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One worrying trend I've been seeing in the modern world is the social outlawing of any form of permissible contact between older people and children. It seems that with the obsession modern western society has on children's sexuality, all of the sudden the default position when an adult interacts with a child that isn't related to them by blood, is that the adult is a sexual predator.
Especially on the motte there have been a lot of recent concerns about 'grooming,' which as a thread below mentions is an extremely muddy and useless term. In my opinion it should be tabooed from these discussions.
This issue becomes especially salient when you look at the rise of internet addiction issues, and the mental health/suicide problems that come along with it. Many kids go to internet forums like this because they don't have role models or guides they respect in life. They end up forming parasocial relationships with internet celebrities that are probably more likely to be predatory and harmful to the child, as if the habit of going on the internet all day isn't bad enough.
We as a society are losing vast amounts of illegible knowledge every day as older people die, exit the workforce, or suffer cognitive decline. There are many areas where 'book smarts' can't teach you everything, especially when it comes to emotional issues or social issues. The rise of inceldom, trans, and other social movements primarily focused on social issues of young people are a prime example.
My question is: How are adults supposed to offer guidance to children in the modern world, especially adult men? There are numerous stories of a child's father having the police called on them because people think the father might be a sexual predator, in this environment why would any man risk the reputational and legal risk of mentoring a kid?
Is it worth losing any realistic relationship between the young and old because of vague fears of sexual predation? Does the current hysteria even help sexual predation, or does preventing children from having good role models make them more insecure and vulnerable to bad actors?
Is it really a fucking surprise that they do this? It's the only place they're actually free- the difference between "human" and "subhuman" is gated by a mere checkbox (or date slider). And after that, it's all reading comprehension. The only thing that keeps the modern 8 year old out of the strip club is 1. knowing what the parts are called and 2. being able to spell them (voice recognition always censors your input so that won't work). Anything they want to know, anyone they want to talk to, anyone they want to live vicariously through... it's all there (once they realize it).
Why wouldn't they spend all day there, especially considering that the games you can play there are way more immersive than anything the real world could offer even it was legal to go outside? Minecraft is superior to Lego, Civilization is superior to chess, and Call of Duty is superior to Cops and Robbers- and that's just the way it is.
The internet is not "so good its trapping you from reality", this is "reality has conspired to trap you in the Internet". Remember, going half a block away from your home is a criminal offense. The fact that it is the best possible place they could be trapped in is only a (fortunate?) side effect.
Well, we went from "parents have 7 kids (you can drop off at the orphanage if you can't afford them), and they work alongside adults (in terms of "yes, they actually do something of objective value" in the actual workforce in 1930 (and all time before) to "parents treat kids like they're luxury items (the quality of life you'd like to provide them is difficult the more you have + dual-income trap means it takes a hit anyway), it's illegal to let your kid outside to play, and you need to graduate from Grade 16 to serve coffee or be a secretary" in 2010.
If inflation indeed hits disadvantaged groups the hardest... well, what's more disadvantaged of a group than people who don't even know they're disadvantaged, and worse, actually are inferior (and trivially so; kids tend to be less physically able than their older selves and need additional practice when solving more complicated problems) in the same ways some claim happens by skin color?
At least when it happens across skin colors they have someone to step up and represent their interests, but with kids it's more or less "apartheid, but you slowly turn from black to white, passing the paper-bag test at a pigmentation everyone achieves at age X". Additionally, "just punt on the problem, you're guaranteed to be free someday" is the absolute best way to encourage that good old slave morality- especially since, again, they don't know any better.
So, how do you fix it? Well... I can make a bunch of educated guesses, but I haven't asked the affected so I necessarily cannot know. My assumptions are "make them faster in the real world, so neither Karen nor any older kid can stop them (also solves the "suburbs, atomization, and needing to get driven everywhere" problem), "make sure they have decent affordable third spaces to go to at will", and "make a standard that requires you go as hard as you can at something and ensure that success is rewarding in the same way it is for anyone else", but that's just my interrogation of my younger self's memories and as such might not be relevant.
Yes, it absolutely does.
No wonder they have no role models- they're correctly assessing there's not a soul they know worth the name.
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