Should Paternalism Be Illegal
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Sheiny was in Mendel's house that day. She was looking at some random things on her computer. You know... Getting into a yet another rabbit-hole on Wikipedia. She clicked on a link to an article about Paternalism. And on the right side, beside the text of the article, there was a picture with a caption "Child on a leash". The picture is depicting a child with a rope tied to her torso, which is held by an elderly woman. This image infuriated Sheiny to such an extend that for the next few minutes she could not even talk. How dare they?
Here is the image in question.
Sheiny: Mendel?
...she called him. She could not believe that this is even legal. Mendel came and she showed him the picture. He didn't immediately realized what was the problem.
Sheiny: Is she a dog?
And that's when Mendel understood what was the problem.
Mendel: Well, perhaps this baby likes to run away too often or something.
Sheiny: So what? What is this supposed to be?
Mendel: I don't know. It looks weird. You are right.
Sheiny read a little bit of the text. There was a quote of some person named John Stuart Mill. It went:
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood.
Sheiny: I'm being thoroughly offended here.
Mendel: You are nowhere near as young as the baby on the picture, relax.
Sheiny: No look at this. "This doctrine", he is talking about freedom as I can tell, "is meant to apply to humans being in the maturity of their faculties."...
She took a deep breath in an anticipation of the next quote.
Sheiny: "We are not speaking of children". So what should it mean? If I'm below 18 years of age, I'm not even human?
Mendel: Well, what if the kid will go away and get lost? Forever. They probably don't want it to happen.
Sheiny: It's his god damn right to get lost.
Mendel: Well, what if he doesn't want to get lost, but gets lost by mistake, because he is not smart enough to not get lost?
Sheiny: Then teach him.
Mendel: Yeah, but... It takes time to teach kids things.
Sheiny: What do you mean? Just tell him. That's all it takes.
Mendel: Well, this baby here doesn't know how to talk.
Sheiny: How do you know?
Mendel: Well, forget this baby. Imagine a baby that doesn't know how to talk. You know, small kids are often carried in carriages, or on hands. Not walking freely around the place.
Sheiny: A carriage is useful to carry around a baby that's tired. But a leash?
Mendel: And what about the belt in the carriage? It's so the baby would not run away.
Sheiny: No! It's like the belt in the car. It's so the baby will not fly away with a sudden stop.
Mendel: Oh really?
Sheiny: If it's about not running away, then this is an injustice!
Mendel: It's not you that's on the leash. Relax.
Sheiny: But... Even with that. I'm not free like you are! I can't legally work. I can't drive a car. I can't fuck. I can't smoke. I can't vote. What the hell is this even?
Mendel: Well, perhaps you should grow up first to do all these things?
Sheiny: You are one of them! You are fucking one of them!
Mendel: One of whom?
Sheiny: Them! You know. Adult, fucking, ah... ageist, elitists that put leashes on their kids because they are kids. And if the kid has to say something, they say "Grow up first".
Mendel: My god...
Sheiny: Fuck off...
Mendel: You can't possibly, in your age, know every danger that's out there. How can somebody sane allow you to just wonder about?
Sheiny: And you are so smart that you know "every danger"? I bet $50 that even I know more dangers than you do.
Mendel: So you are telling me that we need to let stupid people to endanger themselves?
Sheiny: We already letting stupid people that are older than 18 to endanger themselves all they want. What is the difference, then, to let those below 18 to have the same freedoms?
Mendel: Well parents don't want their babies gone.
Sheiny: It's not their god damned business!
Mendel: Well, then who's responsible for the baby?
Sheiny: The baby is responsible for the baby!
Mendel: I know you are upset. You want to do something and ... I don't know... the system is not allowing to do what you want to do. While you see other people do that freely.
Sheiny: Exactly!
Mendel: Well... What's then, the problem to just wait a little bit? You know. You are not forever 9 years old.
Sheiny: Do you know why I started doing pornography?
Mendel: Because you wanted to?
Sheiny: Because I needed to. Because we didn't have enough money. Because somebody had to do something to be able to buy food. Okay. I couldn't have waited for 9 more years. Could you wait 9 years without food?
Mendel: Well... there is probably some orphanage that could have...
Sheiny: Orphanage! We see that the kid only needs a job to be able to eat. But instead of giving him a job, what we do? Orphanage! We put him to prison. No... Freedom for somebody that young just won't do. Right?
Mendel: Well, there is a reason why kids are not allowed to work. Like at the factory that I work in. You know how easy is it to cut off a finger or something?
Sheiny: You have a boss right?
Mendel: Yeah?
Sheiny: What's he doing all day long?
Mendel: Sits in the office on the computer.
Sheiny: I can sit in an office on a computer. Or can't I? I can program. Or can't I? Why is it illegal for me to get paid if I program?
Mendel: You can, I don't know, sell something you programmed.
Sheiny: Well, yeah... Illegally. Because if I sell something. There should be a receipt and a tax and bunch of other things. I cannot even open a bank account. My bitcoin has to go through Mr. Humbert. Because I can't get bitcoins into cash in my age. What's the reason for that?
Mendel: Well use your mom's account or something.
Sheiny: I know that there are ways to get around the system. But I'm talking about a fundamental injustice here. Why you can get things done straight, on your own, and I can only do it though somebody else?
Mendel: What do you want me to say?
Sheiny: I want you to agree with me. That's what I want you to say.
Mendel: Sheiny... Damn... For example... I heard this thing that's happening right now. Parents are not allowed to tell kids that ... ah... gender swap operations could be bad for them. So they do those operations if they want to do them. And then kids ... ah ... get all kinds of bad side-effects that even they didn't want to happen. But it was already too late. You know.
Sheiny: I see an injustice here.
Mendel: You are telling me that we should ignore their well-being and do whatever they say. And...
Sheiny: No!
Mendel: Sorry?
Sheiny: I see an injustice here. What do you mean "parents are not allowed to tell"? This is an injustice. People should have the freedom of speech. If they see a problem they should be able to tell that there is a problem. Or they should be able to tell anything they like actually. But in this case. They should be able to tell. To argue. You know.
Mendel: But what if the kid ignores their warning?
Sheiny: Well if he still wants to do it, despite all of the discouragement, despite realizing the danger, it is his god damned right!
Mendel: Alright. But what if they don't speak the language? What if you can't discourage them? Because they are too young to understand your words. And they will do something that most likely they will regret doing.
Sheiny: Like small babies?
Mendel: Yeah... Like... Very small babies. Like the baby on that photograph.
Sheiny: This baby will then, not be able to communicate that she wants to do a gender swap operation.
Mendel: Yeah. But she can run away.
Sheiny: To explore, yeah... Babies like exploring. But they come back when they are done.
Mendel: What if she goes onto the road to explore something? Like there is a great chance that she doesn't want to be hit by a car. She just doesn't know about the car. Or she assumes that she can just run away from the car. Should we allow a small toddler to just freely go onto the road like this?
Sheiny: It's illegal to hit a baby with the car.
Mendel: She is small. The driver doesn't see.
Sheiny: Well if she wants to...
Mendel: She doesn't want to. She just doesn't see the car. You see the car. Like is it okay to save her from the car? Not even like a baby. You see a person standing in front of a car that's about to hit that person. Any age. Is it not okay to come and push that person away from the impact? Or something?
Sheiny: Well then it's not a baby problem. It's not age related at all.
Mendel: It kind of is. Think about it. Kids are smaller, weaker and dumber.
Sheiny: I'm small, weak, but not dumb!
Mendel: Inexperienced.
Sheiny: I'm sorry.
Mendel: You never... I don't know... Been to prison. I've been to prison. I know how it is. And you don't. I'm more experienced.
Sheiny: You never programmed. I programmed. And my programs work. I'm more experienced.
Mendel: Ah! Well that baby in that theoretical, hypothetical situation doesn't even know how to talk yet.
Sheiny: There are old people with extreme autism or a down syndrome that do not know how to talk.
Mendel: Fine! Let's say we are talking about dumb people in general. Is it not okay to guard them at least a little bit? Take a drivers license for example. It's not discriminating about age or any other thing. It just requires you to have basic knowledge about how to drive the car.
Sheiny: It does discriminate against age.
Mendel: Well, let say it would not.
Sheiny: Well in this case one mistake of yours can harm somebody else that didn't want to be harmed. Which is a problem. But if you want to crash your own car into your own wall causing harm to yourself. You should be free to do it.
Mendel: So a mistake of a parent to let the kid wonder about, can harm that kid. Isn't that the same thing?
Sheiny: You can harm the kid by not allowing him to go. If the kid truly wants to go. I see it's a kind of a double edge sword. You are fucked both ways. So I think better don't have kids at all.
Mendel: How about that. As soon as they can talk enough so you can verify that they understand the dangers, it's not okay to stop them. But before that you should stop them. Like with a driver's license. You have to acquire a skill. In this case a skill to communicate that you understand the dangers. And I'm not talking about kids. I'm talking about the whole range.
Sheiny: And so the duty of the parent afterward is to simply explain the dangers?
Mendel: Yes.
Sheiny: But who is responsible for judging if the child understands the dangers or not? Like, most proprietary software users do not understand the dangers of the software that they are using. But lawyers claim that clicking the "I agree" button is enough.
Mendel: Well, that's a good question!
Happy Hacking!!!
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