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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

#441

Post by cafard »

Aeolun wrote: post #154
danjoredd wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also depends on where you live. If you are a suburban or rural kid, playing outside all you want is fine. Let them explore the neighborhood. If you live near a highway though, or a high crime area, then you might want to reconsider what you want to allow. You still need common sense. My main worry is people who live in relatively safe areas, like a suburban neighborhood, but with neighbors that will STILL call CPS…

> a high crime area What exactly do you expect to happen to your 6 year old? They’re not a very useful target for anything I can think of.

Recently, it seems that every year in Washington, DC, there are a few bystanders shot by groups quarreling with other groups. Some of those bystanders have been very young.

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

#442

Post by cafard »

Alupis wrote: post #295
didip wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car-centric culture and gun-centric culture is making our society to be like this. Also, most states defund mental health institutions. Finally, the 24/7 news cycle covers a lot of crazy behaviors, encouraging copycats to one-up the crime even more. Is it a surprise if Americans are more paranoid than ever?

> Car-centric culture and gun-centric culture is making our society to be like this This can't possibly be the cause. The US has been filled to the brim with cars for decades - yet this is a modern phenomenon. Similarly, bad guy have had loads of guns in the US since even before the US was a thing... yet again, this is a modern phenomenon. > Finally, the 24/7 news cycle covers a lot of crazy behaviors, encouraging co…

> The US has been filled to the brim with cars for decades

In the 1970s, I lived in one of the western suburbs of Denver, about a mile from I-70. At night when things were quiet, I could hear individual cars. In the 1990s when I was back for visits, I-70 had the steady hum of continual traffic.

There are definitely more cars per household than there were fifty and sixty years ago.

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

#443

Post by mirchibajji »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #310
ethbr0 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying problem is the same as the lottery: the human brain adjusts probability on the basis of severity. Terrible things happen. They aren't likely to happen.

You are definitely onto something. Humans are horrible at estimating risk, but are forced to do it all the time. In some cases, it is a very clear miscalculation resulting in overdoing it one way or another. Sometimes it is just dumb luck. I think this is the wrong way of looking at this. Most people believe that lightning does not strike people that often. This does not give one has carte blanche to prance around th…

Going back to the context of the thread: Not every risk has to be codified into the law, or enforced by the government. Should we make it illegal to prance around with a metal rod in their own backyard, just in case? Making a risk illegal does not magically improve safety, and there is a non-zero probability of the "enforcement" making things worse.

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

#444

Post by beeforpork »

activitypea wrote: post #434
beeforpork wrote: post #431

Aha! I think it is a glimpse into the future of the country here (Germany). When I was young, I walked to school starting at age 6, and I walked to kindergarten even earlier. (And I played naked in the garden, in a small swimming pool with neighbour's kids (all genders).) It was also no problem to be sent to buy cigarettes, which in hindsight, I find less OK... Today, parents drive their children to school by car, in…

> It was also no problem to be sent to buy cigarettes Man what a nostalgia hit. Never smoked in my life, but I could never get the cashiers to let me buy cigs for my parents :')

> but I could never get the cashiers to let me buy cigs for my parents

Absolutely no problem. I was even sent by the school janitor during breaks to buy him cigarettes (i.e., off school campus -- I am sure that wasn't legal even back then). Different times...

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

#445

Post by cassianoleal »

stdbrouw wrote: post #430
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…

I'd be wary of putting all of these examples into the same box, though. If kids can't play outside anymore because of overprotective parents or an overprotective society, that feels to me like a net negative. If newspapers are afraid to publish because they are fearful of libel suits, then we might miss fact-checked stories that are in the public interest, and it's not clear that that's a good trade-off. On the other…

> If newspapers are afraid to publish because they are fearful of libel suits, then we might miss fact-checked stories that are in the public interest, and it's not clear that that's a good trade-off.

I'd argue the opposite. If they're afraid of libel, they're probably engaging in it and should stop.

If they're sure of what they're saying and have proof of due diligence, they shouldn't be afraid. If they're not sure, they might still want to publish the information but be clear and explicit that they have no proof and state how they got hold of the information.

Saying "I heard but haven't been able to verify that Person X did Thing Y" is very different from saying "Person X did Thing Y". The latter should absolutely be liable to a suit if they don't have proof or very strong evidence that it actually happened. The former shouldn't as much.

Disclaimer, IANAL so I can't tell if libel laws in different countries work that way but I would expect them to do so at least in broad terms.

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

#446

Post by stdbrouw »

cassianoleal wrote: post #445
stdbrouw wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be wary of putting all of these examples into the same box, though. If kids can't play outside anymore because of overprotective parents or an overprotective society, that feels to me like a net negative. If newspapers are afraid to publish because they are fearful of libel suits, then we might miss fact-checked stories that are in the public interest, and it's not clear that that's a good trade-off. On the other…

> If newspapers are afraid to publish because they are fearful of libel suits, then we might miss fact-checked stories that are in the public interest, and it's not clear that that's a good trade-off. I'd argue the opposite. If they're afraid of libel, they're probably engaging in it and should stop. If they're sure of what they're saying and have proof of due diligence, they shouldn't be afraid. If they're not sure,…

Even if you think you'll win a case, there's still the distraction and economic cost of being dragged into a lawsuit. Fear of libel suits probably does make the gutter press slightly less trashy, but it also has a chilling effect on dependable sources, and they are regularly employed by malicious actors for precisely that reason. But anyway, if you don't like that particular example, make up another where you feel society is currently too risk averse.

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

#447

Post by Xylakant »

eru wrote: post #440
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

> [...] but in general car deaths have been increasing over the past decades, [...] Are you sure about that? What's your source? Some quick searching gave me https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit... which even looks like a decrease per capita over the past decades. No clue whether that source of data is any good, and what the rates outside of the Us are. Just FYI, I don't like car centric place…

The source may be correct, but it’s not useful. To judge the risk you’d need a breakdown of where accidents happen - it may be the case that motorways have become much safer due to safer cars, but pedestrians and cyclists suffered.

Especially modern pickups and SUVs have an increased risk of severe injuries for pedestrians due to the high front area which hits vulnerable body parts where a station wagon would hit legs. You’ll likely find two or more overlapping trends.

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

#448

Post by ichugwindex »

ryandrake wrote: post #195
lmm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem happens further up the funnel than the actual law. The usual pattern is something like: parent gets reported by local busybody, gets investigated and/or arrested, everything is dismissed after a couple of weeks but in the meantime their life has been massively disrupted. Changing the law doesn't necessarily fix that because what the parent was doing was never illegal in the first place.

Ideally, the parent should at least be able to sue the busybody for damages in this case. If no evidence of wrongdoing is found, the busybody should be identified so the parent knows who to take legal action against.

Wouldn't that create a bad incentive to not report crime then? Seems like the right response is to have the police/CPS act properly than to try and hold Karen's accountable.

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

#449

Post by cassianoleal »

stdbrouw wrote: post #446
cassianoleal wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If newspapers are afraid to publish because they are fearful of libel suits, then we might miss fact-checked stories that are in the public interest, and it's not clear that that's a good trade-off. I'd argue the opposite. If they're afraid of libel, they're probably engaging in it and should stop. If they're sure of what they're saying and have proof of due diligence, they shouldn't be afraid. If they're not sure,…

Even if you think you'll win a case, there's still the distraction and economic cost of being dragged into a lawsuit. Fear of libel suits probably does make the gutter press slightly less trashy, but it also has a chilling effect on dependable sources, and they are regularly employed by malicious actors for precisely that reason. But anyway, if you don't like that particular example, make up another where you feel so…

I think this is too broad a subject. Different societies have different risk profiles.

In the US, the OP is probably enough example. If you can't let your kids play outside or walk the streets for fear of being accused of child abuse, endangerment or whatever charges might be made against you, that's the symptom of worrying societal illness.

I grew up in America - in the southern part of the continent though, not in the USA. I now live Europe. Kids roam and play outside and that's a normal thing.

Kids need to be allowed to be kids, otherwise they will grow up to be very limited adults with odd world views. Perhaps everything else stems from this, at least partially? Kids who grow up overprotected might feel they need to overly protect everyone as an adult, and these adults will be the ones behind laws and regulations.

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

#450

Post by Ntrails »

wil421 wrote: post #250
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan, one of our buildings was right next to a girls' primary school. When I took the train from Shinagawa to Nishi-Ohi, I would see these tiny little girls, basically knee-high, on the train, by themselves, on the way to school. I've talked about growing up in Africa[0], and what kinds of things we had, slithering around. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34628812

I walked to school in the late 90s to middle school because we were so close a bus isn’t offered. I also did a similar thing and biked or walked to high school until a friend who took me. When I used to ride a public transport train to work I would see young kids going to a private school dressed in school uniforms. They would go together and it wasn’t a problem, their school wasn’t in the best area either. No one bl…

I'm told I was stopped from walking to school around the age of 10 (which did involve crossing a very busy road without any safe crossing apparatus) because someone reported it to the headmaster who then asked my parents to put a stop to it.

I don't remember it well enough to comment

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