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A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

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Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#181

Post by jandrese »

robonerd wrote: post #80
tempnow987 wrote: post #67

Not in the US they can't. "officials placed two brothers into foster care after one, 11, was found playing basketball alone in his own yard." He'd gotten home early from school and his parents came 90 minutes later. He was in his own yard. The family lost their children to foster care. Ironically in foster care ACTUAL abuse rates are pretty darn high! "When Cindy and Fred arrived home they were arrested for child neg…

> I realize big government is here to protect us Created by people who mean well perhaps, but subsequently captured by another sort. > Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the enginee…

Isn't that just "management" vs. "production staff"?

You can't do both, each are full time jobs.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#182

Post by greedo »

Cipater wrote: post #170
Melting_Harps wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that extreme? What do you think smart phones are? That's exactly what they're optimized for, in addition to mass distraction and aimless and feckless doom scrolling for dopamine that is. I can't post because i triggered the algo: > My wife and I use Apple's "Find My" feature to keep tabs on when each other will be home. Makes it easy to time dinner so it's hot for everyone. The Silicon Valley TV series was gr…

Billions of people have smartphones. How many of them use them to keep track of their loved one's movements?

My wife and I use Apple's "Find My" feature to keep tabs on when each other will be home. Makes it easy to time dinner so it's hot for everyone.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#183

Post by greedo »

jandrese wrote: post #181
robonerd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I realize big government is here to protect us Created by people who mean well perhaps, but subsequently captured by another sort. > Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the enginee…

Isn't that just "management" vs. "production staff"? You can't do both, each are full time jobs.

Pournelle's thesis is that the "managers" will corrupt the intent and goals of the bureaucracy.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#184

Post by greedo »

tempnow987 wrote: post #67

Not in the US they can't. "officials placed two brothers into foster care after one, 11, was found playing basketball alone in his own yard." He'd gotten home early from school and his parents came 90 minutes later. He was in his own yard. The family lost their children to foster care. Ironically in foster care ACTUAL abuse rates are pretty darn high! "When Cindy and Fred arrived home they were arrested for child neg…

https://reason.com/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-his-...

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#185

Post by greedo »

rackjack wrote: post #160
chomp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, and now the Internet - it doesn't help when Nextdoor is full of "suspicious person alerts" aka "there was a solicitor and I didn't like it", and a non-stop barrage of crime related stories. I live in a city whose broader region is almost 10000 square miles, and the crime feeds report all crime in this area as occurring in "Houston", even though this region is larger than some US states. I feel like this contrib…

It's funny because you'd think this watchfulness + technology like Nextdoor would let kids be more independent, e.g. if anybody tried to snatch your kid they'd be reported by half a dozen busybodies watching through their windows.

This assumes that most users of Nextdoor or have video cameras dotting their house are interested in protecting kids. Nextdoor is a cesspool of racism, and everyone I know who has "security" cameras is afraid of people stealing their stuff. Despite crime in our area being at an all time low and property theft very uncommon.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#186

Post by greedo »

jjeaff wrote: post #48
yu-carm-kror wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know for a fact that pedophiles, kidnappers, and murders exist. I think we just always thought we could sniff them out by knowing our community. That was probably a false sense of security all along. Now we mostly live in communities too plentiful to know everyone so our fear is unchecked.

I grew up in a small community, and while a few people were usually thought of as not to be trusted, they didn't turn out to be the dangerous ones. So I agree that there is a false sense of security in small communities. At the same time, I'm sure that overall, like shark attacks, we very much overestimate the danger.

Read about the BTK serial killer. Dude was a "pillar" of his community. Look at all the priests the Catholic Church continually protects when they commit abuse. Besides, most abuse (like most murders) is committed by someone the victim knew.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#187

Post by brewdad »

Cipater wrote: post #170
Melting_Harps wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that extreme? What do you think smart phones are? That's exactly what they're optimized for, in addition to mass distraction and aimless and feckless doom scrolling for dopamine that is. I can't post because i triggered the algo: > My wife and I use Apple's "Find My" feature to keep tabs on when each other will be home. Makes it easy to time dinner so it's hot for everyone. The Silicon Valley TV series was gr…

Billions of people have smartphones. How many of them use them to keep track of their loved one's movements?

I personally know of at least 2 families. My guess would be millions.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#188

Post by Volrath89 »

uranium wrote: post #116
fnordpiglet wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major difference between when I grew up and now is the prevalence of the severely mentally ill living on city streets. Would you send your 5 year old self down the streets of San Francisco or Seattle? As a 45 year old I’m frightened often enough - I can’t imagine my daughter being forced to navigate those situations alone. The assault and murder rates due to the untreated mentally ill in the cities I’ve lived in is…

"Would you send your 5 year old self down the streets of San Francisco or Seattle?" Yes. We live in San Francisco, and our kids went to a daycare in the Civic Center. We walked [with the kids] by many homeless people every weekday for years. Our interactions with them were almost universally positive; they'd clear the sidewalk to let kids through, try to keep kids from seeing drug use, chat and share candy, etc. On c…

I grew up in a 3rd world country (now I live in Europe) in a city that by HN comments seems similar to SF (big and full of harmless homeless people/drug addicts everywhere). I remember when I was a kid and I was with my mother I stared to a homeless man for some time. Of course he just seemed peculiar to me, I was a little kid, but this guy got mad and screamed "Do I owe you money or what? why do you keep looking at me?"

My mother grabbed me in her arms and we just went away quickly. She told me to not look at homeless people for so much time. Of course I was very scared, I don't remember exactly how old I was but I still remember the episode some decades later.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#189

Post by agentwiggles »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #155
sloreti wrote: post #27

Disappointing that an article like this wouldn’t mention one of the main reasons children are given less autonomy in the US: our built environment. The vast majority of our children grow up in neighborhoods in which one can’t easily be a pedestrian at any age. Low density communities, in which almost all trips have to be taken in cars, are of course not friendly to non-drivers. Japan builds dense, mixed use neighborh…

I don't really agree with that. I grew up in a small rural town where things were quite spread out. I would run and ride my bike all over the "neighborhood", which would encompass an area of well over 4 square miles. We had small dirt roads with no shoulders or sidewalks and we would ride our bikes down them, if someone came up behind you would get out of the way. It was not at all uncommon to have a groups of 5 and…

I grew up in a small rural town as well, and this post gave me major nostalgia. When I was 7 or so, my parents limited me to a pretty small area (it was our "block", but that had a pretty different meaning from what most city folk would think of when they hear "block").

At some point, my limits were updated, and I was allowed to go anywhere that did not involve crossing the main street in the town (which at the time was a reasonably busy section of OH SR 30.) I'd ride to my grandma's house for a Coke or some ice cream and chat with her for hours at a time. There was a local playground near her house with the old school kind of swings that really let you get high up in the air.

I remember vividly the day when I discovered that I could ride my bike to the local Dollar General via a back route without crossing that street and the sense of freedom that gave me. I could also make the 2 mile ride to my best friend's house.

When I was a bit less than 10, the restriction on crossing that street was lifted, and the whole town was open to me. My friends and I rode our bikes absolutely everywhere and explored creeks, parks, and country roads like there was no tomorrow.

Now I live in a medium sized city, and every once in a while, I think about the proximity to family and the freedom to roam that I enjoyed growing up. More than anything else about home, I miss these things, and I have to wonder if I'm denying something to my kids by living in the city. Sadly, there aren't many software dev gigs in rural Ohio, and now that my kids are entrenched in the local schools (which, to be fair, are miles ahead of what exists back home), their upbringing as city kids seems to be written in stone.

Anyway, sorry for the rant - waxed nostalgic for a bit there.

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