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Comment by andjd | Hacker News Reader

I realise that this is a thought experiment, so refuting the premise is besides the point, but . . . I feel the need to call out the casual assertion that

> The suburbs has [net] benefits for your gifted son

The zeitgeist has a knee-jerk belief that children are best raised in the suburbs, and I think it's important to assess that belief critically. Children can and do thrive in cities. To pick just one example children, especially teenagers, have a lot more agency and independence when they live in walkable neighborhoods with a robust public transit network. In the typical suburb, anything beyond playing with friends who live on the same street requires a parent to drive them around. This harms the utility of both the children and the parents.

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I actually think the housing situation in America is very directly linked to the teenage mental health crisis. From my personal experience, when I was under 18, my entire life revolved around school (which was 90% lectured by teacher and 10% socializing) and taking the bus home (the nearest other home was door-to-door ten minutes away), then being alone at home. The only other transit options was a bizarre after-school bus which took until 7 to get home or getting a ride from my parents.

In such an environment, it makes sense kids would feel isolated and alone. In my present life my work/home/play is much more balanced. I have multiple social areas in walking distance from my apartment, the activities during the 'working hours' is a mix of learning, meetings, and productive work. I know I'm a data point of one, but I can't imagine living in the suburbs and NOT being depressed.

America has also changed its opinion about whether children should travel around town alone. It used to be that children could ride their bikes around town, knock on doors, and find kids to play with, and it would be okay as long as you were back home by dinner.

Parents today are worried about their kids being hit by cars, going lost, getting abducted by strangers, or simply having something happen to them that gets CPS involved. If something happens to my kid, then I'm the bad parent. Anecdotally, I saw this happen in my town when a 7-year-old girl was taken in her own front yard. Parents chimed in online to say, "The mother should go to jail" and "I always know where my kids are at all times."

Unfortunately "suburb" is an overloaded and ill-defined term that can mean anything from "pre-war streetcar suburbs laid out on a grid, with a main street, walkable amenities, and (at least here in the Northeast, if not everywhere) access to commuter rail" to "a modern cul-de-sac development attached to a high-speed arterial that's walkable to exactly nothing."

I think this speaks to the failure of utilitarianism, at least in my mind - notions of "utility" are rooted in subjectivity and subject to chaotic forces in the future. Utilitarianism still remains useful as an ethical and executive framework, but one must be easily preempted by other ethical concerns as in the article, as well as aware of the inherent uncertainty in future outcomes.

Utility is subjective? We have instincts around what to consider useful or not. These instincts have been calibrated by evolution for survival. Survival is pretty objective, don't you agree?

In spite of that, not everyone has the same instincts on what is useful or not. Therefore utility is subjective. Beyond survival there is much else to disagree about.

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