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Comment by anderskaseorg | Hacker News Reader

A five year old child is a person who has rights. If those rights are being trampled on, then it’s 100% appropriate for the child’s guardians to seek legal recourse on their behalf (provided that it can be shown to the appropriate legal standard that the guardians are acting in the child’s interest, which seems like it wouldn’t be difficult in this case). What the child would say with a soapbox isn’t the relevant question.

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I do not advocate for the oppression of children. Nothing I said have called into question the rights of a five year old. I never said that guardians can't advocate for their children.

In fact the only point I made that you addressed you said wasn't relevant. So I will repeat myself clearly for others that are confused. Five year olds can not be expected to advocate for themselves. Five year olds do not get the final say on decisions concerning them.

Edit: What children would say with their soapbox is very much relevant it illustrates my above points.

Furthermore is it common practice to do edits without annotations? They are really annoying to keep up with frankly. This is the 2nd in this chain alone.

Well, starting a lawsuit on behalf of children is the mechanism we have to prevent oppression of children. It’s not about giving them a soapbox and certainly not about giving them the final say. The legal system will not decide that five year olds deserve unlimited Game Boy access just because they claim to want that. It will (one would hope) decide that they deserve a future with a habitable planet because that’s been shown to be in their best interest after the arguments on all sides are weighed, whether the child understands it or not.

(As for edits, maybe you’re responding to someone other than me, but my comment was not edited in any way.)

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