I wonder if you could ever make an ML model that could give you a reasonable estimate of the risk of taking an action would be.
"If I'm in a low-crime neighborhood on a normal temperature day, what is the risk that leaving my children in a car for 10 minutes with a window cracked and the doors locked will lead to my children being injured, kidnapped, or killed?"
The risk isn't nonzero (kids left in cars do, at some frequency, get injured, kidnapped, or killed) but it's probably far smaller than other risks people accept (such as driving the car around with the kids in it, or walking tired kids through the parking lot while also pushing a cart).
It would be great if we had such things, because it seems like people don't actually have good judgement for risks (understatement). My guess is huge parts of our day involve taking actions we think make us safer, but in fact do not.
One presumes they did not walk to the car, to go sit in it; no, they got in the car, travelled some distance, and then were left in the car. The act of driving them is many orders of magnitude more dangerous than the risk of sitting briefly in the car.
Driving is by far the most dangerous thing you regularly do. All else pales by comparison.
... and just might decide to do so and go on the implied shooting spree, after being capriciously shunned by society. A widespread mental health crisis caused by crushing bureaucracy, extractive economy, and hyperreal media saturation is the real problem underlying mass shootings. But it's apparently much easier to push for the country-scale analog to a padded room rather than coming to terms with why our society is so sick.
I'm not a gun fetishist. I just think that focusing on inanimate tools generally makes for a red herring. It's essentially grasping for a technological solution to a social problem.
Imho both are real problems, the fact that guns — and assault weapons! — are too easy to buy (easier than a can of beer, if you’re 18!) and the fact that many people feel alienated and nobody is providing free or at least accessible care to them. I’m not sure what the UK or Australia did about the second problem after they had horrible massacres years ago, but I know for sure that buying guns is now hard in both countries, and that buying AK-47s is out of the question.
This is honestly the reason I never leave my kids in the car when running a quick errand. Someone will think I am being neglectful and report me, even if it is just a couple minutes and they are objectively safer in the car then me walking them across a busy parking lot.
For those not from the US—despite the freedom loving, gun toting, Wild West international reputation the US has—American society can be rather litigious.
My EV has a button for this purpose. It runs the AC when it's off and burns about 1% battery in 30 minutes. I've had one person look suspiciously at the car, then hear the compressor running, and wander off.
(The kids know how to escape from their seats anyway...)
Edit: I only use it on borderline days. It's reliably cool when it's under 90, so I only use it under 80. At 95-100, the hot side of the compressor overheats. I would not use this with an infant.
I worked as an advocate (lobbyist, really) on child welfare among other issues for 20+ years. Time and again, local/city government agencies including schools ignored mandated reporter laws. The point of most such laws in the US is to report suspicion of abuse or neglect. NOT to have the answer to the question. But to report suspicion.
And as someone who worked in the field for a very short time but knew a lot about individual cases and cases generally (as a result of my advocacy work and that my husband was a police officer for 20+ years), the point of the child welfare system is to protect kids. If someone sees a child alone in the car, how are they to know how long the kid has been there or how long they will be alone? I've reported people who have left their kids in a locked running car. I'd do it again.
Should child welfare agencies inform people who are reported for abuse/neglect? Of course they should. It infuriates me that this doesn't happen. Similarly, should there be a review of what constitutes abuse and neglect? Of course there should be. If norms change, if child rearing changes, of course review definitions and punishments.
I'm offended by the idea that guilt should be based on "norms," not on actual endangerment, or reckless behavior.
In one community, maybe all the 10 year olds smoke hash with their dealer parents. In another, all kids are 100% kept out of sunlight until they're three or four. (Both are real world examples.). Allowing people to be prosecuted (or not) to arbitrary, unwritten standards like these is inviting abuse.
> If someone sees a child alone in the car, how are they to know how long the kid has been there or how long they will be alone?
Mu. It's not your right to be able to audit every bit of other people's business. If you don't know, then the proper action is inaction.
If you have actual knowledge of a specific problem (eg a kid looking actually distressed due to being too hot), then by all means call it in and/or take action yourself. But in general, your vague worry of "what if" is not others' responsibility to assuage.
Why wasn't the name of the registry capitalized and how can different states have different timelines for removal appeals if it's a federal directory of some kind? Or does every state implement something similar but different?
18 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 41.8 ms ] thread"If I'm in a low-crime neighborhood on a normal temperature day, what is the risk that leaving my children in a car for 10 minutes with a window cracked and the doors locked will lead to my children being injured, kidnapped, or killed?"
The risk isn't nonzero (kids left in cars do, at some frequency, get injured, kidnapped, or killed) but it's probably far smaller than other risks people accept (such as driving the car around with the kids in it, or walking tired kids through the parking lot while also pushing a cart).
It would be great if we had such things, because it seems like people don't actually have good judgement for risks (understatement). My guess is huge parts of our day involve taking actions we think make us safer, but in fact do not.
EDIT: I nerd-sniped myself and am sketching out how I'd design the schema for those tables : /
Driving is by far the most dangerous thing you regularly do. All else pales by comparison.
Feel like you want to join the militia to defend freedom? Do something useful: hop on a plane and go to Ukraine.
For those not from the US—despite the freedom loving, gun toting, Wild West international reputation the US has—American society can be rather litigious.
(The kids know how to escape from their seats anyway...)
Edit: I only use it on borderline days. It's reliably cool when it's under 90, so I only use it under 80. At 95-100, the hot side of the compressor overheats. I would not use this with an infant.
And as someone who worked in the field for a very short time but knew a lot about individual cases and cases generally (as a result of my advocacy work and that my husband was a police officer for 20+ years), the point of the child welfare system is to protect kids. If someone sees a child alone in the car, how are they to know how long the kid has been there or how long they will be alone? I've reported people who have left their kids in a locked running car. I'd do it again.
Should child welfare agencies inform people who are reported for abuse/neglect? Of course they should. It infuriates me that this doesn't happen. Similarly, should there be a review of what constitutes abuse and neglect? Of course there should be. If norms change, if child rearing changes, of course review definitions and punishments.
In one community, maybe all the 10 year olds smoke hash with their dealer parents. In another, all kids are 100% kept out of sunlight until they're three or four. (Both are real world examples.). Allowing people to be prosecuted (or not) to arbitrary, unwritten standards like these is inviting abuse.
Mu. It's not your right to be able to audit every bit of other people's business. If you don't know, then the proper action is inaction.
If you have actual knowledge of a specific problem (eg a kid looking actually distressed due to being too hot), then by all means call it in and/or take action yourself. But in general, your vague worry of "what if" is not others' responsibility to assuage.