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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

#421

Post by gammarator »

wolverine876 wrote: post #333
throwaway-blaze wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Using throwaway, because people can't have rational discussions anymore). 47yr old with 12yr old twins. Live in a million dollar neighborhood in Capitol Hill Seattle. Kids go to private school about a mile south of home. When the school year started, they wanted to walk to and from school alone. We had to stop this in the last month and accompany them on the walks. My daughter saw multiple fentanyl od's on the stree…

> I grew up in the 80s in NYC and took the subway from Queens to Manhattan for HS (Stuyvesant). Plenty of homeless but mostly alcoholics, occasional mentally ill. You didn't see drug users in 1980s NYC? And when did crack show up there?

Yeah, by any objective measure 80s NYC was way more dangerous than Capitol Hill, Seattle is today. The cognitive dissonance here is interesting.

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

#422

Post by mbg721 »

The US, for all its democratic ideals, has some weird cases of "The vast majority of us all agree that this is a bad outcome, but we aren't ever going to change anything meaningful about it." This is one of them; seemingly nobody can do anything about the overreaching child-protection agents, or the busybody neighbors, or the lousy suburban neighborhood design, or the frenetic activity-planning. Why not??

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

#423

Post by turrican »

ryan_lane wrote: post #398
DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safer than what? Suburbs with nice sidewalks and tree lined streets and friendly neighbors who know each other? Safer than rural areas where everyone knows everyone and there’s enough law enforcement to work on a 1:1 basis? I’m sorry but this just seems like an absolute nonsense claim.

Have you lived in rural areas? Despite the romanticism portrayed in the media around rural live, it's absolutely not like that. It can take an hour for police to show up when you call them, if they show up at all. Most of the people in your area are probably on, or cooking meth. Crime is just as bad, and often more violent than it is in the city. Sure, people aren't stealing your bikes, but they are stealing parts fr…

“Most of the people in your area are probably on, or cooking meth.”

Are you saying this tongue-in-cheek?

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

#424

Post by godelski »

kkielhofner wrote: post #320
godelski wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every assault makes the news, but cities are safer than they've ever been Reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of data.[0] Pew tracks both crime rates and perception of crime rates. There's been an overwhelming declining trend crime (especially violent) in the past 30 years. But if you look at perceptions of crime, people think year over year it is on the rise. There's even a bias that it is on the rise more nat…

This is one of favorites too! I was recently chatting with a friend who (like me) grew up in the 90s and they were reminiscing on how great walking to school was because “you could do that back in the day.” They then went on to say that they would NEVER allow that for their children “these days”. I pulled up the Pew study and it blew their minds. That said the news cycle, perception, parental instinct, etc is too pow…

It is an interesting response to me (without kids) because I think this doesn't give kids the chance to explore. Kids SHOULD be doing dangerous things, just not TOO dangerous. That's how I learned a lot of valuable lessons. It is also how you learn independence.

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

#425

Post by com2kid »

WalterBright wrote: post #414
com2kid wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is your mother going to make an insurance claim for a stolen car without a police report? Or is she just going to eat the loss? It is a 1992 ford ranger, in theory worth a fair bit in the current used truck market, but insurance will value it at next to nothing, so I presume she'll eat the loss.

I don't have comprehensive insurance on my old car, so insurance wouldn't pay for it being stolen. The reason is pretty simple. The comprehensive insurance premium adds up to more than the car is worth. Also, the way insurance works, is your rates go up to reimburse the company for payouts to you. Insurance is only worthwhile for losses you cannot cover yourself. This is why downtown businesses have largely stopped r…

Same reason I don't report small accidents to my insurance, I just take my car to the body shop myself.

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

#426

Post by ryan_lane »

turrican wrote: post #423
ryan_lane wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you lived in rural areas? Despite the romanticism portrayed in the media around rural live, it's absolutely not like that. It can take an hour for police to show up when you call them, if they show up at all. Most of the people in your area are probably on, or cooking meth. Crime is just as bad, and often more violent than it is in the city. Sure, people aren't stealing your bikes, but they are stealing parts fr…

“Most of the people in your area are probably on, or cooking meth.” Are you saying this tongue-in-cheek?

No. There are some rural towns where every single town member, including the police, firefighters, etc. are addicted to meth. Rural areas are where most meth is cooked because it makes it considerably less likely to be detected.

A considerable amount of heroin addicts in the US are also in rural areas.

Drug use is rampant in rural areas, but it doesn't get the press that it does in cities, because it doesn't present the same way. You don't have to walk over junkies in rural areas.

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

#427

Post by godelski »

wolverine876 wrote: post #316
godelski wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every assault makes the news, but cities are safer than they've ever been Reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of data.[0] Pew tracks both crime rates and perception of crime rates. There's been an overwhelming declining trend crime (especially violent) in the past 30 years. But if you look at perceptions of crime, people think year over year it is on the rise. There's even a bias that it is on the rise more nat…

While I generally agree ... > Most crime is limited to a few states, and really just a few cities in those states, and even more so specific areas within those cities (pareto is fractal in this way). What is that based on? Some tangential data leans in the other direction: The most recent FBI/DoJ report (that I'm aware of) said recent increases in gun crime were spread pretty evenly, urban and rural, across the count…

This is pretty common in pareto distributions. Here's a heat map from 2020 data with state level resolution[0]. You'll notice that crime is in fact not evenly distributed (my claim). Here's a similar map but with county level precision[1]. And here's a heat map for crime in San Francisco[2].

Nothing I've stated is really that controversial and is pretty well known by anyone that looks at crime statistics. I think it is also relatively easy for the average person to buy because everyone knows where "the bad part of town" is. Really that's all I've said. That "the bad part of town" exists fractally. There's the "bad states," "bad cities," "bad counties," "bad towns," and "bad parts of towns." I think this all should be rather unsurprising.

To clarify on your FBI/DOJ statement, this doesn't have to be in disagreement with what I said. You can have increases in violent crime over the last year (or even 5) and a dramatic decline in the last 30. The Pew study that I cited does specifically look at violent crime and uses FBI statistics. But let's add more. Here's a DOJ 1993-2011 showing a large decrease in both fatal and non-fatal gun violence[3]. Here's a Reuters article that shows homicides (and the pareto effect I mentioned above) from 1980 to 2019[4]. Notice the trend towards declining (I never said it _strictly_ declined).

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Violent_...

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/crime-rates...

[2] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Crime-heat-map-and-overv...

[3] https://info.publicintelligence.net/DoJ-GunViolence1993-2011...

[4] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-plans-new-steps-comba...

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

#428

Post by jbm »

Foreignborn wrote: post #355
redact207 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you watch it, you'll notice: - Most of the kids live in quiet country towns or rural areas - Most of the errands avoid crossing roads, or: - If they do, then the assistants are checking for and controlling traffic - It shows kids doing their first ever errand, it's not their everyday life

I live in Tokyo and just today on my way to coffee, saw several kindergarten-aged children crossing busy main roads to go to school. It does happen and happens nearly every day. This show likely does help prevent accidents (and yes 2 year olds aren't running errands every day) but the main point still stands, kids are living more autonomously in some ways in their every day life.

Japan as a haven for children is an exaggeration, at last in Tokyo.

Sure, we can see young children take the train and walk to school - but it is not common to see that. In 12 years of living in Tokyo (Nakano-ku mostly), I didn't see that very often. It might be more common in smaller parts of the country or for very specific use cases.

My two elder daughters went to kindergarten while I lived there. Their teacher walked to a spot near our house, where we took the kids, and then they walked together to school. They always had adult supervision. (Some parents would also take their kids by bike to school).

Japanese people have their own security concerns. Japanese schools have large walls and closed off school yards because the locals have their own safety concerns for children. (I believe there was a famous stabbing incident that led to that, but don't recall the details)

It should be clear that Japanese parks (at least in Tokyo) are actively hostile to children. Playing with balls, for example, is completely banned in many parks in Tokyo. Free parks are more for the old and enfeebled than for the young; silver democracy at its worst.

In my case, at least, my children are more free in Calgary than they were in Tokyo.

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

#429

Post by viztor »

I used to walk to and from school by myself, and after school I'd walk to the bookstore by myself, apparently most other kids aren't interested in reading at all, before heading home for dinner. It was a merely ten minutes walk, but other parents are somehow surprised. Fortunately, I've only encountered nice strangers who gave me free snacks and all that, but now I think about it, I just felt super lucky nothing really happened.

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

#430

Post by godelski »

Spooky23 wrote: post #338
godelski wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every assault makes the news, but cities are safer than they've ever been Reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of data.[0] Pew tracks both crime rates and perception of crime rates. There's been an overwhelming declining trend crime (especially violent) in the past 30 years. But if you look at perceptions of crime, people think year over year it is on the rise. There's even a bias that it is on the rise more nat…

Crime stats are a difficult thing to make comparisons with between jurisdictions and over time. I grew up in 1980s NYC. They flat out didn’t respond to take reports for certain types of crime, and may deliver a beat down to some weirdo following kids around. Unless it’s a clearly serious felony like a murder or burglary, you aren’t really getting any information. I would say that what people worry about is random fre…

> Unless it’s a clearly serious felony like a murder or burglary, you aren’t really getting any information.

Good news! The numbers reported in my citation are specifically about: Larceny/Theft, Burglary, Aggraveted Assault, Motor Vehicle Theft, Robbery, Rape, and Murder/Non-Negligent Manslaughter. Every single one of these has drastically decreased since the 90's (90's increased in crime since the 80's but current levels are below that).

I don't mean to sound sarcastic, but I can't but help but feel that this could have better been resolved by clicking on the citation I included.

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