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by 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
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- blurbleblurble 1y agoIn practice this is going to be utilized to shut down sex education and other content deemed "harmful to children".
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago[flagged]
- JoshTriplett 1y agoWe're there. We're long past there. Start solving.
- lurk2 1y agoDo you have any examples of the finding being used to stymy sex education in schools?
- JoshTriplett 1y agoThere are many, many, many examples of every previous round of censorship in the name of "Think of the Children" being used against anything disliked by people in power, and filtered through the lens of the most conservative backwards puritans. Take a look at any banned book list. This is not a slippery slope fallacy, it's basic pattern recognition.
- lurk2 1y ago> There are many, many, many examples of every previous round of censorship in the name of "Think of the Children" being used against anything disliked by people in power Do you have any available?
- JoshTriplett 1y agohttps://pen.org/banned-books-list-2025/ https://pen.org/banned-books-list-2025/ https://bookshop.org/lists/banned-and-challenged-books-updated-2025 https://bookshop.org/lists/banned-and-challenged-books-updat... https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10 https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10
- lurk2 1y agoNone of these are sex education books.
- JoshTriplett 1y agoThe comment upthread was: > In practice this is going to be utilized to shut down sex education and other content deemed "harmful to children". Many of the books on the lists I linked, and many other such lists, are in fact educational in a variety of ways. Often they're banned precisely because they cover topics that people in power don't want there to be any education on. (And, to be clear, this comment should not be interpreted as in any way supporting the idea that a book should need to be "educational", or have any other redeeming quality, in order to not be banned.) "Sex education" is not so narrow as to only include an approved/mandated textbook (though those and their content do get affected by these attitudes as well). Having e.g. healthy relationships (or for that matter unhealthy relationships) depicted or described in fiction is part of a well-rounded education. It's also remarkable, and ironic, how often depictions of dystopias, particularly dystopias that restrict books and other access to information, get banned. And, frankly, banning something misses the opportunity to contextualize it and talk about it, and instead makes it more appealing.
- zeroonetwothree 1y agoStates have had these laws for a while now. Is there evidence that this has happened?
- tomhow 1y ago> TeH iNtErNeT Don't do this on HN. It's sneering and snark, and thus against the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y agoMaybe but it was part of my point, that the internet gets a pass for a vague variety of reasons.
- tomhow 1y agoWe’re just trying for something better here, and this is only a place where people want to participate because of the people who make the effort to make it better.
- zahlman 1y agoI guess this is the one place I have to actually voice my complaint. The entire thread is full of sneering and snark — dark allusions to fascism; unfounded (by logical necessity) allegations about the true motivations of people involved; and attempts to tie together all sorts of ideological enemies into a single outgroup, roughly labelled "Republicans". It is absolutely waging ideological warfare and it only seems to pass muster because it goes along with the community consensus rather than against it. This has been happening on seemingly every vaguely politically-relevant, popular post for months. It didn't seem to be happening when I joined the site, months before the election. https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative-the-eternal-struggle/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservativ... seems like relevant reading here. With a note that this is from the previous cycle, and nobody has apparently learned a damned thing.
- tomhow 1y agoI hear you. The problem is it's just the way the world is at the moment, and HN is part of the world. We don't like the kinds of things that are posted in these threads, and we try to minimize how much day-to-day political rage fodder gets front page space. At the same time, we have to recognize that these are issues that people care a lot about, and if people find that HN is a better place to have these discussions than elsewhere, then maybe we're offering something worthwhile by having these discussions here when they're about major developments. But the guidelines still apply and if people are attacking others and engaging in political/ideological battle, you can help us by flagging comments or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com to let us know about the worst stuff you see. We certainly wouldn't want HN to be like this forever (it's no fun to moderate, that's for sure). We'll keep doing what we can to move things in the right direction.