her selfish desires. I feel very sorry for that little boy, he's going to have a tough life. It just boggles my mind how so many people seem to view having a baby the same way as getting a new toy and not as bringing a human being into this world with all the responsibility that goes with it.

Off to light a candle.

A very good but sadly all too common example to illustrate my point.

lwu02eb said:

I don't eat candy/sweets for good reason, that is, they are highly toxic to the human body (and the environment). With this in mind, it seems like rather twisted logic to say that it is externally considerate to give children candy/ sweets because they ask for it. And besides, what has Halloween actually got to do with candy/sweets? Why would you want to perpetuate thoughtless consumptive behaviour? To me, it would appear in this instance that not giving is giving. The money that you spend on candy/sweets to give to kids that eat them everyday anyway could be better spent. I may have misunderstood your points but this is what it looks like to me.

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I think in the specific situation of Halloween (or any other similar candy holidays--I'm not sure if the original reference was to Halloween or a similar holiday in another country), for kids, almost the entire holiday is based around getting candy--so try and imagine it from their perspective. Being a child on a very standard diet, eating GMOs, candy, soda, poison, poison, poison, regularly and completely addicted to these things--you've got your costume on, you're going door to door and everyone has candy, and then there's that person who's giving out apples trying to make the child eat healthy (though of course the apples are poison too)--how do you feel? I think every child in that situation has absolutely no interest in being healthy and only wants the candy and expects it when coming to your door.

External consideration involves doing what's easiest for others and for yourself (though, of course, it's not always as simple as that), so since the child has absolutely zero interest in being healthy (along with most other adults) if you don't give them candy, someone else will--you won't change a single thing by giving them something genuinely healthy or even by giving them nothing. There's virtually no way you can objectively improve their lives whatsoever. So giving them anything genuinely healthy is out, because that's not what they're asking for and it's really just doing what you want for yourself (you want them to be healthy--they do not). It's internal consideration.

You could try giving them something less poisonous (like the apple), but their entire mindset at the moment of knocking on the door is driven by their dopamine reward system so less poisonous equates to "not as rewarding" equates to them being disappointed with you for not giving them what they asked for. Furthermore, basically anything sweet is poison, so less poisonous doesn't really even work in that regard. So it is, again, more internal consideration.

Or you could just not participate, though that's also not really very fun for kids and they may get angry at you. I don't think this one is that bad (it feels mostly neutral to me), but I also don't think it's very externally considerate, considering the specific situation of Halloween.

What it all boils down to is that the kids are machines--especially on Halloween--driven by their dopamine reward system (and sugar addiction and probably candida and other gut nasties, etc, etc, etc), and what they're genuinely asking for is candy on the one day in the year when it's acceptable to wander around and do so with strangers. It's fun for them and it could be fun for you if you wanted to see their costumes and see them pleased with trick or treating (I'm not sure they can actually experience genuine happiness in such a state, so that might be as close as it gets)--it's getting on their level and giving what's asked for, even if it's poison (because they'd get it anyway). There's no reason to forget everything you know, but it's extremely clear that they don't want to know it--they just want to have a very specific interaction with you and that's it.

For those reasons, that's why I'd say it's externally considerate in that specific situation.

We're going way far of Name question here ! Maybe it could be split...

to go on with this Halloween subject, I resolved my "dilemma" about bad candies and please the children by being totally internally considerate : end of the month, no more money even less for bad things so let's close the house and make like nobody's home.... It worked well, no knock on the door (being in France, it's not really in our culture anyway so there are few kids who do that) just felt a little guilty for my husband who is canadian and really loves halloween.

And I was totally horrified (but not surprised after all) when he told me that parents should check the candies because some lunatics can put drugs or poison in it (and that he had lost a black cat at halloween one day as it happens to be a very bad day for black cats - not a curse but again because of these lunatics)

So it's not all that rosy though you made a good point IMO Foxx.

name said:

Certainly. Over the years I've heard of some cases around me, and from those few cases it looks like this happens lots in cases of first conception. When I went to that clinic with my then-GF most of the women waiting were actually teens, some of them really young. I've heard that first children are more vital than the ones following so this would mean that abortions are affecting the fitness of the species in the negative.

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I'm not sure that this would be the case, or at least not a very significant effect, considering that if the fetus is aborted relatively early on, then there would be relatively less energy invested into it. I think it'd be a small factor when compared to diet, a toxic environment, and other factors.

name said:

And now I'll speculate a bit. I've long time wondered about the native Americans producing almost no psychopathic offspring. Some time ago I read a piece (sorry, don't remember where) about an old shaman lamenting that when his people were few they (the shamans) knew them all and could take care about them, but when the people became more they eventually lost the view over some and then the people started becoming "corrupt" or something to that effect. Many animal species apparently know to identify and either kill or abandon their weaklings (or they fall prey to predators or the elements) so it is a wonder why humans don't know that (apparently). A relevant and important concept which comes from the general culture of American natives is the "Kunlangeta" (look it up) what hints to those Eskimos being aware enough of the phenomenon to give it a name, what is not really the case in general culture in western society. If we combine all these factoids it should be possible to suspect that the natives - either their shamans or councils of elder women - knew to identify the deviants and rigorously culled them before they became a problem, and that would explain why there are to this day few psychopaths coming from those people. This would have affected the fitness of the species (or group) in the positive. This kind of knowledge probably has been lost from other cultures, perhaps it survives among the few remaining natives.

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I'm not sure this speculation of yours has any basis in reality because A) I don't see any reason to think that Native Americans don't have any psychopath offspring (and if I'm not mistaken, there are various native words that roughly equate to psychopath in english) and B) Native Americans aren't just one group.

Maat said:

And I was totally horrified (but not surprised after all) when he told me that parents should check the candies because some lunatics can put drugs or poison in it (and that he had lost a black cat at halloween one day as it happens to be a very bad day for black cats - not a curse but again because of these lunatics)

So it's not all that rosy though you made a good point IMO Foxx.

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I'm not really sure how this relates to being externally vs internally considerate, if you're not planning on poisoning the candies.

Foxx said:

Maat said:

And I was totally horrified (but not surprised after all) when he told me that parents should check the candies because some lunatics can put drugs or poison in it (and that he had lost a black cat at halloween one day as it happens to be a very bad day for black cats - not a curse but again because of these lunatics)

So it's not all that rosy though you made a good point IMO Foxx.

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I'm not really sure how this relates to being externally vs internally considerate, if you're not planning on poisoning the candies.

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Yep, it was aside. I mentionned it just because it's really choked me and was thinking along the line that candies are evil but poisonned candies are worst and a real danger and that it's not safe to let children enjoy the feast too innocently anyway. It's a hard world...

Maat said:

mabar said:

And depending on where you are, there is a trans-cultural way of living, around work, children ask for candies in this day, many come from very restricted, if not misery income. With children, I still fall in this matrix illusion, just to see them smile, so I bought candies for them.

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Maybe you will laugh at me but I am torn between "let's please the children" and "candies are really no good !"

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Not really, I do have encountered feelings with this dichotomy issues as well.

Thanks for your explanation Foxx, although I do still have doubts regarding external/internal considerations, it helps me understand it a little more.

Apologies for the below, posted by accident. Can a mod delete as an incomplete duplicate?

Foxx:

Whilst, in my opinion the Halloween/ its equivalent issue is not worth dwelling on in and of itself, I would like to address a couple of your points.

Somehow, your description of external consideration as "doing what's easiest for others and for yourself" sounds more like a description of someone being led by the general law. It was people doing what was easiest that led to the slaughter of millions of Jews and many others besides in Nazi Germany. It would also be this attitude that would see me personally not following the ketogenic diet or would see me watching the propaganda box (T.V.).

The best thing in this case, in my opinion, is not to go along with what everyone else is doing but to simply politely refrain and not put upon others with what you believe to be right. External consideration is acting for your own good but not presuming to know the good for anyone else.

Name:

The work, in my understanding, is precisely about usefulness or productiveness of thought, and more importantly the usefulness of the action that should follow.

I will share the results of my own deep self-reflection as someone who has had an abortion.

Firstly, it occurred to me that it is absurd to mourn something that never was when there are quadrillions of real, living problems that urgently require my attention.

Secondly, I realised I had been indulging myself under the pretext of mourning what wasn't. I was self-absorbed in emotions that related to the decision and the context in which it was made i.e. I felt wronged, like a victim and regretted the decision. This was neither useful nor externally considerate. Of course, I don't know if any of this applies to you but they are some things you might want to consider.

Had all the children that have been aborted been born, that would also have affected the fitness of the species in the negative, as well as every other species on a planet burgeoning under the weight of 7 billion humans, more than half of which live in constant strife and misery.

Maat:

Kids were given bags of heroin in Manchester, UK this Halloween, so we must accept reality as it is not as we wish it to be.

lwu02eb said:

Whilst, in my opinion the Halloween/ its equivalent issue is not worth dwelling on in and of itself, I would like to address a couple of your points.

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I think, as a "case-study" in external consideration, it's worthwhile as one or both of us (and others) may learn something.

lwu02eb said:

Somehow, your description of external consideration as "doing what's easiest for others and for yourself" sounds more like a description of someone being led by the general law. It was people doing what was easiest that led to the slaughter of millions of Jews and many others besides in Nazi Germany. It would also be this attitude that would see me personally not following the ketogenic diet or would see me watching the propaganda box (T.V.).

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I think you missed a lot of the points I was making in my post and, being that you brought up the slaughtering of millions via the Nazis--which is a very different situation and would require very different actions--that you may be emotionally attached to your idea about what's right in this situation, along with engaging in some black and white thinking. Significantly, I said it involves "doing what's easiest for others and for yourself" and that it's not always as simple as that--as always, the specific situation has to be taken into account. I'd suggest trying to really get into the mindset of a child going trick or treating--try seeing from their perspective, feeling what they feel, and considering the entirety of the situation--and re-read my post.

lwu02eb said:

The best thing in this case, in my opinion, is not to go along with what everyone else is doing but to simply politely refrain and not put upon others with what you believe to be right. External consideration is acting for your own good but not presuming to know the good for anyone else.

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I think in this instance that you are presuming to know what's good for someone else--that the kids shouldn't eat the candy because they're poisoning themselves. Obviously they shouldn't if they want to be healthy--but obviously they and their parents don't care, so what they want and what they're asking for is clear--and the kids are going to be eating poison no matter what you do. Which is why I think not participating is really making it all about you--you don't want to participate, you don't want to have a feeling of guilt, you're "above" that, when, from the perspective of the children and parents, you're just an unfriendly person who doesn't participate in the "fun" of Halloween.

As well, I think at this point I have to be specifically talking about Halloween in America because of the culture around the holiday (and it being the only one I'm familiar with)--if other countries/cultures have different expectations, then the situation is different and has to be considered differently.

But that's all just my take and I could be totally wrong on this one.

Foxx said:

I think in this case it's what they're asking for, so giving it to them isn't harming them per-se (rather, I guess, they're asking to be enabled to harm themselves via self-serving pleasure). Considering the alternative that might be objectively healthy and positive (giving them butter and explaining why candy will kill them slowly and painfully or how and why its evil?), I think it's more externally considerate to give the kids candy who come around asking for it on a holiday that's setup for them to do so.

Just my take, FWIW.

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If I would give children on such a day candy, I'd probably go for the ones that have organic ingredients and less bad stuff in them. Or bake some healthy cookies or small chocolate cupcakes. Not that it would make a large difference for the children health-wise, but in a way if someone starts doing it, maybe others will follow and offer more healthy yummy stuff, rather than chemical-loaded ''treats''. If you can choose the lesser of two evils, then why not?

Foxx said:

Which is why I think not participating is really making it all about you--you don't want to participate, you don't want to have a feeling of guilt, you're "above" that, when, from the perspective of the children and parents, you're just an unfriendly person who doesn't participate in the "fun" of Halloween.

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Not all parents or children will have the same perspective, we don't know that. Some parents may even appreciate it, or become curious when and if they would know the reason behind non-participation.

I don't see anything wrong with following one's ideals, either by giving healthy yummy food or by refraining from participating in such activities. Fwiw.

Foxx said:

I think in the specific situation of Halloween (or any other similar candy holidays--I'm not sure if the original reference was to Halloween or a similar holiday in another country), for kids, almost the entire holiday is based around getting candy--so try and imagine it from their perspective. Being a child on a very standard diet, eating GMOs, candy, soda, poison, poison, poison, regularly and completely addicted to these things--you've got your costume on, you're going door to door and everyone has candy, and then there's that person who's giving out apples trying to make the child eat healthy (though of course the apples are poison too)--how do you feel? I think every child in that situation has absolutely no interest in being healthy and only wants the candy and expects it when coming to your door.

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Yeah, but that doesn't mean that you have to conform. Conforming is not necessarily making your life and theirs easier.

External consideration involves doing what's easiest for others and for yourself (though, of course, it's not always as simple as that), so since the child has absolutely zero interest in being healthy (along with most other adults) if you don't give them candy, someone else will--you won't change a single thing by giving them something genuinely healthy or even by giving them nothing. There's virtually no way you can objectively improve their lives whatsoever. So giving them anything genuinely healthy is out, because that's not what they're asking for and it's really just doing what you want for yourself (you want them to be healthy--they do not). It's internal consideration.

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They are asking for candy, they aren't asking for poison. And you can decide what to give, like Oxajil said.

You could try giving them something less poisonous (like the apple), but their entire mindset at the moment of knocking on the door is driven by their dopamine reward system so less poisonous equates to "not as rewarding" equates to them being disappointed with you for not giving them what they asked for. Furthermore, basically anything sweet is poison, so less poisonous doesn't really even work in that regard. So it is, again, more internal consideration.

Or you could just not participate, though that's also not really very fun for kids and they may get angry at you. I don't think this one is that bad (it feels mostly neutral to me), but I also don't think it's very externally considerate, considering the specific situation of Halloween.

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I find this too be a bit black and white thinking, FWIW. There are other ways. You could say, for example, that you are sorry, but you are diabetic or you neved buy candy because it upsets your stomach, or whatever, so you don't keep sweets at home. But that they can have this other candy you made yourself/bought at a health food store if they want. You give them a choice. That, IMO, is not making their life harder at all.

What it all boils down to is that the kids are machines--especially on Halloween--driven by their dopamine reward system (and sugar addiction and probably candida and other gut nasties, etc, etc, etc), and what they're genuinely asking for is candy on the one day in the year when it's acceptable to wander around and do so with strangers. It's fun for them and it could be fun for you if you wanted to see their costumes and see them pleased with trick or treating (I'm not sure they can actually experience genuine happiness in such a state, so that might be as close as it gets)--it's getting on their level and giving what's asked for, even if it's poison (because they'd get it anyway). There's no reason to forget everything you know, but it's extremely clear that they don't want to know it--they just want to have a very specific interaction with you and that's it.

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Again, external consideration doesn't have to mean giving them poison. There can be a middle ground. OSIT. Internal consideration would be if you try to convince them that your candy is better than the junk they are getting from others. But if you give what you have, I see no problem with that.