> being able to stay out a bit longer, solve sudden problems without calling mom, or just sit alone

none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket

my hesitation is from knowing these _dont_ work: by the time airtag shows where someone actually is that isnt a 500m circle, you can see them with your analog eyes :/

[delayed]

already a thing.... look at the problem solving skills of some of the fresh grads

> I can remember two times I fell asleep on the bus, and ended up some other place, and had to figure out how to get home from there, by myself.

if it involved asking a business (car service in my case) to let you use their phone, or already having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom... thats an airtag :)

> a child might get accustomed to this "saving" being automatic

i dont fear a perfectly functioning society; im an adult and am also used to 911/999/etc being available. some people watch Demolition Man and get the wrong idea...

> if it involved asking a business (car service in my case) to let you use their phone, or already having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom... thats an airtag :)

No. An airtag works for your mom no matter if you want it or not, some payphone on the street places the agency about calling help into your hands.

> having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom

I had enough coins for 2 phone calls in a sealed envelope in my school bag for emergencies - probably still in the bottom of my bag wherever it may be.

It is not an airtag. The payphone doesn't use a network of snitches to say where you are at all times. It is really bad to instill the idea that you are never private, it makes our surveillance situation worse and more accepted. Which i am sure hackernews and the EFF have plenty of articles to show why normal people need privacy.

> that’s an airtag

How so? Mom has no way to know where you are until you initiate the call. Isn’t a big part of the developmental point to have kids recognize they’re lost on their own and then ask for help from a friendly stranger? What’s the ‘no airtag’ scenario you imagine?

> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket

Do you want to install an app on your phone that will track you and your online activities for the government? They won't interfere, they just want to know what you're up to and help. Children are people and want some privacy too. I know I did.

Presumably, when this generation comes of age they will largely answer this question with "sure, I don't see the problem", which many will consider a big win.

> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket

It instills a Panopticum-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages, meaning they become aware that they're being watched at every moment of their lives. In my opinion that does affect said kids' future look on life (once they will have become adults, that is).

> It instills a Panopticum-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages

Santa Claus has been around since before airtags; you dont need technology to make kids fearful of invisible retribution ("he sees you when youre sleeping, he knows when youre awake")

that only works for very vey very young kids.

I dont get your point

We’ve strip-mined every cultural superstition and monster for the entertainment industry, but those superstitions and monsters often existed - even in the minds of adults - to warn against certain behaviors, actions or locations.

Santa Claus for the very young; an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God for everyone else.

Soon we'll all be watched over by machines of loving grace.

It's not "everyone" else though is it. Especially not in the recent decades where this surveillance has become a real thing.

What does that have to do with the subject of discussion: instilling a Panopticum[sic]-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages?

It's true that the idea of 'someone is watching you' is very old and a well-tested method of social control. The religious angle may be why so many people are receptive to mass surveillance today. But not everyone is religious, and those that are rarely live with a true, 24/7 feeling of dread and fear that someone is actually watching. The fear of consequences is very distant, and there is often forgiveness for small infractions. That fear becomes very different when you can put a face and a name to the people watching you, and you know they can affect your life in very real and immediate ways. This is the preconditioning that starts with childhood surveillance.

I've spoken to many of the deconverted who where genuinely afraid of committing real and mental sins as a direct condition of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Have you not met someone like this?

are u saying that people shouldn't be afraid of the consequences of behaving improperly ?

I'm saying, in response to "The fear of consequences is very distant, and there is often forgiveness for small infractions," that people do have a fear of misbehaving and a belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent god is a critical component of a 'feeling that someone is always watching' resulting in that fear and subsequent avoidance.

certainly proponents of surveillance capitalism would argue that the brain must percieve a social slight in the same way it percieves a slight against god. i can imagine some of these types whispering morpheus quotes to themselves in bed. "the need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by god ..."

I was under the impression that proponents of surveillance capitalism wish to protect their private property. Must it be more complicated than that?

If that was so people who were more religious would be more accepting of surveillance and I do not think that is the case.

God is also perfectly good, outside time, unlikely to question your actions, and completely forgiving. Rather different from being watched by human beings.

I do not think belief divine omniscience by itself had much impact on people's behaviour.

Why would a religious person, holding a sincere belief their actions cannot be hidden, want more surveillance? It would be redundant, no? Maybe they can chime in and resolve it. Best to hear from a source directly.

I am a religious person.

There is no religious reason for more surveillance - which its with the point I made.

The reasons for wanting more surveillance are entirely secular: things such as catching criminals, protecting children etc. They are about giving power to the authorities, and how desirable more surveillance is depends on how much you fear what it is supposed to stop, and on how much you trust to authorities to use the powers you give them ethically and effectively.

And only on christmas day. They dont think long term, no getting christmas gifts is not a treat in november - it is infinetely far for a small kid.

Most kids have an important developmental moment where they realize Santa isn’t real

Yeah, but then there's religion with an all-viewing God or gods. And years of these ideas repeated never really goes away. After all, what if there really IS a God, or Vishnu, or Allah, and a Hell, etc.! The very idea is enough to drive a kid to Pascal's wager.

There’s many people who don’t believe in either Santa or god. Only about half of younger people believe in hell in the US.

Unfortunately, even those who escape such beliefs now have to face the reality of surveillance not by gods, but by men, many of whom don’t have your best interest in mind.

Yes, it normalises surveillance.

AirTag showed a mom her kid was in a lake, she made a big scene, frantically calling 911. Kid was not in the lake.

> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket.

Technically true. However I think there is a very small percentage of parents that can keep themselves from interrupting in such a situation. Actually I think it leads to a slippery slope situation (the article calls it a downward spiral) where the interruptions will be easier to make the more you do it as a parent. The only question remaining is how high up the slope do you start and how fast do you slip?

Most marketing for most things preys on guilt, fear, and avarice - negative emotions are uncomfortable, and you first create the negative emotion in the target's mind, and then sell them the solution, to alleive their discomfort.

I was a kid who wandered. Sometimes through bear infested forests at night. Sometimes through abandoned factories with collapsing roofs. Sometimes to the homes of people my parents strongly disapproved of.

I lived. So did pretty much everyone else. I had a few significant fuck-ups. I learned from them, and didn't repeat them. In my childhood, I knew one kid who died from misadventure - grain silo - and many who died from disease - meningitis, cancer, sepsis. Perhaps parents should keep their children in protective plastic bubbles, if they're going to be consistent about it.

My kid - no tracking, and autonomy that I see makes other parents writhe with discomfort, as they're like "she'll be stolen! Her kidneys!", and I'm going "you guys don't understand statistics, and your kids are going to live with you until you die, and lead stunted lives".

Many decades ago - there was barely a dangerous / dumb thing you could do roaming my neighbourhood that the network of mothers wouldn't relay back by the time you got home.

yeah and that filter is the point - only the truly dangerous stuff would make it back to your mom, but nothing else.

You knew at all times you were being watched

[delayed]

Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence. Parents don't want to be accused. Politicians don't want to be accused. Nobody ever does.

So parents keep their children indoors for fear of being arrested from them crossing the street on their own. Politicians are unable to renege on "child safety" laws because the populace will believe they are harming children and vote them out.

But these things work the way they are because of the social consequences embedded in our culture, caused by the perceived harm to children from inaction.

The parents I talk to, and myself, keep kids inside so they do not get mowed down by a distracted driver in a huge vehicle.

I lived a chunk of my childhood on a road where most of the traffic was tractor trailers. I went outside and even waited for the bus. Nobody died, nobody got hurt.

That "nobody" is restricted to your very tiny experience. Worldwide, cars kill kids, a lot.

Datum vs Data, again.

I don't know about worldwide, but in Germany[1] the number of children injured or killed in traffic has been on a downward slope for about 40 years. That includes pedestrians. And despite the fact that number of cars has gone up up up.

Of course parents being more restrictive with their kids may well be one of the reasons why the number has gone down (there are many confounding factors).

[1] and, at first glance, most of Europe https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Verkeh... (pages 53 onwards among others)

Maybe teach your kids to have awareness of what happens on the road when they are outside, rather than oblivious to it.

You're not helping them if when they go off to college they don't know how to be a cautious pedestrian.

It's so wild to me as a millennial who grew up with a single mom who worked all day to see the obsession with child surveillance/protection that permeates society today. When I was a kid, my mom required only that I let her know where I was gonna be, call her if those plans changed and let her know the new ones, and apart from that I was basically out the door by 7am and home for dinner, absent like sleepover plans or something. In the wintery months I was regularly gone for all daylight hours, and yeah she knew where I was, in theory, but I wasn't wearing a GPS, and her up-to-date information on my place of being was strictly down to my communicating that info.

And this situation was not unique to me, my friends all had basically the same thing going on with minor differences. And like, I dunno maybe this is a reach, but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human, who is able to move and function in the world autonomously, and it seems like newer generations of kiddos are really struggling with that in particular. Perhaps these are connected?

  > my mom required only that I let her know where I was gonna be, call her if those plans changed and let her know the new ones, and apart from that I was basically out the door by 7am and home for dinner, absent like sleepover plans or something.

  > but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human

These are the same foundations that the surveillance of kids today is build on. It is the same reasoning just further down the slope (enabled by technology). You probably also knew friends that did not have to call their parents at the same frequency (or more).

Let's be honest that was the average of that day, and today the average is tracking location at any time. If your mom was taking the average measures in that environment she would probably exercise the average measures in the current day environment.

I'm not saying that it was bad. I am saying we should probably be careful with the balance between autonomy and tracking since the same reasoning is used with your mom having you call in vs the current day tracking.

I have heard people say "free range kids" about this.. the one that gets to me is the line of cars in front of each school now.. this is a different age

Some of that might be true, but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children. Most of the people I know who are using this stuff do it completely voluntarily, not because of how they will be seen, but because they genuinely want to increase safety for their child.

Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.

Seems like "people only wear seatbelts so that they won't get tickets" type of reasoning, which is true for some, but many (myself included) like the additional safety and wear it regardless of law enforcement. I do actually care about my safety and health, and will take reasonable measures for a chance to preserve it; and that same feeling extends to my children.

This is a classic short-term/long-term trade-off. Being informed at all times is gratifying in the moment. It is harmful for everyone, including the parent, long-term.

And seatbelts are one of the cases where it is good short-term and long-term, but you’re right, the same mechanic applies. No one wears a seatbelt because “over a lifetime. I have a lower chance of dying in a car crash“. We wear it because “I’m less likely to die today.“

Strange, I wear the belt because I believe it may save me some day over my lifetime. I have very little concern for it happening this particular day. Or at least I used to. Its just SOP now.

The problem is that protecting children overzealously in the short term can make them more vulnerable in the long term. By attempting to protect them from every concievable risk, real or imagined, you risk preventing them from developing the defences that they will need later in life.

> Better road safety - that starts with _you_, car owners! -

Regulation and technical improvements can do a lot for road safety

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Killed_on_British_Roads_1...

> Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.

Any price? What about a portion of your child's development and autonomy?

> Some of that might be true, but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children.

They do, and they should. But due to the fact that this really is a legitimate concern in society, and always will be, it is also an infinitely renewable source of discontent that sways public opinion towards pursuing policies that don't actually help protect children. Nothing short of a total panopticon can prevent 100% of harm to children, if even that. Yet saying "we will have less visibility into the safety of children if we choose to do this instead" is seen in the current climate as one of the most distasteful things you can say. So people are afraid to speak up and find alternatives.

Anything short of absolute perfection in child safety is seen as a total disaster that merits the sacrifice of autonomy to prevent the next disaster just around the corner.

People have become very fearful. Here in the UK people (especially people on social media!) express fears about letting their children have the same freedom they had as children because "its so dangerous now".

Crime rates are far lower, road accident fatalities and injuries are far lower, but people are a lot more afraid of both of them.

> Seems like "people only wear seatbelts so that they won't get tickets" type of reasoning, which is true for some, but many (myself included) like the additional safety and wear it regardless of law enforcement

I wore them and made by kids wear them even in a country where they were not required by law. Admittedly I had become accustomed to wearing them in a country where they were required.

That's not an adequate comparison. A ticket is simple. Child services (in the US) is very powerful and complex. I would easily choose to risk my life and a ticket over risking child endangerment or neglect charges and possibly even having them sent to a foster home.

In both cases occurance rates should be low.

I agree, but i was replying to a comment that made the comparison.

My other point is that it is also happening in the UK where a lot of people do the same without the same fear of child services, so i think its a cultural change that is common to both countries.

"but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children."

To what point though? Overprotective upbringings could delay development or produce adults lacking development in critical areas.

Absolutely.

I think the problem is that parental instincts are protective, and it takes a conscious effort to let go. Its easier if you understand enough maths to weigh up the risks rationally.

I wonder if this varies by culture, gender, etc.

"Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence."

And yet it is so endlessly frustrating what genuinely harmful, awful practices persist anyway.

> Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence.

Not really. Dog owners hurt children all the time, we have zero problems blaming 3 years old for "provoking" an adult!

They were scared and acted in self defense!

Child deserved to go to hospital! Hopefully it learned valuable lesson to respect dog owners and treat them better!

And not just dog owners; car drivers are apparently invulnerable to criticism or shame as well. Big SUVs have been demonstrated to kill children; people buy them, they don't care. Driving fast has been demonstrated to kill children; people speed, they don't care. They think it will never happen to them, as they believe themselves to be Good People, and getting to their destination fast in their nice big car is important to them, and any attempt to curtail that an affront to their freedom.

And when they mow children down, as statistically some of them always will, it's then always described as "an accident", as though performed by some capricious god beyond all human control.

Exactly! Cars are not save around children! We should not take cars into schools, shopping malls, parks, playgrounds!

And yet we know the damage Meta, amongst others, knowingly inflict on children and young adults. We know about the poison that is a modern diet and sedentary lifestyle. We see suicides going up.

Both your points and mine can be true at the same time.

It's another mode of "anxiety farming". Under the "exploiting human psychology for profit" series.

Black mirror.

"If you don't buy a $300 sensor or track your kid's location every second, they subtly make you feel like an irresponsible parent."

It's not just marketing - the laws are getting more and more restrictive too. Not having some tracking on your kid starts to be used against people in court cases (criminal or civil). The think of tha children crowd has the ear of law enforcement and prosecutors.