Forbes – Jordan Shapiro
“My favorite part about parenting is messing with my kids. That’s what makes it worth putting up with all the whining and irritation and thankless responsibility that goes with being a dad: I get these little miniature people that I can just mess with all day long. I especially enjoy asking them questions that really challenge their sense of intellectual stability. I like to freak them out, to confuse them. Take “Orange,” for example, go ask your kids if the fruit is named after the color, or if the color is named after the fruit? You’ve got to mess with your kids if you want to raise individuals who are adaptable and flexible. And we absolutely must make sure that the next generation of adults is more adaptable and flexible than this one. We currently live in a world that is so saturated with predictive algorithms that most adults can spend the majority of their time online reading news stories that just confirm, or validate, or reinforce the things they already believe to be true. Hyper-targeted media basically guarantees that people never have to be messed with anymore. And when you do mess with them, they don’t know how to deal with it; they’re not comfortable with it. It scares them.”(more)