[dondawest]

>This is a controversial opinion, but one that's shared by almost every close friend of mine: labor laws for adolescents (I hesitate to call them "child labor laws," because infantilizing adolescents is the thing that caused the problem to begin with) have had a disastrous effect on society.

I am in full agreement with this opinion. At 14, I was ready to WORK! After school AND during summer! Yet "Child Labor laws" and related bullshit prevented me from contributing to society at a time when I was fully able and willing to.

[samcal]

There are plenty of ways for you to contribute to your society (even labor), you just can't get paid for them: volunteer, clean up, contribute to open-source codebases, etc. I think there's a reasonable argument that the best thing you can do for your society is learn and grow, and we need to support children that wish to do so.

[kick]

As someone who did contribute to libre codebases and volunteer at that age: it would have been vastly better for me, personally, were I able to sell my labor.

I would have still contributed to libre codebases, but it would have allowed me to become independent faster, and a person can only contribute marginally until they're fully independent.