281–290 of 391 posts
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It's a good compromise for mom. Let kids run free, and give mom the reassurance they can call someone if they need help. I don't like giving cell phones to kids younger than 12 or 13 because childhood should be free of a lot of the technology we use today.
What about a dumbphone?
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>Children can't drive, which means unless you're lucky enough to live very close to your friends, and ideally on the same side of the street, your home is effectively your prison in the US and Canada. There are huge swaths of the country that are not the "built up in the 50s and 60s but now populated and trafficked enough to be dangerous" suburban hellscape that you are implying.
America is famous for its small towns. People forget this.
It's great to allow your kids to take risks, and we do this with our own as much as we can (they're 1 and 3, so "within reason" is still doing some heavy lifting. I pick ticks off of them now and then and patch up their share of bruises). But fundamentally, what I want most is to be somewhere my kids can ride bikes or walk alone to school, to friends, to the shop, etc. from the age of 7 or so. As best I can tell that…
I think the “your home is a prison” is an upper middle class thing. Poor folks don’t have much choice but to let their kids use transit.
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> I don't really understand some people's extreme risk aversion today. Evolution has wired us to be constantly looking for risk. If we don't find danger, we'll invent it. As we remove the riskiest risks, the bar on what we're willing to spend and sacrifice to address the next level of risks goes higher and higher. Then there's the press which lives by sensationalizing every bad thing that happens, leading us to gross…
> Then there's the press which lives by sensationalizing every bad thing that happens, leading us to grossly exaggerate risk levels in our society. Humans are really bad at assessing risk. Parents are more likely to be afraid of a stranger kidnapping their child when their child is far more likely to die on the car ride to school. Which is sad when you think about how suburbs are designed to make people feel safe eve…
Then I remember back not long ago when seat belt laws came into effect in the US. Before then? Meh. And car seats for 6 year olds?
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I agree wholeheartedly. My life dream is to build a car-free city in the US so I can live there. When I was young and even more naive I hoped I could do this before having kids, so they could grow up with that freedom. Now I’m hoping maybe I can do this by the time I have grandchildren. We’ll see. It would require a lot of capital in the form of patient equity to pull off.
It exists. Mackinac Island, Michigan.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island_School_Distric...
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> your main worry by a country mile should be cars, not predators 100%, and cars are a reasonable worry that we should do something about. There are well known traffic calming measures that we know slow down traffic substantially (speed being one of the greatest causes of pedestrian fatalities) and even in my very walkable city we're largely not using them.
speed doesn’t cause fatalities, or even cause collisions, it increases severity in the case of a collision. collisions cause (pedestrian) fatalities, and distracted driving is the leading cause of collisions.
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I think cycling is one of those things where it’s important to do it in spite of Canamerica being such a bad place for it, every person cycling normalizes it and pushes indirectly for positive change. Of course it’s also important to directly push for change in city government.
I agree. Cycling needs good stewardship. The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”. My hyperlocal blog has a guy that makes me want to throw my bicycle in the bay just so I’m not associated with him. And I love riding my bike. Cycling needs a “you meet the nicest people on a Honda” moment. E-bikes are a great opportunity for Americans to rediscover motorcycles but unfortunately cities are willing to all…
I strongly believe that when good protected bicycle infrastructure is built, average folks will be more represented among cyclists — and so cyclists will appear nicer and more cautious.
I try to be a good ambassador for cycling on my bike — got a rear radar, always hand signal, and always stop at lights and signs. But I've already been indoctrinated into cycling by having lived in the Netherlands.
I recently watched E.T. by Steven Spielberg, and was shocked at how different life was in the 80s. The mom left Elliott at home alone, sick with a fever, at the age of 9. She also left the daughter who was 3.5 alone while she went to the supermarket. Their only instructions were "don't get into trouble." Those would both get you in a lot of trouble in 2021, but I'm not sure I understand why. It's even easier these da…
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> My take is myopia can be effectively treated with an inexpensive and non-invasive device Like what? >while LASIK comes with significant risk of causing different kinds of visual impairments that cannot be treated The numbers behind LASIK (and PRK) are pretty solid such that one can make an objective claim that it is a low risk endeavor unless you have some specific conditions. Here is one study: https://www.ncbi.nl…
Glasses or contact lenses Low risk -> that paper's definition of "safety" is whether people had good eyesight. It doesn't take into account halos or dry eyes, as far as I can tell.
I certainly know people who have had worse complications, though, and they might have a different feeling about it than I do.