5 ms·
The inverse of "almost no one" is "almost everyone". When you say that "almost no one" reads warnings, you imply the set "almost everyone" is going to encounte
by JackCh 8y ago
The inverse of "almost no one" is "almost everyone". When you say that "almost no one" reads warnings, you imply the set "almost everyone" is going to encounter problems.
> " My point was that most people don't understand how dangerous tiny magnets might be for toddlers."
And yet, far from "most people" giving magnets to toddlers, very few people seem to.
- jacobolus 8y agoYou missed the point. Almost everyone lets toddlers play with toys that say "Choking hazard: Ages 3+", because that warning comes on basically all toys, including stuff like Jenga blocks, sidewalk chalk, .... Any parent who disallows their child from playing with any “age 3+” labeled toys/objects before age 3 is going to be significantly delaying their child’s development of basic fine motor skills. Some parents might become desensitized to the labels since the warning is used over-broadly, and might not realize that tiny magnets are something you have to be extra careful about, because the effects of swallowing magnets are generally worse than the effects of swallowing some little piece of plastic.
- JackCh 8y agoNo, you've completely missed the point. Whether or not "almost nobody heeds the warnings" is true or not is irrelevant because regardless of whether or not they're reading the labels their observed behavior is that most of them do not give toys like this to young kids. You don't need to read a warning label, or even know of the special medical threat of swallowed magnets to think this 'toy' was a bad idea for a small child. Would you give a toddler a box of completely inert culinary grade stainless steel BBs to play with? Of course you wouldn't. Your kid could eat them and shit them out to his hearts content, but he still might chip a tooth trying to bite them and even if he were toothless why would you give a kid even harmless metal balls? They're just going to wind up stuck in his nose or something. Nobody gives inert glass marbles this small to young kids. It's a bad idea all around even discounting the unique threat magnets pose. Which is probably why there are very few confirmed cases of kids actually eating these magnets.
- jacobolus 8y ago> box of completely inert culinary grade stainless steel BBs to play with? If you did, it wouldn’t really be a big deal. Toddlers daily encounter playgrounds full of tiny rocks, wood chips, etc. which are more dangerous than the BBs. Swallowing BBs is comparable to swallowing cherry pits. It’s very unlikely to be life threatening. Typically there is no noticeable effect, or there might be some minor discomfort as it works through the digestive system. I would be entirely comfortable letting my under 2 year old play with BB-sized steel or glass balls, under loose adult supervision, from a safety perspective (from a that’s-going-to-be-a-mess perspective I can well imagine avoiding giving kids BBs). More realistically, I can imagine letting an older child play with a box of BBs without worrying that a toddler would eat a few and die. Larger marbles are more of a choking hazard, and require closer adult supervision. But swallowing magnets is much more dangerous.
- DanBC 8y ago> I would be entirely comfortable letting my under 2 year old play with BB-sized steel or glass balls, under loose adult supervision, from a safety perspective You'll be spending time in ED having them removed from the nose or ear.
- jacobolus 8y agoFair enough. Thankfully we haven’t yet had any pebbles shoved in nose or ear, and we play with those on a regular basis. I feel like little objects making it into the mouth is significantly more common.
- tinus_hn 8y agoIt’s very easy to overlook the risk of these magnets pinching the intestines. Similarly children often swallow batteries and no one thinks it that’s a good thing but many people do not realize that the child can die from it and it should be treated as an emergency.
- JackCh 8y ago
- slg 8y ago>The inverse of "almost no one" is "almost everyone". When you say that "almost no one" reads warnings, you imply the set "almost everyone" is going to encounter problems. That does not follow logically at all. Just because someone doesn't heed the warning doesn't mean they will fall victim to what they are being warned about. Think of it like jaywalking. "Almost no one" heeds the warnings about the dangers of jaywalking. That does not mean that "almost everyone" would be hit by a car. Someone being mindless of the dangers of an activity does not mean they will automatically succumb to those dangers, but that also doesn't mean that the dangers were not real, serious, and worth protecting against.
- JackCh 8y ago> "That does not follow logically at all." I never said it follows in a strict mathematical sense, I said it was implied, and implied that it was implied in an informal sense. And I stand by that. By saying that most people don't read warning labels you absolutely meant to suggest that that a very large portion of the population would have trouble with products which require warning labels.
- slg 8y agoYou can say I phrased something poorly which implied something I didn't intend. However, you lose all credibility when you get to the point of saying I "absolutely meant to suggest" something. It is frankly insulting that you are pretending to know my intentions better than I do.
- DanBC 8y agoToddlers were not the only children being harmed. For example, teens were using the magnets as fake mouth piercings and swallowing them.