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Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

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Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#41

Post by NoboruWataya »

The article is based on the assumption that when we ban things for children only, it is because we perceive them to be harmful to children only. I don't think that is true. Nobody thinks adults are immune from the negative effects of cigarettes or alcohol. But adults are, in general, allowed to harm themselves. Children are not, because there is an acceptance that children are less able to make informed decisions. You can take issue with that and obviously bright-line rules based on age are highly imperfect, but it's a very different discussion to the one the article is trying to have.

Granted, there is also evidence that social media has particularly harmful effects on children, which no doubt strengthens the argument. But in the general case bans targeted towards children are not (just) about that.

Ultimately the article seems to be trying to argue (implicitly) that we shouldn't ban, regulate or tax anything, because if we were to do that, we would then need to ban, regulate and tax everything in order to be "consistent". It's a common argument I see from libertarians online, including on HN. If you're going to ban guns, surely you should also ban knives and cars? If presented with a choice between permitting one specific thing or prohibiting all the things, most people will choose the former. But it's a false dichotomy. The law can treat different things and situations differently, even if those things/situations have some commonalities.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#43

Post by ReptileMan »

omnicognate wrote: post #3

It would be a fun exercise to replace social media with alcohol in this article so that it argues we shouldn't ban children from drinking because drinking is bad for adults too.

Banning children from drinking never really made much sense. A glass of wine or beer for kids in their early teens was very normal in Europe until recently (and still unofficially is) and we have not turned into hellhole. The temperance movement is/was uniquely American stupidity.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#44

Post by closewith »

plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #28

>In both of these cases (and in others), the harms are there for children and adults, but it’s only children who get banned. >I don’t use TikTok and it’s no skin off of my back if it gets banned. Banned or not, though, I don’t see a reason to ban it only for children. It doesn’t seem to be more harmful for them. They don’t seem to be using it lots more than adults. >If you’re going to ban TikTok because it’s harmful…

Yes, this is a classic example of a programmer (or data scientist in this case) believing their expertise in one areas generalises to topics which they don't fully understand.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#45

Post by ReptileMan »

n4r9 wrote: post #7
omnicognate wrote: post #3

It would be a fun exercise to replace social media with alcohol in this article so that it argues we shouldn't ban children from drinking because drinking is bad for adults too.

Has anyone even studied the effect of forcing ten year olds to drink a daily litre of vodka?

This is just called being teenager in the Balkans. Eventually we turn out fine.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#46

Post by lapcat »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #35
lapcat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn't ban children from drinking. It doesn't even help, because kids drink anyway, just illegally and largely unsupervised by adults. I certainly drank like a fish when I was underage.

Let me make a parallel argument: We shouldn’t ban drinking and driving. It doesn’t even help, because people do it anyway. You seem to be setting the bar at “if anyone violates the law then the law is a failure and should be revoked.” But that’s why we have court systems. They don’t just determine if someone broke the law, but also what to do when people inevitably do. You’re operating in a world where the only restr…

> We shouldn’t ban drinking and driving. It doesn’t even help, because people do it anyway.

> Do you see the trouble with the logic here?

I think you misunderstood my comment. The second sentence was not intended to be an argument or justification for the first sentence. The first sentence stands alone: I think it's unprincipled to ban children from drinking. The second sentence is merely a corollary. Also, I think that legalization and the introduction of adult supervision would ameliorate some of the problems associated with youth drinking, would "moderate" it to some extent.

My view is that the government should not try to be a parent, should not restrict personal freedom, not even of kids, except in so far as one's exercise of freedom harms others, and even there it has to be significant harm, e.g., you can ban violence but not hurting someone else's feelings. The drunk driving laws, which apply to all ages, may be justified by the known role of drunk driving in car crashes. The same principle apples to public smoking bans: the issue is not the first-hand smoke, which is your own business, but rather the second-hand smoke, affecting people who choose not to smoke.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#47

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

Yep, this is definitely written by an LLM. I doubt any model is capable of reasoning this bad.

> “harmful compared to what?”

The kids can sniff glue all I care, at least we get some good punk rock out of it. That largely depends on their parents. But children spending time completely unsupervised with bunch of adult men only some of which are pedophiles while shooting into their brains 24/7 the most powerful advertisement ever known to man wrapped into an application that has the same operationational logic as one-armed bandit will not bring anything good to anybody - except loads of money to the tech bro’s. It is basically same as raising your children in a Las Vegas casino.

But you don’t have to take my word. You know you can just ask the kids who have been raised with social media, the first generation of which is adult now? Every single one of the zoomers say it sucks. That should be enpugh.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#48

Post by jeltz »

RobotToaster wrote: post #36
notTooFarGone wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try to go to "most of Europe" and try to get alcohol as someone <16 and see how that goes.

The comment I replied to specifically said "ban children from drinking", not purchase alcohol. For instance here in the UK it's legal for any child over 5 to drink in private.

Yeah, but that pedantry did not add much. Yes, we do not ban children from drinking but there are still limits on their ability to buy and consume. A responsible adult needs to be present when children consume alcohol in many countries.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#49

Post by ReptileMan »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #35
lapcat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn't ban children from drinking. It doesn't even help, because kids drink anyway, just illegally and largely unsupervised by adults. I certainly drank like a fish when I was underage.

Let me make a parallel argument: We shouldn’t ban drinking and driving. It doesn’t even help, because people do it anyway. You seem to be setting the bar at “if anyone violates the law then the law is a failure and should be revoked.” But that’s why we have court systems. They don’t just determine if someone broke the law, but also what to do when people inevitably do. You’re operating in a world where the only restr…

Not quite. We regulate driving not drinking. The licence comes with strings attached. You don't take teen exam to become teen.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#50

Post by RobotToaster »

rasmus-kirk wrote: post #25
RobotToaster wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most of Europe it's legal for Children to drink alcohol.

But they can't legally purchase/access it without the involvement of an adult, unlike social media. You could argue that the parents sanction social media use by giving their kids a phone/computer without any sort of parental controls, but most parents probably have neither the resources nor proper knowledge of how to sufficiently provide a safe platform for their children.

You can't legally buy a mobile contract in the UK if you're under 18. So in most cases the parents did buy it for the child.
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