When someone's audience derives mostly from complaining about some narrow set of problems, they have less incentive to fix them, or even acknowledge … - Paul Graham

Something I taught 11 yo: The less competent the judges in a contest, the less it matters to win it.

When writing, don't mention people who've criticized you. It doesn't age well. If you're right, no one will have heard of them in the future, and the reference to them will be a distraction. And if you're wrong no one will read your writing in the future, so it won't matter.

Adults lie constantly to kids. I’m not saying we should stop, but I think we should at least examine which lies we tell and why. [...]

A lot of the things adults conceal from smaller children, they conceal because they’d be frightening, not because they want to conceal the existence of such things. Misleading the child is just a byproduct.

This seems one of the most justifiable types of lying adults do to kids. But because the lies are indirect we don’t keep a very strict accounting of them. Parents know they’ve concealed the facts about sex, and many at some point sit their kids down and explain more. But few tell their kids about the differences between the real world and the cocoon they grew up in. Combine this with the confidence parents try to instill in their kids, and every year you get a new crop of 18 year olds who think they know how to run the world.