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Notes -
Regarding "Those who Walk Away from Omelas": The older I get the more I suspect the people who walk away are in the wrong.
For example the map in this old article which became a meme:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html
Great-Grandfather: Allowed at age 8 to walk six miles to go fishing.
Grandfather: Allowed to roam in the woods.
Mother: Allowed to walk by herself to the swimming bath.
Zoomer Kid: Only allowed to walk to the family house street.
In a sense past generations larger freedom was bought by Omelas-sacrificing of children lives.
Don't forget larger prosperity and technological advancements in general.
Things that would be risky or deadly in 1950 are actually not risky or deadly now, from sex (safer from pregnancy and disease, but far more restrictions on it then ca. 1970) to physical activities (we can fix injuries we couldn't before) to vehicles (airbags and crumple zones solved 90% of the problem) to being unaccompanied in public (every kid is wearing at least one tracker at all times and the "dog lost/want a ride?" trick stopped working 40 years ago for the same reason that airline hijackings are impossible now).
Yet even with all those improvements we still refuse to actually use any of them. Curious.
Hmm. With respect to sex, it was probably least consequential (socially and physically) from the late 60s until maybe 1985 or so, with the rise of AIDS.
As far as physical activity: trauma medicine is great at saving lives and also a very mixed bag. For the most part, if you're alive after suffering an injury that would've killed you in your father's time, you're going to be crippled for life and in chronic pain.
I think that a lot of it is that the Boomers were the first generation, or one of the first, to grow up in a world where the idea that no parent should have to bury a child was an accepted truism.
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