| > Sorry, I don't know what this means. You called something hyperbole. You said you had a hard time imagining someone in good faith wishing that the government would legislate away an industry so that they don't have to "parent." So I asked: What do you think the person you are responding too's position is?
What do you think is the best defense for that position?
What do you think that position is wrong despite what you see as its best defense?
I think the tobacco industry is an obvious industry to make reference to. I think now days most people who don't smoke would be happy to see it regulated away and I think it would be an extremely fringe position to think the tobacco industry should be able to advertise to kids today.> I'd be against most regulations that basically say "to protect the children, we will ban X for everyone". I'm sure there are exceptions though. Just because we don't know the full extent of how bad Facebook is now, doesn't mean it isn't bad. How bad do you think we thought smoking, opiates, or other problems were before we decided they were bad? We saw the correlation with harm of tobacco, investigated more deeply, then regulated their wide spread use particularly use by children. Facebook is modern day tobacco. I am much less black and white about this than you might expect, because I am generally pro letting people do what they want with their bodies. After the age of 25 (when a person's prefrontal cortex is fully developed) there are few good arguments for preventing a net tax payer from doing what they want to their bodies or time. If someone can be told they are old enough to die (or kill) for their country, that's another factor that makes limiting their freedom to make bad decisions a hard argument. > that the government might believe causes harm to children is quite unfortunate. When you say "the government" that is entirely jaded. There is more nuance than us (the oppressed) and them (the government). Replace the government with "my fellow neighbors," and I think it harms the anti-government righteousness a bit. The context of the original conversation was clearly not about banning Facebook, but about not being sad if they went away. Telling facebook it can't do business in utah if it serves children and Facebook deciding to not do any business in Utah as a result is not banning Facebook. |