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Also corporations will gladly poison children if it will enrich some stock-holding heir without consequence. I am not mustering up a lot of sympathy for corpora

Also corporations will gladly poison children if it will enrich some stock-holding heir without consequence. I am not mustering up a lot of sympathy for corporations manufacturing hazardous materials for children that then get sued. The major removal of agency for working people is by corporations and their aristocratic heir majority owners. Lawyers suing corporations for harming children are one of the things working people have to regain agency, as are laws to protect us. There is too little of it, not too much of that.

linksnapzz 5y ago
These are chemistry sets. They are, when used inappropriately, just as likely to cause harm as a sawzall, a hammer, or a cuisinart. I assure you, the "aristocratic heir majority owners" are also interested in letting their kids have access to experimental chemistry; and lawyers depriving any child of the opportunity to experience such (or to learn how to use a hammer, a sawzall, or a cuisinart for that matter) does no one any good, least of all working people.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  I feel like you've actually kind of proven the reasonability of what actually happened to chemistry sets with this comparison. Fully-functional sawzalls, hammers, and Cuisinarts don't get actively marketed to children. You can buy them and let children use them, just as you can with (non-children-marketed) chemistry supplies, and in the same way that comes with the societal understanding that, by letting a child use something not marketed for use by children, you'll be providing suitable safety instruction and oversight yourself.
  - scaramanga 5y ago
    Yeah, this is a pretty good explanation, chemistry sets may be nerfed because the risk of giving poisons and invisible flames to children as toys far outweighs the benefits which accrue to a small minority who would gain from this. And the children who would gain from it have other ways to access bomb-making or nuclear-reactor making materials if they really want to: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/150726-nuclear-reactor-fusion-science-kid-ngbooktalk https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/150726-nu... That all seems to be corroborated by the fact there doesn't seem to be any shortage of scientifically gifted young adults. If anything we're on a golden age of scientific discovery. Teenagers fairly regularly make contributions to science, and chemistry in particular. It doesn't look as though there is some broad over-protective social force holding children back from developing adult skills and that this whole thing is much more likely to be a subjective impression of the author. From a quick google: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/teen-genius-5-promising-scientists-under-20 https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/teen-genius-5-... https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/6-sensational-discoveries-that-teenagers-shook-the-world-with-at-the-google-and-intel-science-fairs-717710/ https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/6-sensational-disco... Of course, there are still the old-fashioned forces of parental and social neglect, and the fact that opportunities and neglect are not evenly distributed throughout the society (being much more dispersed/concentrated, respectively in poor households). But the author does not seem interested in that. One can only speculate as to why.

linksnapzz 5y ago

These are chemistry sets. They are, when used inappropriately, just as likely to cause harm as a sawzall, a hammer, or a cuisinart. I assure you, the "aristocratic heir majority owners" are also interested in letting their kids have access to experimental chemistry; and lawyers depriving any child of the opportunity to experience such (or to learn how to use a hammer, a sawzall, or a cuisinart for that matter) does no one any good, least of all working people.

crooked-v 5y ago
I feel like you've actually kind of proven the reasonability of what actually happened to chemistry sets with this comparison. Fully-functional sawzalls, hammers, and Cuisinarts don't get actively marketed to children. You can buy them and let children use them, just as you can with (non-children-marketed) chemistry supplies, and in the same way that comes with the societal understanding that, by letting a child use something not marketed for use by children, you'll be providing suitable safety instruction and oversight yourself.
- scaramanga 5y ago
  Yeah, this is a pretty good explanation, chemistry sets may be nerfed because the risk of giving poisons and invisible flames to children as toys far outweighs the benefits which accrue to a small minority who would gain from this. And the children who would gain from it have other ways to access bomb-making or nuclear-reactor making materials if they really want to: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/150726-nuclear-reactor-fusion-science-kid-ngbooktalk https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/150726-nu... That all seems to be corroborated by the fact there doesn't seem to be any shortage of scientifically gifted young adults. If anything we're on a golden age of scientific discovery. Teenagers fairly regularly make contributions to science, and chemistry in particular. It doesn't look as though there is some broad over-protective social force holding children back from developing adult skills and that this whole thing is much more likely to be a subjective impression of the author. From a quick google: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/teen-genius-5-promising-scientists-under-20 https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/teen-genius-5-... https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/6-sensational-discoveries-that-teenagers-shook-the-world-with-at-the-google-and-intel-science-fairs-717710/ https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/6-sensational-disco... Of course, there are still the old-fashioned forces of parental and social neglect, and the fact that opportunities and neglect are not evenly distributed throughout the society (being much more dispersed/concentrated, respectively in poor households). But the author does not seem interested in that. One can only speculate as to why.