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Comment by khazhoux | Hacker News Reader

“Tracking” is a scare word. The ability to see where my spouse is, when needed, without having to call or send a text, is a convenience. There’s nothing wrong with not sharing your location with your spouse if you don’t want to, but there’s also nothing weird about doing so. Neither of us “cares” one bit where the other is, but it’s frequently useful to know.

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I do personally think it's weird, but if other's are fine and comfortable with it, what two consenting adult decide about tracking each other is none of my business.

But kids don't get to consent to this. Their parents decide for them, regardless of what they do or don't want. I don't think kids should be forced to submit to 24/7 tracking, regardless of the intent behind it.

Only if you both are mature enough though. If you are constantly looking at the location of your spouse to see of they are cheating or something, and then question every unexpected movement they do, you won't benefit from it.

Yes, because spouses are adults. But kids being constantly tracked is absolutely scary. Do you really think it's healthy that kids grow up always being watched, constantly monitored by their primary authority figures?

I don't think that distinction is as stark as you make it. Spouses can be overly, annoyingly controlling - and it can happen gradually. I'm sure that for every person who doesn't mind their partner knowing where they are, there's another who has been pressured into it - perhaps by it being insinuated that their not wanting to be trackable means that they have something to hide.

It's about consent perhaps?

This is wild. Parents decide where and when their kid eats and sleeps and, what they eat and wear and thousand other very intrusive things, but suddenly when electronic device is involved, consent is required.

Parents decide that for babies. Kids going through puberty that let their parents continue to decide every decision can be an actual abusive relationship. You need to be influencing good behavior, not forcing it at a certain point.

Kinds going through puberty are already tracked through their phones, if not by their parents then by uncle Google. I thought we were talking about younger kids.

How can you so casually equate mass tracking by Google and direct surveillance by family member? that's not even whataboutism, completely different situation

Google doesn't need to know who I am to track me, Google cannot lock me up in my room, Google cannot gaslight/manipulate/abuse me based on where I went today

You are right, those are two completely different things. Some people are more concerned by one than then other. Some the other way around. However the technology exists. Children are living and will be living in the world in which that technology exists. They need to figure out how to live in this world. The same way kids of previous generations figured out how to live in the worlds they were born into.

And even in the context of abusive relationships, sometimes the more tools the abuser has, the more secure they feel in their abuse, the less impactful is their abuse on daily lives of the abused. The abusers get worse when they feel like they are loosing control.

I'm not going to say that consent doesn't exist - but it's sufficiently ill-defined as a concept that it is somewhat meaningless. What constitutes consent?

If I finally agree to something after being nagged interminably - have I consented, or have I just given in?

At the other end of the spectrum, if someone asks for something which doesn't particularly suit my purposes, but I agree to it as it seems fair enough - is that consent?

One situation seems like it is, the other one probably not. But where is the line? To me, consent seems like a vaguely letter-of-the-law, CYA type of word.

It's totally vague. Some decisions are considered okay for parents to make for their children without consent but others aren't.

I feel like as a teen I would consent to being tracked by my parents but that doesn't mean it would be a good idea. It all depends on intent and parent-child relationship in the first place (looking back I didn't have a great one :shrug:)

Yes, they absolutely can be.

The difference is you can leave your spouse, an option not really realistic for a child.

You CAN leave your spouse - but in many common circumstances, it's by no means an easy option.

Right, exactly. So if it's not ok to pressure a spouse into tracking them when they don't want to be tracked, why is it ok to force a child to be tracked? Obviously parents have a lot of -- necessary -- leeway in what they decide their child must and must not do, regardless of the child's wishes. But I don't think it's healthy to get children used to the idea that the norm is that they'll be tracked 24/7. Even if the intent is to stop the tracking at, say, 12 years old, that's some powerful conditioning that they've been exposed to in their formative years.

Absolutely, I agree with you entirely. But I'm sure the state doesn't mind such indoctrination one bit.

> kids being constantly tracked is absolutely scary

Isn't that how the vast majority of the net worth of NH readers was generated?

... by... tracking... kids? No, I don't think so. You have a pretty weird conception of what HN readers do for a living.

> what HN readers do for a living.

Work for one of the FANGS, a social media platform, in ad tech, in big data (anything with humans) or any company that monetises through a) advertising or b) selling user data.

I am sure there are some people who work in financial services as well but they are probably considered to have lower moral standards.

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