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Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

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Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#351

Post by notch898a »

HWR_14 wrote: post #334
kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

I don't understand what's either astonishing or even wrong about that sequence of events by the government. Person calls 911 and reports child abuse. The government takes the situation seriously and investigates. The government determines there was no issue. Person being investigated is upset. Other than the person calling 911, who do you want to do something different? You want the first responder to dismiss the cas…

If someone makes a false claim that results in personal expenses for me that sounds like libel or defamation. Allow me to find out who they were so I can sue them. I value my time at least for say $1000 per CPS visit and $300 per hour I have to spend dealing with the investigation they knowingly initiated with their libel.

The laws hiding the identity of people abusing children by making these trumped up reports should be re-evaluated.

Edit: CPS investigation technically is a civil and not criminal investigation (typically) so you can see the very clever hack below did using word 'crime' to hide the fact the law prevents revealing identity of callers in this 'civil' complaint. In fact their wordsmithing is pretty brilliant in they also tried to redefine the elements of defamation which include damages or harm to reputation rather than damages from harm to reputation. 10/10 for lawyering and 0/10 for faithful rebuttal.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#352

Post by mtrower »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #344
cmurf wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile actual trauma, by way of active shooter drills that are not announced in advance, run rampant and unchecked. https://twitter.com/donnaprovencher/status/16281278397477724... Obsession with risk mitigation is too diplomatic for what's going on here.

> active shooter drills What the fuck

>> active shooter drills

>What the fuck

Took the words right out of my mouth...

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#353

Post by StanislavPetrov »

kkielhofner wrote: post #266
geoelectric wrote: post #85

IMO, three things need to happen to make this go. First, the media needs a sea change towards not making parents hysterical. We've seen this happen in waves ever since there was mass media (D&D, satanism, metal, gangs, etc., in my personal lifetime) but this is the first time I think it's actually caught on as a cultural standard for something like 2 decades straight. Second, social media needs a sea change towards n…

The media and social media hysteria is very real and highly elevated. My friends with kids will frequently say “Well things aren’t like they were back in our day”. “Our day” being the 80s and 90s. Yes, things aren’t like they were back in our day - crime has been on a steady downward trend (absent a tiny rise relative to prior years in 2020). By all available data regarding violent crime this is one of the safest per…

Not only is crime lower, but there were no cell phones back then! Today a child is only a phone call or text away at any time, and it is trivial for a parent to track their child in real time. As a child in the 80s I would regularly come home from school, fling my book bag in the house, get on my bike, and ride off with the other kids, not to return until nightfall. My parents had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. The level of fear and paranoia now is insane.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#354

Post by elcritch »

cmurf wrote: post #323
s1artibartfast wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think there is a real issue on what people perceive as society's role and what parent's role is. Not only that, but you a society has become obsessed with risk mitigation over the last several decades. The problem is that people are poorly equipped to estimate risk with very low occurrences against low or unclear cost. You see it in all facets of society with a platitude of better safe than sorry. It shows up in i…

Meanwhile actual trauma, by way of active shooter drills that are not announced in advance, run rampant and unchecked. https://twitter.com/donnaprovencher/status/16281278397477724... Obsession with risk mitigation is too diplomatic for what's going on here.

[flagged]

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#355

Post by mtrower »

medler wrote: post #273
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like this infrastructural risk is media driven to the extent of "pedophile kidnappers" or "razor blades in apples". For example I grew up in an Eastern MA "suburb" in the mid 90s - early 2000s, characterized by narrow winding roads, fast drivers, and no streetlights. Everyone too young or unconnected to have car access bicycled or walked everywhere; parents were a bit fearful but ultimately acquiescent ("bet…

Dunno about that city in particular but in general car deaths have been increasing over the past decades, presumably because cars keep getting bigger and heavier. It’s a lot safer for kids to cross the street when everyone’s driving a Taurus than when everyone’s driving a modern Toyota Tundra

Is it that the percentage of accidents resulting in fatality has increased, or that the raw number of accidents has gone up overall? Is it just a simple function of more cars on the road, and the compounding effects of such?

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#356

Post by nanidin »

tchvil wrote: post #347
kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

In Belgium, we had Dutroux a serial rapist and child kidnapper that traumatised the country ~30 years ago. As a kid I remember living like you describe in Norway. Not anymore. Parents are still to this day worried letting their kids go outside. Fast forward to spring 2020. The country is locked down. The weather is surprisingly excellent. It took me a lot of effort to leave my 8y old girl go play with her friend to t…

I blame this transition to overprotection on Mean World Syndrome[0]. Our media picks up alarming stories and amplifies them in a way that wasn't happening before.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_world_syndrome

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#357

Post by philistine »

throw10920 wrote: post #345
geomark wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even in the YouTube algorithm. I've had a couple of videos taken down due to "potential child endangerment". They were videos of me and my kid doing things that are, realistically, safer than riding a bicycle. It's pathetic how fragile kids are being made these days.

The YouTube rules are completely insane. Whoever makes them has totally lost their mind. For instance, YouTube recently implemented a policy such that they now demonitize videos that contain profanity in the first 15 seconds - AND THIS APPLIES RETROACTIVELY TO VIDEOS RELEASED BEFORE THE POLICY WAS CHANGED. Between that, the downvote count being removed, random demonetizations, mysterious channel shadowbans, the DMCA…

Hey hey! Don't correlate the immemorial art of travesting oneself with the disgrace that is the DMCA.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#358

Post by notch898a »

mtrower wrote: post #355
medler wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno about that city in particular but in general car deaths have been increasing over the past decades, presumably because cars keep getting bigger and heavier. It’s a lot safer for kids to cross the street when everyone’s driving a Taurus than when everyone’s driving a modern Toyota Tundra

Is it that the percentage of accidents resulting in fatality has increased, or that the raw number of accidents has gone up overall? Is it just a simple function of more cars on the road, and the compounding effects of such?

The example of the Tundra is legit. Trucks keep getting bigger. It's not really because people all want a bigger truck though, it's because the government outlawed the compact trucks with CAFE and any remaining compact truck import options that might have satisfied CAFE had the shit taxed out of them with the chicken tax. It's a major reason for increased death in pedestrian by truck.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#359

Post by strix_varius »

swatcoder wrote: post #65
wonderwonder wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF is full of mentally ill homeless people and drug addicts. Some literally camping in the doorways of homes. It's also covered in vomit and human feces. No way I would let my kids run around unsupervised there

Historically, people teach their kids how to navigate their local environment safely. In rural environments, that can include wildlife dangers and natural hazards and in urban environments, it can include human dangers and industrial/sanitary hazards. Environmental danger is not new. The culture of isolating kids rather than educating them is. Whether the new strategy is better for the kids is an open question, but s…

As someone who plans to teach their kid to bike to school, walk to friends' houses, watch for cars, play safely in the yard, climb trees etc... Who has also lived in SF... There's no way I'd expose a kid to the dangers of walking around that city!

We left because my wife was terrified to be alone outside of our apartment. She would be followed, harassed, threatened. Because we saw crimes occur in broad daylight and experienced the indifference of police when we called.

Comparing the environmental danger of avoiding snakes and not diving into water where you can't see the bottom to navigating the streets of San Francisco as a small, alone human is ludicrous.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#360

Post by xkcd-sucks »

omegaham wrote: post #284
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like this infrastructural risk is media driven to the extent of "pedophile kidnappers" or "razor blades in apples". For example I grew up in an Eastern MA "suburb" in the mid 90s - early 2000s, characterized by narrow winding roads, fast drivers, and no streetlights. Everyone too young or unconnected to have car access bicycled or walked everywhere; parents were a bit fearful but ultimately acquiescent ("bet…

Yep, I grew up in the woodsy part of Framingham up by Route 20. A whole bunch of those roads are outright dangerous. My parents groused about how dangerous it was, but mostly trusted me not to be stupid.

Carlisle, which makes it even more ridiculous :)
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