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> These are groups who, culturally, do not want their children to have agency over their own lives,

People who are not yet ready to have full agency of their own lives is more or less the definition of children.

Does she also expect children to have full time jobs, pay taxes, pay all their own bills and rent, etc etc?



"These are groups that i invented".

I know a few upper-crust families, including a hereditary title. They all care about their children, like the majority of human beings. But this blogger doesn't think we hate posh people enough, so necessarily they abuse their young.

It snacks of "jews will eat your baby". It's not the vitriol that offends me, it's the stupidity.


I've known plenty of very rich people and they're just normal people, every bit as capable of loving or abusing their children as anyone. So while I kinda agree with the first half, your comment smacks of knowing less extremely wealthy people and still being at the stage where you're just so happy you bumped into a few and feel the need to glaze them, lacking the outlook and the jadedness available to someone like me (not to mention someone who knows even more rich people, or even is a rich themselves).


Triangulate this:

I grew up in a listed house with twelve fireplaces and a stable block with coach houses (plural). There were three crown princes in my boarding house at school. My godfather's house is a tourist attraction and my godmother was on the board of ICI. My mother's garden is on the horticultural circuit. My sister got married in Westminster Abbey. One brother used to play polo and the other just made equity partner at deloitte. I can probably get twenty OBEs on the phone. One of my friends has a net worth of €500b, and this year i have declined three invitations from him just to avoid the air travel.

When i was young and everything was black-and-white, i hated all rich people. I chiselled my privilege out of my accent and worked manual jobs. Now i hate the system, and i take the people in the system as i find them. My circle includes people from all walks of life, and I get invited to opera and to warehouse parties alike.


Aha! So you "hated the rich", now you turn around call people who say something negative about them as a class antisemites, basically using Jews to defend the rich against your own straw man / phantoms of the past.

Anyways, your quite pedestrian life story changes none of the data, e.g. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduce...

Being aware of said data is not "hatred" or seeing things black and white.


Sweetheart, on this showing, you could insult me for twelve rounds and not land a single blow.


Then surely we shall go for thirteen at the least! I wasn't teying to be insulting though, I am just being playfully irreverent.


Well, let's be friends then - I'm somewhat robust. But your calibration is off for good-natured ribbing. Either you skewer someone and they have the self-awareness to acknowledge it in good humour, or you reduce their life experience to a bullet point and not even a correct one.

My bullet point would probably be "champagne socialist" or "trustafarian"; you can tag me as such; the truth is never libel.


In TFA, the author says "agency" not "full agency." I also can't find all these other issues (jobs, etc) in TFA. Where are you getting this?


Well that's the question isn't it, agency but to what extent. It makes sense to allow teenagers to have more agency over themselves than a 10 year old, but clearly there is an argument for limiting their agency on social media platforms.

Just because there are adults that abuse their agency of the use of alcohol (alcoholism) doesn't mean we should remove restrictions on young people.

Just because there are adults with full agency who drive recklessly doesn't mean we should allow 13 year olds to drive cars.


Is there a point you’re trying to make?


The point is very clear to the rest of us. You inserted the word "full" where the author was not talking about full agency. It's hard to believe that you don't follow.


We are arguing over how much agency children should have. The article argues they should have more, the comment you originally responded to said practically definitionally we limit the agency of children. The obvious implied point is that it's not unreasonable to think their phone use may be part of the agency that they are denied, and that would not be a departure from how children are treated.




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