No. No Occam's Razor. You need to provide some kind of actual proof that the warning labels are insufficient and it is not the consumer's fault. A consumer started this issue. The burden of proof is on them (and you, since you're on their side) to show that the company is lacking in some way. You can't just say "this is reasonable" and make that your proof. It doesn't work that way.
The "actual proof" that the warning labels are insufficient is because that after the new and more specific warning labels were put on the product, the incidents of accidental ingestion and injury increased rather than decreasing.
Where's you proof that during that same time frame that consumers became less responsible?
I bet that there is a standard rate of ingestion and the absolute amount of incidence has increased as more units have sold.
Which still means that the new warning labels are ineffective, since even if you make that assumption, the standard rate of ingestion has remained the same, or not decreased enough to balance out the danger that the product poses.
I meant the liklihood of running into another owner of bucky balls than yourself is unlikely. If you are buying them, lock that shit up.
It is not hard to grasp that this is a dangerous toy. Just like you shouldn't let a 6 year old near a band saw, or drain cleaner.
I am at a loss for words why a lot of you think this concept is hard. Do you not think locking hunting rifles up is a good thing?
So you think this desk toy is obviously unsafe, is comparable to a band saw or drain cleaner one should have to lock it up, but don't think it should be banned when the actual real world sale of this product has produced an increasing number of children requiring surgical intervention to treat the otherwise fatal consequences of swallowing it.
I don't know about Bowen, but I don't think they're obviously unsafe. There just aren't very many actual toys marketed for adults to compare them to. Most things that kids aren't supposed to play with are tools or weapons or something because tools and weapons are common; toys for adults aren't.
Back in the day they used to make chemistry sets that were hideously dangerous for kids, but were marketed with the assumption that they'd be used either by children old enough to know better or else under adult supervision. If you used them at all the way that they were meant to be used they were, by and large, perfectly safe. A bit more dangerous than buckyballs in that you could potentially generate dangerous fumes without realizing it. They don't sell those anymore because people can't be bothered to follow rules like that. Buckyballs are both less inherently dangerous and not (anymore) marketed to kids.
Probably the lawsuit will go through and they'll have to stop selling buckyballs, the same way they had to stop selling chemistry sets. It's a shame because those chemistry sets were cool and educational, and buckyballs are neat and fun. But neither are inherent or obviously dangerous, especially when used properly, and neither would need to be locked away outside the presence of children. And neither would be a more than remote, highly unlikely threat to children if parents took responsibility for making themselves aware of the potential dangers of toys that they buy and then not buy them.
The "actual proof" that the warning labels are insufficient is because that after the new and more specific warning labels were put on the product, the incidents of accidental ingestion and injury increased rather than decreasing.
Where's you proof that during that same time frame that consumers became less responsible?
Out of curiosity, are you engaging the thread or having a shouting match with Bowen?
What are the increases, though? Do we have anything close to numbers, like "In 2009 there were four deaths from the popular desk-toy Buckyballs. In 2011, by contrast, that rrate has increased by 100 times to over 400 deaths from said product..."
Do we have anything like that?
I haven't seen an argument here that suggests parents are becoming less responsible.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
No. No Occam's Razor. You need to provide some kind of actual proof that the warning labels are insufficient and it is not the consumer's fault. A consumer started this issue. The burden of proof is on them (and you, since you're on their side) to show that the company is lacking in some way. You can't just say "this is reasonable" and make that your proof. It doesn't work that way.
The "actual proof" that the warning labels are insufficient is because that after the new and more specific warning labels were put on the product, the incidents of accidental ingestion and injury increased rather than decreasing.
Where's you proof that during that same time frame that consumers became less responsible?
I bet that there is a standard rate of ingestion and the absolute amount of incidence has increased as more units have sold.
Which still means that the new warning labels are ineffective, since even if you make that assumption, the standard rate of ingestion has remained the same, or not decreased enough to balance out the danger that the product poses.
The danger is non existent if proper precautions are taken. Which some people can't seemed be assed to do.
I just don't see the problem here. If you have small kids, don't buy buckyballs.
True, there's no way children will ever encounter buckyballs if their parents don't buy them.
The likelihood is amazingly tiny.
How often do you see kids at another person's house unattended? Honestly, though, it is no more dangerous than antifreeze, and hey that tastes a bit sweet, just like juice!
Let's over legalize stupid nonsense like this and waste our time more.
No it really isn't. Kids swallow shit all the time, including at daycare, school, and other kids homes. Respectfully, if you think you can with any assurance of success prevent your child from ever swallowing something like this, you're delusional. Normally, that's frankly not a big deal. The kid shits it out and there's a good chance no one even knows. With this particular toy, it leads to severe and hard to diagnose symptoms followed by surgery or death.
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Everyone is all upset because of the slippery slope and fetishizing potential harm in children. None of that produces an argument why prohibiting the sale of a toy (and that's what this is if we remove the foolish desk- prefix they added well after they started selling this) that has a high degree of potential harm is a bad thing.
Honestly, how many dead kids are an amusing fidget toy worth? Does the idea that the children of "careless" parents will die really seem like a reasonable cost to uphold some idea that "in my day children weren't coddled"?
It is not about not coddling the children, it is about not coddling the parents.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "but what about ME?" then you could probably stand to be coddled a little.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "lets SUE someone with MONEY!" then you could probably stand a little less coddling.
The only reason anyone's getting sued is because the warnings didn't work and the company isn't willing to redesign the product to avoid the problem. Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason... they're now going the tobacco route and getting sued for having an intrinsically problematic product.
Again, you're going to need to show that the warning labels themselves, not irresponsible parents, are to blame here.
And you're also going to need to explain how it's a company's fault if they clearly label their product as unsafe when used in a certain way or unsafe for a certain age group and then BOTH of those warnings are ignored. How are they supposed to control that?
Occam's Razor time. If more specific age limits and warning labels don't reduce the incidents of ingestion and injury, then it's much more reasonable to assume that those warning labels alone are ineffective, not that parents and children around the country have somehow become less responsible during the same time frame.
If a company is marketing a product that is easy to ingest and can cause massive, even lethal, internal damage, they have a much higher standard to hit. They don't get to use "Hey, we put a warning label on it" as a blanket defense, especially when those warning labels don't seem to be effective.
No. No Occam's Razor. You need to provide some kind of actual proof that the warning labels are insufficient and it is not the consumer's fault. A consumer started this issue. The burden of proof is on them (and you, since you're on their side) to show that the company is lacking in some way. You can't just say "this is reasonable" and make that your proof. It doesn't work that way.
Who cares if it's the consumer's fault? The company is not morally blameless for selling dangerous products just because they can find some rubes to pin it on. In the real world you need to account for stupid people and you're negligent if you don't.
Jetskis are dangerous.
That's ok, you can't eat them. And they're kinda hard to use out of water. And harder to misplace. And they're more obviously dangerous so people are more inclined to caution and supervision of minors. But other than that, just like buckyballs.
And as an aside, it doesn't really matter what a thing is marketed "as" mostly what it's used for and who it's used by.
If buckyballs are a toy, great, they're a toy. Supposedly used by adults or people old enough not to swallow magnets. Should totally ban compressed air because kids die and it's clearly dangerous.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
The "actual proof" that the warning labels are insufficient is because that after the new and more specific warning labels were put on the product, the incidents of accidental ingestion and injury increased rather than decreasing.
Where's you proof that during that same time frame that consumers became less responsible?
Out of curiosity, are you engaging the thread or having a shouting match with Bowen?
What are the increases, though? Do we have anything close to numbers, like "In 2009 there were four deaths from the popular desk-toy Buckyballs. In 2011, by contrast, that rrate has increased by 100 times to over 400 deaths from said product..."
Do we have anything like that?
I haven't seen an argument here that suggests parents are becoming less responsible.
And as an aside, it doesn't really matter what a thing is marketed "as" mostly what it's used for and who it's used by.
If buckyballs are a toy, great, they're a toy. Supposedly used by adults or people old enough not to swallow magnets. Should totally ban compressed air because kids die and it's clearly dangerous.
I think fireworks are the best analogy here. They're a toy, are inherently dangerous given that their sole purpose is to explode, and yet we're chasing down magnets to protect people from themselves, not fucking fireworks which kill and maim people in far greater numbers.
This is the lowest hanging fruit on the danger tree and not surprisingly the least tasty fruit.
The "actual proof" that the warning labels are insufficient is because that after the new and more specific warning labels were put on the product, the incidents of accidental ingestion and injury increased rather than decreasing.
Where's you proof that during that same time frame that consumers became less responsible?
Out of curiosity, are you engaging the thread or having a shouting match with Bowen?
What are the increases, though? Do we have anything close to numbers, like "In 2009 there were four deaths from the popular desk-toy Buckyballs. In 2011, by contrast, that rrate has increased by 100 times to over 400 deaths from said product..."
Do we have anything like that?
I haven't seen an argument here that suggests parents are becoming less responsible.
Wait, I'm "shouting" now? Or are you just being a condescending goose for no reason?
I just don't see the problem here. If you have small kids, don't buy buckyballs.
True, there's no way children will ever encounter buckyballs if their parents don't buy them.
The likelihood is amazingly tiny.
How often do you see kids at another person's house unattended? Honestly, though, it is no more dangerous than antifreeze, and hey that tastes a bit sweet, just like juice!
Let's over legalize stupid nonsense like this and waste our time more.
No it really isn't. Kids swallow shit all the time, including at daycare, school, and other kids homes. Respectfully, if you think you can with any assurance of success prevent your child from ever swallowing something like this, you're delusional. Normally, that's frankly not a big deal. The kid shits it out and there's a good chance no one even knows. With this particular toy, it leads to severe and hard to diagnose symptoms followed by surgery or death.
---
Everyone is all upset because of the slippery slope and fetishizing potential harm in children. None of that produces an argument why prohibiting the sale of a toy (and that's what this is if we remove the foolish desk- prefix they added well after they started selling this) that has a high degree of potential harm is a bad thing.
Honestly, how many dead kids are an amusing fidget toy worth? Does the idea that the children of "careless" parents will die really seem like a reasonable cost to uphold some idea that "in my day children weren't coddled"?
It is not about not coddling the children, it is about not coddling the parents.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "but what about ME?" then you could probably stand to be coddled a little.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "lets SUE someone with MONEY!" then you could probably stand a little less coddling.
The only reason anyone's getting sued is because the warnings didn't work and the company isn't willing to redesign the product to avoid the problem. Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason... they're now going the tobacco route and getting sued for having an intrinsically problematic product.
Again, you're going to need to show that the warning labels themselves, not irresponsible parents, are to blame here.
And you're also going to need to explain how it's a company's fault if they clearly label their product as unsafe when used in a certain way or unsafe for a certain age group and then BOTH of those warnings are ignored. How are they supposed to control that?
Occam's Razor time. If more specific age limits and warning labels don't reduce the incidents of ingestion and injury, then it's much more reasonable to assume that those warning labels alone are ineffective, not that parents and children around the country have somehow become less responsible during the same time frame.
If a company is marketing a product that is easy to ingest and can cause massive, even lethal, internal damage, they have a much higher standard to hit. They don't get to use "Hey, we put a warning label on it" as a blanket defense, especially when those warning labels don't seem to be effective.
No. No Occam's Razor. You need to provide some kind of actual proof that the warning labels are insufficient and it is not the consumer's fault. A consumer started this issue. The burden of proof is on them (and you, since you're on their side) to show that the company is lacking in some way. You can't just say "this is reasonable" and make that your proof. It doesn't work that way.
Who cares if it's the consumer's fault? The company is not morally blameless for selling dangerous products just because they can find some rubes to pin it on. In the real world you need to account for stupid people and you're negligent if you don't.
Jetskis are dangerous.
That's ok, you can't eat them. And they're kinda hard to use out of water. And harder to misplace. And they're more obviously dangerous so people are more inclined to caution and supervision of minors. But other than that, just like buckyballs.
They're only intrinsically dangerous around stupid children with bad parents which kind of invalidates the use of the word intrinsic.
I just don't see the problem here. If you have small kids, don't buy buckyballs.
True, there's no way children will ever encounter buckyballs if their parents don't buy them.
The likelihood is amazingly tiny.
How often do you see kids at another person's house unattended? Honestly, though, it is no more dangerous than antifreeze, and hey that tastes a bit sweet, just like juice!
Let's over legalize stupid nonsense like this and waste our time more.
No it really isn't. Kids swallow shit all the time, including at daycare, school, and other kids homes. Respectfully, if you think you can with any assurance of success prevent your child from ever swallowing something like this, you're delusional. Normally, that's frankly not a big deal. The kid shits it out and there's a good chance no one even knows. With this particular toy, it leads to severe and hard to diagnose symptoms followed by surgery or death.
---
Everyone is all upset because of the slippery slope and fetishizing potential harm in children. None of that produces an argument why prohibiting the sale of a toy (and that's what this is if we remove the foolish desk- prefix they added well after they started selling this) that has a high degree of potential harm is a bad thing.
Honestly, how many dead kids are an amusing fidget toy worth? Does the idea that the children of "careless" parents will die really seem like a reasonable cost to uphold some idea that "in my day children weren't coddled"?
It is not about not coddling the children, it is about not coddling the parents.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "but what about ME?" then you could probably stand to be coddled a little.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "lets SUE someone with MONEY!" then you could probably stand a little less coddling.
The only reason anyone's getting sued is because the warnings didn't work and the company isn't willing to redesign the product to avoid the problem. Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason... they're now going the tobacco route and getting sued for having an intrinsically problematic product.
Now who is in terrible analogy land. There is no safe use for cigarettes; however, thousands upon thousands of people have managed to gain utility from buckyballs without injury.
Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason...
Cost, weight, the inability for a normal human being to pull two apart, the possibility of a child putting one on each side of his hand and injuring themselves? Reasons like that?
The "actual proof" that the warning labels are insufficient is because that after the new and more specific warning labels were put on the product, the incidents of accidental ingestion and injury increased rather than decreasing.
Where's you proof that during that same time frame that consumers became less responsible?
Out of curiosity, are you engaging the thread or having a shouting match with Bowen?
What are the increases, though? Do we have anything close to numbers, like "In 2009 there were four deaths from the popular desk-toy Buckyballs. In 2011, by contrast, that rrate has increased by 100 times to over 400 deaths from said product..."
Do we have anything like that?
I haven't seen an argument here that suggests parents are becoming less responsible.
Wait, I'm "shouting" now? Or are you just being a condescending goose for no reason?
And those numbers are incredibly small. Your rhetoric is the rhetoric of these things being somewhere in the "top 10 deaths for kids" category, not less that two dozen injuries, only some of which were reported as severe.
We have a lot of Buckyballs here at work because they were given out as prizes at our past few Christmas parties.
For kicks, I just had a look around at my co-worker's desks and found the following "adult toys" (no, not THOSE kinds):
Nerf guns (of various sizes of ammunition, some of which could conceivable be swallowed/choked on)
Mini-Helicoptors (Blades, when running, could cause damage to eyes or another sensitive areas)
Other magnets, ie- the suppository looking ones that people kinda throw up in the air and they make that weird noise as they come together)
Stress ball thingies of various sizes
Better hope we never have kids come through here unattended.
No. No Occam's Razor. You need to provide some kind of actual proof that the warning labels are insufficient and it is not the consumer's fault. A consumer started this issue. The burden of proof is on them (and you, since you're on their side) to show that the company is lacking in some way. You can't just say "this is reasonable" and make that your proof. It doesn't work that way.
The "actual proof" that the warning labels are insufficient is because that after the new and more specific warning labels were put on the product, the incidents of accidental ingestion and injury increased rather than decreasing.
Where's you proof that during that same time frame that consumers became less responsible?
I bet that there is a standard rate of ingestion and the absolute amount of incidence has increased as more units have sold.
Which still means that the new warning labels are ineffective, since even if you make that assumption, the standard rate of ingestion has remained the same, or not decreased enough to balance out the danger that the product poses.
The danger is non existent if proper precautions are taken. Which some people can't seemed be assed to do.
Which is why the responsibility lies on the Parent. Not SOLELY on the parent though, it is the responsibility of the company to inform the parent of any dangers that may exist if a product is consumed. The thing has warnings all over it that it is dangerous if consumed. At that point the Parent should take steps to ensure it does not get consumed by their children if they want to utilize the product.
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I just don't see the problem here. If you have small kids, don't buy buckyballs.
True, there's no way children will ever encounter buckyballs if their parents don't buy them.
The likelihood is amazingly tiny.
How often do you see kids at another person's house unattended? Honestly, though, it is no more dangerous than antifreeze, and hey that tastes a bit sweet, just like juice!
Let's over legalize stupid nonsense like this and waste our time more.
No it really isn't. Kids swallow shit all the time, including at daycare, school, and other kids homes. Respectfully, if you think you can with any assurance of success prevent your child from ever swallowing something like this, you're delusional. Normally, that's frankly not a big deal. The kid shits it out and there's a good chance no one even knows. With this particular toy, it leads to severe and hard to diagnose symptoms followed by surgery or death.
---
Everyone is all upset because of the slippery slope and fetishizing potential harm in children. None of that produces an argument why prohibiting the sale of a toy (and that's what this is if we remove the foolish desk- prefix they added well after they started selling this) that has a high degree of potential harm is a bad thing.
Honestly, how many dead kids are an amusing fidget toy worth? Does the idea that the children of "careless" parents will die really seem like a reasonable cost to uphold some idea that "in my day children weren't coddled"?
It is not about not coddling the children, it is about not coddling the parents.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "but what about ME?" then you could probably stand to be coddled a little.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "lets SUE someone with MONEY!" then you could probably stand a little less coddling.
The only reason anyone's getting sued is because the warnings didn't work and the company isn't willing to redesign the product to avoid the problem. Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason... they're now going the tobacco route and getting sued for having an intrinsically problematic product.
Inedibly large magnets aren't an option because they'd be too strong and too expensive. Rare earth magnets are incredibly strong for their size. An 'inedibly large' magnet would have to be...what, an inch and a half across? Two inches? We had a 2" neodymium magnet in my lab in grad school. If you stuck it to a table you had to pry the damn thing off with something. If you made a buckyball set out of 2" magnets you'd not only not be able to actually reshape them, you'd have a not-insignificant pinch hazard if your fingers got caught between layers of magnets as they came together.
Additionally, the exact same magnets used in buckyballs are sold in a thousand varieties of fridge magnet. Especially those ones that look like push-pins. Usually held on with a little dab of glue that a kid could probably scrape off if he wanted to eat it. Nobody's going after the fridge magnet manufacturers only because those are not marketed as toys, in the same way that Bowen's list of dangerous shit isn't marketed as toys. The only problem here is that the thing is a toy, and so people think "Toy? That's good for kids!"
You shouldn't have these things in a daycare or an elementary school, and if your kid's going over to his friend's house then, presumably, the assumption is that they will either be supervised or else left unsupervised only in child-safe areas. No child-safe area should contain rare earth magnets.
I meant the liklihood of running into another owner of bucky balls than yourself is unlikely. If you are buying them, lock that shit up.
It is not hard to grasp that this is a dangerous toy. Just like you shouldn't let a 6 year old near a band saw, or drain cleaner.
I am at a loss for words why a lot of you think this concept is hard. Do you not think locking hunting rifles up is a good thing?
So you think this desk toy is obviously unsafe, is comparable to a band saw or drain cleaner one should have to lock it up, but don't think it should be banned when the actual real world sale of this product has produced an increasing number of children requiring surgical intervention to treat the otherwise fatal consequences of swallowing it.
How many people have died, how many were children? How many were because the parents didn't properly lock up and hide the toy?
Yes, they are adult toys, if these were marketed towards children, so be it, slap the company with fines. I don't know why I'm being lambasted with "you should know children put shit in their mouths you horrible man" and not these parents that didn't put their god damned desk toy away.
I mean fucking fuck, man, we should require people to go to the pharmacy every time they need a god damned medicine just because some large number of kids die/get sick from that shit and require medical/surgical intervention.
Multiple children have died, hundreds have required surgery that is among the most complex/expensive that exist (intestinal surgery is hardcore, and when there are magnets that want to stick to all your surgical tools, that doesn't help). My wife works is a pediatric nurse on a post-op floor, and I just double checked with her that she has personally had over 2 dozen patients in the last 4-5 years who have required surgery for this (and she only has 2-3 patients at a time) with a recovery period of at least a week. This is likely high because its a very good hospital and her floor does a lot of intestinal work (mostly transplants) but its not like we're talking one kid a single time.
We noticed an increase in magnetic ingestions during the first 4 months of 2012 in a children's hospital in New Orleans. Secondary to this observation we asked members of NASPGHAN about cases seen in the past 2 years. This informal survey answered by 33 pediatric gastroenterologists reported 84 cases.
There are 1500 pediatric gastroenterologists that are part of this organization. If the prevalence for these 33 was double that of the average rate, that would suggest 1000 cases a year (or less than 1% of incidents of children swallowing small foreign objects). That could be overcounting (or undercounting) this number significantly and they are doing a formal survey to get more information. That will of course not count those treated by non-pediatric specialists. But its a lot of kids
They're only intrinsically dangerous around stupid children with bad parents which kind of invalidates the use of the word intrinsic.
Toddlers that put things in their mouths and swallow them aren't stupid.
They're toddlers.
Toddlers are a yard tall and clumsy as hell. How are they getting these things if the parent isn't leaving them on the coffee table or something?
Trust me, they aren't scaling to the top of a regular filing cabinet or bookshelf to chow down on these things when the cookie jar is always more easily reachable.
Mad King George on
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I just don't see the problem here. If you have small kids, don't buy buckyballs.
True, there's no way children will ever encounter buckyballs if their parents don't buy them.
The likelihood is amazingly tiny.
How often do you see kids at another person's house unattended? Honestly, though, it is no more dangerous than antifreeze, and hey that tastes a bit sweet, just like juice!
Let's over legalize stupid nonsense like this and waste our time more.
No it really isn't. Kids swallow shit all the time, including at daycare, school, and other kids homes. Respectfully, if you think you can with any assurance of success prevent your child from ever swallowing something like this, you're delusional. Normally, that's frankly not a big deal. The kid shits it out and there's a good chance no one even knows. With this particular toy, it leads to severe and hard to diagnose symptoms followed by surgery or death.
---
Everyone is all upset because of the slippery slope and fetishizing potential harm in children. None of that produces an argument why prohibiting the sale of a toy (and that's what this is if we remove the foolish desk- prefix they added well after they started selling this) that has a high degree of potential harm is a bad thing.
Honestly, how many dead kids are an amusing fidget toy worth? Does the idea that the children of "careless" parents will die really seem like a reasonable cost to uphold some idea that "in my day children weren't coddled"?
It is not about not coddling the children, it is about not coddling the parents.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "but what about ME?" then you could probably stand to be coddled a little.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "lets SUE someone with MONEY!" then you could probably stand a little less coddling.
The only reason anyone's getting sued is because the warnings didn't work and the company isn't willing to redesign the product to avoid the problem. Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason... they're now going the tobacco route and getting sued for having an intrinsically problematic product.
Again, you're going to need to show that the warning labels themselves, not irresponsible parents, are to blame here.
And you're also going to need to explain how it's a company's fault if they clearly label their product as unsafe when used in a certain way or unsafe for a certain age group and then BOTH of those warnings are ignored. How are they supposed to control that?
Occam's Razor time. If more specific age limits and warning labels don't reduce the incidents of ingestion and injury, then it's much more reasonable to assume that those warning labels alone are ineffective, not that parents and children around the country have somehow become less responsible during the same time frame.
If a company is marketing a product that is easy to ingest and can cause massive, even lethal, internal damage, they have a much higher standard to hit. They don't get to use "Hey, we put a warning label on it" as a blanket defense, especially when those warning labels don't seem to be effective.
No. No Occam's Razor. You need to provide some kind of actual proof that the warning labels are insufficient and it is not the consumer's fault. A consumer started this issue. The burden of proof is on them (and you, since you're on their side) to show that the company is lacking in some way. You can't just say "this is reasonable" and make that your proof. It doesn't work that way.
Who cares if it's the consumer's fault? The company is not morally blameless for selling dangerous products just because they can find some rubes to pin it on. In the real world you need to account for stupid people and you're negligent if you don't.
Jetskis are dangerous.
That's ok, you can't eat them. And they're kinda hard to use out of water. And harder to misplace. And they're more obviously dangerous so people are more inclined to caution and supervision of minors. But other than that, just like buckyballs.
The assertion being made is that any toy with danger to children should be banned if said danger is great enough. A jetski is a toy that is incredibly dangerous to children.
They're only intrinsically dangerous around stupid children with bad parents which kind of invalidates the use of the word intrinsic.
Toddlers that put things in their mouths and swallow them aren't stupid.
They're toddlers.
Toddlers are a yard tall and clumsy as hell. How are they getting these things if the parent isn't leaving them on the coffee table or something?
Trust me, they aren't scaling to the top of a regular filing cabinet or bookshelf to chow down on these things when the cookie jar is always more easily reachable.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
They're only intrinsically dangerous around stupid children with bad parents which kind of invalidates the use of the word intrinsic.
Toddlers that put things in their mouths and swallow them aren't stupid.
They're toddlers.
Toddlers are less than a yard tall and clumsy as hell. How are they getting these things if the parent isn't leaving them on the coffee table or something?
Trust me, they aren't scaling to the top of a regular filing cabinet or bookshelf to chow down on these things when the cookie jar is always more easily reachable.
I don't think the company is morally or legally accountable for it.
Would you hold nerf responsible if some 10 year old jammed them up his buddies ass and they needed surgery to get them out? Possibly even threatening his life with a perforated bowel? Hell man adults do that shit and die regularly, why should buckyballs' company be liable if someone doesn't follow recommend instructions?
As I previously mentioned this is a consequence of the object existing and is universally unavoidable.
Again, you're going to need to show that the warning labels themselves, not irresponsible parents, are to blame here.
And you're also going to need to explain how it's a company's fault if they clearly label their product as unsafe when used in a certain way or unsafe for a certain age group and then BOTH of those warnings are ignored. How are they supposed to control that?
Occam's Razor time. If more specific age limits and warning labels don't reduce the incidents of ingestion and injury, then it's much more reasonable to assume that those warning labels alone are ineffective, not that parents and children around the country have somehow become less responsible during the same time frame.
If a company is marketing a product that is easy to ingest and can cause massive, even lethal, internal damage, they have a much higher standard to hit. They don't get to use "Hey, we put a warning label on it" as a blanket defense, especially when those warning labels don't seem to be effective.
No. No Occam's Razor. You need to provide some kind of actual proof that the warning labels are insufficient and it is not the consumer's fault. A consumer started this issue. The burden of proof is on them (and you, since you're on their side) to show that the company is lacking in some way. You can't just say "this is reasonable" and make that your proof. It doesn't work that way.
Who cares if it's the consumer's fault? The company is not morally blameless for selling dangerous products just because they can find some rubes to pin it on. In the real world you need to account for stupid people and you're negligent if you don't.
Bullshit. Selling products with warnings to illiterates doesn't make the company negligent.
No, but selling a box with a button that says "Do not push, box will explode" makes you negligent when someone pushes it anyways just to see what will happen.
...In the real world you need to account for stupid people and you're negligent if you don't.
They have 5 FIVE I plead the one-two-tree-fo'-fif! warning labels.
Your argument is that to account for stupid people, not selling them at all is the only option.
No, I'm totally on board with blaming the consumer. And yes, that's basically it: the existence of stupid people means your product is going to hurt a bunch of kids, so it is irresponsible to release that product into a universe containing stupid peo
I just don't see the problem here. If you have small kids, don't buy buckyballs.
True, there's no way children will ever encounter buckyballs if their parents don't buy them.
The likelihood is amazingly tiny.
How often do you see kids at another person's house unattended? Honestly, though, it is no more dangerous than antifreeze, and hey that tastes a bit sweet, just like juice!
Let's over legalize stupid nonsense like this and waste our time more.
No it really isn't. Kids swallow shit all the time, including at daycare, school, and other kids homes. Respectfully, if you think you can with any assurance of success prevent your child from ever swallowing something like this, you're delusional. Normally, that's frankly not a big deal. The kid shits it out and there's a good chance no one even knows. With this particular toy, it leads to severe and hard to diagnose symptoms followed by surgery or death.
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Everyone is all upset because of the slippery slope and fetishizing potential harm in children. None of that produces an argument why prohibiting the sale of a toy (and that's what this is if we remove the foolish desk- prefix they added well after they started selling this) that has a high degree of potential harm is a bad thing.
Honestly, how many dead kids are an amusing fidget toy worth? Does the idea that the children of "careless" parents will die really seem like a reasonable cost to uphold some idea that "in my day children weren't coddled"?
It is not about not coddling the children, it is about not coddling the parents.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "but what about ME?" then you could probably stand to be coddled a little.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "lets SUE someone with MONEY!" then you could probably stand a little less coddling.
The only reason anyone's getting sued is because the warnings didn't work and the company isn't willing to redesign the product to avoid the problem. Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason... they're now going the tobacco route and getting sued for having an intrinsically problematic product.
Again, you're going to need to show that the warning labels themselves, not irresponsible parents, are to blame here.
And you're also going to need to explain how it's a company's fault if they clearly label their product as unsafe when used in a certain way or unsafe for a certain age group and then BOTH of those warnings are ignored. How are they supposed to control that?
Occam's Razor time. If more specific age limits and warning labels don't reduce the incidents of ingestion and injury, then it's much more reasonable to assume that those warning labels alone are ineffective, not that parents and children around the country have somehow become less responsible during the same time frame.
If a company is marketing a product that is easy to ingest and can cause massive, even lethal, internal damage, they have a much higher standard to hit. They don't get to use "Hey, we put a warning label on it" as a blanket defense, especially when those warning labels don't seem to be effective.
No. No Occam's Razor. You need to provide some kind of actual proof that the warning labels are insufficient and it is not the consumer's fault. A consumer started this issue. The burden of proof is on them (and you, since you're on their side) to show that the company is lacking in some way. You can't just say "this is reasonable" and make that your proof. It doesn't work that way.
Who cares if it's the consumer's fault? The company is not morally blameless for selling dangerous products just because they can find some rubes to pin it on. In the real world you need to account for stupid people and you're negligent if you don't.
Jetskis are dangerous.
That's ok, you can't eat them. And they're kinda hard to use out of water. And harder to misplace. And they're more obviously dangerous so people are more inclined to caution and supervision of minors. But other than that, just like buckyballs.
They're only intrinsically dangerous around stupid children with bad parents which kind of invalidates the use of the word intrinsic.
No, they're dangerous around everybody, regardless of who tends to get hurt.
I just don't see the problem here. If you have small kids, don't buy buckyballs.
True, there's no way children will ever encounter buckyballs if their parents don't buy them.
The likelihood is amazingly tiny.
How often do you see kids at another person's house unattended? Honestly, though, it is no more dangerous than antifreeze, and hey that tastes a bit sweet, just like juice!
Let's over legalize stupid nonsense like this and waste our time more.
No it really isn't. Kids swallow shit all the time, including at daycare, school, and other kids homes. Respectfully, if you think you can with any assurance of success prevent your child from ever swallowing something like this, you're delusional. Normally, that's frankly not a big deal. The kid shits it out and there's a good chance no one even knows. With this particular toy, it leads to severe and hard to diagnose symptoms followed by surgery or death.
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Everyone is all upset because of the slippery slope and fetishizing potential harm in children. None of that produces an argument why prohibiting the sale of a toy (and that's what this is if we remove the foolish desk- prefix they added well after they started selling this) that has a high degree of potential harm is a bad thing.
Honestly, how many dead kids are an amusing fidget toy worth? Does the idea that the children of "careless" parents will die really seem like a reasonable cost to uphold some idea that "in my day children weren't coddled"?
It is not about not coddling the children, it is about not coddling the parents.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "but what about ME?" then you could probably stand to be coddled a little.
If your attitude towards kids getting gut piercings is "lets SUE someone with MONEY!" then you could probably stand a little less coddling.
The only reason anyone's getting sued is because the warnings didn't work and the company isn't willing to redesign the product to avoid the problem. Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason... they're now going the tobacco route and getting sued for having an intrinsically problematic product.
Now who is in terrible analogy land. There is no safe use for cigarettes; however, thousands upon thousands of people have managed to gain utility from buckyballs without injury.
That wasn't the point of the analogy. Back in the day when tobacco companies first started figuring out that cigarettes caused cancer they tried to make them safer. Only when they realized that was impossible did they just say "Fuck it" and get defensive about the injuries.
Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason...
Cost, weight, the inability for a normal human being to pull two apart, the possibility of a child putting one on each side of his hand and injuring themselves? Reasons like that?
Hey, those are great arguments! You do realize you are now labeling the product as unfixable, right?
They're only intrinsically dangerous around stupid children with bad parents which kind of invalidates the use of the word intrinsic.
Toddlers that put things in their mouths and swallow them aren't stupid.
They're toddlers.
Toddlers are less than a yard tall and clumsy as hell. How are they getting these things if the parent isn't leaving them on the coffee table or something?
Trust me, they aren't scaling to the top of a regular filing cabinet or bookshelf to chow down on these things when the cookie jar is always more easily reachable.
They're only intrinsically dangerous around stupid children with bad parents which kind of invalidates the use of the word intrinsic.
Toddlers that put things in their mouths and swallow them aren't stupid.
They're toddlers.
Toddlers are stupid. I have a rather low opinion of children though so I flippantly use stupid to describe them.
Fair enough, but it's worth pointing out that "grab thing with hands, put thing in mouth" is natural toddler behavior, not something that only the dumb toddlers do. It's also something they do all the time, so unless you think proper parenting is being able to follow your kid around 24/7, they're still going to wind up swallowing things.
Which then gets us back to "easily swallowed things marketed as toys should probably not be incredibly dangerous when swallowed".
Also why the fuck should I be punished (I don't own them) because someone is a numbskull ? That's all kinds of stupid.
You're not being fucking punished. Its not about you. Turns out that society puts a greater emphasis on not wasting medical resources and the health and well being of children than the general availability of desktoy fucking magnets or making parents and their children pay for theoretical negligence
It's easier for a toddler to open a cupboard door with their fingers than scale a desk or climb a chair to get to these things.
Its also easier for them to swallow something that exists than something that doesn't.
So seriously though, should all toys be held to the same standard of safety, regardless of market/intended users? I don't think they should.
All toys are held to the same standard of safety.
In the case of many toys that are unsafe for certain age groups, warning labels combined with reasonable design changes are enough to decrease the risk of injury to an acceptable level. Since warning labels seem to be ineffective with Buckyballs, and the product can't really be re-designed in a way that makes them less hazardous, it makes sense to ban their sale.
They're only intrinsically dangerous around stupid children with bad parents which kind of invalidates the use of the word intrinsic.
Toddlers that put things in their mouths and swallow them aren't stupid.
They're toddlers.
Toddlers are less than a yard tall and clumsy as hell. How are they getting these things if the parent isn't leaving them on the coffee table or something?
Trust me, they aren't scaling to the top of a regular filing cabinet or bookshelf to chow down on these things when the cookie jar is always more easily reachable.
Meaning something that you're supposed to keep on your desk to play with when you're bored.
Which means that, when used as intended, toddlers will have much easier access to them than, say, cleaning supplies, power tools, or guns.
They'll also have access to paper clips, which can be either steel-colored like these Buckyball things or colored like candy, and pushpins, which generally are made of shiny plastic that is brightly colored like candy...so?
Also, as you said, these are a desk toys...presumably for the millions of people who work in offices and cubicles, not for mom who maybe sends out a couple faxes a day and goes over the checking account from the home office.
That's ok, you can't eat them. And they're kinda hard to use out of water. And harder to misplace. And they're more obviously dangerous so people are more inclined to caution and supervision of minors. But other than that, just like buckyballs.
The assertion being made is that any toy with danger to children should be banned if said danger is great enough. A jetski is a toy that is incredibly dangerous to children.
Should it be banned?
If you leave a jetski in your garage and your kids get to it the biggest danger they're facing is that they'll climb on it and fall off. That goes a long way towards mitigating the danger.
If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
No, I'm totally on board with blaming the consumer. And yes, that's basically it: the existence of stupid people means your product is going to hurt a bunch of kids, so it is irresponsible to release that product into a universe containing stupid peo
This literally makes no sense. You blame the consumer by punishing the manufacturer? Buwuh?
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Which still means that the new warning labels are ineffective, since even if you make that assumption, the standard rate of ingestion has remained the same, or not decreased enough to balance out the danger that the product poses.
I don't know about Bowen, but I don't think they're obviously unsafe. There just aren't very many actual toys marketed for adults to compare them to. Most things that kids aren't supposed to play with are tools or weapons or something because tools and weapons are common; toys for adults aren't.
Back in the day they used to make chemistry sets that were hideously dangerous for kids, but were marketed with the assumption that they'd be used either by children old enough to know better or else under adult supervision. If you used them at all the way that they were meant to be used they were, by and large, perfectly safe. A bit more dangerous than buckyballs in that you could potentially generate dangerous fumes without realizing it. They don't sell those anymore because people can't be bothered to follow rules like that. Buckyballs are both less inherently dangerous and not (anymore) marketed to kids.
Probably the lawsuit will go through and they'll have to stop selling buckyballs, the same way they had to stop selling chemistry sets. It's a shame because those chemistry sets were cool and educational, and buckyballs are neat and fun. But neither are inherent or obviously dangerous, especially when used properly, and neither would need to be locked away outside the presence of children. And neither would be a more than remote, highly unlikely threat to children if parents took responsibility for making themselves aware of the potential dangers of toys that they buy and then not buy them.
Out of curiosity, are you engaging the thread or having a shouting match with Bowen?
I'll quote myself again:
The danger is non existent if proper precautions are taken. Which some people can't seemed be assed to do.
The only reason anyone's getting sued is because the warnings didn't work and the company isn't willing to redesign the product to avoid the problem. Since inedibly large magnets are apparently not an option, for... some reason... they're now going the tobacco route and getting sued for having an intrinsically problematic product.
That's ok, you can't eat them. And they're kinda hard to use out of water. And harder to misplace. And they're more obviously dangerous so people are more inclined to caution and supervision of minors. But other than that, just like buckyballs.
If buckyballs are a toy, great, they're a toy. Supposedly used by adults or people old enough not to swallow magnets. Should totally ban compressed air because kids die and it's clearly dangerous.
Little old, but it's what I found.
1) Who do you think the warnings are for and 2) how do they redesign the product? Make them the size of ping pong or billiard balls?
I think fireworks are the best analogy here. They're a toy, are inherently dangerous given that their sole purpose is to explode, and yet we're chasing down magnets to protect people from themselves, not fucking fireworks which kill and maim people in far greater numbers.
This is the lowest hanging fruit on the danger tree and not surprisingly the least tasty fruit.
Wait, I'm "shouting" now? Or are you just being a condescending goose for no reason?
Either way, I will "engage in the thread" to your satisfaction by pointing out that the numbers about ingestion and injury rates are, once again, in the CPSC press release that I've already linked to and will do so again now. It also explains the rationale behind the ban.
They're only intrinsically dangerous around stupid children with bad parents which kind of invalidates the use of the word intrinsic.
Cost, weight, the inability for a normal human being to pull two apart, the possibility of a child putting one on each side of his hand and injuring themselves? Reasons like that?
I take back the word shouting. A "talking" match.
And those numbers are incredibly small. Your rhetoric is the rhetoric of these things being somewhere in the "top 10 deaths for kids" category, not less that two dozen injuries, only some of which were reported as severe.
For kicks, I just had a look around at my co-worker's desks and found the following "adult toys" (no, not THOSE kinds):
Nerf guns (of various sizes of ammunition, some of which could conceivable be swallowed/choked on)
Mini-Helicoptors (Blades, when running, could cause damage to eyes or another sensitive areas)
Other magnets, ie- the suppository looking ones that people kinda throw up in the air and they make that weird noise as they come together)
Stress ball thingies of various sizes
Better hope we never have kids come through here unattended.
Which is why the responsibility lies on the Parent. Not SOLELY on the parent though, it is the responsibility of the company to inform the parent of any dangers that may exist if a product is consumed. The thing has warnings all over it that it is dangerous if consumed. At that point the Parent should take steps to ensure it does not get consumed by their children if they want to utilize the product.
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Inedibly large magnets aren't an option because they'd be too strong and too expensive. Rare earth magnets are incredibly strong for their size. An 'inedibly large' magnet would have to be...what, an inch and a half across? Two inches? We had a 2" neodymium magnet in my lab in grad school. If you stuck it to a table you had to pry the damn thing off with something. If you made a buckyball set out of 2" magnets you'd not only not be able to actually reshape them, you'd have a not-insignificant pinch hazard if your fingers got caught between layers of magnets as they came together.
Additionally, the exact same magnets used in buckyballs are sold in a thousand varieties of fridge magnet. Especially those ones that look like push-pins. Usually held on with a little dab of glue that a kid could probably scrape off if he wanted to eat it. Nobody's going after the fridge magnet manufacturers only because those are not marketed as toys, in the same way that Bowen's list of dangerous shit isn't marketed as toys. The only problem here is that the thing is a toy, and so people think "Toy? That's good for kids!"
You shouldn't have these things in a daycare or an elementary school, and if your kid's going over to his friend's house then, presumably, the assumption is that they will either be supervised or else left unsupervised only in child-safe areas. No child-safe area should contain rare earth magnets.
Toddlers that put things in their mouths and swallow them aren't stupid.
They're toddlers.
Multiple children have died, hundreds have required surgery that is among the most complex/expensive that exist (intestinal surgery is hardcore, and when there are magnets that want to stick to all your surgical tools, that doesn't help). My wife works is a pediatric nurse on a post-op floor, and I just double checked with her that she has personally had over 2 dozen patients in the last 4-5 years who have required surgery for this (and she only has 2-3 patients at a time) with a recovery period of at least a week. This is likely high because its a very good hospital and her floor does a lot of intestinal work (mostly transplants) but its not like we're talking one kid a single time.
Identifying prevalence is very difficult in hard to classify problems like this. A member of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition: There are 1500 pediatric gastroenterologists that are part of this organization. If the prevalence for these 33 was double that of the average rate, that would suggest 1000 cases a year (or less than 1% of incidents of children swallowing small foreign objects). That could be overcounting (or undercounting) this number significantly and they are doing a formal survey to get more information. That will of course not count those treated by non-pediatric specialists. But its a lot of kids
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Toddlers are a yard tall and clumsy as hell. How are they getting these things if the parent isn't leaving them on the coffee table or something?
Trust me, they aren't scaling to the top of a regular filing cabinet or bookshelf to chow down on these things when the cookie jar is always more easily reachable.
Toddlers are stupid. I have a rather low opinion of children though so I flippantly use stupid to describe them.
Eating: Irrelevant. Water: Irrelevant. Misplace: Irrelevant.
The assertion being made is that any toy with danger to children should be banned if said danger is great enough. A jetski is a toy that is incredibly dangerous to children.
Should it be banned?
Buckyballs are marketed as being a "desktoy".
Meaning something that you're supposed to keep on your desk to play with when you're bored.
Which means that, when used as intended, toddlers will have much easier access to them than, say, cleaning supplies, power tools, or guns.
As I previously mentioned this is a consequence of the object existing and is universally unavoidable.
No, but selling a box with a button that says "Do not push, box will explode" makes you negligent when someone pushes it anyways just to see what will happen.
No, I'm totally on board with blaming the consumer. And yes, that's basically it: the existence of stupid people means your product is going to hurt a bunch of kids, so it is irresponsible to release that product into a universe containing stupid peo
1) the consumer 2) Well, that would solve the problem, wouldn't it?
No, they're dangerous around everybody, regardless of who tends to get hurt.
That wasn't the point of the analogy. Back in the day when tobacco companies first started figuring out that cigarettes caused cancer they tried to make them safer. Only when they realized that was impossible did they just say "Fuck it" and get defensive about the injuries.
Hey, those are great arguments! You do realize you are now labeling the product as unfixable, right?
Which means that they're intended to be about the same height as your oven/stovetop, and those pots and pans with boiling water and burning food.
Ergo, pots and pans need to be to be banned because toddlers are toddlers and they're gonna wanna grab them and play with them.
All manner of delicious seasonings?
Its also easier for them to swallow something that exists than something that doesn't.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Sure does, why aren't you adamant about banning draino?
Fair enough, but it's worth pointing out that "grab thing with hands, put thing in mouth" is natural toddler behavior, not something that only the dumb toddlers do. It's also something they do all the time, so unless you think proper parenting is being able to follow your kid around 24/7, they're still going to wind up swallowing things.
Which then gets us back to "easily swallowed things marketed as toys should probably not be incredibly dangerous when swallowed".
So seriously though, should all toys be held to the same standard of safety, regardless of market/intended users? I don't think they should.
You're not being fucking punished. Its not about you. Turns out that society puts a greater emphasis on not wasting medical resources and the health and well being of children than the general availability of desktoy fucking magnets or making parents and their children pay for theoretical negligence
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
All toys are held to the same standard of safety.
In the case of many toys that are unsafe for certain age groups, warning labels combined with reasonable design changes are enough to decrease the risk of injury to an acceptable level. Since warning labels seem to be ineffective with Buckyballs, and the product can't really be re-designed in a way that makes them less hazardous, it makes sense to ban their sale.
They'll also have access to paper clips, which can be either steel-colored like these Buckyball things or colored like candy, and pushpins, which generally are made of shiny plastic that is brightly colored like candy...so?
Also, as you said, these are a desk toys...presumably for the millions of people who work in offices and cubicles, not for mom who maybe sends out a couple faxes a day and goes over the checking account from the home office.
If you leave a jetski in your garage and your kids get to it the biggest danger they're facing is that they'll climb on it and fall off. That goes a long way towards mitigating the danger.
Not quite what I was thinking of...
... but OK. Regulate or ban them, then.
This literally makes no sense. You blame the consumer by punishing the manufacturer? Buwuh?