[NickBusey]

The amount of “pro child labor” comments in this thread is truly disheartening.

[l3mure]

Extremely on brand for HN, there's always a notable contingent in these kinds of threads.

[libraryatnight]

There's a lot of people here who forgot what they were before the internet made them comfortable livings, and then a bunch more that are MBA types willing to say anything that makes money makes sense

[codegeek]

As a parent, I am watching the latest generation of kids where they are struggling to find meaningful work because some of them never worked a day in their life. I want to avoid that situation. I obviously am not advocating for child labor in a meat packing plant working night shifts around dangerous tools and machinery.

[mmarq]

I “never worked a day in my life” until I turned 19 and found my first job. You don’t need to work in you mid teens to find a meaningful job as an adult.

[libraryatnight]

You're willing to come into a thread as a parent making comments in defense of child labor (your note saying you're not advocating it is at odds with your comment and irrelevant),based on your myopic generalization of a generation. Youve got cranky old person brain and are flirting with dangerous solutions. a pitty

[cafard]

My grandfather thought that his sons, college-bound as they were, should experience manual labor. For my father, it was a county road crew one summer, for his younger brother a stint or two as a railroad track worker. Sometime after their days with shovels, they sat down and reviewed the old man's chronology. He had never done paid manual labor, had gone right from a commercial high school to an office. He admitted this, saying that he thought that it would be good for them.

But a) these were his sons, big strapping guys of seventeen or so, and b) they were not in especially hazardous conditions. The people who think it is well for other people's adolescents to do dangerous work, I don't understand.

[green_man_lives]

Funny, my grandfather worked in agriculture since he was 5 by his own account. He is the hardest working man I know, but I never heard him say anything about the value of a hard day's work. Instead he told me how important an education was and how I should always work smarter and not harder.

[seanmcdirmid]

> The amount of “pro child labor” comments in this thread is truly disheartening.

Why is there no nuance between "let the kids do safe jobs if they want" and "make the kids do dangerous jobs" positions? I guess you are either for it all or against any of it?

[green_man_lives]

Because the article is about the exploitation of migrant children in dangerous industries and people are commenting with pro child-labor takes citing their summer job in high school. It's

1. An unproductive shift from the actual topic.

2. Clear they didn't bother reading the article.

I don't think anyone has an issue with teenagers working at McDonald's, although I think they should be taught about labor protections first to avoid being exploited by a megalomaniac store manager. Which is a common occurrence since teenagers don't know any better.

[lowbloodsugar]

There is a war going on, and HN is influential enough that it warrants propaganda.

[green_man_lives]

I have felt that way for a while. It seems like a place where propaganda would have a very good ROI. I see fewer and fewer tech articles on here and more and more "culture war" stuff. But I have only been active about 2 years. I'd like to know if the vibe was different before.

[BasedAnon]

why? Do you have any idea how many of them would be in a significantly better place financially by their 20s instead of being in debt?