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Notes -
Age Gap Relationships
So its no secret that people, particularly zoomers, like to bitch and moan about age gaps in relationships. Should someone who's 30 date someone who's 18? Does it make you a pedophile if you do?
A lot of this discussion hinges on whether or not these people are actually "adults" that can make logical decisions. I've been pondering this myself so I'm going to run by two hypotheticals (Both for and against 18 year olds or "teenagers" being adults) and see what you guys think:
Case 1
Is it fair to say that you killed a child? Probably not. You killed teenagers? Technically. Did you kill some grown ass man thinking he could jack you? Many would say yes! On top of this, many people would judge these boys as adults, and have them take a prison/jail sentence as adults. It seems that in the eyes of many, if you do adult things, and are expected to take accountability as an adult, we should rightfully call you an adult. Make sense? Maybe lets consider case 2.
Case 2
Now, both Steve & Maddy choose to do an adult action (have sex) with an adult consequence (reproduction), and took responsibility as "adults" (getting married and getting a job). Would we say these 2 are adults? It seems the answer here, for many is no. You shouldn't want teenagers to be having kids: that's what adults are expected to do. That fact that Steve & Maddy have done adult things, and are now taking on adult responsibilities, doesn't make them true adults in the eyes of many.
So far, Im what I'm thinking with both of these cases is that the cognition needed to make adult decisions perhaps simply lie at different ages, based on said decision. Maybe its easier at 14 to know that car jacking & killing is wrong, than it would be to have the knowledge and maturity neccessary to handle a sexual relationship. And that the whole "lets have one universal age of adulthood" is looking at it wrong: Different actions simply have different complexities to them, and thus a universal set age of adulthood ignores those complexities. But assuming this is true, where does sexual relationships lie on the age scale? Is a 16 year old really too immature to date some one who is 19? 20?
If we should have universal age of adulthood, that tracts onto everything (alcohol, crime, sex) where would it be? Currently, all of these have different ages (21 is for alcohol if you are in the US). What do you guys think?
My position is that we have the technology to directly test for capacity to engage in the behaviors in question. So the legal proscription on, e.g. alcohol consumption, sexual relations, gambling, taking out loans, etc. the 'incapacity' we impose on minors can be lifted on a case-by-case basis rather than an arbitrary birthday fiat.
There's additional mechanisms I'd attach to this, but it makes good sense to me. Some sixteen year olds are probably mature enough to handle parenthood. Many twenty-four year olds are probably not quite mature enough to grasp why buying lotto tickets it not a sound financial decision. And capacity for one of those doesn't inherently imply capacity at the other. Rain Man probably understands odds/statistics enough to let him gamble, but maybe doesn't get how sex works.
The age at which they are competent to do these things is unlikely to be the exact same, based on their brain development, life experiences, and emotional maturity.
And I like the idea that if there is an 'objective' testing process in place to gain 'adulthood' privileges... then this gives kids incentive to study and prepare for these tests... meaning they actually work at grasping the topics and mentally engaging with them, rather than just expecting to gain them with passage of time.
This is not dissimilar from requiring teens to pass a driver's test before being permitted on the roads (inadequate as that may ultimately be).
We'd have to test for emotional maturity, not factual knowledge, which is itself a problem, and it would be subject to Goodhart's law; a test would just end up measuring ability to take the test since no test can test everything.
Also, given the history of tests for voting, it's likely that general maturity tests would be abused. Age is easy to measure, so it can't really be gamed the same way.
Yes, which is why I somewhat tongue-in-cheek suggest the ant-glove test as an option for figuring out if somebody has control of their emotional state.
A decent test of emotional maturity is putting someone in an objectively painful/uncomfortable situation, and require them to 'suck it up' and not break down in tears or flee. Sound familiar? Its all just testing emotional regulation, the ability to react proportionally/not overreact, and to endure discomfort to achieve later rewards.
We also have the marshmallow test, which could be adapted to something that would tempt adults too.
"I'm giving you a $100 bill to put in your wallet. If you can bring me back that exact same $100 bill in one week, you will get a second one." I expect low-impulse-control individuals will spend that sucker inside a day or two.
I don't think this would be a decent test for emotional maturity, even if modified for the real world. There are situations where we should accept people breaking down in tears or fleeing. And I absolutely don't trust any bureaucrat or scientist to figure out what sort of reaction is proportionate and what is overreacting, when people's liberty depends on the answer and when overreacting is strategically used for political purposes.
And I don't trust the masses to figure out that it's all good at a certain age. It would be better to just ignore emotional maturity as a concept and hope it correlates with IQ a lot (it probably does). I don't really care if some high IQ, but emotionally immature people get to be adults at the age of 14. It's not a big deal.
Meh for you maybe, but I feel like a lot of people would reject a 130 IQ 14 year old dating someone who is in their 30s. It just seems intuitively wrong on many levels, even if someone has a really high IQ.
But that's because they're stupid, and they foolishly think they get to control more intelligent people with their stupid gut feelings and half-assed, self-serving heuristics. That notion is everything wrong with society, more or less. It's the most toxic idea in the universe so far.
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So who should be held liable when an emotionally immature 18-19 year old signs a contract and then has a breakdown when they're unable to complete their end of it.
If they're considered mature enough to sign contracts, they should be considered mature to have to follow through on them. If there are measures taken against this, they should be age agnostic. (For instance, allowing the discharge of student loans in bankruptcy, which also discourages banks from giving out loans for useless majors in the first place.)
And therein lies the problem. If they're not mature enough to follow through on them (as the facts in evidence show), why are we assuming they were mature enough to understand them at the time they signed them?
Females in particular might have a hard time grasping compound interest.
And yes, bankruptcy is an answer in many cases... but the practical point there is that banks won't lend to people who are likely to declare bankruptcy.
So that becomes the de-facto maturity test, whether a bank considers you credit-worthy.
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