| ▲ | squigz 8 hours ago |
| > But identification as a child doesn't need to stop you from accessing opposing viewpoints, it needs to stop you from accessing... that. The problem is you'll be hard-pressed to have one without the other - not to mention that even if it starts off like that, the system is so easily abused to destroy privacy on the Internet for everyone, not just kids. And by the way, I do actually believe more people need to see graphic violence, and I do believe it helps people grow. We all hear about gun violence and club shootings and the like, but it doesn't drive home the reality of it. Do I think kids should see that? Probably not, but I also don't believe it's inherently going to 'traumatize' all of them - I saw much of the same stuff you did, I'm sure, and I don't count it amongst my trauma. |
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| ▲ | soulofmischief 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I saw people literally get scalped and flayed alive growing up on the internet and all it did was increase my empathy for people and compel me to pay attention to the violent struggles happening around the world. I'm not saying exposure to such material doesn't risk traumatizing a child or even an adult, or that I am entirely untraumatized by what I've seen, but it still pales in comparison to the violence I faced at home. The problem is that it's like abstinence or prohibition: If such material is legally restricted, when people do encounter these materials, it won't be in a safe environment and the risk for trauma is much greater. To be clear, I do understand that some people fetishize violence, but I believe this risk is also greater if there is not a safe avenue for understanding the darkest sides of humanity. |
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| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Being compelled to pay attention to violent struggles doesn't sound to me like a particularly good thing. Nothing wrong with empathizing, donating, doing what you can for the causes you happen to hear about. But in my experience, people who are incapable of ever tuning out violence inevitably fall down radicalization spirals about it. There's just nothing I can meaningfully say or do about most of the violence in the world. | | |
| ▲ | soulofmischief 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | My argument is about restriction, not compulsion. But on the subject of compulsion: there is definitely a line where utility is not worth the trauma, but as a child I was shown images of the Holocaust, of emaciated and abused Jews, and that has influenced me to now be against Israel and their continued holocaust against the Palestinian people, so I'm quite thankful for that. In general, because school introduced me to it, I read quite a lot of Holocaust-related literature in my free time, both fiction and nonfiction, and that led me to learning about ongoing genocides and neoliberal violence-backed economic power struggles, and identifying with other oppressed people across the globe, greatly influencing my politics and turning me into the exact kind of person that my current state considers radical and would love to imprison and extract slave labor from. |
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| ▲ | tbrownaw 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > Do I think kids should see that? Probably not, but I also don't believe it's inherently going to 'traumatize' all of them - I saw much of the same stuff you did, I'm sure, and I don't count it amongst my trauma. I remember when it was fashionable for trolls to post shock images like tubgirl or lathe accidents. I seen to have survived ok. |
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| ▲ | xvector 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, it's my view that people don't truly understand how fragile life is unless they've seen how easily it is shattered. People would get in less street fights and do less dumb shit if they knew what the world was like. The cartels are not your friend, falling and hitting your head can kill you, wearing a seatbelt is mandatory, there are no winners in armed conflict, factory farming is not ethical, etc. People that say these things, but they don't truly understand them until they see it. | | |
| ▲ | dijit 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I couldn’t possibly agree more. It’s very easy to fetishise war when you have not seen the grim barbarity of true conflict. It’s not like the movies, and we should not think of it as a desired or easily entered venture. Street/Knife fights are another, I’ve seen them first hand and its impressive how mundane things or subtle movements are actually just lethal. There’s a saying that “The winner of a knife fight is the one who dies at the hospital” but even glib phrases like this are not enough to prepare you. Kids would be less keen to join gangs if they saw the brutality before thinking they might get cool points. | |
| ▲ | sanderjd 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | As with many things, the concern is that it's bimodal. Some people learn empathy through this kind of exposure, and some people learn the opposite. |
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