On: The case for banning children from social media

[DubiousPusher]

> Banning things rarely works.

This depends on your definition of the term "works". Prohibition of many things has had a profound effect on the shape of human society. Prohibitions on religion for example, such as the repression of the Huguenots in France and of Christianity in Japan prevented the development of Protestantism and Catholicism in those countries respectively.

Prohibition and censorship of revolutionary materials and correspondence societies in 19th century Europe absolutely slowed down the process of democratization and popular reform there.

Even just in personal experience, it's much easier to get weed since it is no longer prohibited. You used to need "a source" which you had to work out in each new town or city you moved to. Then there were limits on what those people could get you.

[RoyGBivCap → DubiousPusher]

You mentioned prohibition, but for some reason left out capital-P Prohibition, which brought us mobsters, speakeasys, and the US government blinding people: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-us-government-enforced... and was eventually repealed.

Drugs won the "war on drugs". We don't need more authoritarianism. Provide education, and let people choose. Anything else, they'll fight you on it.

[DubiousPusher → RoyGBivCap]

I didn't say it was good policy. Nor did I say it didn't have unintended consequences. Nor did I say I favored it.

But it is a myth that "it doesn't work". Prohibition works in that it reduces consumption of or participation in the prohibited thing.

It's a popular historical myth that prohibition of alcohol didn't work in the U.S. It did. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3675/w3675...

The War On Drugs is a terrible example because it went way beyond prohibition. The War On Drugs was politically entangled in immigration, US interests in foreign regimes, human trafficking, and on. You don't have to quasi-invade other countries to prohibit drugs at home. That's a policy choice influenced by many other prejudices and distortions.

Prohibition works. It's another question entirely whether it is just, whether it can be conducted while respecting human rights and whether it is worth the unintended consequences.

[RoyGBivCap → DubiousPusher]

A ban is supposed to do more than "reduce" it's supposed to eliminate. So no, it doesn't work.

[DubiousPusher → RoyGBivCap]

That's why I started this entire exchange with

> This depends on your definition of the term "works".

I think for a lot of governments and policy makers the goal is to significantly reduce.

By your definition, literally every human intervention in history, prohibitory or otherwise has not "worked".

[RoyGBivCap → DubiousPusher]

>By your definition, literally every human intervention in history, prohibitory or otherwise has not "worked".

Correct.

[DubiousPusher → RoyGBivCap]

Even in scenarios where the specifically stated goal of a policy is a specific decline in some measure?