Hacker News Reader

Comment by graupel | Hacker News Reader

I love launching rockets with my 11 year old but it's so hard to find a good spot these days where you don't end up with a police visit (that happened, worked out fine) or a risk of starting a wildfire, etc.

View on HN

Cops were different when I was a kid, lol. I remember me and some buddies getting set up to rappel off a bridge over the Minnesota river and some cops rolled up. After questioning us (14 year olds who were clearly at risk of accidentally killing themselves) the one officer says “Well, I don’t really know if this is legal or not, but it sounds like you guys are being pretty safe and you know your gear so, uh, my partner and I are going to go investigate some things and when we get back, cough, cough, in about half an hour I’m guessing you kids won’t be here, right?” I miss those days.

I’m not sure if kids did less stupid things those day, whether they were more prepared for doing stupid things, or if it’s all just my memory.

But it certainly feels like today’s 14 year olds couldn’t be trusted to do that since they’d do it with zero experience and only for the Youtube/Twitch fame.

I just miss the balance - between some kids having fun and some angry Karen calling the cops. And the cops were sort of like “Yeah, kids do stupid shit and it might go south, but let’s let them have the adventure.” And we all lived and had that adventure, thanks to a couple of MPD officers who let us go play and have fun. and yeah, we cleared out of there right quick after abseiling off the Minnesota river bridge. But the officers were the real heroes, they just let us be kids.

They don't have the strength to do it, anymore. Tapping on a keyboard/phone all day.

Yeah. In the old days people didn't have the internet to show them all the different things that could be done and thus would learn from those who knew what they were doing.

My activity of choice is a pretty safe one: hiking. The number of idiots I see out there who know nothing of wilderness safety or what they're getting into, though, is insane. Most of them have no plan B if there's a problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com