9 ms·

The problem here is not the law, it is the people who think the fact that one person (out of over 100 million families in America) got arrested for doing a thin

by lsc 9y ago

The problem here is not the law, it is the people who think the fact that one person (out of over 100 million families in America) got arrested for doing a thing that sounds reasonable is a reason to change your behavior. We need a reasonable threshold below which we do not worry about an event. Figuratively speaking: "If it makes front page news, it's not how I'm gonna die." The threshold is going to vary from person to person; for me? if it's less likely than me dying or becoming disabled in a transport accident today, then the effort to prevent that thing is most likely better spent preventing transport accidents. I mean, my point here is that you want the best return possible on your "prevent bad things from happening to me and mine" efforts, and there are a lot of low-hanging fruit that you can grab in the area where there is the most danger. Transportation and health are huge killers, much bigger than terrorist and crazies. I think this might be the biggest problem with America today; this idea that systemic action needs to be taken for a 1 in 100 million chance seems like the systemic problem with our society. Systemic action should be reserved for things that happen frequently. Even in America, the biggest danger to children is transport accidents; the chances of getting killed or disfigured are so much higher in a car than in a train that it almost certainly makes up for any "stranger danger" on the train.

galfarragem 9y ago
In the end "rulers" are just afraid of being expelled for "bad service" so they reduce risk as much as they can: mass media might pick a particular case (that 1 in 100 million) and distort it until society perceives it as 1 in 10.
- robbiep 9y ago
  I understand your angle. That approach is very shortsighted, the inefficiencies created going after such black swan event risk prevention opens up gaps in other services that basically makes society go to hell in a handbasket
- lsc 9y ago
  Of course, the goal is to reduce risk of bad outcomes as much as possible.[1] I'm just saying, with the same level of effort, you could save a lot more lives by solving transportation problems than by preventing the more rare kinds of crime. I submit that learning how to evaluate these sorts of statistics, and this sort of risk management is an important part of the basic education that is essential to all citizens of a democracy. [1]And nobody has brought it up, but it's possible that the average person just thinks that a child being kidnapped by a stranger is an outcome that is thousands of times worse than that same child dying or being mutilated for life in a transportation accident. In that case, maybe society isn't acting irrationally; they just place a lot more value on 'manner of death' than I do.
ramy_d 9y ago
The problem here is not the law, it is the people who think the fact that one person (out of over 100 million families in America) got arrested for doing a thing that sounds reasonable is a reason to change your behavior. actually it is the law. We can't expect parents to gamble their parenthood and their lives - even if the odds are 1 in 100 million. And i suspect the odds are not that small, just in this thread there are multiple stories of social services being called for what used to be common place attitudes towards children and their autonomy. There's even a person fully admitting they would also put in a report if they witnessed such a thing. I'm not saying your arguments are bad. In fact, they are on point. But perceived danger vs Actual danger is, from looking at the whole anti-vaccer movement, the big contributor here. But if parents are getting put in handcuffs for having their kids play outside then yeah, they need to be protected from a systemic standpoint.
- lsc 9y ago
  >We can't expect parents to gamble their parenthood and their lives - even if the odds are 1 in 100 million Every day when you strap your kid into your car seat, you are rolling those dice, at odds considerably worse than 1 in 100 million. You can't face risk by saying "we need to stamp it out, no matter how small the chance or how great the cost" It doesn't help me if you protect me from meteors if I'm millions of times more likely to be killed by a traffic accident, and the same resources could drastically reduce the chance of that death. You need to look at what resources you are willing to spend on risk mitigation, and then look at where you can spend those resources to most effectively mitigate risk.
  - Spearchucker 9y ago
    You're basing your argument entirely on probability, and assuming all risk must be mitigated. Or I'm taking you too literally, in which case I apologise. However. Risk exposure is more than probability - it's probability multiplied by impact. And only then does one consider an approach - accept, transfer, manage, and so on. In this case if one chose to manage the risk, the mitigation would require (one possibility) enshrining something in law, so that parents of these kids DON'T get prosecuted. That's a one-off, and possibly no more expensive than the cost of a single prosecution/incident. Given that, doesn't it make sense to do this, making it just go away, and giving people that peace of mind? Regardless of the low probability? Cost is clearly less than protecting a populace against meteors.
menacingly 9y ago
I keep seeing arguments that it's "rare", but I don't think that's actually the case. When I read about multiple cases in the news, _and_ 1 parent (out of only 12) in my cub scout den had to deal with someone calling the police on his kid playing alone, it certainly seems like a real threat. It's going to have a chilling effect. The problem isn't that you're going to go to jail, it's that once you're on the radar of a state agency, it's scary, and you end up in the position to prove that your home and family are safe for your kids. It's embarrassing and deliberately intimidating, and you ultimately have no power to stop at least a small disruption in your kids' lives.
grkvlt 9y ago
Exactly. If a thing gets reported in the news media, it is generally (by definition) newsworthy and therefore a rare or unusual event. So the news being reported about 'someone reported to the police for letting their children play outside' shows that such events are rare and nothing to be worried about...
emiliobumachar 9y ago
The big unstated assumption in your position is that getting trouble for letting one's kid unsupervised in the streets is unlikely given that one actually lets their kids unsupervised in the streets. In could be true, but another plausible alternative is that it's rare to get in trouble that way because no one is letting their kids unsupervised in the streets. An analogy: death by actively jumping off a plane without a parachute, if it exists, is extremely rare. Doesn't make it safe.

by lsc 9y ago

galfarragem 9y ago

In the end "rulers" are just afraid of being expelled for "bad service" so they reduce risk as much as they can: mass media might pick a particular case (that 1 in 100 million) and distort it until society perceives it as 1 in 10.

robbiep 9y ago
I understand your angle. That approach is very shortsighted, the inefficiencies created going after such black swan event risk prevention opens up gaps in other services that basically makes society go to hell in a handbasket
lsc 9y ago
Of course, the goal is to reduce risk of bad outcomes as much as possible.[1] I'm just saying, with the same level of effort, you could save a lot more lives by solving transportation problems than by preventing the more rare kinds of crime. I submit that learning how to evaluate these sorts of statistics, and this sort of risk management is an important part of the basic education that is essential to all citizens of a democracy. [1]And nobody has brought it up, but it's possible that the average person just thinks that a child being kidnapped by a stranger is an outcome that is thousands of times worse than that same child dying or being mutilated for life in a transportation accident. In that case, maybe society isn't acting irrationally; they just place a lot more value on 'manner of death' than I do.

ramy_d 9y ago

The problem here is not the law, it is the people who think the fact that one person (out of over 100 million families in America) got arrested for doing a thing that sounds reasonable is a reason to change your behavior. actually it is the law. We can't expect parents to gamble their parenthood and their lives - even if the odds are 1 in 100 million. And i suspect the odds are not that small, just in this thread there are multiple stories of social services being called for what used to be common place attitudes towards children and their autonomy. There's even a person fully admitting they would also put in a report if they witnessed such a thing. I'm not saying your arguments are bad. In fact, they are on point. But perceived danger vs Actual danger is, from looking at the whole anti-vaccer movement, the big contributor here. But if parents are getting put in handcuffs for having their kids play outside then yeah, they need to be protected from a systemic standpoint.

lsc 9y ago
>We can't expect parents to gamble their parenthood and their lives - even if the odds are 1 in 100 million Every day when you strap your kid into your car seat, you are rolling those dice, at odds considerably worse than 1 in 100 million. You can't face risk by saying "we need to stamp it out, no matter how small the chance or how great the cost" It doesn't help me if you protect me from meteors if I'm millions of times more likely to be killed by a traffic accident, and the same resources could drastically reduce the chance of that death. You need to look at what resources you are willing to spend on risk mitigation, and then look at where you can spend those resources to most effectively mitigate risk.
- Spearchucker 9y ago
  You're basing your argument entirely on probability, and assuming all risk must be mitigated. Or I'm taking you too literally, in which case I apologise. However. Risk exposure is more than probability - it's probability multiplied by impact. And only then does one consider an approach - accept, transfer, manage, and so on. In this case if one chose to manage the risk, the mitigation would require (one possibility) enshrining something in law, so that parents of these kids DON'T get prosecuted. That's a one-off, and possibly no more expensive than the cost of a single prosecution/incident. Given that, doesn't it make sense to do this, making it just go away, and giving people that peace of mind? Regardless of the low probability? Cost is clearly less than protecting a populace against meteors.

menacingly 9y ago

I keep seeing arguments that it's "rare", but I don't think that's actually the case. When I read about multiple cases in the news, _and_ 1 parent (out of only 12) in my cub scout den had to deal with someone calling the police on his kid playing alone, it certainly seems like a real threat. It's going to have a chilling effect. The problem isn't that you're going to go to jail, it's that once you're on the radar of a state agency, it's scary, and you end up in the position to prove that your home and family are safe for your kids. It's embarrassing and deliberately intimidating, and you ultimately have no power to stop at least a small disruption in your kids' lives.

grkvlt 9y ago

Exactly. If a thing gets reported in the news media, it is generally (by definition) newsworthy and therefore a rare or unusual event. So the news being reported about 'someone reported to the police for letting their children play outside' shows that such events are rare and nothing to be worried about...

emiliobumachar 9y ago

The big unstated assumption in your position is that getting trouble for letting one's kid unsupervised in the streets is unlikely given that one actually lets their kids unsupervised in the streets. In could be true, but another plausible alternative is that it's rare to get in trouble that way because no one is letting their kids unsupervised in the streets. An analogy: death by actively jumping off a plane without a parachute, if it exists, is extremely rare. Doesn't make it safe.