Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
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Re: Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
#2Considering our species used to send children into dark caves as a rite of passage and the way things are now, this is probably for the best.
"Parents can try to keep up with their young mountaineers as they ascend through the rope spiderweb, but they might get left behind in the tightly woven mesh."
Like Instagram and TikTok, but with real safety guarantees.
Re: Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
#3"... it’s the strict policing of standards that enables a risk-accepting culture in the first place."
Doesn't just apply to playgrounds.
Re: Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
#4We've had a couple of playgrounds like this near where I live here in Virginia for a number of years. They're not very old, but certainly older than 2021.
Re: Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
#5I don't know, kids these days. You should have seen what we had to contend with in the 60s - huge lumps of flesh mangling metal, swinging at terrifying angles, throwing small children off in all directions. And no wimpy rubber mats to catch them. Sometimes, I wonder that I survived.
Re: Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
#6They are lowering the long term risk of too little short term risk, an unsafe excess of safety. This is a kind of behavioral hormesis. The dose/response curve of a potential toxin is seldom linear, including for jungle gyms.
Re: Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
#7I don't know, kids these days. You should have seen what we had to contend with in the 60s - huge lumps of flesh mangling metal, swinging at terrifying angles, throwing small children off in all directions. And no wimpy rubber mats to catch them. Sometimes, I wonder that I survived.
reminds me of when I was a kid in the UK, there was these places that was called 'funhouses' where kids was supposed to play, I was seriously terrified of dying. I'm unsure if it's my memory and/or if I was just too young
Re: Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
#8There were some comments in a 2021 submission, among them one with links to a manufacturer’s website that has good pictures of playground structures.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28978056
Re: Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
#9I remember when I was a teen I started noticing how the nanny state had managed to remove all the old swings I used to play with and replaced them with some tiny and safe swings that no one even uses anymore. Children even started wearing yellow safety vests to school all of a sudden. I'm glad there's at least some backlash to this nonsense.
Re: Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds (2021)
#10I don't know, kids these days. You should have seen what we had to contend with in the 60s - huge lumps of flesh mangling metal, swinging at terrifying angles, throwing small children off in all directions. And no wimpy rubber mats to catch them. Sometimes, I wonder that I survived.
Literally survivor bias!