I mean, it's more than that. I _want_ to protect kids' right to be part of the human connectome. The "protect the kids" (by disallowing them their freedom of thought on the internet) is just naked ageism.

So do you want 5 year olds driving on the highway and 8 year olds doing shots of tequila or are you ageist?

Or perhaps protecting kids isn’t really ageism at all.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I did. Restricting children’s access to certain things is not ageism.

We can argue the merits of restricting children’s access to the internet, or certain books, or alcohol, or pornography, or whatever else. We can debate the merits of those various restrictions based on the benefits and costs to both the children and society at large.

But it is not ageism to attempt to protect children. It is not ageism even of the restriction is a bad idea. To claim it is ageism is an emotional appeal (“ageism bad!”), not a logical one.

You jumped to children behind the wheel of vehicles and doing tequila shots. There is no way that was a serious effort at good faith discourse.

I used a rhetorical device to demonstrate why restricting children’s activities is not simply ageism.

I don’t know how you can seriously come here and accuse me of engaging in bad faith when I’ve taken the time to make my viewpoint explicit multiple times in this thread now, including directly to you.

Hyperbole is a rhetorical device, if that’s what you mean.

Just because I had a hard time following your logic doesn’t mean I didn’t engage in good faith. You also seem to be arguing in a heated way with every person who responds to you.

Either way it’s probably best if we both move on

I did not accuse you of not engaging in good faith. You accused me of that.

I don’t think I responded to anyone in a heated manner, though I will readily admit to being annoyed when you accused me of bad faith.

Agree we should move on.

It depends on what you're restricting and why. Restricting access to things based on age can absolutely be ageism if the thing does not need to be restricted.

I don’t think it’s ever “ageism” in the normal sense to restrict children’s activities for their safety. But even if that’s the right term in some cases, it hinges on “if the thing does not need to be restricted”.

The burden is still to demonstrate that a restriction is wrong. If that can’t be demonstrated, then labeling it ageism is a purely emotional appeal.

If the 5-year-old has passed a proper driving test, why not?

It depends on what you're depriving them of too. Those are very extreme examples with little to no upside.

Disagree. We can discuss what restrictions are appropriate or reasonable without calling it ageism.

Calling it ageism is an emotional appeal, not a principled stance.

Ageism is a legally defined form of discrimination as well as the subject of ethical discussions. It's a real, defined thing. Just because we disagree on what qualifies as ageism doesn't mean you get to call foul and say it's irrational/emotional.

This is literally a “think of the children[‘s freedom]” appeal. You’re not arguing for or against the restriction on its merits.

In the US at least there’s also no such thing legally as age discrimination against minors so far as I’m aware.

Edit:

Let me frame this differently. “Ageism” is basically by definition bad, so applying the term “ageism” to a restriction is a an attempt to label the restriction bad without establishing that on its own merits.

If you try to provide a consistent definition of “ageism” that applies to restricting access to the internet but not restricting access to alcohol, you will most certainly have to resort to phrases like “reasonable restrictions” (if not, I’m very interested in your definition), which means that there’s still a need to establish what is reasonable. Applying the label “ageism” without establishing reasonableness is then a circular argument.

You’ve lost me.

You* are using “ageism” as a synonym for “bad”. You are also labeling restrictions as “ageism” without establishing that they are actually bad.

In effect you are saying “that’s bad!” without accepting the burden of establishing why it’s bad, but hiding this behind a different term that carries more emotional weight. It’s a very politically effective strategy but it’s not logically sound.

* actually jMyles

Quit arguing as though the topic is binary. It's not.

I’m not saying anything is binary. I’m saying it’s not ageism to restrict child access. It could be a bad idea but that doesn’t make it ageism.

Fair point