>>jimbob+(OP)
For me, this topic is prototypical of a larger conversation which goes something like, "Should individuals be permitted to slip between the cracks of society?" For the first three centuries of the Industrial Revolution, the answer in the West was, "Yes, of course." c.f. indentured servitude, honor duels, and debtor prisons. By the way, this way of life was, for certain, a shining improvemnt for the average person who would have previously been trapped in serfdom under Feudalism.
The Progressive ideal, which started as only a faint glimmer in the US at the turn on the 20th Century, has grown to dominate our social mores over the past 50 years. For most people reading HN, it's all they have ever known. But there is a serious cost. We infatilize our adults and produce generations of new citizens paralyzed by anxiety and (to a large extent) incapable of tolerating the faintest hint of discouragement.
But at least fewer of them slip through the cracks.