As mentioned in the article, people don't care about facts. Kidnapping is at an all time low in the US. The only instances are family members during a nasty divorce or things like that.
"Think of the children" is the main weapon politics have to push regulations and more control. It is important that everybody thinks that kids are in danger at all time otherwise it would stop working.
> As mentioned in the article, people don't care about facts. Kidnapping is at an all time low in the US. The only instances are family members during a nasty divorce or things like that.
I agree that kidnapping is probably at an all-time low, but it's an unbelievable claim that it's all "family members during a nasty divorce or things like that." I personally know a family who's kid was kidnapped (briefly) by a non-family member.
> "Think of the children" is the main weapon politics have to push regulations and more control. It is important that everybody thinks that kids are in danger at all time otherwise it would stop working.
That's not what's going on here. It's a cultural issue. You've got a longstanding issue with crime, especially particularly "worst fear"-type crime, getting disproportionate attention in the media, creating false impressions and seeds for fear-fantasies. Now, added to that is new cultural obsession with abuse and victim-hood; and the idea of completely stamping that out is possible, and it should be achieved whatever the cost.
You might have a politicians exploiting this cultural issue to accomplish other things, but they certainly didn't create the phenomenon of hyper-vigalent school paraprofessionals.
> I personally know a family who's kid was kidnapped (briefly) by a non-family member.
Sorry to read that, but it's still a statistically small percent that happens to. One can say "but even one is too much", and I appreciate the sentiment, but optimizing for the .1% isn't always a good path.
> they certainly didn't create the phenomenon of hyper-vigalent school paraprofessionals.
"they" probably contributed to the culture that produced the current school paraprofessionals.
EDIT: Some interesting numbers at https://www.missingkids.org/theissues/nonfamily - of abductions reported to them, 1% are by non-family members, meaning... 99% of reported cases (to their org) are by family members. That may not line up with 'law enforcement' numbers exactly - there's not a clear indication as to what gets reported to them. But the ~1% matches up with other numbers I've seen in the past on missing children. It's almost always a family member or someone known to the child.
>>> "Think of the children" is the main weapon politics have to push regulations and more control.
>> they certainly didn't create the phenomenon of hyper-vigalent school paraprofessionals.
> "they" probably contributed to the culture that produced the current school paraprofessionals.
The point I'm making is that it's not politicians who are driving this. They certainly participate, but they're responding to the incentives and concerns of their constituents. "Think of the children" implies they consciously created this and/or are the main drivers, which is false.
The media has an incentive to produce emotion inducing content and politician will naturally leverage those emotions because American politics are pure pathos.
If you cannot see how that leads to gloom and doom oriented media and politicians that lean on eschatological themes, you aren’t woke.
>> "Think of the children" implies they consciously created this and/or are the main drivers, which is false.
> The media has an incentive to produce emotion inducing content and politician will naturally leverage those emotions because American politics are pure pathos.
Yeah, that's true, but it doesn't contradict my point. This is a hard problem, because there isn't some malevolent agent acting consciously at the center of it. It's a bunch of different people acting naturally and responding to their environment and incentives.
This sibling comment probably has it part right (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31355482). The true cause of this overprotective hypervigilance is probably weakened communities, which itself is most likely an unintended side effect of a bunch of different things.
Maybe the problem is that communities are weak. Imagine saying "We don't need stronger restrictions. I am OK if my kid is kidnapped as a result because the community will be stronger for it overall due to free range kids etc." You really need to care about your community to do that.
> Maybe the problem is that communities are weak. Imagine saying "We don't need stronger restrictions. I am OK if my kid is kidnapped as a result because the community will be stronger for it overall due to free range kids etc." You really need to care about your community to do that.
I think that's partly correct. I think the problem is due to weakened communities, but I don't think anyone, ever will think "I am OK if my kid is kidnapped b/c free range kids are good." If the community was stronger, people with more likely think things like "I am OK with my kind being free range b/c I trust the community not to kidnap and abuse them."
Right, because every case like that is going to be written about in an article that gets shared a ton because it is so shocking, and then covered on the news, and discussed on forums, and turned into a TV movie.
The story is crazy and scary and disturbed, so of COURSE it is going to be shared and people are going to remember it. The details get seared into your memory. It is a nightmare scenario.
The same day that happened, in the US ~90 people were killed in car accidents and ~550 kids were kidnapped by a family member. Those events won't be seared in our mind, though.
"Think of the children" is the main weapon politics have to push regulations and more control. It is important that everybody thinks that kids are in danger at all time otherwise it would stop working.