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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   28521 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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Swimming pools don't give you cities where part of the place is taken by drug zombies.

That's true, but if I recall correctly, when I was looking at different causes of death in the United States, swimming pools turned out to kill a similar number of people (mostly young kids) to accidental gun deaths in the United States annually. Obviously, you'd have to compare the base rate of pool ownership (as well as time spent around the pool) to the rate of drowning to get good numbers on the actual risk of owning a swimming pool, but I wouldn't blame a less risk-tolerant person if they didn't own a swimming pool because they were concerned about the risk of their own kids drowning.

I think the problem with bringing up "safeteyism" is that there is obviously a point in any situation where anyone except the most committed libertarian would eventually agree a law of some kind is necessary for society's well-being. Many regulations are written in blood, and I understand the impulse of a person who is more likely to ask "are the trade offs of enforcing this regulation worth it?" rather than "does this regulation reduce individual liberty?" or whatever. Sometimes it takes an unregulated amusement park ride decapitating the son of a state senator for a law to be written.

That’s because accidental gun deaths are a trivially small problem because the sorts of people who own guns are more likely to be responsible with them than average.

but I wouldn't blame a less risk-tolerant person if they didn't own a swimming pool because they were concerned about the risk of their own kids drowning

This person does not want to have to maintain and/or pay for a swimming pool, and is telling his wife it’s too dangerous as a trump card.

That's true, but if I recall correctly, when I was looking at different causes of death in the United States, swimming pools turned out to kill a similar number of people (mostly young kids) to accidental gun deaths in the United States annually.

That says more about accidental gun deaths than it says about swimming pools.

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