4 ms·

> On the flip side, "think of the children" does not necessarily mean the argument is without merit. There are countless debates in which it is a valid point. F

> On the flip side, "think of the children" does not necessarily mean the argument is without merit. There are countless debates in which it is a valid point. For example, climate change is a big "think of the children" issue because the impact will be felt greater by children than by the people who are currently in power. It's funny you wrote this because you actually committed a straw man fallacy in your line of reasoning above. An argument of "Think of the children" generally means restricting something from dissemination, discussion, or presentation because it's availability or the process by which it is made available would be a negative children as they aren't fully grown and responsible adults. Restricting porn, or discussion or drugs or sexuality, or child porn laws all fit this. It does not literally mean doing anything positive because it will benefit a child. Saying that any argument that benefits children is a "think of the children" argument is a strawman fallacy. [1] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

hvidgaard 5y ago
> An argument of "Think of the children" generally means restricting something from dissemination, discussion, or presentation because it's availability or the process by which it is made available would be a negative children as they aren't fully grown and responsible adults. Restricting porn, or discussion or drugs or sexuality, or child porn laws all fit this. It does not literally mean doing anything positive because it will benefit a child. Says who? And the argument in question is actually more "if we don't do this, there might not be an liveable earth for our descendants" - you don't have to agree, but from their point of view its far from "doing anything positive because it will benefit a child".
- guerrilla 5y ago
  Says the people saying the term as shorthand to mean that, which includes the post that was being responded to.
candiodari 5y ago
> It does not literally mean doing anything positive because it will benefit a child. That, we don't do. When the state assumes, often through force, responsibility over children everyone seems happy that this is the result: http://web.archive.org/web/20210809061557/https://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/article238206754.html http://web.archive.org/web/20210809061557/https://www.kansas... We do lots of things with the state "to protect children". With one MAJOR exception: actually taking decent care of children dependent on the state. Which, to me, really calls into question all these efforts. The number of efforts attempting to "catch" various problem situations for kids, only to throw the kids found into state care, which is horribly bad. And whilst I understand that some home situations are indeed beyond horrible and kids need rescuing from them, if you actually go look at the stories of kids in state care, actual abuse is pretty rare. Actual abuse is much more commonly found in youth prisons than it is found in child services institutions. Poverty, mental problems and substance abuse by parents at home are the biggest problems (yes, each bigger than the stereotypical criminal reasons. And even the relatively small group of criminal kids outnumber actually physically abused kids 10-to-1. Kids abandoned by their parents, also a tiny group, far outnumber actually abused kids) It seems to me the whole "protecting kids" is just a 1000 major efforts to catch people in bad situations ... and punish them (situations often not their fault, especially poverty, or certainly not fully their fault). Then, because the kids involved are an annoying detail left behind when parents are punished like, they are ... well, first of all, deeply hidden, far from view. Needless to say, once hidden they are not taken care of very well at all. This is done so a thousand efforts, and the police and child services itself can continue focusing on the frontend and catching yet-another-new-kind-of-child-abuse to satisfy various interest groups. From the LGBTQ lobby (fortunately these days in the right direction: making sure kids are allowed to be LGBTQ, rather than as little as 10 years ago, punishing them for it) to saving money and/or trouble in schools (such as expensive adaptation of school buildings to handicaps), to helping courts enforce divorce settlements (when parents refuse to abide visitation rights for instance). But even with very serious child abuse you have to wonder: the child protection system is saturated with violence, drugs and even prostitution. That means the system is not capable of protecting children from violence, drugs or prostitution. But nobody seems to care about that. It seems clear that if the rule is introduced that the situation of the child must improve as a result of child protection or child protection must leave the child alone after 6 months or so, that it will shrink 90%+ in short order. Such a rule would have the enormous benefit that it would force child protection efforts to improve children's situations directly, rather than finding problems and throwing the kids found into an abyss. So no these efforts, from CSAM to ... are just to punish people for not abiding by mostly cultural standards. They are not about protecting kids at all. The most generous thing you can say is that they sometimes make it difficult to profit from abusing kids.

hvidgaard 5y ago

> An argument of "Think of the children" generally means restricting something from dissemination, discussion, or presentation because it's availability or the process by which it is made available would be a negative children as they aren't fully grown and responsible adults. Restricting porn, or discussion or drugs or sexuality, or child porn laws all fit this. It does not literally mean doing anything positive because it will benefit a child. Says who? And the argument in question is actually more "if we don't do this, there might not be an liveable earth for our descendants" - you don't have to agree, but from their point of view its far from "doing anything positive because it will benefit a child".

guerrilla 5y ago
Says the people saying the term as shorthand to mean that, which includes the post that was being responded to.

candiodari 5y ago

> It does not literally mean doing anything positive because it will benefit a child. That, we don't do. When the state assumes, often through force, responsibility over children everyone seems happy that this is the result: http://web.archive.org/web/20210809061557/https://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/article238206754.html http://web.archive.org/web/20210809061557/https://www.kansas... We do lots of things with the state "to protect children". With one MAJOR exception: actually taking decent care of children dependent on the state. Which, to me, really calls into question all these efforts. The number of efforts attempting to "catch" various problem situations for kids, only to throw the kids found into state care, which is horribly bad. And whilst I understand that some home situations are indeed beyond horrible and kids need rescuing from them, if you actually go look at the stories of kids in state care, actual abuse is pretty rare. Actual abuse is much more commonly found in youth prisons than it is found in child services institutions. Poverty, mental problems and substance abuse by parents at home are the biggest problems (yes, each bigger than the stereotypical criminal reasons. And even the relatively small group of criminal kids outnumber actually physically abused kids 10-to-1. Kids abandoned by their parents, also a tiny group, far outnumber actually abused kids) It seems to me the whole "protecting kids" is just a 1000 major efforts to catch people in bad situations ... and punish them (situations often not their fault, especially poverty, or certainly not fully their fault). Then, because the kids involved are an annoying detail left behind when parents are punished like, they are ... well, first of all, deeply hidden, far from view. Needless to say, once hidden they are not taken care of very well at all. This is done so a thousand efforts, and the police and child services itself can continue focusing on the frontend and catching yet-another-new-kind-of-child-abuse to satisfy various interest groups. From the LGBTQ lobby (fortunately these days in the right direction: making sure kids are allowed to be LGBTQ, rather than as little as 10 years ago, punishing them for it) to saving money and/or trouble in schools (such as expensive adaptation of school buildings to handicaps), to helping courts enforce divorce settlements (when parents refuse to abide visitation rights for instance). But even with very serious child abuse you have to wonder: the child protection system is saturated with violence, drugs and even prostitution. That means the system is not capable of protecting children from violence, drugs or prostitution. But nobody seems to care about that. It seems clear that if the rule is introduced that the situation of the child must improve as a result of child protection or child protection must leave the child alone after 6 months or so, that it will shrink 90%+ in short order. Such a rule would have the enormous benefit that it would force child protection efforts to improve children's situations directly, rather than finding problems and throwing the kids found into an abyss. So no these efforts, from CSAM to ... are just to punish people for not abiding by mostly cultural standards. They are not about protecting kids at all. The most generous thing you can say is that they sometimes make it difficult to profit from abusing kids.