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Comment by aidenn0 | Hacker News Reader

Some kids put literally everything in their mouth so I can see not wanting those in a house with toddlers. It would be nice if we could agree upon what level of danger is acceptable at a society level. There are billions of households on this planet, so if X% of them have some $UNSAFE_FOR_TODDLER_OBJECT, Y% of those end up with a toddler in them, and Z% of those end up ingesting them, you end up with a startling number of injuries to toddlers.

Does that justify banning such objects? Warning labels can help, but there's lots of "oh, I got that in college and threw away to box" or "it was owned by my 19 year old nephew who is staying in our spare bedroom" &c. so even if every parent reads and understands all the warning labels (already a fantasy), Y% will never be zero.

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I can buy a 1 gram ampule of mercury right now for $6.

It's an amazing children's toy. The metal is beautiful as it flows around the glass. It will fit down a child's throat easily.

I can buy 30 grams for $61. Even better toy but you can only imagine how bad it will be if they drop the glass enclosure.

I can buy caltrops, throwing stars, matches... any number of objects that are more likely to injure a child than a magnet.

Dozens of children choke on bottle caps every year. Marbles are still a common toy available in every toy store.

There's literally nothing about magnets that makes banning them rational.

I have no children. I will never have children. Can I submit proof of sterility to buy magnets?

I think two important factors might be how obvious the danger is and how useful the object is. A kitchen knife is obviously dangerous and also extremely useful, so it definitely passes both tests. A magnet toy does not appear remotely dangerous but serves little practical purpose, so it fails both tests. A laser pointer's danger is medium-obvious and laser pointers are at least a little useful, so it's sort of in between the two extremes.

If "small magnets are super dangerous to kids" was general knowledge, it'd probably make the magnets significantly safer to sell.

Why is entertainment or stress relief not a valid purpose?

How many other toddler-safe devices are useful substitutes for stress relief or entertainment?

Now how many toddler-safe alternatives to a knife are there for dicing vegetables?

Why is your toddler in my house?

Tabletop game hobbyists would strongly disagree about tiny magnets having no practical purpose. It's not clear if I'd be able to keep buying the 0.5mm-1mm magnets I regularly use under these rules.

Also a good point: what purpose they are being sold for. Magnets for crafting purposes are clearly very useful. I've got a drawer full of various sizes of such magnets myself (because every maker on Thingiverse seems determined to discover a unique new size of tiny magnet). But crafting tools are often dangerous and aren't intended as toys to be left in the open. Crafters with kids are already well aware that leaving crafting supplies near children will always end in disaster.

>I think two important factors might be how obvious the danger is and how useful the object is.

How dangerous-to-kids something is entirely irrelevant in every situations where there are no kids. You could ban parents from possessing high power magnets, but that will just go directly into willcipriano's point below:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33723342

This is not a standard for toys. This is a standard for non-toy products.

There doesn't appear to be an exception for hobbyists or craftspeople. Acceptable uses are industrial, professional, educational... all corporate. Unacceptable uses are jewelry, entertainment, stress relief.

This leaves hobbyists in a gray area.

Woodworkers regularly use tiny, powerful magnets to secure drawers and slides. Electronic hobbyists use them in all kinds of ways.

Do I have to establish an account with an industrial supplier to purchase these now? Or will I still be able to buy a hundred pack of tiny magnets as long as it doesn't say "fidget toy" on the amazon listing?

How about small magnetic hooks? They're massively useful, many fit in the "small parts container", and magnetic strength is directly relevant to their utility.

On the contrary, the rulemaking specifically targets hobbyists; see my remarks above about jewelry-making sets.

For the foreseeable future, you will probably still be able to buy a hundred-pack of tiny magnets on AliExpress because the seller will lie to evade shipping restrictions, as many do today to ship batteries, although the rulemaking points out that the existing restrictions have already convinced 80% of sellers to stop shipping to the US.

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