The implication of your take is that we should exploit children as much as possible because it might pay off big, as long as we don't cross the line into "worst childhood of all time".
Not quite (because the chance of success is very small), but if you're a successful influencer and then exploit the fact that you have children for even more growth, the trauma is probably small and the therapy is easily covered with the amounts of money you're making (which makes SWE salaries look tiny in comparison).
It's not positive, but it's "I have a splinter in my finger" relatively to what many (most?) children experience who don't grow up in the top 1%.
There's another post on the front page currently about over 100 kids who were illegally employed in hazardous jobs, and yesterday we had an article about laws being proposed to remove the hourly limits on child labor. I think the children affected by those things would prefer to have had their face on their mommy's instagram and never have to work a day in their life over working in a meat sanitation plant from their 13th birthday on.
It's all relative, but I guess that's an unpopular opinion. Maybe most here feel closer to the kids on instagram than those in the meat packing plant.
I think you're misunderstanding the realistic state of child influencers. These children have no guarantee of access to any money they "earn", and also the chance of earning that much is quite low. Just like most influencers, most of them don't make anywhere near a fulltime income an adult could make even on minimum wage, but are left with lifelong distortions of how to be a person that have to be unlearned.
I don't think it's reasonable to excuse or downplay exploitation of children in one way because exploitation of children occurs another way elsewhere. We can argue against addressing harm to children because other harm happens to children all the way down to the source of Omelas's good fortune if you like, but I don't think this results in positive societal outcomes.
>but are left with lifelong distortions of how to be a person that have to be unlearned.
"Lifelong distortion" is a strong claim that hasn't been demonstrated. I wonder how much of this consternation for kids being present online is a generational thing. People from the generation where privacy was the default are reacting badly to the movement towards no privacy being the default. Of course, those from the old generation take it for granted that their way of living is the right way and the alternative is "distortion". I'm also from that generation and I cringe at how easily people destroy their own privacy. But I don't make the mistake of assuming this emotion has normative value. The world is moving to a social-media infused existence. Being a digital luddite isn't obviously the superior lifestyle. Preventing kids from making the most of it isn't obviously in their best interests.
The discussion was not about children being present online or choosing a social media career. It was about parents making those decisions for children. Including children who did not want it.
I don't think working in a meat-packing plant is comparable to being used by influencer parents, but that doesn't mean the latter is small potatoes. They're very different situations.
Please do elaborate for a non-biologist - how and when is DNA sequencing worse at phylogenetic grouping than physiology? I had assumed the latter was embarrassingly outdated and easily duped (by convergent evolution, etc)
It's been about 20 years since I last looked into this but I think there were a few cases where people had "golden classifications" (IE, some sort of external proof of the grouping) that were more consistent with character features.
To be honest I'm not the best person to ask because every time I dip my toes in the area I realize (a) how little I know and (b) just how ugly these debates get. and (c) how much scientists like to treat some side observation as golden data that is absolutely right when trying to build support for their theory
I think if you live close to their servers maybe most of the issues would not be noticeable. If the app downloads and installs while you have the app page open then it seems to go smoothly. From Asia, I always get DSL speeds and need to leave the app/phone open for an extended amount of time to download even the smallest app
So, in your example of the Irish word, that's exactly how misinformation gets spread so easily. I doubt anyone is in danger from thinking a certain Irish word exists which doesn't actually exists. But the exact same scenario can be used when people drop a "Did you know <group I don't like> is doing <bad thing>? They're so awful." And then that gets carried to the next conversation each person has.
I think we do benefit a little bit from curiosity to know the truth behind the bullshit people say to us.
And there's a compromise, too. It's actually possible to finish a train of thought or conversation and then look up the facts, keeping everybody on the same page. It's even more fun that way.
> It's actually possible to finish a train of thought or conversation and then look up the facts, keeping everybody on the same page. It's even more fun that way.
I'd be careful about "keeping everybody on the same page". If you know they'd appreciate it, then sure. But a significant portion of the population do not like being fact checked. They assume malicious intent (not realizing you factcheck everyone and not just them).
Below is an email I once got. The context: A bunch of us were having a social conversation after an event. A professor made a claim about how hot it would get in his country. It struck me and another one as off because the number was a bit higher than the world record. We hinted at it but he insisted we were wrong.
Some hours later, at home, my friend fact checked and sent a polite email pointing out that the highest ever recorded temperature in his country was a few degrees lower than his claim. His response:
"If I were you i would not have spent a minute doing that unless
you want to prove a point: I was a liar. ... At last, that's why I do not hang around with you guys."
People will jump to conclusions about your motives.
Sending an email several hours later to fact check someone is not even in the same ballpark as pulling out your phone at the end of a discussion and looking up the fact together. Honestly, I think most people would consider that malicious or at best kind of arrogant.
Take a poll to see what people think. IME, the majority do not want to check it during the conversation - they usual flow is they'll move on to other topics.
I'm not sure why the email thing is malicious or arrogant. It's the equivalent of saying it in person the next time you all meet: "Hey, remember we were talking about X last time? I looked into it and ..."
But your reaction emphasizes the point: People will jump to conclusions about your motives.
It's the same for me. I want to work from home, at least most days, but then it's quite difficult to actually get out and see people. Past jobs have provided the bulk of my social interaction, unfortunately. Now it's kind of lose-lose, because commuting by car 4+ days/wk is horseshit and intolerable. But my friend group has shrunk significantly and I keep coming up empty-handed when I try to create regular hangouts that I actually enjoy.
There's an extra layer of post-colonialism in this situation, but it's otherwise almost identical to the discussion happening in English about gendered pronouns. I think the following can both be true:
1. It's bad to tell people that they're using their native language badly if you're not a native speaker (especially in a scenario where there's a social power dynamic at play, like Spanish speakers trying to navigate discrimination in the US). People making things harder for immigrants without compassion for their challenges are probably making a mistake.
2. It's bad to say "this whole thing is just stupid" about a radical shift in language that's being deliberately embraced by younger people to break down discriminatory gender traditions, just because it's new and you're mildly confused about it. People making things harder for gender-nonconforming people are probably making a mistake.
Replace “younger people” with “a few younger people from a particular socioeconomic class” to be more accurate.
The eternal outraged youth will always find a few hobby horses to ride. Sometimes they lead to good things. This is a particularly smelly one, unfortunately.
It’s not bad to say “this whole thing is just stupid”. It’s just incomplete to say…it’s also musically ugly (language is a song of sorts) and culturally insulting. The intent is understandable, the linguistic implementation ridiculous. How about actual younger people developing another, more beautiful, culturally acceptable, word to achieve the same objective? Why continue to ride this malodorous hobby horse their elders forced between their legs? (I think that image is acceptably gender-nonconforming, and oddly appropriate.)
Anyway, according to la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española
the body responsible for the preservation of the Spanish language across the Spanish-speaking world, it isn’t a Spanish word (not acknowledged in the official dictionary)
BTW your phrase “mildly confused” is demeaning and insulting to readers who would genuinely struggle with incorporating this in their normal Spanish speech after decades of surviving without it. Bit ironic for someone concerned with “sensitivity” to write.
> The eternal outraged youth will always find a few hobby horses to ride. Sometimes they lead to good things. This is a particularly smelly one, unfortunately.
Nonbinary people face real discrimination, including but not limited to the dismissal of that fight as pointless outrage.
> it’s also musically ugly (language is a song of sorts)
This is ridiculous. Ugly-sounding words will always exist.
> and culturally insulting ... How about actual younger people developing another, more beautiful, culturally acceptable, word to achieve the same objective
What does any of this even mean? Real Spanish-speaking nonbinary young people did come up with a working solution. If you think it's too ugly sounding, fine, you get to have an opinion. If you think it shouldn't exist because it's too ugly sounding to you, honestly, fuck off. That's not a valid complaint.
I am aware of La Asociación. I understand that they literally make the rules. I need you to understand that they do not actually make the rules. Language is how people communicate. New words happen.
So on the one hand:
1. You don't like the sound of the word
2. An intrinsically conservative body hasn't yet recognized the word
On the other hand:
1. Nonbinary would simply like a word to refer to themselves because one doesn't exist.
But, I will concede that it was pretty rude of me to write "mildly confused". I shouldn't have been so uncharitable.
Nonbinary claim to exist, but no human to date has been able to produce viable sperm and eggs simultaneously.
There is a gender spectrum, agreed, but that doesn't mean we can't classify people into a singular description, and it surely doesn't mean we need to change entire languages to appease made up oppression.
Gay? Makes sense and no issues. No demand for language changes.
Nonbinary,trans? Totally made up because they want to 1. Signal their oppression status and therefore be part of the proletariat, or 2. A true mental issue is at foot. Neither are justifications for removing gendered language, and plastic surgery doesn't remove the biological differences between men and women.
The way I see it, this is going to have to go up to the Supreme Court, where it will be determined that either there is no difference between men and women for legal purposes, and therefore any separation is discrimination (goodbye gendered bathrooms, women's sports, women in engineering clubs, etc.), or we will in fact determine there are biological differences which justify separation in specific circumstances (sports, locker rooms), and no amount of plastic surgery will allow one to change their classification. Of course, that is only insofar as anyone else in those environments could tell (aka having your penis out in a women's locker room would be the tell).
Well, tracking users by cookies or fingerprinting or whatever can tell you that by combining data from different sources. Now we've looped back around to being in favor of the most intrusive methods.
