> The courts had decided that if a twelve-year-old wondered what cobalt chloride tasted like, was stupid enough to find out, and poison himself in the process, the manufacturer of the Chemistry set was at fault.
There are ways to ingest something without being “stupid”, like a spill accidentally contaminating a food surface like a kitchen table or counter.
Also, how many kids jokingly made their siblings eat sand or some other thing they weren’t supposed to eat? As a parent, I appreciate things being marketed to kids to be as non-lethal as possible.
This is a classic fallacy: “nothing bad happened to me, so if someone else gets hurt they must be stupid”.
This reminds me of memes decrying modern safety rules showing kids in the 50s riding in the front seats of cars without seatbelts.
It’s not always about the chances of an accident happening, it’s about the minor chance of an accident causing catastrophic results.
Re-read the part about accidents. Accidents aren’t Darwin awards. Accidents happen in Level 4 Bio facilities by some of the most highly trained individuals in the world. I’m guessing the accident rate for kids would be much higher than 1 in a million.
And you can still buy an adult chemistry set for your kid and supervise them to the extent you feel is appropriate.
Maybe you personally have never had an accident but to err is human and kid’s products do need to be designed for the masses and accounting for the fact that their bodies, moral compass and decision making is still in flux.
Adult chemistry supplies never went away. You can, in fact, go buy all sorts of chemicals and college-level chemistry lab kits from suppliers right now. The only thing that actually changed is that the immediately dangerous stuff couldn't go in products actively advertised for children.
There are ways to ingest something without being “stupid”, like a spill accidentally contaminating a food surface like a kitchen table or counter.
Also, how many kids jokingly made their siblings eat sand or some other thing they weren’t supposed to eat? As a parent, I appreciate things being marketed to kids to be as non-lethal as possible.
This is a classic fallacy: “nothing bad happened to me, so if someone else gets hurt they must be stupid”.
This reminds me of memes decrying modern safety rules showing kids in the 50s riding in the front seats of cars without seatbelts.
It’s not always about the chances of an accident happening, it’s about the minor chance of an accident causing catastrophic results.