8 ms·

It would be a fun exercise to replace social media with alcohol in this article so that it argues we shouldn't ban children from drinking because drinking is ba

It would be a fun exercise to replace social media with alcohol in this article so that it argues we shouldn't ban children from drinking because drinking is bad for adults too.

n4r9 9mo ago
Has anyone even studied the effect of forcing ten year olds to drink a daily litre of vodka?
- ReptileMan 9mo ago
  This is just called being teenager in the Balkans. Eventually we turn out fine.
  - M95D 9mo ago
    Did you consider that this might be part of why Balkans are so far behind the rest of Europe?
    - ReptileMan 9mo ago
      No we are behind because our development was stunted by 45 years of socialism and 35 years of wild corruption.
      - M95D 9mo ago
        Socialism... you probably mean communism, but OK. I agree. The wild corruption... no. That wasn't externally imposed on you/us. Estonia, Letonia, Poland, Czechoslovakia started the race to improve themselves at the same time, and they're far ahead now.
        n4r9 9mo ago
        In which case your original question doesn't make sense. The annual alcohol consumption in those countries is around 11 litres of pure alcohol per person. The only Balkan country coming close to that is Bulgaria.
        M95D 9mo ago
        I couldn't find alcohol quantity consumption statistics for teenagers. Got any links for your data? I found data on self-reported frequency of alcohol consumtion for teenagers and the results mostly sustain my opinion. For example, "every week" reported consumption: Netherlands (58.9%, top of the list), Greece (39.8%), Czechia (23.5%), Croatia (21.9%), Bulgaria (20%), Poland (11.7%), Slovakia (10.3%), Estonia (10%), Romania (8.4%), Latvia (4.4%), Lithuania (3%), which proves my point... But then, "not in the last year" reported consumption: Lithuania (51.7% top of the list), Romania (49.1%, second, but I highly doubt this data, I live here and I know better), Bulgaria (46.1%, third place), Slovakia and Croatia (35.2%), Latvia (33.8%), Poland (30.6%), Czechia (20.2%), Estonia (19.6%), Slovenia (18.1%), which is mixed and doesn't prove anything. It is my impression that "not in the last year" category includes most of the liars and is not to be trusted. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/hlth_ehis_al1c__custom_19698158/default/table https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/hlth_ehis_al1... (you need to manually select age class)
RobotToaster 9mo ago
In most of Europe it's legal for Children to drink alcohol.
- notTooFarGone 9mo ago
  You should try to go to "most of Europe" and try to get alcohol as someone <16 and see how that goes.
  - RobotToaster 9mo ago
    The comment I replied to specifically said "ban children from drinking", not purchase alcohol. For instance here in the UK it's legal for any child over 5 to drink in private.
    - jeltz 9mo ago
      Yeah, but that pedantry did not add much. Yes, we do not ban children from drinking but there are still limits on their ability to buy and consume. A responsible adult needs to be present when children consume alcohol in many countries.
      - philipwhiuk 9mo ago
        > A responsible adult needs to be present when children consume alcohol in many countries. Present? Or just buy it originally. There are no laws similar to gun safes requiring alcohol safes.
  - inglor_cz 9mo ago
    Drinking != Buying. It is usually legal for parents to give under-18s a sip of an alcoholic beverage. It is not legal for under-18s to buy any such beverage in a shop.
  - trelane 9mo ago
    My son had no problem getting a beer with his meal at 15 in Munich. We were there, though, so it was supervised. It was also Radlers, so half beer, half soda.
lapcat 9mo ago
We shouldn't ban children from drinking. It doesn't even help, because kids drink anyway, just illegally and largely unsupervised by adults. I certainly drank like a fish when I was underage.
- alameenpd 9mo ago
  It does help actually. Since it’s banned it’s not socially acceptable . And that makes it sort of regulated
  - lapcat 9mo ago
    > not socially acceptable I think you misspelled "cool".
    - alameenpd 9mo ago
      you think?
- Forgeties79 9mo ago
  Let me make a parallel argument: We shouldn’t ban drinking and driving. It doesn’t even help, because people do it anyway. You seem to be setting the bar at “if anyone violates the law then the law is a failure and should be revoked.” But that’s why we have court systems. They don’t just determine if someone broke the law, but also what to do when people inevitably do. You’re operating in a world where the only restrictive laws we should have are ones where it eradicates certain behaviors 100%. You’re basically arguing against having laws rather than the merits of the law and its efficacy. Also “drinking like a a fish” when you were a kid was terrible for your development even if you turned out ok. Many people do not. It’s not even debatable, we know the numbers on this.
  - lapcat 9mo ago
    > We shouldn’t ban drinking and driving. It doesn’t even help, because people do it anyway. > Do you see the trouble with the logic here? I think you misunderstood my comment. The second sentence was not intended to be an argument or justification for the first sentence. The first sentence stands alone: I think it's unprincipled to ban children from drinking. The second sentence is merely a corollary. Also, I think that legalization and the introduction of adult supervision would ameliorate some of the problems associated with youth drinking, would "moderate" it to some extent. My view is that the government should not try to be a parent, should not restrict personal freedom, not even of kids, except in so far as one's exercise of freedom harms others, and even there it has to be significant harm, e.g., you can ban violence but not hurting someone else's feelings. The drunk driving laws, which apply to all ages, may be justified by the known role of drunk driving in car crashes. The same principle apples to public smoking bans: the issue is not the first-hand smoke, which is your own business, but rather the second-hand smoke, affecting people who choose not to smoke.
rasmus-kirk 9mo ago
I think this is a good point. What differentiates alcohol and social media? Well, social media is not physically addictive, but it's pretty clearly psychologically addictive. Along those lines it would be hard to argue that children should have unfettered access to social media. Social media is also _not_ like TV in that there's psychologists and algorithmic engineers working hard to make these types of apps as addictive as possible. Not to mention the fact that children obviously can't consent to having their data harvested, most ADULTS don't understand the ramifications of that, much less children. All of this also applies to adults, I don't like how corporate profit-seeeking algorithms dictate public discourse and I think it's perfectly reasonable to combat this. The great question is how to do so without trampling on people's right to freedom. The EU tends to combat "misinformation", but this has loads of problems, and I think it misses the mark of what the problem truly is. In my opinions it's the algorithms that maximize fear responses and lead people down rabbit holes that's the true problem. I think the best way to combat it is by supporting federation and decentralization of the internet and attacking the advertising industry that maximizes eyeballs and time spent on the platform, rather than providing service to paying users. It also has the beneficial side-effect of increasing freedom of thought and speech rather than limiting it. I know some people see the fragmentation of communities as the leading cause of echo-chambers, but this is not my impression. Actually, the smaller internet communities are often less extreme than algorithmically dominated central-hubs. Pseudonymous small communities function more like the local village that tends to mitigate extremism as the loudest, more extremist, community members can be challenged, without those challengers drowning in potential oppressive moderation and hive-mind mentality.
- duskdozer 9mo ago
  That is the real issue. The problem is that the things that cause the addiction and harm are the same things that are useful for generating profit and spreading propaganda. I'm not sure I see a viable solution that doesn't involve some people willingly giving up a very large amount of wealth or power.
- vlad-roundabout 9mo ago
  Then force them to make it less addictive, because they can!
ReptileMan 9mo ago
Banning children from drinking never really made much sense. A glass of wine or beer for kids in their early teens was very normal in Europe until recently (and still unofficially is) and we have not turned into hellhole. The temperance movement is/was uniquely American stupidity.
BoxFour 9mo ago
Or things like cigarettes, guns, driver’s licenses, junk food, etc. Even for those though, opinions are all over the place: Everything from "no rules" to "kids should be allowed to own drink alcohol under the supervision of their parents" to “it’s fine for adults to drink, but not kids” to “alcohol should obviously be banned for everyone." For most of these we settled into a happy medium that generally everyone feels is acceptable, but we still change our opinions semi-frequently: Cigarettes being a great example in our lifetime. I get the argument that social media is probably closer to junk food than to firearms, but: a) Plenty of people argue that junk food should be banned for kids too! Or at least tightly regulated. b) It’s definitely not consensus opinion that social media is more like junk food than, say, cigarettes. People will vehemently argue either side of that.
br121 9mo ago
The article doesn't say, "we shouldn't ban for children because it's bad for adults as well", it says, "we shouldn't regulate for the non-voting pouplation only". Alcohol is regulated for adults, not as much as for children of course, but it's nevertheless regulated (and taxed), and from the same people arguing that we should raise the drinking age (in europe, where it's indeed lower than health expert suggests), we hear argument on increased regulations for adults as well. The social media ban, on the other hand, is for children and children only

It would be a fun exercise to replace social media with alcohol in this article so that it argues we shouldn't ban children from drinking because drinking is bad for adults too.

n4r9 9mo ago

Has anyone even studied the effect of forcing ten year olds to drink a daily litre of vodka?

ReptileMan 9mo ago
This is just called being teenager in the Balkans. Eventually we turn out fine.
- M95D 9mo ago
  Did you consider that this might be part of why Balkans are so far behind the rest of Europe?
  - ReptileMan 9mo ago
    No we are behind because our development was stunted by 45 years of socialism and 35 years of wild corruption.
    - M95D 9mo ago
      Socialism... you probably mean communism, but OK. I agree. The wild corruption... no. That wasn't externally imposed on you/us. Estonia, Letonia, Poland, Czechoslovakia started the race to improve themselves at the same time, and they're far ahead now.
      - n4r9 9mo ago
        In which case your original question doesn't make sense. The annual alcohol consumption in those countries is around 11 litres of pure alcohol per person. The only Balkan country coming close to that is Bulgaria.
        M95D 9mo ago
        I couldn't find alcohol quantity consumption statistics for teenagers. Got any links for your data? I found data on self-reported frequency of alcohol consumtion for teenagers and the results mostly sustain my opinion. For example, "every week" reported consumption: Netherlands (58.9%, top of the list), Greece (39.8%), Czechia (23.5%), Croatia (21.9%), Bulgaria (20%), Poland (11.7%), Slovakia (10.3%), Estonia (10%), Romania (8.4%), Latvia (4.4%), Lithuania (3%), which proves my point... But then, "not in the last year" reported consumption: Lithuania (51.7% top of the list), Romania (49.1%, second, but I highly doubt this data, I live here and I know better), Bulgaria (46.1%, third place), Slovakia and Croatia (35.2%), Latvia (33.8%), Poland (30.6%), Czechia (20.2%), Estonia (19.6%), Slovenia (18.1%), which is mixed and doesn't prove anything. It is my impression that "not in the last year" category includes most of the liars and is not to be trusted. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/hlth_ehis_al1c__custom_19698158/default/table https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/hlth_ehis_al1... (you need to manually select age class)

RobotToaster 9mo ago

In most of Europe it's legal for Children to drink alcohol.

notTooFarGone 9mo ago
You should try to go to "most of Europe" and try to get alcohol as someone <16 and see how that goes.
- RobotToaster 9mo ago
  The comment I replied to specifically said "ban children from drinking", not purchase alcohol. For instance here in the UK it's legal for any child over 5 to drink in private.
  - jeltz 9mo ago
    Yeah, but that pedantry did not add much. Yes, we do not ban children from drinking but there are still limits on their ability to buy and consume. A responsible adult needs to be present when children consume alcohol in many countries.
    - philipwhiuk 9mo ago
      > A responsible adult needs to be present when children consume alcohol in many countries. Present? Or just buy it originally. There are no laws similar to gun safes requiring alcohol safes.
- inglor_cz 9mo ago
  Drinking != Buying. It is usually legal for parents to give under-18s a sip of an alcoholic beverage. It is not legal for under-18s to buy any such beverage in a shop.
- trelane 9mo ago
  My son had no problem getting a beer with his meal at 15 in Munich. We were there, though, so it was supervised. It was also Radlers, so half beer, half soda.

lapcat 9mo ago

We shouldn't ban children from drinking. It doesn't even help, because kids drink anyway, just illegally and largely unsupervised by adults. I certainly drank like a fish when I was underage.

alameenpd 9mo ago
It does help actually. Since it’s banned it’s not socially acceptable . And that makes it sort of regulated
- lapcat 9mo ago
  > not socially acceptable I think you misspelled "cool".
  - alameenpd 9mo ago
    you think?
Forgeties79 9mo ago
Let me make a parallel argument: We shouldn’t ban drinking and driving. It doesn’t even help, because people do it anyway. You seem to be setting the bar at “if anyone violates the law then the law is a failure and should be revoked.” But that’s why we have court systems. They don’t just determine if someone broke the law, but also what to do when people inevitably do. You’re operating in a world where the only restrictive laws we should have are ones where it eradicates certain behaviors 100%. You’re basically arguing against having laws rather than the merits of the law and its efficacy. Also “drinking like a a fish” when you were a kid was terrible for your development even if you turned out ok. Many people do not. It’s not even debatable, we know the numbers on this.
- lapcat 9mo ago
  > We shouldn’t ban drinking and driving. It doesn’t even help, because people do it anyway. > Do you see the trouble with the logic here? I think you misunderstood my comment. The second sentence was not intended to be an argument or justification for the first sentence. The first sentence stands alone: I think it's unprincipled to ban children from drinking. The second sentence is merely a corollary. Also, I think that legalization and the introduction of adult supervision would ameliorate some of the problems associated with youth drinking, would "moderate" it to some extent. My view is that the government should not try to be a parent, should not restrict personal freedom, not even of kids, except in so far as one's exercise of freedom harms others, and even there it has to be significant harm, e.g., you can ban violence but not hurting someone else's feelings. The drunk driving laws, which apply to all ages, may be justified by the known role of drunk driving in car crashes. The same principle apples to public smoking bans: the issue is not the first-hand smoke, which is your own business, but rather the second-hand smoke, affecting people who choose not to smoke.

rasmus-kirk 9mo ago

I think this is a good point. What differentiates alcohol and social media? Well, social media is not physically addictive, but it's pretty clearly psychologically addictive. Along those lines it would be hard to argue that children should have unfettered access to social media. Social media is also _not_ like TV in that there's psychologists and algorithmic engineers working hard to make these types of apps as addictive as possible. Not to mention the fact that children obviously can't consent to having their data harvested, most ADULTS don't understand the ramifications of that, much less children. All of this also applies to adults, I don't like how corporate profit-seeeking algorithms dictate public discourse and I think it's perfectly reasonable to combat this. The great question is how to do so without trampling on people's right to freedom. The EU tends to combat "misinformation", but this has loads of problems, and I think it misses the mark of what the problem truly is. In my opinions it's the algorithms that maximize fear responses and lead people down rabbit holes that's the true problem. I think the best way to combat it is by supporting federation and decentralization of the internet and attacking the advertising industry that maximizes eyeballs and time spent on the platform, rather than providing service to paying users. It also has the beneficial side-effect of increasing freedom of thought and speech rather than limiting it. I know some people see the fragmentation of communities as the leading cause of echo-chambers, but this is not my impression. Actually, the smaller internet communities are often less extreme than algorithmically dominated central-hubs. Pseudonymous small communities function more like the local village that tends to mitigate extremism as the loudest, more extremist, community members can be challenged, without those challengers drowning in potential oppressive moderation and hive-mind mentality.

duskdozer 9mo ago
That is the real issue. The problem is that the things that cause the addiction and harm are the same things that are useful for generating profit and spreading propaganda. I'm not sure I see a viable solution that doesn't involve some people willingly giving up a very large amount of wealth or power.
vlad-roundabout 9mo ago
Then force them to make it less addictive, because they can!

ReptileMan 9mo ago

Banning children from drinking never really made much sense. A glass of wine or beer for kids in their early teens was very normal in Europe until recently (and still unofficially is) and we have not turned into hellhole. The temperance movement is/was uniquely American stupidity.

BoxFour 9mo ago

Or things like cigarettes, guns, driver’s licenses, junk food, etc. Even for those though, opinions are all over the place: Everything from "no rules" to "kids should be allowed to own drink alcohol under the supervision of their parents" to “it’s fine for adults to drink, but not kids” to “alcohol should obviously be banned for everyone." For most of these we settled into a happy medium that generally everyone feels is acceptable, but we still change our opinions semi-frequently: Cigarettes being a great example in our lifetime. I get the argument that social media is probably closer to junk food than to firearms, but: a) Plenty of people argue that junk food should be banned for kids too! Or at least tightly regulated. b) It’s definitely not consensus opinion that social media is more like junk food than, say, cigarettes. People will vehemently argue either side of that.

br121 9mo ago

The article doesn't say, "we shouldn't ban for children because it's bad for adults as well", it says, "we shouldn't regulate for the non-voting pouplation only". Alcohol is regulated for adults, not as much as for children of course, but it's nevertheless regulated (and taxed), and from the same people arguing that we should raise the drinking age (in europe, where it's indeed lower than health expert suggests), we hear argument on increased regulations for adults as well. The social media ban, on the other hand, is for children and children only