Even if we start a lost of possible harmful items, would it solve the issue in this case? How are minors buying anything in the interent without supervision? Were they even using an account marked as a minor?
I mean, the solution is rather simple.
Instead of trying to kid-safe the world, why not just make the world less shitty to live in?
It's a 2 birds 1 stone trick, except this proverbial stone will be taking down many more than just 2 birds. Almost all of the current problems we deal with as a society, all stem from how shitty society has become for many people. But because some people are happy with the way things are going, since things are mostly fine for them; the rest of us have to put up with it? And people are surprised when kids, teens and adults are deciding to opt-out? And their best solution is to make it harder for people to find way to opt-out?
Seriously, really?
Is it really so surprising that people would want a fast ride out of hell at that point? Because that's what it must be like for them if they figure ending it all there and then, is better off than putting up with the rest of societies bullshit any longer.
I have more to say on this, but am trying to follow HN's rules about flamewar stuff, and I realize that this comment thread is very easily turned into such a thing unless careful, so I am cutting my comment off here.
The interesting part is that many of the child suicides are in the well off families.
1. Are they well off because they have digital devices?
2. Are they well off because their parents can afford to have just 1 working member?
3. Are they well off because their parents make more than 100k a year? Or some other arbitrary number?
I've met some families in the past that meet all 3 criteria and exceeded the 3rd; but they rent. Are they also well off?
I do think it's interesting that the 'well off' kids are the ones offing themselves. But if that's the case, then we need to look very seriously at what's occurring at that point, because it just means I am more correct than previously stated.
Someone who is well off by the standards of those who are potentially poorer than that person, may still have plenty of other reasons to be unhappy with life. Perhaps not valid to you or I, since they are 'well off', but our opinions on how well to do they are don't matter. The only thing that matters ultimately is that they don't feel like its worth it to continue living.
That, needs to be solved. And that, is part of why I am right about how society has become shitty for many people. Even if they are well to do. Especially so. That should be the last group to be wanting to off itself.
So that tells me that it's not money related, or object related.
It's societally related somehow, in some fashion, which we need to find out, and fix.
Society "being shitty" can be taken many ways. The most common would be seen in amenities/money.
We should do something about it, but what? Again, easier said than done.
Yes, it’s their algorithm. But they tweak it all the time to catch issues like this.
If they recommended Mein Kampf and white robes when you ordered rope, surely we’d all agree that would be wrong, even though those individual items are defendable. Recommending them in combination would be evil.
Likewise, recommending guns and bullets alongside a book about mass shootings would be evil.
I don’t see how this is a controversial position.
The real question shouldn't be around the algorithm, but rather around the suicide book being banned. Or even around unauthorized account creation/access or payment.
The algorithm is not evil, and Amazon itself is not either, provided they do something to try to fix the problem. But the problem is in how algorithms themselves operate.
It's just taking known info and applying it to current situation.
The only actual, proper, and relatively easy by comparison solution to all of this is to just make it so people have no want or reason to commit suicide, or any other 'evil' acts that might be suggested by a foolish algorithm.
Banning things has never worked. Just look at all those super successful wars on drugs, alcohol, etc. Never, worked. Ever.
The true evil, in my opinion, is the attempt to kid-safe the world to the point where it removes all potential for joy and happiness. That leads to suicide by the first groups who commit it, which produces data for our A.I driven machines, which leads to algorithms happily suggesting the perfect thing for it.
I would like to add finally, that just because you don't see how your or any one elses opinion is or is not controversial, does not make it so. Calling opinion controversial based upon opinion itself as well, is just argumentation. Which should be fine in a logical world. But we do not live in a logical world, which is why people are preferring to opt-out of it.
And that's my opinion on the matter. Algorithms just happily oblige the user.
If your values diverge from that great for you I guess but I think my values on this are more consistent with a healthy society and approach to regulating corporate behavior.
When Amazon has had to do this 1000+ unique times, then we can have the debate of whether their extra work is worth the lost lives of kids. Probably still a loser of an argument IMO but let’s just take a simple first step yeah?
But maybe it's fitting we are like that, because at the end of the day, who's right is it to be banning anything? Certainly not yours, or mine. Sure, protect the children... but against what? Themselves? Kids have been doing stupid things for a long time, and been mostly fine. It's only recently that society has decided to ban joy as well by happenstance via the many methods employed to reduce the spread of covid that things started to go overboard.
How about we just stop making life shitty for people. That will be what makes this entire discussion moot.
"How about we just stop making life shitty for people."
Easier said than done. Most of the child suicides are so well off families.
Sure, but nothing in life worth doing is easy. Sometimes you have to take the hard path to gain anything worthwhile.
And quite frankly, there is no reason or excuse for society to continue to be made shittier and shittier just to suit the inadequate opinions of literally anyone.
Throwing up small obstacles to suicide has been done forever and isn’t controversial. People are impulsive. We put up railings and hotline phones on bridges and stuff like that.
That’s a good thing.
This is controversial; people fought against adding ugly suicide netting to the Golden Gate Bridge for years, and there are strong utilitarianism-based arguments for limiting the lengths we go to prevent suicide.
There’s no cost benefit analysis to do here for the rest of us. There’s no pros and cons. Amazon doing this is bad, they were told about it and didn’t fix it. They have godlike amounts of money and are telling us to go fuck ourselves if it bothers us.
They could make an algorithm that doesn’t literally recommend suicide to teens and they should. There’s no other side of the argument we are talking about a recommendation here. The recommendation engine is a consumer product and it’s faulty.
As for the chemical the legitimate needs for it are likely vanishingly small and I find it really unlikely the people that need it would really mind some age verification or another extra safety step when ordering it.
We have been so corrupted by corporate influence we don’t even think to insist that companies act in the benefit of society anymore. Making profits isn’t a god given right if the product is bad for people.
Well, you just articulated one of the major social benefits. We do really mind. The benefits are clearly not zero, like you claimed.
What you didn’t articulate is an argument for why we should invest so much — and give up privacy and our freedoms — to try (and fail) to prevent such a vanishingly small number of self-inflicted deaths.
This is emotional outrage bait, not a basis for instituting evidence-based policy.
Frankly, it’s not our problem, and not our cost to be bourne.
If you want to take away anyone’s ability to use the internet for commerce without interference, why don’t you you start with taking away your own children’s free access to the internet and credit cards, rather than everyone else?
You can do that yourself, today — and probably should.
If this is really your approach to consumer product safety then I suppose you’re consistent, if wrong.
I bet it’s not though. I suspect you’re pretty happy with the outcome of a framework where dangerous products are regulated.
The freedom argument is specious we don’t regulate commerce with corporate freedom as an overriding value. We mandate everything from child proof packaging to rear view mirrors to alcohol consumption of pilots to competence exams for barbers to labeling for Doritos.
I suspect most in this thread are idly arguing from bias rather than reading the facts of Amazon’s behavior here it’s pretty indefensible.
Our tech giants are corporations and the things they produce are products. By a few historical accidents (especially section 230) and a shit ton of corporate PR we have been conditioned not to evaluate them as consumer products that can be defective and harmful but we should start.
Yes, I do. You do too. Your medicine cabinet and cleaning supplies are full of lethal “lab chemicals” that would kill if ingested, or ingested in even mild excess.
But this isn’t even a “highly lethal lab chemical”, it’s just sodium nitrate; mined straight from the earth, and has been used as a food preservative for at least a couple centuries.
> … you use to restock your kitchen
It’s none of your business what we buy these things for, whether it’s to stock our kitchen for meat preservation, or backyard science experiments with our kids.
> The freedom argument is specious we don’t regulate commerce with corporate freedom as an overriding value.
The freedom you’re attacking out of emotional panic isn’t Amazon’s. They can comply with whatever arbitrary nonsensical “save the children” crap you invent, and compliance will cost a microscopic percentage of their overall revenue.
The freedom you’re attacking is mine, and everyone else’s.
Take responsibility for yourself and your own children. If you can’t do that, blame yourself, not me.
Do you also want to be free to buy baby formula and not be sure what’s in it, or a car where the seatbelts fail if you weigh over 150lbs? Do you want freedom to see pornographic billboards near the playground?
These things aren’t freedom by any recognizable definition. They’re just defective products made by unaccountable corporations. Like Amazon’s recommendation engine in this case.
The idea that corporations should just be able to do whatever they want is so fucking toxic. Seeing this attitude pervasive here on the discussion board of the private equity firm that’s advised so much of our modern tech culture sure does explain a lot though.
I want to be free to order goods without having to upload government-issued ID or otherwise jump through hoops to assuage your panic.
I also want to be free to see a suicide book next to a sodium nitrate purchase without an emotionally panicked busy-body deciding that we have to save the children by infringing on the latter freedom.
> Do you also want to be free to buy baby formula and not be sure what’s in it, or a car where the seatbelts fail if you weigh over 150lbs? Do you want freedom to see pornographic billboards near the playground?
You’re conflating a lot of very different issues here. Can you actually explain how these are related?
> The idea that corporations should just be able to do whatever they want is so fucking toxic.
Nobody is advocating that here, that I can tell.
Furthermore, far more toxicity arises out of nanny-scolds advocating for ever-increasing regulation so that nobody will ever feel unsafe again.
If you want to look for the source of policies that stifle children, replace their healthy childhood experiences with institutionalized suffocation, and as a result, have created the most mentally unwell generation (literally) ever — try a mirror.
Razor blades, pen knives, #8 marine line, paracord. All of these things are trivially used to kill yourself.
It is not societies job to protect your snot goblin for killing themselves because you let the little tyke have free access to order whatever they want from the internet.