Comment by bredren | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bredren | Hacker News Reader

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> The starting point is so much more comfortable for all of these kids.

I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I mean, do we want life to be uncomfortable for young people?

It wasn't just your situation with your parents. A lot of adults today grew up with Joe Camel and cartoon ads like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yHsoW6CTjM

There was no anti-bullying education. Actually, bullying was basically okay when I was in high school. No concept of diversity training for staff and administrators.

I mean if things aren't as rough on teens as they used to be, why force them to suddenly grow up anyway? Don't they deal with a whole set of separate, new challenges adults never had?

Baby boomers get to live much longer as adults thanks to recent medical advances. Why can't young people live their lives young for longer as well?

If ycombinator is right about the coming future of basic income, then not only do these folks not have to become adults very early, they don't have to "eck" out a living either. Earning income isn't necessarily a sign of adulthood.

I'm not saying people don't become adults ever, because this is already a problem. We all know adults that act like children. I'm saying why force them to deal with some of the primitive experiences you and many other folks have dealt with?

> The starting point is so much more comfortable for all of these kids.

And which kids? My children have classmates who are homeless, who can't afford field trip money, who actually do rely on the free school meals.

Those kids have always been there. Had them in my school 40 years ago.

> I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I mean, do we want life to be uncomfortable for young people?

Yes. The result of rubber playgrounds is surprisingly more serious injuries.

Never mind the secondary effects, the idea of a rubber playground strikes me as inherently dangerous, as you can't skid to a halt like you can on concrete or grass.

That's surprising indeed, citations?

from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/hey-par...

> Even rubber surfacing doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference in the real world. David Ball, a professor of risk management at Middlesex University, analyzed U.K. injury statistics and found that as in the U.S., there was no clear trend over time. “The advent of all these special surfaces for playgrounds has contributed very little, if anything at all, to the safety of children,” he told me. Ball has found some evidence that long-bone injuries, which are far more common than head injuries, are actually increasing.

>Ball has found some evidence that long-bone injuries, which are far more common than head injuries, are actually increasing.

My assumption is that has nothing to do with rubber playgrounds, but the fact more kids are obese than ever. The less you weigh, the less you splat when you fall.

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