I like the copyright idea described above. I’m not sure how well it would work in practice, because I’ve never heard of anything like that being implemented, and new solutions almost always have problems. It’s interesting though.
Regarding the kids making their own decisions thing- my example was intended to be a little funny, so I may not have picked the best one. Instead of the ice cream example, what about sex with adults? Sex changes? General amputation? Living on their own? Cigarettes? Harder drugs?
These are all things that kids can have opinions about, all things are mostly changes to their own body or bodily freedom, all things that can have terrible long term consequences. Should we prevent parents from controlling their kids, and allow the children to decide whether they want to do any of these?
Sometimes the finding-out part of the fuck-around-and-find-out experience is an irreversible addiction that there’s no coming back from. Parents aren’t always better, obviously, but they probably avoid more permanent harms for their kids than the kids would in their own.
Eeeeh, I can concede on the general premise of ‘sometimes find out is something you don’t come back from’, although I am also skeptical of parents having childrens’ best interests in mind when it comes to things like gender-affirming care because [gestures vaguely at the literally everywhere]
Yeah, fair. My parents were painfully religious and harassed me unmercifully because I wasn’t, so I’m not saying it’s all sunshine and roses. But leaving kids free to do whatever they want seems like it would have an attrition rate similar to turtles running for the ocean.
Adults can’t be allowed to do whatever they want either, so it’s not really a good idea to establish a hierarchy based on age. There are few things specific to kids that don’t also apply to adults.
Actually the junk food example is a perfect example of this. Adults get diabetes from eating too much of it just as kids do, so everyone needs to cut down on their sugar intake.
And doing that doesn’t require authoritarian intervention, just reclaiming of the means of production and restructuring them so food production no longer puts fucking sugar into everything.
This life doesn’t have to be hard. Balancing health and freedom don’t have to be hard. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
I would bet that the obesity rate among children if they didn’t have parents deliberately trying to get them into sports and making them meals at home would be almost 100%. You’re saying “this affects everyone” which is technically correct but ignores that it almost certainly affects one group much more.
Yet most kids don’t, and most kids aren’t obese from it.
You can’t simply force people to be healthy either. People, including kids, have the right to be unhealthy, and that’s just something you have to accept if you want a free society.
If you don’t accept it, that just means you don’t want a free society, that’s all.
And if you don’t, you can advocate for it in the thread. As I said, I want people’s honest opinions. But you can’t have it both ways.
I like the copyright idea described above. I’m not sure how well it would work in practice, because I’ve never heard of anything like that being implemented, and new solutions almost always have problems. It’s interesting though.
Regarding the kids making their own decisions thing- my example was intended to be a little funny, so I may not have picked the best one. Instead of the ice cream example, what about sex with adults? Sex changes? General amputation? Living on their own? Cigarettes? Harder drugs?
These are all things that kids can have opinions about, all things are mostly changes to their own body or bodily freedom, all things that can have terrible long term consequences. Should we prevent parents from controlling their kids, and allow the children to decide whether they want to do any of these?
Sometimes the finding-out part of the fuck-around-and-find-out experience is an irreversible addiction that there’s no coming back from. Parents aren’t always better, obviously, but they probably avoid more permanent harms for their kids than the kids would in their own.
Eeeeh, I can concede on the general premise of ‘sometimes find out is something you don’t come back from’, although I am also skeptical of parents having childrens’ best interests in mind when it comes to things like gender-affirming care because [gestures vaguely at the literally everywhere]
Yeah, fair. My parents were painfully religious and harassed me unmercifully because I wasn’t, so I’m not saying it’s all sunshine and roses. But leaving kids free to do whatever they want seems like it would have an attrition rate similar to turtles running for the ocean.
Adults can’t be allowed to do whatever they want either, so it’s not really a good idea to establish a hierarchy based on age. There are few things specific to kids that don’t also apply to adults.
Actually the junk food example is a perfect example of this. Adults get diabetes from eating too much of it just as kids do, so everyone needs to cut down on their sugar intake.
And doing that doesn’t require authoritarian intervention, just reclaiming of the means of production and restructuring them so food production no longer puts fucking sugar into everything.
This life doesn’t have to be hard. Balancing health and freedom don’t have to be hard. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
I would bet that the obesity rate among children if they didn’t have parents deliberately trying to get them into sports and making them meals at home would be almost 100%. You’re saying “this affects everyone” which is technically correct but ignores that it almost certainly affects one group much more.
Yet most kids don’t, and most kids aren’t obese from it.
You can’t simply force people to be healthy either. People, including kids, have the right to be unhealthy, and that’s just something you have to accept if you want a free society.
If you don’t accept it, that just means you don’t want a free society, that’s all.
And if you don’t, you can advocate for it in the thread. As I said, I want people’s honest opinions. But you can’t have it both ways.