[sophacles]

How about: If you don't want your kids to see it, that's on you. Either accept that you are a shitty parent who can't raise children to your satisfaction, or get better at parenting. Don't force consequences on me just because you are incompetent.

[nathan_compton]

I'm against forcing people to provide their ID in order to see pornography. Indeed, I am, if anything, supportive of adults being able to understand and fully experience their erotic lives, as long as no one is harmed, and to do so anonymously where possible.

But your attitude is, in a historical context, weird. At basically no point in history has it been the case that the sole responsibility for the well being of children lay entirely with the parents. If you look, for instance, at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (see the Parenthood article section Parental Responsibilities), you will see, for instance, that throughout most of western history and for most people, there is an explicit or implicit understanding that it is, in fact, the parents who operate as stewards of children _on behalf of_ society and that the ultimate locus of responsibility for the security and well being of children is the society at large, not the parents. This is why, for instance, the state is typically understood to have the right to remove a child from the home of an abusive or neglectful parent. Given that understanding, there is a commensurate power in society to make rules which may protect children and in our particular historical moment these rules take the form of laws at multiple levels of government.

It places a powerful (and disordered) burden on parents to make them _exclusively_ responsible for the safety and wellbeing of their children.

[Retric]

It very much lines up with the historical context.

In Hammurabi's Code fathers could literally sell their kids into slavery. This seems strange, shouldn’t society protect kids? But it turns out that’s a relatively recent idea, instead there were rules around what happens when both parents die but children were plentiful and many where injured or even killed by their parents without consequence.

[nathan_compton]

Ah yes, who doesn't want to return to the good old days of the code of Hammurabi.

[dwallin]

I do believe it is quite clearly a rebuttal to the following overreaching statement:

> At basically no point in history has it been the case that the sole responsibility for the well being of children lay entirely with the parents.

[plokiju]

Weren’t you the one just making an appeal to history and tradition above?

[defen]

If someone makes an appeal to tradition/history, I don't think it's reasonable to conclude that they're advocating for things which happened 4,000 years ago in a society completely alien to our own.

[Retric]

That’s fair, but if there argument is “At basically no point in history…” it is reasonable to mention that they are mistaken in that belief and the reverse was true for most of recorded history.

Which doesn’t mean I disagree with them, just that their argument isn’t sound. Slavery was also depressingly common and I am glad it’s become vastly less common today.

[l1tany11]

Historically the level of privacy we have now is a recent phenomenon. What would nudity, sexuality and pornography be like if it weren’t taboo at all? Maybe societies role in this matter is creating the problem in the first place. And the best thing for it to do is to abandon the puritanical principles that probably lead to the issue in the first place.

If the community’s role is to protect children, maybe the community shouldn’t be creating the trap in the first place.

Children are curious creatures. It’s natural that they are curious about sex and the human body. In the past they could look around and see members of their family, tribe, etc nude and having sex. Now we’ve taken that away and made it taboo. You can either do nothing, try and lock it away harder, or go the other way.

It’s a very complex issue though so there’s nothing close to easy. But this kind of legislation seems like a fight that has just as much to do with a particular religious viewpoint as it does anything to do with “protect the children”.

[scarface74]

I have no desire for “society” to make rules that govern my kids. Especially seeing that between gerrymandering, the electoral college and the fact that each state no matter what the size has two senators means that people who would love to impose their religious beliefs on others have an outsized influence on laws that are passed.

[nathan_compton]

You may not have any such desire but imagine if you died and your kid was adopted by an abusive person you _would_ want the state to intervene. I'm as unsatisfied as you are about the current political situation in the United States, but the solution isn't to just demand the government withdraw. It is to actually engage _more_ politically and with an understanding of what the true responsibilities of the state are.

The state will _inevitably exercise power_. Only a vigilant citizenry can hope to modulate it.

[scarface74]

So exactly how is “engaging politically” going to help when the majority viewpoint is already ignored because they know they can just appealed to their gerrymandered system?

Republicans can completely ignore California and Democrats can completely ignore the Bible Belt (except GA which is now Purple)

As far as what the state can do. Again as a parent, when my children were minors, we chose trusted family members to be their guardian. If that wasn’t an option, we would have chosen friends.

No matter how you feel about the abortion issue for instance, even in conservative states, the majority of people don’t want more restrictions as proven by recent ballot initiatives, yet the politicians are still passing laws.

In my home state (Florida) the government is wasting all kinds of taxpayer money going after Disney and out of the list of things Florida and especially my city (Orlando) cares about is that Disney spoke out against a policy.

[nathan_compton]

There are ways to engage politically that do not depend on the legal structures in place.

[scarface74]

So what is the purpose of “engaging politically” if it’s not to change laws.

[freedomben]

Meta comment: Your attempted use of markdown italics multiple times in your comment made it a little unreadable (I made this mistake for a long time myself). So pro-tip: On HN, italics are the * * rather than markdown's _ _

[nathan_compton]

Thanks! Muscle memory.

[Retric]

It’s perfectly possible to limit the state to only specific areas, we don’t let it set up arranged marriages for example.

As to that specific example, I trust my own judgment for who my kids would be reared by more than I trust a bureaucrat with the same role.

[scarface74]

It very much restricts people who want to marry more than one person from doing so and until a few years ago, the government restricted marriage to heterosexual couples.

[Retric]

The state doesn’t recognize such unions, but it doesn’t prohibit them either.

So you can’t have multiple marriage licenses, but you can legally hold a public polygamist civil ceremony followed by “cohabitation.”

Granted people want the legal befits of a recognized marriage rather than the state to treating it as two actors preforming a ceremony as part of a play. But such distinction are relevant when you say something is banned.

[Brendinooo]

We don't apply this principle to something like peanut allergies. "If your kid touches a peanut, that's on you as a parent"? No, people recognized that peanuts are harmful enough to a certain segment of the population that it's worth making changes, even changes that might inconvenience others.

Besides, I'm not sure why you think that parents are able to be 100% in control of things that their children see/eat/etc. Should we legalize nudity on billboards, and would your suggestion then be to "simply drive on different roads"?

[YellOh]

What does society do to solve the peanut problem? Outside of schools, it seems totally on the parent to stop the kid from eating peanuts. The parent does the grocery shopping, asks the right questions when taking the kid to a restaurant, and lets friends/other caregivers know not to give peanuts to the child.

People do "make changes" for specific allergies & food restrictions by making the information available & creating some allergen-free zones (just like adult content is currently kept out of schools and family-friendly locations, and there are adult-content warnings most times) but peanut access is absolutely currently up to the parent, in general.

I'm not even sure what the billboard thing is getting at. We shouldn't have nudity on billboards (except female breasts in nonsexual contexts), just like we shouldn't keep peanuts where we know anyone allergic has to be. Counter-hypothetical: it would be incredibly stupid to lock up peanut butter because kids might take a $5 bill to the store and buy the clearly-labelled jar.

[yamtaddle]

> What does society do to solve the peanut problem?

We mandate labeling. We could not do that and just say "parents, you must run a peanut-detection lab or have extremely restricted diets of only food you make yourself, to keep your kids safe", but we don't.

[YellOh]

I have no issue with labelling requirements for large commercial operations. To be honest I thought we already had that for adult content, given the specific TV/radio limits and the "confirm you're 18" popups so popular on the web.

I realize I'm beating a dead analogy here, but I don't think we should impose those labelling restrictions on independent hobbyist websites, just like we don't require licensing or ingredient labelling for small bake sales.

But even if we did, "label obviously-adult content" would be way more reasonable than "collect personal information to verify the real-life identity of site visitors, and log this sensitive data so it can be accessed (/hacked) later"

[pjlegato]

Writing "produced on equipment that also processes peanuts" on a food label is hardly inconveniencing others.

It's still very much on the parents to prevent harm to their peanut-allergic children.

As an aside, the sharp rise in nut allergies is itself an unintended consequence of another well-meaning attempt at social engineering: about 30 years ago, manufacturers began printing "CHOKING HAZARD: DO NOT FEED NUTS TO CHILDREN UNDER TWO YEARS OLD" on nut labels. Many parents complied, and that lack of any early exposure to nut proteins resulted in a massive increase in life-threatening nut allergies among children.

[Brendinooo]

Do you have kids in school? Our kids aren’t allowed to pack peanuts in their lunches because parents can’t put an allergic kid in a cafeteria otherwise.

[evandale]

The consequence of exposing a kid with a peanut allergy to a peanut can be death. Watching hardcore porn won't kill a kid.

[m000]

Also, when you know something contains peanuts, you just stick a label "CONTAINS PEANUTS" on the packaging. You don't get the grocery store to ask everyone for a peanut allergy certificate before selling them a jar of PB, and also keep a log of who bought PB from them.

And we already have something similar for porn sites, in the form of the "Are you over 18?" landing page banners.

[Brendinooo]

That’s not the only thing people do to help allergic kids. I mentioned this in an adjacent thread.

[Brendinooo]

It will harm a kid, and asking a website to figure out how to verify an age is far less burdensome than taking PB&Js out of kid lunches.

[evandale]

I could see ongoing watching harming a kid, but if they stumble upon porn one time by accident and see it? I don't see how that could harm them.

A kid with a peanut allergy who came into contact with peanuts, even accidentally one time, could be fatal.

[cmh89]

>It will harm a kid

*Citation needed

[Brendinooo]

This sounds like a smart response until you think about the possibility of an academic study researching exposure of minors to hardcore porn. Think that would pass ethical muster?

The fundamental questions are

1. Does porn usage line up with other patterns of addiction?

2. Are similarly addicting things withheld from children because their brains are less equipped to handle it?

If yes to both, then it’s a no-brainer.

[cmh89]

>This sounds like a smart response until you think about the possibility of an academic study researching exposure of minors to hardcore porn. Think that would pass ethical muster?

Well, yeah, it would...

>1. Does porn usage line up with other patterns of addiction?

I'm not sure what this question is asking. Porn usage may or may not 'line up' with patterns of addiction. That doesn't mean that porn always or even the majority of the time is. Can you rephrase this question into something more coherent?

>2. Are similarly addicting things withheld from children because their brains are less equipped to handle it?

LOL absolutely not. Children, especially American children, are given huge amounts of sugar, which is actually physically addictive. Many are given huge amounts of caffeine which is again, physically addictive.

Millions of children around the country have tons of access to video games and TV, which can be addictive.

>If yes to both, then it’s a no-brainer.

Well, you're first question doesn't make any sense, and your second question is a resounding no.

The best way to keep your child from becoming addicted to anything is to act like a parent.

[scarface74]

Yes and forcing people to show ID has really stopped underaged drinking and making drugs illegal have stopped people from smoking weed.

[Brendinooo]

There's plenty of room between "unrestricted" and "stopped".

You're not arguing that "laws don't actually do anything", right?

[yamtaddle]

"These are very effective but not perfectly effective" is the lamest possible "gotcha!" in these kinds of discussions.

[scarface74]

https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/health-effects/teens.html

> In 2019, 37% of US high school students reported lifetime use of marijuana and 22% reported use in the past 30 days.1 Past-year vaping of marijuana also remained steady in 2020 following large increases in 2018 and 2019. However, large percentages of middle and high school students reported past-year marijuana vaping—8% of eighth graders, 19% of 10th graders, and 22% of 12th graders.

[yamtaddle]

I remember those surveys. I did so much meth.

[scarface74]

You really don’t think a lot of teenagers are smoking weed?

[George83728]

Laws against murder haven't stopped murder, so I guess those laws are useless.

Gun control laws? Japan's ex-PM got blown away by a wacko with a homemade shotgun, so I guess gun control laws just don't work. Nevermind the rate of gun violence in Japan.. it's all or nothing.

[monetus]

This doesn't directly add to or take from your point, because obviously laws have a purpose -

that assassin was motivated by an extreme religious affiliation to the lawmakers. There is irony here.

[George83728]

I'm not seeing the irony, unless you believe that opposition to pornography being available to kids must necessarily have a religious motive. I oppose it, and I am an atheist.

[monetus]

It doesn't have to for anyone, but does in this instance as the lawmakers in question are motivated by their affiliation with a religion.

[throwaw12]

How about: dissolving all labor unions, schools and governments?

You do parenting and education yourself, protect yourself and your kids from any kind of harm outside. If you can't do it, just admit you are incompetent and don't force consequences of paying taxes on me

[biftek]

what point are you actually trying to make?

just because schools and the "government" exist doesn't free you from educating or taking care of your kid outside of those contexts. learn to be a parent

[NeutralCrane]

I believe they are facetiously pointing out the logical fallacy the original commenter was making by claiming that the law unjustly punished everybody to protect poor parents. But that same logical stretch could apply to any and all laws, thereby making all laws unjust in the same way. While that line of thinking may appeal to a anarchic-libertarian extremist minority, the overwhelming majority of people see this as stupid.

[pclmulqdq]

Sounds good to me, honestly. Or rather better than a system where moral busybodies seem to think they can get me to attach my name to porn consumption.

[jdswain]

As a parent myself, I'd like to say that it's not that easy. There are measures you can take, but it doesn't always work.

The web is maybe easy to control, but what about all the other means of communication kids have now, like in-game social tools? In the end that comes down to do you ban everything that could cause an issue, and then you are isolating your child from their friends.

Even if that issue is solved, I've heard stories of kids 'forcing' other kids to watch porn on phones at school. How do you prevent that one? Most often the other parents are unaware, don't care, or even provide the porn.

[friend_and_foe]

"If you don't want your kids buying cigarettes that's on you."

If we want to live in an environment where children have any degree of autonomy, that means delegating some aspects related to restricting age appropriate behaviors to the state. Now, I'm not a fan of government mandated age restriction on websites, but your point is obviously not well thought out.

[kgwgk]

Does that apply to all the “bad” things that someone else could do to a child?

[bcrosby95]

What do you think of helicopter parenting? What about the "free range" movement? What's the proper balance of freedom and privacy for kids?

[sophacles]

I was a free range kid (we just called it "being a kid" though). I feel bad for the kids of helicopter parents - the parent is hiding them from the world and blocking them from learning about the world as it exists and from discovering how they can/will interact with it. Then one day they cross a threshold of "number of days alive" and are expected to know how to live in the world they haven't ever been exposed to. Sounds like a derange science experiment carried out by insane control freaks more than parenting.

[bcrosby95]

I agree. But if you aren't going to be a helicopter parent there needs to be some safety valves for when kids go too far off the rails.

Calling a parent shitty because their kid does something they would prefer they didn't means we've all had shitty parents. Kids are individuals that gain preferences the minute they gain any sort of mobility and trying to reign everything in will backfire.

I don't have strong opinions on this particular topic. I don't think porn is quite so damaging as others to the point where society needs to protect them. But the rational response to the views you expressed seems to contradict your actual views on the subject of how parents should raise their kids.

[sophacles]

> Calling a parent shitty because their kid does something they would prefer they didn't means we've all had shitty parents.

Kids are going to do things their parents don't like. It's literally part of the kid learning about the world and themselves. It's shitty parenting to not know how to deal with this rather than trying to pass laws so that they can pretend the kid is just a miniature clone of their worldview.

[defen]

Are you a parent?