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UK Commissioner Seeks To Ban Ultrasonic Anti-Teen Device
mikesd81 points out a Times Online article that discusses the legality of the Mosquito sound device, which is used to annoy and drive off younger people with sounds that are too high-pitched for most adults to hear. We discussed how annoying this device can be a couple years ago. From Times Online:
"Sir Albert Aynsley-Green, the Children's Commissioner for England appointed to represent the views of the country's 11 million children, has set up a campaign — called Buzz Off — that is calling for the Mosquito to be banned on grounds that it infringes the rights of young people. 'These devices are indiscriminate and target all children and young people, including babies, regardless of whether they are behaving or misbehaving,' Sir Al told the BBC. 'The use of measures such as these are simply demonizing children and young people, creating a dangerous and widening divide between the young and the old.'"
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Man, I will start taking you serious the moment my mind gets around the thought of a one-year-old Criminal.
This isn't stopping theft, it is torturing babies. The worst part? If the parents are too old to hear the sound, they. have. no. clue. what. you. are. doing. to. their. kid.
I'm assuming you don't have little ones of your own. Strike that, I'm hoping you don't have little ones of your own.
Also, on a side note, this seems very stupid from a business sense. Kids grow up to be consumers, and many companies spend massive amounts to burn brand loyalties into their young impressionable minds. How quick will that noise make a massive headache a Pavlovian response to anything related to your brand.
Seems more like they're shooting themselves in the foot, not protecting themselves.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
The point, though, is this: The owner of the shop whose windows are being trashed isn't in a position to change society. He installs the device to move the problem on.
Politicians, parents and teachers are the ones who can solve this, but our politics (and parenting and schools) are totally disfunctional at the moment. No one wants to talk about what the problems are and what solutions might actually work, be tested and proven. Instead it's essentially a one party system with everyone trying to be "tough on this" and "longer prison sentences for that".
Rich.
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It is an issue that the parents let there kids run feral. Except for actually paying attention to the kids in being involved in their lives they let them run out side and learn the world with others with the same type of parents. The kids learn to fend for themselves when they get confident enough to start attacking adults and other children then there is really nothing that will stop them or change their ways. If you want to know what humans were like before society just watch the children in any major american city, and you will see humans in action in their non socialized selves. No fear of the police or any one but at the same time afraid of everything, everyone and everything is a threat, the strong is the one who survives so everyone must be the strongest.
It is no longer Kids will be kids, kids and gangs especially are not as much a criminal element like the gangsters of the 1930's they are a pack of wild humans, they don't do crimes because of things like money and power (in a society scale) they do it for Survival, Dominance, or Acceptance amongst their group. In my mind these kids (and adults too) are wild animals who happen to be human species.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
No, no, no. If their parents weren't COMPLETE DUMBASSES, the problem wouldn't be there in the first place. If they just cared about what are their kids doing, or maybe even - ${DEITY} forbid - TALKED to them, everyday, ever since their kids were born, the problem wouldn't be there at all, except maybe some corner cases of inborn blockheadedness. Disciplining won't do any good if there's no feel of doing wrong without being disciplined. Do you want a society of people who are "good" just because they were being beaten as kids?
I was disciplined (in the common sesne of this word) TWICE in my whole life, yet I know what's good and what's bad and don't like doing the latter because it's just something intrinsically wrong for me. And that was explained to me when I was a kid, not beaten into my head. It can be done, it's just that most people out there should have never had children because they are unable to give proper upbringing. And disciplining won't help anything.
This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
Oh please I knew from reading the title that this article would congeal comments of "Wah! Bad parents!". Have you ever stopped to think why the parents are so bad?
I had this debate a few days ago with a 72 year old man. I'm only 21 for the record. We were discussing a group of school children who were maybe 12 or 13 on the bus sitting down while this man and another old woman were standing. The point that I hit is how can you blame the parents when we are all the cause for their failing. Let me explain, most of us are working longer hours, kids are in daycare/school/babysitter, your mortgage just keeps growing, tax and inflation woes worrying you, savings disappearing, credit card debt and other factors. Most people with an ounce of sense or ability to earn money aren't having kids. Almost all the kids are coming out of the lowest common denominator multiplied by itself, not all, but by far the great majority. We are creating our own problem and unfortunately economics is to blame. This isn't just happening on the village level it's happening en masse in most established, post-industrial countries. We have a problem where parents can't be parents. This is the cause and unless either the middle/upper class couples start having children again or life becomes less stressful it's not going to get any better.It goes deeper than that though. I remember the key cause for generation and legal conflict from teenagers when I was one was boredom. I wasn't your generic geek who hid from everyone else at school during my teenage years, that is not to say I didn't have a horrible time at school it is just to say I associated with people most geeks would avoid. Most of us are living in suburbs or satellite towns, these are horrible breeding grounds for boredom. Kids are dead bored, the fact there is nothing to do nearby except mill with friends is the resultant of this. People get violent and abusive, both to themselves and others, when they are bored. Never underestimate the power of environmental factors on people.You argument of children's world being one of survival of the fittest is looking through the Fox News camera. You're being overly dramatic and probably ignorant of your own upbringing. Childhood is a microcosm of the larger society around them, if you wonder why they fight so much and have pecking orders and whatnot it is because the rest of us live in such an environment as well. Kids forming groups, gangs or whatever derogatory slang you want to use are merely living out the wider societies states and nations metaphors to a scale. If you want to point the finger at someone state with yourself and why you continue to live in such an inhumane, yet intrinsically human manor.
Furthermore, in support of your argument, the UK news is consistently riddled with stories where adults who have approached such groups have been kicked to shit, or more recently to death.
...because it sells more papers.
...because society loves violence.
Why is the news riddled with such stories?
Why does it sell more papers?
What you really need over there is a another really juicy sex scandal to get your mind off things and give to time to reflect on the fact that real violent crime rates have dropped every year for the past 13 years.