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Comment by m0nty | Hacker News Reader

"But isn't there something a bit creepy about all this?"

No. There's something creepy about a culture which seems to believe you should only befriend people your own age, and that anything more than 15% either way makes you a pervert.

I do think, however, that you need to be careful what you say. I remember playing Half Life online about 8 years ago, and I caught myself using the same profanities I would use amongst friends at our weekly LAN party. What might be a perfectly innocent profanity to me ;) might raise a few questions if other players were particularly young, and I had no way to know, so I reigned it in a bit. Social networks could easily lead to similar misunderstandings.

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A couple years ago, as a happily married 35 year old, I took a few math and physics classes for fun at a nearby community college.

I purposely would not talk to the younger crowd for exactly this "Creepy" issue. Luckily there were a few older students around that I could talk with.

I found after a few classes that the younger people (especially home-schoolers) who had real interest in the technical subjects would seek you out in the math and science labs. I ended up being friends with a few of these students, to the point where they would ask to sync class schedules so that we could work on projects together. (Males only; there were some smart females in my classes, but for a variety of reasons I had as little to do with them as possible.)

It seems kind of unfair that a person feels compelled to distance themselves from like-minded people, just because of an age difference.

> anything more than 15% either way makes you a pervert

Actually it's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Your-Age-Plus-Seven_Rule

I've only heard that for dating, not friendship. And a friend recently said the rule's origin is in some Jewish teachings about a proper mate... though Wikipedia doesn't mention that.

I feel like a part of it is warranted.

It's great to see people of different age levels be able to talk to each other and have good conversations, all due to the accessibility of the internet. People from across the world could have great interactions that they would not have if not for the internet.

However, the internet also provides anonymity for perverts and pedophiles, giving them the freedom to do whatever they want.

Younger people may be a bit more wary when someone older friends them because of the latter, which an unfortunate truth.

That same anonymity coupled with distance increases safety. The greatest risk is from those who live close to you so the pervert three time zones away is a lower risk than the pervert down the street who you only notice in passing.

What I think is risky is joining local on or off line groups where it's easy to find where you live / work.

The net is more dangerous than real life because pedophila or cannibalism is mandated in the Internet Terms of Service.

They're all creeps, especially men. Perverts are more dangerous when they're on the internet!!!

I'm 12 years old. What are you doing on this forum chatting with little boys anyway. Creep.

"...because pedophila or cannibalism is mandated in the Internet Terms of Service"

If we eat a pedophile, does that cover both requirements? Or is there a bonus?

Hey -- welcome to the club for people who want to do their own start-ups. It's topic-oriented and self-censoring. Now that I know a 12-year-old is online I'll refrain from posting my entire dirty limerick collection.

Post away with the limericks--I'm not really 12. Lying about your age is also mandated in the Internet Terms of Service.

Actually I don't have any limericks.

Lying about just about everything else is also required.

I'm wondering, if you downvoted this, is it because you think the internet is more dangerous than people nearby? Is it because you think society isn't paranoid about about men talking to children? The idea of an internet terms of service was to parody the notion that the internet itself is somehow more evil than the people surrounding us every day, which I find is a surprisingly common belief. Please do debate/elaborate as I'd like to discuss your point of view.

Well the thing about befriending people your own age is that they're much more likely to be at the same stage of life as you. So it's easier to discuss things. That's the way I feel about it and you can dismiss this.

But don't dismiss this: The other thing is that an older person can influence a younger one in some ways, mainly because young people are stupid and don't know any better. All I can offer is anecdotal evidence to support that statement.

Well the thing about befriending people your own age is that they're much more likely to be at the same stage of life as you.

To some extent this is a self-fulfilling expectation. If you only ever interact with your age-cohort, you'll be artificially kept 'in sync', and diversity of experience and personal growth may suffer.

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