[lectrick]

The US is a fucked up place because they want to make sure a babysitter doesn't shake their baby to death or a housecleaner doesn't break or pocket something without admitting it? Hyperbole much?

[izacus]

Hrmf, and your sentence isn't a hyperbole?

I mean, if we extend your logic, we should monitor everyone at all times because someone might just accidentally do something to hurt your child right? You never know why an extremely rare event like you mentioned could happen.

[icebraining]

Everyone is usually being monitored when around children of strangers; we just usually do so with human eyes instead of cameras. Babysitting is an exception, but why should it be?

[izacus]

That's... just not really true. Maybe in some parts of extreme helicopter parenting, but it's really not a global truth. If what you say is true in US then perhaps the upper poster wasn't so wrong about the state of the country :/.

[JoshTriplett]

The implication wasn't that parents are watching the kids at all times when they're with others, but that someone was. There are almost no situations in which kids are left alone with someone other than their parents, apart from babysitting.

[icebraining]

JoshTriplett is right, I was talking about other people, not necessarily parents. Also, I'm not from the US.

[lostlogin]

A camera doesn't stop either of those things, it just shows them happening.

[mikeash]

Which stops them from happening again.

Edit: also, cameras don't have to be secret. Knowledge that they're being recorded can often stop it happening the first time.

[maxerickson]

So the camera is the thin line between the stranger killing the child or not? Sounds pretty fucked up.

(I realize this isn't really addressing your intended meaning, but the ambiguity is there in what you said, which is pretty...)

[Dylan16807]

Pretty what? All sentences are ambiguous if you try hard enough. If you could tell what the meaning was, why are you insulting a strawman while actively admitting it is a strawman?

[maxerickson]

Pretty fucked up. I wasn't insulting a strawman, I was pointing out the mindset that thought the camera was saving babies lives.

(which obviously they aren't, they are documenting instances where vetting the sitter fails, not keeping marginal sitters in line)

[Dylan16807]

A camera can find mistreatment before it turns critical, and then the sitter is replaced.

That is protecting the baby's health, which sometimes reaches the level of saving lives.

Your logic only works if camera footage goes unwatched until the day the babysitter exits the business.

Edit: And that 'thin line' remark is 100% a strawman. I don't know how you can admit it isn't the "intended meaning" and yet claim it's not a strawman.

[maxerickson]

The statement about the intended meaning is there in an attempt to avoid this conversation. I was not putting the argument in their mouth, I was being bombastic in my criticism of their phrasing. If I was raising it as a serious argument, you are right, I probably wouldn't try to undermine it 10 words later.