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Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

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Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a parent who gave my oldest child a (very used) smartphone just before she turned 14, I would be in favor of making smartphones illegal under age 15. I see no logic in the above statement. You gave your kid a smartphone when she was 14. By today's standards, that's very late, and it's basically just one year before Denmark's proposed ban on social media. You can ban your child from having a smartphone for an arb…

"adults use smartphones" Is this so? I think of it like the time when Hong Kong was flooded with Opium. "adults smoke opium" If you find that too crass, there are countless other ways to put it: "adults eat sugar" "adults watch TV" Just because everyone in the mainstream does something, DOES NOT mean that this is a good thing or a smart thing to do. In fact, we can easily observe that the few adults who are at the ab…

> In fact, we can easily observe that the few adults who are at the absolute top of their game, the most skilled, the most wealthy, the most powerful... well guess what? They DO NOT use smartphones. They don't tweet. They don't have profiles anywhere.

Terrence Tao regularly posts on Mastodon, and Geoffrey Hinton on X/Twitter. Sam Altman has a huge X presence. Elon Musk, no comment.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#432
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet we grew up on does not exist.

Kids socialize in video games now.

When I was a kid I joined a random BBCode forum with a group of 10 people who taught me how to program. There were challenges some passionate person set up and he would give tips to me and a few others for free. We hung out all day. That's gone.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#433
post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not doing this same thing to every comment trying to remove my freedom, which then will call me some label for disagreeing with COVID policies or whatever then I can't really take any of the guidelines seriously. I was here when it was all about segregating the ones who disagreed from life, even denying healthcare while still forcing them to pay taxes. We're way past fake politeness when the discourse is a…

I don't even know what your position or point was. It’s irrelevant. We're don't moderate for/against any side or position. We just don't have time to take that into account. The guidelines apply regardless of what you're trying to say, and we routinely get these kinds of grandiose claims about our covert motivations and biases, when the reality is far more boring: just preventing this site from turning into a flaming…

You realize that you're putting your "boring moderating reality" against the very real claims of goverments and people here to

- Remove people who didn't obey the house imprisonment rules during covid from society.

- Removing their jobs and ability to make a living

- Stealing their money

- Denying their ability to healthcare for any procedure

- Be put in camps permanently until they "complied" because "their body, our choice".

Once you factor that type of attack where no human rights nor Nuremberg trial result was respected, the faux civility and non bias rings absolutely hollow.

I'll try to attack their points with more faux civility like you want because staying silent is what got us there, but sometimes it may come up as more raw, since it's very easy to repeat state euphemisms to destroy people's lives but it's harder to counter permeated propaganda.

Edit: Reading my post again, it's absolutely on point. Hard to regret that. How would you write it?

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#434
post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know what your position or point was. It’s irrelevant. We're don't moderate for/against any side or position. We just don't have time to take that into account. The guidelines apply regardless of what you're trying to say, and we routinely get these kinds of grandiose claims about our covert motivations and biases, when the reality is far more boring: just preventing this site from turning into a flaming…

You realize that you're putting your "boring moderating reality" against the very real claims of goverments and people here to - Remove people who didn't obey the house imprisonment rules during covid from society. - Removing their jobs and ability to make a living - Stealing their money - Denying their ability to healthcare for any procedure - Be put in camps permanently until they "complied" because "their body, ou…

Please don't try to turn this into a debate about pandemic policies. You don't know what any of us personally believed about any of it then or now, and it's nothing to do with the issue at hand.

There's no point having any guidelines or standards for the way this place operates if they change based on the particular issue of the day. The purpose of HN's guidelines is that we should be able discuss any topic, no matter how difficult, as long as we do so in the spirit of curiosity.

Outside HN there's no shortage of places where people can engage in ideological battle and vigorous protest, and I'm fully supportive of your right to do whatever you want to do to fight for the issues you believe in. Indeed, you're welcome to fight for what you believe in here too, but the way it's done on HN is through respectful conversation and persuasion, not aggression.

As for your own history here, the first time I can see moderators having to ask you to follow the guidelines is in 2014, so this pattern goes back years before the pandemic. HN is only a place where people want to come to discuss important topics because other people make the effort to raise the standards rather than dragging them down. Please be one of the ones to make this place better, not worse, otherwise you're welcome to choose not to participate here.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the one, and there's the rub. Are you comfortable blaming individuals like Forrest for the destruction that global consumption of iron, copper, and renewables brings, or would you rather 'fess up to collective responsiblity? The largest Copper resource in the US currently is on naive American sacred land, and the latest proposal for providing rare earth elements essntial for modern lifestyles would disrupt a r…

I would rather blame both. It is our collective society's fault, yes, but the billionaires are the ones who exploit it. They are just as bad, if not worse. Also, apologies, but I edited my above comment, and wasn't able to submit it before you replied. And no worries. Good luck on your things. Honestly, I'm kinda done with this conversation, as interesting as it has been. It feels like it's run its course. In any cas…

It's a pity you bailed, no drama - it's an area of long term interest to me and from the look of your comment you've never worked in mining, you've assumed Forrest never has, nor worked the land, and took an ankle deep search for "bad things about Forrest".

The interesting thing about Forrest is he grew up on Aboriginal land side by side with aboriginal people who themselves have deeply divided views about their past and their future - Forrest has gone well out of his way to provide jobs and education for native people and to sit down at length and discuss deeply contentious issues.

In a domain rife with trolley problems he's been considerably better than most, still with unavoidable warts, and hasn't blown up and destroyed anything on the order of that which Rio Tinto and US Gas companies have.

If you lack any on the ground local context and knowledge there's no shartage of bad press about Forrest, he gets no end of it from the likes of Gina Rhinehart, Clive Palmer, and other resource billionaires who despise him for turning much of his wealth to a greater good (an area of debate, of course) and suggesting that others do the same.

For your interest, this is Jill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UKu3bCbFck

I've known both her and Forrest pretty much my entire life, her land is just to north of where Forrest is operating, she is dealing with many issues - some of which are touched upon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt6Hmp9ndkI

( Mainly about Canada, but comes back to touch upon Jill's 50,000 year strong family art collection )

> It is our collective society's fault, yes, but the billionaires are the ones who exploit it.

I'd be interested in your suggestions for how to do better.

Bear in mind that if individual billionaires were not operating here then the demand for resources would still exist and would be met by corporations (eg: Rio Tinto) who would chew through the landscape just as you claim others do: https://antar.org.au/issues/cultural-heritage/the-destructio...

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a parent who gave my oldest child a (very used) smartphone just before she turned 14, I would be in favor of making smartphones illegal under age 15. I see no logic in the above statement. You gave your kid a smartphone when she was 14. By today's standards, that's very late, and it's basically just one year before Denmark's proposed ban on social media. You can ban your child from having a smartphone for an arb…

"adults use smartphones" Is this so? I think of it like the time when Hong Kong was flooded with Opium. "adults smoke opium" If you find that too crass, there are countless other ways to put it: "adults eat sugar" "adults watch TV" Just because everyone in the mainstream does something, DOES NOT mean that this is a good thing or a smart thing to do. In fact, we can easily observe that the few adults who are at the ab…

> "adults smoke opium"

That's a bad comparison. The main reason for importing opium to Hong Kong at that time was to use it as a sedative drug. Smartphones, on the other hand, have many legitimate uses for every user. The addiction to social networks is not a primary motivation to sell smartphones.

> A smartphone is not at all needed to be a highly functioning adult.

It depends on your definition of "highly functioning." You probably also don't need a Google account, a tablet, a TV, books, or a Kindle to be a highly functioning adult. I guess I can just go on. Arguing this way is meaningless.

When your kid reports that 90% of the other kids in their classroom already have a smartphone, you either give your kid a smartphone or make them feel like a loser in their social group.

Besides, having a smartphone doesn't mean having access to social networks, the open internet, or the ability to install any application. It's up to parents to properly configure parental controls for the respective age group.

> Except for GPS directions, there is actually very very little actual need to use a smartphone.

It conveniently replaces many things, usually in a more secure way. For example, paying with a phone is more secure than paying with a plastic card. And most importantly, kids listen to music on their smartphones, just as I used a Walkman/Discman in the past.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#437
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree. There should be a complete ban on social media and similar addictive platforms for those under 16, and a nighttime ban (10 p.m.–7 a.m.) for users aged 16 to 18. We basically give cigarettes to children.

It is absurd to suggest that children should not be allowed to socialize online. Have we completely forgotten the internet we grew up on? I would be dead if I hadn't been able to make friends online.

> addictive platforms

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*everyone's The difference is meaningful. It's mostly prisoners dilemma. If only one persons porn habit is available thats bad for them. If everyones (legal) porn habits are available, then it gets normalized.

Normalized or not, the risk is you get something akin US drug enforcement: ignored for certain demographics, enforced for others. The ability to see someone's porn history is irrelevant until a government (or employer perhaps) wants to weaponize it. The problem isn't my peers, it's the people in power and how many of them lack any scruples.

Drugs are not legal; porn is.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#439
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*everyone's The difference is meaningful. It's mostly prisoners dilemma. If only one persons porn habit is available thats bad for them. If everyones (legal) porn habits are available, then it gets normalized.

this seems to run parallel to the "i have nothing to hide" / "well they have everyone's data, so who cares about mine " arguments. this is too narrow a view on the issue. the problem isn't that a colleague, acquaintance, neighbor, or government employee is going to snoop through your data. the problem is that once any government has everyone 's data, they will feed it to PRISM-esque systems and use it to accurately m…

Predict and shape future porn events?

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All that local level stuff doesn’t work I can't speak to anyone else, but it seems to be working well enough in our town. The overwhelming majority of kids don't have cell phones until high school. That doesn't mean your kids won't beg you for a smartphone, it just means you can say "no" without socially isolating them. > As soon as a couple of kids have a smartphone The point is to engage in collective action earl…

Collective action that is effective is hard to pull off in a million homes a million times around the country. Most people without extra time and resources are just not going to do it which at this point is a large part of the country. It’s like advocating for town level collective action on alcohol or age of consent. It’s way more sensible to just make it law.

> Collective action that is effective is hard to pull off in a million homes a million times around the country.

True, but it is significantly easier for a single motivated individual to pull it off in their own community than for them to change laws at the territory/state or country/federal level.

And even if your end goal is a universal law, it usually makes sense to start at the lowest level from a process perspective. Laws at the community level are often a precursor to laws at the territory/state level, just as territory/state laws can be a precursor to country/federal laws. In the USA, both alcohol and age of consent laws have gone through (and in some respects are still going through) this process. Bypassing this (admittedly slow) laboratory of democracy to implement novel laws directly at the country/federal level results in controversial laws that often have unintended consequences.

> It’s way more sensible to just make it law.

Centralizing laws can be sensible if you're somewhat confident that the people writing and enforcing those laws will behave sensibly.

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