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Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

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Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#91

Post by ravenical »

kalleboo wrote: post #22
analog31 wrote: post #9

It seems like the things we ban for children are things that we might ban for everybody, but can get away with for children. Very few of those things are conclusively proven to be harmful -- perhaps firearms, motor vehicles, and smoking, and even those things put up a pretty good fight to stay alive as long as they did. Smoking is an interesting case. Vanishingly few people who smoke learned to do so as adults. Virtu…

It's a shame the age-scaled tobacco ban (I think it was proposed in the UK) never went though. You just start raising the legal age for tobacco by one year, every year. Eventually, nobody alive will still be a smoker and you can ban it outright without having taken it away from anyone.

Seems to be going through: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3879

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#92

Post by Yizahi »

I agree with author's points. I think we need to take one more step, to examine this harmness issue. Social media are harmful, but why do we care about them more than about idk radio? Well, because social media is much more widespread. And why it is widespread? Because of the advertising. And incidentally the whole other host of harmful things is so impactful because of the ads - drugs, gambling, garbage foods, etc.

To combat Tiktok or smoking or gambling yourself into bankruptcy we don't need to ban each of these individually (and fail to do so in the process). We need to ban advertising of them.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#93

Post by gambiting »

M95D wrote: post #85
gambiting wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware that pay as you go sims are available from literally every store in the United Kindom, and any child can just buy one within minutes if they are so inclined? Not to mention that using social media does not require a phone number, and wifi is practically ubiquitous.

Prepaid sims still require presenting an ID card everywhere in Europe. (Since brexit, that might be different in UK, but I very much doubt it.)

>> (Since brexit, that might be different in UK, but I very much doubt it.)

It's crazy that in 2026 when we literally have the knowledge of the entire world at our fingertips it's still easier to just say "I doubt it" instead of looking it up.

To save you those 5 seconds of googling - no, you don't need to present any ID to buy a sim card in the UK.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#94

Post by br121 »

literallyroy wrote: post #27

Depressingly bad argument that seems to say: we think it’s bad for children and adults, but we don’t ban it for adults so we shouldn’t ban it for children.

It's not what it says, it's more: discussion on what to ban/regulate should include all the population at risk (so in this case, the entire population), not just people at non-voting age. It doesn't even say that whe should apply the same regulation to children and adults, but pretending that something is harmful up until 16, then doesn't need any kind of regulation, is just pretending

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#95

Post by ReptileMan »

M95D wrote: post #80
ReptileMan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Did you consider that this might be part of why Balkans are so far behind the rest of Europe?

No we are behind because our development was stunted by 45 years of socialism and 35 years of wild corruption.

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#96

Post by br121 »

lonelyasacloud wrote: post #67

The core point - that it's politically convenient to ban things for "other people", especially if they cannot vote you out - is well taken. And I share the scepticism about whether "do something" politics leads to good legislation. However, it is most definitely not hypocritical to have different rules for children and adults; the bodies and minds of children are not fully developed and there are many instances where…

In the article is mentioned gambling, and how the rules are more stringent to children, but rules exists for both, and were put in place together. It seems to me (but I don't have social media, don't watch TV, and am not from UK, so I may just have missed that, so please correct me if that's the case) that the current discourse on social media is all about ban for under 16, but with no consideration on damage control for adults, so it's the "do somethings, but not to voters" situation. To your second point, we don't have research indicating social media is good for adults as well, so shouldn't the same precautionary principle apply for both (maybe with different level of precaution)?

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#97

Post by br121 »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #41

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. Yo…

Cigarettes and alcohol are more strictly regulated for children than for adults, but are regulated for both, because adults are allowed to harm themselves, but there is a general agreement that the law should discourage that. Yet the call for a social media ban on children is (or at least that's my impression) never accompanied with proposed regulation for adults, or a stricter enforcement of already in place but unenforced rules. I totally agree with you on how the "we shouldn't ban A, because then we should ban everything else" is a false argument, although it didn't seem to me that was the argument on the article (but close to everyone on HN catched that, so I'm going to read the article again with a fresh mind in a couple of days, maybe I just missed that)

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#98

Post by br121 »

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.

The article doesn't say, "we shouldn't ban for children because it's bad for adults as well", it says, "we shouldn't regulate for the non-voting pouplation only". Alcohol is regulated for adults, not as much as for children of course, but it's nevertheless regulated (and taxed), and from the same people arguing that we should raise the drinking age (in europe, where it's indeed lower than health expert suggests), we hear argument on increased regulations for adults as well. The social media ban, on the other hand, is for children and children only

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#99

Post by vlad-roundabout »

rasmus-kirk wrote: post #18
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.

I think this is a good point. What differentiates alcohol and social media? Well, social media is not physically addictive, but it's pretty clearly psychologically addictive. Along those lines it would be hard to argue that children should have unfettered access to social media. Social media is also _not_ like TV in that there's psychologists and algorithmic engineers working hard to make these types of apps as addic…

Then force them to make it less addictive, because they can!

Re: Banning Things for Other People Is Easy

#100

Post by ryandrake »

kalleboo wrote: post #22
analog31 wrote: post #9

It seems like the things we ban for children are things that we might ban for everybody, but can get away with for children. Very few of those things are conclusively proven to be harmful -- perhaps firearms, motor vehicles, and smoking, and even those things put up a pretty good fight to stay alive as long as they did. Smoking is an interesting case. Vanishingly few people who smoke learned to do so as adults. Virtu…

It's a shame the age-scaled tobacco ban (I think it was proposed in the UK) never went though. You just start raising the legal age for tobacco by one year, every year. Eventually, nobody alive will still be a smoker and you can ban it outright without having taken it away from anyone.

Talk about pulling the ladder up after you've climbed. Laws that apply to one cohort of adults but not another, based on just birthdate are incredibly unjust.

If smoking is bad enough to ban for Gen Z, it should be bad enough to ban for Boomers, too.

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