5 ms·

It's the digitization of the mindset where parents wouldn't let their kids go a mile to the park alone, or go play with a friend on the next block, etc. By the

It's the digitization of the mindset where parents wouldn't let their kids go a mile to the park alone, or go play with a friend on the next block, etc. By the way, there's an app called life360 that's increasingly popular with parents of high school kids. It tracks the user everywhere, monitors driving speed, that sort of thing, so the parents can observe their children at all times. Some have even demanded that their children continue using it in college. It's a goddamn digital panopticon and it needs to stop.

josephcsible 5y ago
> Some have even demanded that their children continue using it in college. This seems like it needs to be fixed with legislation. Make it illegal to track others' location without their explicit consent (hopefully this is already the case, now that I think about it), and also make it illegal for anything whatsoever to be conditional on giving that consent (e.g., make it illegal to tell your kids "I'm only helping to pay for your college tuition, or letting you drive my car, if you install Life360").
- maccolgan 5y ago
  How can kids consent anyway?
  - giantg2 5y ago
    That's a great, and deep, question.
  - kongin 5y ago
    The idea of consent is a rather dumb one. It came out of kink. Communication and consent in that case is rather important since the difference between rape and battery and a fun night is rather thin. For some getting a toilet brushed vigorously stirred in their privates is a good time for most it isn't. Trying to apply that to normal people is not only bizarre but actively harmful. A much better one is harm minimization, everything people do is bad for them, we just want to make it the least bad it can be. When you start using that lens pretty much all our laws which deal with children are there to make adults feel better and nothing to do with actually protecting children. E.g. sexting is the safest way to have sex. It is also the only way to have sex that two 12 year olds will be arrested and put on the sex offender registry for.
    - dougmwne 5y ago
      I will also point out that we are happy to wave the consent banner when it is convenient and hide it away when it is not. Where is consent in the workplace? In our economic system? Eldercare? Marketing? Data collection? Drone attacks? And on and on. We basically run our society on meme morality.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      "The idea of consent is a rather dumb one. It came out of kink." We had Contracts for thousands of years, they are a form of concent in exchange for something. Without concent, you have no rights.
- listenallyall 5y ago
  Sure this app is kind of creepy but making it illegal for a parent to demand it? Hey great, instead of my wonderful parents paying for my college I'm going to report them to the cops, and send them to jail! That will show them! Of course now there's nobody to cover my college tuition but whatever. You are a mini-tyrant in training. Thinking the world's problems can all be fixed by making something illegal. Encouraging the government to interfere in intra-family relations. Never actually thinking about how any of these policies would play out. Insanity.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    Legislating parenting is always a bad idea.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "You are a mini-tyrant in training" He is tyranically fighting parental tyrany? How ironic. For every happy hamily I know one that's fucked up. Once you are 18, you are free to escape abusive parents, and that often means you loose their financial support. Sometimes thats what you have to do
    - listenallyall 5y ago
      Parents who want to pay for your college are abusive? I think you use that word extremely liberally. You are 100% correct that a person ought to be entirely independent upon reaching adulthood, if he/she so chooses. You know how you do it? "Mom, Dad, I'm not going to play by your rules any more, thanks but no thanks, I'm going to make my own way out there in the world." How successful are you going to be as an independent person if you don't have the balls to make a simple statement like that, if instead of declaring independence, your only means of resolving this conflict is by calling the cops and sending your parents to jail because they "abused" you by asking you to install some app?
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        "Parents who want to pay for your college are abusive? I think you use that word extremely liberally." Parenting is not all about money. Some parents have a very specific and tyrannical idea of how their kids 'should' turn out, and will not hesitate to spend money, beatings or literal blackmail to achieve it. Think of a wealthy father that beats his daughter because her behaviour is 'improper', or forces daughter/son into marriage. Or of Eton College which is stupidly elite and expensive, yet famous for beatings. This stuff is common enough that I've witnessed some of it, and it's not pretty. I am not claiming the proposal on offer here would be of any help, just trying to clarify the issue
- tclancy 5y ago
  I would be really interested in hearing from people downvoting this. What is problematic here?
- closeparen 5y ago
  The only way college students could be meaningfully freed from parental supervision is with tuition, room, and board affordable on a student’s earning power.
  - onethought 5y ago
    Outside the US I'm not sure "living at the college" is as much of a thing. Plenty of countries going to college and moving out of home are different events that happen at different times.
    - dougmwne 5y ago
      That seriously depends on where you live in relation to the school you want to go to. It's really the same in the US. One difference is that I'm only aware of the US having the land grant system where many large state schools were given chunks of land away from any city to start agricultural colleges. That leads to the situation where many large and prestigious universities are nowhere near where people live, so you really must live at the school.
      - onethought 5y ago
        Sure, as with anything that is geographically constrained. In Australia all the most prestigious universities are in the major cities. Same with Asian (Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, China, Japan) universities as well. I believe Europe is similar. The "move away for college" is very much a US piece of culture.
    - closeparen 5y ago
      Which further reinforces that college is extended adolescence, subject to parental supervision and control. If we want college students to have the rights and freedoms of adults, then they need the means to support themselves.
      - onethought 5y ago
        No, many move out during high school. Many move out after university. They are seperate events, not in any set order.
easton 5y ago
I know someone who's in college and still has to have this on her phone (it's not conditional on her paying for something, as far as I know she pays for her car). It's very odd. She's also not allowed to drive on the highway either (if she won't learn now, then when will she?). Outcome of this is whenever we see her someone else drives, so maybe it's just a long con to save her money on gas.
- Stupulous 5y ago
  That's absurd. Highways are much safer than local roads.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    And weed is safer than alcohol. Thats the thing- rules dont need to make sence, they just are.
kongin 5y ago
I'll be teaching my children how to use the most tinfoil floss hardware/software so they don't have a digital profile they don't want before they are 18. The pinephone and similar are great for anyone under 12, and hopefully will get more usable soon.
- blitzar 5y ago
  > The pinephone and similar are great for anyone under 12 You know what is also great for anyone under 12... not having a smartphone.
DarkByte8 5y ago
I think the kids should just refuse to wear the device or install the app. The parents want the kid to succeed have good grades, go to college, etc. if the parents can't be persuade by common sense and logic then the kid can leverage the success in order to persuade the parents to not require the app. What are the parents going to do, kick him out of the house and make him homeless? I know that it is easier said then done but still that is the only option I can think about.
- teddyh 5y ago
  Kids need to unionize.

josephcsible 5y ago

> Some have even demanded that their children continue using it in college. This seems like it needs to be fixed with legislation. Make it illegal to track others' location without their explicit consent (hopefully this is already the case, now that I think about it), and also make it illegal for anything whatsoever to be conditional on giving that consent (e.g., make it illegal to tell your kids "I'm only helping to pay for your college tuition, or letting you drive my car, if you install Life360").

maccolgan 5y ago
How can kids consent anyway?
- giantg2 5y ago
  That's a great, and deep, question.
- kongin 5y ago
  The idea of consent is a rather dumb one. It came out of kink. Communication and consent in that case is rather important since the difference between rape and battery and a fun night is rather thin. For some getting a toilet brushed vigorously stirred in their privates is a good time for most it isn't. Trying to apply that to normal people is not only bizarre but actively harmful. A much better one is harm minimization, everything people do is bad for them, we just want to make it the least bad it can be. When you start using that lens pretty much all our laws which deal with children are there to make adults feel better and nothing to do with actually protecting children. E.g. sexting is the safest way to have sex. It is also the only way to have sex that two 12 year olds will be arrested and put on the sex offender registry for.
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    I will also point out that we are happy to wave the consent banner when it is convenient and hide it away when it is not. Where is consent in the workplace? In our economic system? Eldercare? Marketing? Data collection? Drone attacks? And on and on. We basically run our society on meme morality.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "The idea of consent is a rather dumb one. It came out of kink." We had Contracts for thousands of years, they are a form of concent in exchange for something. Without concent, you have no rights.
listenallyall 5y ago
Sure this app is kind of creepy but making it illegal for a parent to demand it? Hey great, instead of my wonderful parents paying for my college I'm going to report them to the cops, and send them to jail! That will show them! Of course now there's nobody to cover my college tuition but whatever. You are a mini-tyrant in training. Thinking the world's problems can all be fixed by making something illegal. Encouraging the government to interfere in intra-family relations. Never actually thinking about how any of these policies would play out. Insanity.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Legislating parenting is always a bad idea.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "You are a mini-tyrant in training" He is tyranically fighting parental tyrany? How ironic. For every happy hamily I know one that's fucked up. Once you are 18, you are free to escape abusive parents, and that often means you loose their financial support. Sometimes thats what you have to do
  - listenallyall 5y ago
    Parents who want to pay for your college are abusive? I think you use that word extremely liberally. You are 100% correct that a person ought to be entirely independent upon reaching adulthood, if he/she so chooses. You know how you do it? "Mom, Dad, I'm not going to play by your rules any more, thanks but no thanks, I'm going to make my own way out there in the world." How successful are you going to be as an independent person if you don't have the balls to make a simple statement like that, if instead of declaring independence, your only means of resolving this conflict is by calling the cops and sending your parents to jail because they "abused" you by asking you to install some app?
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      "Parents who want to pay for your college are abusive? I think you use that word extremely liberally." Parenting is not all about money. Some parents have a very specific and tyrannical idea of how their kids 'should' turn out, and will not hesitate to spend money, beatings or literal blackmail to achieve it. Think of a wealthy father that beats his daughter because her behaviour is 'improper', or forces daughter/son into marriage. Or of Eton College which is stupidly elite and expensive, yet famous for beatings. This stuff is common enough that I've witnessed some of it, and it's not pretty. I am not claiming the proposal on offer here would be of any help, just trying to clarify the issue
tclancy 5y ago
I would be really interested in hearing from people downvoting this. What is problematic here?
closeparen 5y ago
The only way college students could be meaningfully freed from parental supervision is with tuition, room, and board affordable on a student’s earning power.
- onethought 5y ago
  Outside the US I'm not sure "living at the college" is as much of a thing. Plenty of countries going to college and moving out of home are different events that happen at different times.
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    That seriously depends on where you live in relation to the school you want to go to. It's really the same in the US. One difference is that I'm only aware of the US having the land grant system where many large state schools were given chunks of land away from any city to start agricultural colleges. That leads to the situation where many large and prestigious universities are nowhere near where people live, so you really must live at the school.
    - onethought 5y ago
      Sure, as with anything that is geographically constrained. In Australia all the most prestigious universities are in the major cities. Same with Asian (Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, China, Japan) universities as well. I believe Europe is similar. The "move away for college" is very much a US piece of culture.
  - closeparen 5y ago
    Which further reinforces that college is extended adolescence, subject to parental supervision and control. If we want college students to have the rights and freedoms of adults, then they need the means to support themselves.
    - onethought 5y ago
      No, many move out during high school. Many move out after university. They are seperate events, not in any set order.

easton 5y ago

I know someone who's in college and still has to have this on her phone (it's not conditional on her paying for something, as far as I know she pays for her car). It's very odd. She's also not allowed to drive on the highway either (if she won't learn now, then when will she?). Outcome of this is whenever we see her someone else drives, so maybe it's just a long con to save her money on gas.

Stupulous 5y ago
That's absurd. Highways are much safer than local roads.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  And weed is safer than alcohol. Thats the thing- rules dont need to make sence, they just are.

kongin 5y ago

I'll be teaching my children how to use the most tinfoil floss hardware/software so they don't have a digital profile they don't want before they are 18. The pinephone and similar are great for anyone under 12, and hopefully will get more usable soon.

blitzar 5y ago
> The pinephone and similar are great for anyone under 12 You know what is also great for anyone under 12... not having a smartphone.

DarkByte8 5y ago

I think the kids should just refuse to wear the device or install the app. The parents want the kid to succeed have good grades, go to college, etc. if the parents can't be persuade by common sense and logic then the kid can leverage the success in order to persuade the parents to not require the app. What are the parents going to do, kick him out of the house and make him homeless? I know that it is easier said then done but still that is the only option I can think about.

teddyh 5y ago
Kids need to unionize.