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Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

nytimes.com

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Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#101

Post by Mirioron »

zbentley wrote: post #79
loup-vaillant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it bluntly, the increased happiness of millions of children is worth a couple children's health, or even lives. That's a tough sell, but that sounds reasonable (well, I can talk, I don't have children). This is basically the same reasoning Yudkowsky presented with his dust speck vs torture argument argument: a sufficiently widespread benefit, however small, will outweigh a sufficiently improbable horrible even…

I think that's kind of missing GP's point that, while > the increased happiness of millions of children is worth a couple children's health, or even lives. might be totally true, it's borderline-impossible to convince concerned (or worse, bereaved) parents of this in many cases, for human, not utilitarian, reasons.

But bereaved parents are only a small portion of the people at the time. They alone can't make changes. The rest of society has to agree to them.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#102

Post by free652 »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #94
bargl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand the attack on "thoughts and prayers." There are plenty of people sending "thoughts and prayers" who also support gun control. I get that it calls out the hypocrisy of Christians who don't support gun control, but it also seems like an overly broad attack. What does someone who both believes gun control is necessary and wants to send "thoughts and prayers" do? I think the idea of gun control is a t…

> hypocrisy of Christians who don't support gun control I don't see how the two equate to hypocrisy. A friend of mine (a Christian) is strongly opposed to gun control. He has a concealed carry license and carries everywhere, because he wants to have the means to protect himself and his loved ones from an active shooter, if necessary. He cites "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns," and feels personally a…

If there are no guns then outlaws wouldn't have them.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#103

Post by TimTheTinker »

free652 wrote: post #102
TimTheTinker wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hypocrisy of Christians who don't support gun control I don't see how the two equate to hypocrisy. A friend of mine (a Christian) is strongly opposed to gun control. He has a concealed carry license and carries everywhere, because he wants to have the means to protect himself and his loved ones from an active shooter, if necessary. He cites "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns," and feels personally a…

If there are no guns then outlaws wouldn't have them.

That's true, but it's a bit late for that, at least in the US.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#104

Post by Mirioron »

gameswithgo wrote: post #73
daenz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hit the nail on the head. From the article: >“Many agencies fear being sued if a child gets hurt,” said Teri Hendy, the president of an Ohio-based playground consultancy, Site Masters. Ms. Hendy blamed outdated federal rules on playground design developed decades ago by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. She favors more flexible guidelines, arguing that playgrounds don’t have to be boring to be safe. We got…

Playgrounds are still really fun for kids and they aren’t maimed as often. I think this is fine. Even with modern safe playgrounds it is stressful keeping young kids from hurting themselves.

But that's the point - you're not supposed to keep them from hurting themselves. You're supposed to keep them from hurting themselves too much.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#105

Post by unknownkadath »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #58
umvi wrote: post #21

You're right - anything that provokes fear or outrage gets instant attention. Everything else doesn't. North Korea imprisoning a single idiot American who crossed the border = national dialogue because it's outrageous School shooting where 3 people die = national dialogue on gun control because it's outrageous. DUI accident that kills a family of 5 = small blurb in local news because it's not outrageous (even if it s…

Millions of children dying in the womb = crickets. (or hot debate, depending on your country) I know that's a controversial issue. No offense intended toward any individuals - but this is my viewpoint.

See, here's the thing: a neural tube with the same number of neurons as C. elegans isn't the same thing as a human being.

I can see how some folks can get confused, though.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#106

Post by whyaduck »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #58
umvi wrote: post #21

You're right - anything that provokes fear or outrage gets instant attention. Everything else doesn't. North Korea imprisoning a single idiot American who crossed the border = national dialogue because it's outrageous School shooting where 3 people die = national dialogue on gun control because it's outrageous. DUI accident that kills a family of 5 = small blurb in local news because it's not outrageous (even if it s…

Millions of children dying in the womb = crickets. (or hot debate, depending on your country) I know that's a controversial issue. No offense intended toward any individuals - but this is my viewpoint.

There's one thing I guarantee you'll never find in a womb: a child.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#107

Post by Mirioron »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #25
fatnoah wrote: post #3

The only anecdote I can share about this comes from the time my family was touring a local day camp. On the tour, they showed us everything: archery, fishing, swimming, ropes, and everything else you could think of. At one point, we came to a massive, 10 foot high pile of dirt. The kids immediately ran for the dirt pile and the parents' reactions were a 50/50 mix of "Awesome" or "What are you building here?" I knew t…

probably my favorite childhood memory: my grandfather ordered a large dumptruck of sand for our tiny hand dug pond in our backyard, in an attempt to make a beach. needless to say, as a younger boy, seeing a towering (maybe 8-10ft. height) pile of sand was amazing, I put on my swimming trunks, sunscreen and grabbed a bucket and shovel. i spent hours just digging holes and making sand castles in the hot sun of a kansas…

That's what me and my friends used to do when we were young. We had a construction sites that just sat there for years. We'd build entire towns from sand, when playing outside.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#108

Post by natdempk »

magicalhippo wrote: post #95
devchix wrote: post #9

A recent episode of 99% Invisible: Play Mountain looked at how the playground got to be safe and boring. "A two-year-old boy named Frank Nelson was climbing a 12-foot-tall slide in a Chicago park when he slipped through a railing and hit his head so hard that it caused permanent brain damage. The park system of Chicago was sued and had to pay out millions of dollars to Nelson’s family. At that time, in the late 70s,…

A friend of mine designs playgrounds for kids, and is very good at it (his designs win 90+% of the competitive bids he enters). He's also worked hard to put in place a playground safety inspector certification system over here. One of his core ideas is that there are two types of safety: subjective safety and objective safety. For example, kids quickly learn that falling from a height is painful, and experiences such…

This is a really good take on safety and tooling that can be applied to a lot of things. Thanks for explaining this!

Do you have an example of a playground that he’s designed that highlights these principles?

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#109

Post by seanmcdirmid »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #103
free652 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are no guns then outlaws wouldn't have them.

That's true, but it's a bit late for that, at least in the US.

Our gun industry produces more than 11 million guns a year. Sure, many of those wind up in Mexico and Central America via the drug trade, but that's still a lot of supply being sustained through the system.

Guns wear out, simply cutting production would do a lot to reduce the number of guns in the system (outlaw or not).

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