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You're An Adult, But Your Brain Might Not Be, Researchers Say (cnn.com)
"The human brain reaches its adult volume by age 10, but the neurons that make it up continue to change for years after that," reports the New York Times, citing a new paper by neuroscience researchers that questions when "adulthood" really begins. An anonymous reader writes:
One of the paper's authors -- an associate psychology professor at Harvard -- tells CNN that "There is no agreed-on benchmark that, when reached, would allow a neuroscientist to say 'Aha! This brain is fully developed'. However, it is safe to say that by almost any metric, the brain is continuing to develop actively well past the age of 18..."
"Some children, researchers have found, have neural networks that look as if they belong to an adult..." adds the Times, noting that adolescents also "do about as well as adults on cognition tests, for instance. But if they're feeling strong emotions, those scores can plummet. The problem seems to be that teenagers have not yet developed a strong brain system that keeps emotions under control."
And this cuts both ways, according to a psychologist at Temple University who wants the voting age lowered to 16. ("Sixteen-year-olds are just as good at logical reasoning as older people are," he tells the Times) But he also believes judges should consider the lack of emotional control when sentencing defendants -- even if they're in their early 20s. "Most crime situations that young people are involved in are emotionally arousing situations -- they're scared, or they're angry, intoxicated or whatever."
"Some children, researchers have found, have neural networks that look as if they belong to an adult..." adds the Times, noting that adolescents also "do about as well as adults on cognition tests, for instance. But if they're feeling strong emotions, those scores can plummet. The problem seems to be that teenagers have not yet developed a strong brain system that keeps emotions under control."
And this cuts both ways, according to a psychologist at Temple University who wants the voting age lowered to 16. ("Sixteen-year-olds are just as good at logical reasoning as older people are," he tells the Times) But he also believes judges should consider the lack of emotional control when sentencing defendants -- even if they're in their early 20s. "Most crime situations that young people are involved in are emotionally arousing situations -- they're scared, or they're angry, intoxicated or whatever."
"Most crime situations that young people are involved in are emotionally arousing situations -- they're scared, or they're angry, intoxicated or whatever."
I imagine this applies to all crimes ever commited by anyone, regardless of age.
Either 16 year olds are mature enough to make important decisions or they are not. It can't be both ways. If they may commit crimes because they are emotionally under-developed then they shouldn't be trusted to vote because they are emotionally under-developed.
I always assumed the reason children were not allowed to vote was because of their lack of life experience rather than their ability to score on cognition tests anyway.
"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"
those scientists & doctors must be liberals
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I would be more willing to grow up if I saw it worked better for others.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
ask the car insurance companies: above a certain age - way above 18 usually - their rates suddenly drop dramatically. The insurance companies don't make that age up: it comes from their accidents statistics.
It's pretty clear certain age groups get more into accidents than others: it's because they're not really mature enough to be good drivers, even after years of driving experience. Nothing reveals immaturity in a person more than their way of behaving on the road.
I'm saying this as a general rule of course: clearly there are good young drivers and incompetent old timers. But for the population in general, the insurance statistics don't lie.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
You are liberal at a young age until you look at the withholding and deductions from your pay stub.
You are a conservative when older until you see the Social Security and Medicare benefits to which you are eligible.
Explains where conservatives come from.
Yes, your brain keeps forming till you're well into your twenties. Who, seriously, didn't know this?
I can't hear you.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Sixteen-year-olds are just as good at logical reasoning as older people are,"
Voting has nothing to do with logical reasoning. First, IQ and reasoning are not EXPLICITLY required. We let retards vote. Some states let people of an "unsound mind" vote. We count the votes of people with deeply below average IQ and learning disabilities the exact same as those who have received great academic achievements.
Second, IQ and reasoning are only barely involved in politics at all. Emotions are the biggest motivators. When a politician wants to convince you, he doesn't just lay his case out and connect points, he makes you feel proud of him, happy with the way things will be with his help, scared of the other guy, scared what the other guy represents, etc. Elections are entirely emotions.
If a professor is trying to allow 16 year olds to vote- people who are, by law, required to spend every day in a government institution- he probably has some other reasoning behind that.
So I googled it real fast.
Lawrence Steinburg is the professor in question. Here he is discussing the younger of the two Boston Bombers, a 19 year old:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/op...
Here's his quote from that article:
"If neurobiological immaturity makes adolescents inherently less responsible for their crimes, and if science now demonstrates that the brain is still maturing well into the early 20s, should we rethink where we draw the boundary between adolescence and adulthood under the law? The Boston Marathon bombing trial is important not only because the crime was so horrific, but because it forces us to ask hard questions about how best to judge the behavior of those who are legal adults, but in many respects neurobiological adolescents."
In this article, he is overall arguing for less culpability for a multiple murderer, based on his presumed lack of neural development. So according to this professor, a 16 year old should be able to vote, but a 19 year old should be held to a lower standard for his crimes. If you spend years arguing for the lack of developmental progression, why then suddenly pop up and claim that a 16 year old should be able to vote? The claim stands in contrast to his other positions. A reasonable argument from his positions and data seems to be raising the voting age to 25. But then we would run into issues where you would have soldiers (in some cases, theoretically draftees, as we had a draft the last time this sort of conversation happened) unable to vote on politicians who may or may not be sending them to their doom.
A 16 year old without a home is a problem for the state. A 16 year old without resources is a problem for the state. A 16 year old does not have a guaranteed right to work in all places, and may have many restrictions and benefits placed upon them by the state. A 16 year old is not liable for their crimes in the same way an 18 year old is, the details of which vary from place to place. Voting has much more to do with this than any form of cognition. If cognition were the test, then we'd literally give cognition tests. If emotional maturity were the test, then we'd give those tests. Instead, we vest citizens with the responsibility of voting at the same time we vest them with a wide array of other responsibilities and civic duties. If he were arguing for lowering the age of adulthood, I could see his point- but instead he has a set of oddly specific and contradictory statements, based on a fundamentally unsound assumption about what makes a citizen. It is responsibilities, not intellect. Half of people are stupider than average, after all, and they get the same voice politically.
Plus it just doesn't seem smart to let students be told how to vote by their high school teachers. Way too much peer pressure, you could probably get extremely high compliance rates, especially given that schools would inevitably force their students to vote there in person when possible.
See subject: Your mind/brain folds into convolutions as you gain information doing so for storage in a confined area. The MORE you pack into it, the more it folds thus!
(Afaik - feel free to correct me IF/WHEN I am 'off' etc. but do back it w/ reputable sources)
The mind, just like the body when you 'work out', is "PLASTIC" (meaning malleable/changeable) so learning as much as you can in MULTI-DISCIPLINARY fashion does so the most & allows you to form relations (like a relational database engine more or less) to make 'breakthrus' or @ least apply 1 area of learning to improve another - for everyone's benefit hopefully!
APK
P.S.=> See, the TRUE goal isn't to be 'genius' (which is excellent in 1 area & to solve problems there quickly) but more of a "virtuouso" goal of being knowledgeable in MANY areas to make each gain by the other... iirc, the term for this is POLYMATH, which I personally value over "just genius" for the reasons I stated above... apk
And twenty years ago it was bullshit, too. The point of law enforcement is to sweep up the troublemakers and put them away where they can't cause any more problems for us normals, not to facilitate state-sponsored navel-gazing for every precious little snowflake who decides that responsibility is for chumps.
No shit.
In the UK,insurance drops at age 26.
The justification for leniency makes no sense to me. If a criminal is driven by impulse and lack of emotional control, shouldn't he (and it is usually a "he") get a longer sentence, since he is a greater danger to other people?
Watch out. That's the sort of lucid thinking that'll get you tarred and feather in some parts.
And other people do it because.....
America is great at retarding its children and we love our excuses and justification for our actions. Mostly though we just love to hear bullshit from so called specialists
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily
Considering the amount of adults who are not in control of their emotions,
who are impulsive about policing other people's thoughts and don't like it when others don't share their opinions,
the amount of time they spend on Twitter pointlessly,
and the eagerness to involve themselves in, and start, insult competitions and whining competitions,
including the amount of people with unwarranted self-importance,
i'd say there's plenty of that going on in the Social Justice Evangelist collective.
More specifically Feminists. Never seen so many mental children under one label.
You have to treat them completely differently from normal adults so their feelings don't get hurt and their safespace isn't intruded, kind of like dealing with children.
Because if you do offend them, don't expect a civil discussion or a rational one, except lots of screaming and crying and loss of composure on their side, kind of like children.
In the US, rental cars will cost you about 50% more if you're under 25 than over.
And I heard him exclaim as he drove his Cadillac out of sight... Merry Christmas my nigga, bang bang that's right.
God fuck us, every one.
We have laws that touch on this, your welcome to plead insanity or temporary insanity (for example you came in on your wife cheating, grab the first thing on the wall and go to town till hes a bloody pulp and your crying over what you just did.)
Kids often get an entire new system for punishment based on the fact they are kids.
I support vote right at 16, since at 16 one can work, and hence pay taxes, and deciding on tax allocation is the root of democracy.
Maturity cannot be a filter, since we precisely do not know how to define it.
60 Y.O. kid here. I'm still waiting for adulthood.
New drivers who are older are charged high rates; if kids could reach the peddles at 8, they'd probably get cheap insurance by 18.
they just multitask better. nobody studies properly for a driver test, just move by skill, and you saying those accident statistics werent just gaining experience but immature drivers?
go back to your statistical famiky part-time job as a tenant, incorporated whiteman.
What if it's the eternal childhood that's actually retarding them?
Research like this will be used to strip rights and/or privileges from the young. Oh your brain isn't developed until 28, lets raise the drinking age. It is for your own good.
"... apply 1 area of learning to improve another - for everyone's benefit hopefully!" of myself in the post you replied to trolling me
Programming -> system security (& more speed, reliability + anonymity online) for the good of others...
APK
P.S.=> I don't get guys like you, trolling me by anonymous posts attempting to harass me - I really don't. I created this for everyone's benefit, gratis... apk
It's pretty clear certain age groups get more into accidents than others: it's because they're not really mature enough to be good drivers, even after years of driving experience.
I don't think they're intellectually incapable as such, I have the impression that most drove responsibly alone. Pretty much all the really reckless driving I saw was showing off or egging each other on and nobody had the social maturity to stand up and be the uncool party pooper. I think it takes most people well into their 20s to get that self-confidence to stand your ground.
To some degree you can change what's cool so the herd mentality doesn't do it, smoking is now uncool. Wearing a condom is perhaps not cool, but insisting you wear one is much more accepted than before and you're not a slut for protecting yourself from STDs either. But I think you have to work very hard to make driving really fast be uncool for 18yo boys...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I was an idiot until 25, about the time pre-frontal cortex fully develops
Teens shouldn't vote. We already have an excess of emotion and hormones at the voting booth including some aging slashdotters. Voting should be based upon rational evaluation of verifiable facts. Anyone who gets their information from sources biased in only one direction should be disqualified.
Teens are capable of rational thought. You can find them at science fairs and other exceptional events. It's just that the masses of teens are up to their elbows in Twitter, Fecebook, etc, and drift in the winds of public opinion.
There are many who quietly believe that the General Public should not vote. Most are ignorant, superstitious and many are just plain dumb. Voters should take a qualifying test before being allowed to vote. Every voter should have read and understood the US Constitution (It's not that hard- even immigrants and fifth graders can do it). If they can't find their state on a map of the USA- no vote. If they can't name the mayor of their town or city- no vote. If they think Africa is a country or Rush Limbaugh is a Supreme Court Justice- fuggedaboudit ... etc.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Much is trial and error before then.
Once you've hit 40, chances are, you'll know better.
So it isn't actually "my" fault if I'd rather play Playstation all day.
Now that George Michael has been stolen from us to perform at Jesus's birthday party.
Go to Texas where "your honor, I plead not punishable for manslaughter on account of I've got a rich daddy" not only flies, but can be cited as case law.
His reasoning is pretty flawed: ..."
"..."Sixteen-year-olds are just as good at logical reasoning as older people are," he tells the Times) But he also believes judges should consider the lack of emotional control when sentencing defendants
You don't think that lack of emotional control *might* lead younger voters to be more easily manipulated with emotional appeals to vague concepts of what's "right"* and "fair"* and "just"* in precisely the same way that militaries around the world have appealed to the younger demographic with concepts of nationalism and pride?
*If you don't have an issue with it, please define these terms objectively.
Further, this research isn't really news, http://www.npr.org/templates/s... discussed back in 2010 that younger brains lack full connection between cause and effect.
So despite naked tendentiousness (younger voters vote STRONGLY liberal and in the US, democrat), the evidence would suggest that really the voting age should be raised to, say, 26 or so.
-Styopa
These "scientists" really did a study to find out that 16 year old can manage logical reasoning but can't keep their emotions in check? This is basically every person's high school experience. It's like a study to determine if water is wet.
That age used to be 25, until I turned 25, then they raised it to 30. When I turned 30, I got my first major accident/insurance claim from a hit and run driver in a stolen car. This myth that insurance rates go down is just that: mythical.
It certainly wasn't news 35 years ago when we had kids. The phrase then was "keep them alive 'till they're 25." Essentially, you continue to develop your sense of what is foolish (at least behind the wheel) until then. Research shows that people continue to develop their ability to handle concurrent tasks until their early thirties Think Hannibal, Napoleon, even Bobby Fisher when they were in their early thirties. Overall your judgement continues to improve, and overcomes your loss of handling concurrent tasks until you are about 60. If you are the argumentative type who says prove it, just Google Adam Gazzaley. That will get you started. I am not arguing for or against when you should vote, drink, or drive here. Just that the premise of the article is valid. You are not fully developed until around 25 or later.
And not a single reference to Trump?
A lot of what we hear during elections is propaganda. We could guess that defences against it increase throughout life until senility. 16 years olds in particular still tend to live in the small cults that are nuclear families and thus lack an independence of thought. I wasn't qualified to vote until I was 30, and that's a level unachieved by a lot of people I know.
On the other hand, 0-17 year olds are completely unrepresented, yet have longer to live in the world. There's no solution to that, so there's a compromise between representation vs political understanding.
Male adolescents develop emotional maturity much slower than females. If this affects political judgement, then it's rational to allow women to vote at a lower age. I doubt this will be a popular view amongst the oft-male and sometimes alt-right Slashdotters.
Studies show that 16-17 year olds vote more than 18-25 year olds. Likelihood of voting increases from 18 onwards, causing yet more disparate representation -- a problem of all voting systems. Intergenerational differences increasingly come into play. People 60 and over become a minority in the adult world and seemingly retreat from social consciousness or other newer ideas. However, they vote more.
The study doesn't mention lowering the voting age at all, by the way.
Everything in the world does not piss me off. How weird is that?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You are not fully developed until around 25 or later.
Dunno about that. I've seem some pretty, ah, developed, 19 year olds....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The problem that comes up in life often is that even a subject where one can "know it all" expressing that to laymen often produces contradictions from the laymen's perspective. Tell a user "a firewall will protect you online" and then later when they run a Trojan you say "a firewall doesn't protect you" it seems from their ignorant perspective you are contradicting yourself and may question your competency.
If you get that concept, graduate to this one: reality is too complex even for the experts. Human limitations make seeing the picture well enough to know when a perceived contradiction is actually valid with currently unknown details extremely difficult.
Most the time it's contradictions are a reasonable assumption -- but when it's an expert or especially when it's a professor you shouldn't be as quick to jump to conclusions. (Some profs not being around the average mentally dormant person, will incorrectly assume their thought provoking theories will be productive.)
-
16 year olds who are EMPLOYED should be able to vote. No taxation without representation! Draft age? You can vote. Graduate from High School at 12? You can vote? Crazy? We elect them... So they can vote.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I started this thread going on about law enforcement, in response to TFS talking about--wait for it--sentencing guidelines. If 'your honor I plead not guilty' wasn't enough to tip you off. Been holed up in your safe space so long you've forgetten how to read?
We can raise the voting age to 30.
Texas? Like that's never happened in a blue state. Cough California cough cough.
And that's exactly what TFA notes - that younger brains do OK with cognitive issues until the amygdala (in part responsible for emotional behaviors) swamps the frontal cortex (responsible for responsible things, mostly responsible for damping down the rest of the brain).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Hey, how long is calling anyone they disagree with "snowflake" going to be a thing for alt-righters? I ask because it's already gotten pathetically boring. I guess that's why virtually every successful American comedian is a liberal.
It's stupid how some lone alt-righter who manages to come up with something even remotely original gets so pathetically parroted by the Alt-right.
In summary, you're a stupid parrot who clearly says what they are told to say.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Yes! I love a legal system where you get to plead that killing your victim was an insane thing to do and the prosecution has to argue "No, it was a perfectly rational thing to do". And you only get punished if he succeeds in convincing them that it was rational to murder your victim.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
You can fake tits, but not brains.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Big tobacco found out 24 was the age where people transition to a state of mind where they can overcome addiction better. The younger ages need to get addicted before that age because it'll be written in more permanently. Implying your growing/training until about 24. Not directly connected, but the age is interesting.
Military. I talked with a military psychologist. They discovered stupid guys are less than 24 (stupid being his word for 18-23.) So, they mix older guys with younger guys because the 25 year old would rather be in jail than dead when you order "jump off that bridge!" While the 18 year old will just do it. But the 25 year old will jump off the bridge with (or after) his 18 year old buddy does it. Or they will find a less stupid way to comply that the 18 year old won't.
Both were 24. So 25 for insurance makes sense. For me, I started at 24 and my insurance was as cheap as at 26 and basically seems to be about the same slowly climbing amount a decade+ after. So I'd say my insurance also picks 24.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
More voters that are easily swayed by emotion and not logic.
I couldn't hear you. Maybe you should hold down the right alt key when you type so I can understand you better.
End primary education at the same age and segue them into community colleges to prepare them for either entering the workforce, ROP, trade programs, or higher collegiate education.
From 13 to 18 have limitations on criminal penalties for all non-violent crimes and psych counselling for all violent crimes (some will be physical/sexual/psychological abuse, some will be genuinely crazy, a percentage will be actual socio/psychopaths who are best permanently jailed or executed. If there is excess capacity, have them provide counselling for the non-violent offenders as resources allow.)
Being in-between the Gen X/Millenial crowd, and having spent time observing both, I can say without doubt that pushing responsibilities off kids until later in life is having a negative impact on their futures, especially in regards to their ability to search for jobs, or better yet start their own businesses (because in the current environment the only long term career you can count on is one you draft for yourself and actively work to maintain the connections necessary to keep it profitable.)
America has been crippling its youths prospects for too long, and extending education/age of majority further out in their lives is hindering rather than helping the situation. We're all going to die sooner or later, but only the first 20-30 years are we guaranteed to be in good enough condition to make money using our physical attributes before injury and age start slowing us down. And intellectual advancement and wisdom are things gained by doing, not sitting in a classroom being force fed material that may or may not coincide with the actual functioning of the outside world.
That would have been an interesting study.
[($)]
Oh, I was holding down the left ctrl key. My bad.
Mine went down when I turned 26 and went down more when I turned 30. I'm 33 now.
How long is calling someone alt-right, implying they are racists supporters of the KKK, because they disagree with them? I hope it continues, it has gotten more and more people fed up with special "snowflakes" and their bullshit whining about being called names.
Pro tip, if you didn't spend the last 8 YEARS calling everyone you disagree with "RACISTS!!", we might care what you think. We no longer do.
"However, it is safe to say that by almost any metric, the brain is continuing to develop actively well past the age of 18."
Actually, it's safe to say that it never stops developing -- unless you've become a vegetable.
Here's a translation of an alt-right post for you since you asked.
"This person disagrees with my opinions so because I'm super sensitive I have to start name calling them rather than address what they are saying. Furthermore, my post is super devoid of any real thought because I use the same tired comments the rest of my clones use". "Why think for yourself when people have already done it for you"
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
If I judged solely on what I see on the Internet, I'd say that 90% of everyone never actually reaches 'adulthood'. Good thing I go by more than just the Internet. That being said, there are people who, regardless of chronological age, never really are 'adults', even as subjective as that word is. Also keep in mind: human personalities are not monolithic; there are many, many facets to them, and many combinations of those facets, which then have their own characteristics. One can be an 'adult' when it comes to a variety of subjects or situations, and still be childlike when it comes to other subjects and situations. Then, of course, is my firm belief that everyone is broken in some way or another and to some extent or another.
On the subject of legal voting age: 16? Hell no. I want it raised to at least 25!
For a short time, yes. After that, no.
Adding child court concepts to adult court doesn't make sense, but punishing people for known, temporary deficiencies is not a step forward.
I expect that there are a number of people who've been charged with DUI who would love to have brought that up as part of their defense. "I wasn't drunk when I killed that family, your honor, I was merely emotionally aroused."
What kind of f--kwit comes up with drivel like that?
Indeed, this was the point I was making (clearly not clear enough).
>"psychologist at Temple Universitywho wants the voting age lowered to 16."
Insane. I propose we raise the age of adulthood to 20 and shouldn't try to have second-class citizens from 18-20 who can't drink, can't buy a handgun, can't serve as an elected official, etc. 20 for everything, by then they should be pretty well baked and have hopefully been on their own a bit, and perhaps even paid some significant taxes. That way "teens" are teens and we have consistency and logic in the age of being an "adult."
Of course, this would require a Constitutional Amendment, so it will never happen.
Rightwingnutjob is the account name, I guess there's some thought put into this? Somewhere?
Your mileage may vary..
I lived with the adolescent brain until I was 21, then spent 15 years trying to numb it with liquor and drugs, and the flesh machine. At that point I was officially "old" and my brain had the one-way ticket to senility-ville. Now my memory is shot, my neurons are calcified, my attitudes are stuck and my memory is gone. I'm so fricking addled and incompetent I'm not even fit for senior management. The only thing I could possibly do is get into politics.
The sad part is, it'll to happen to you too and everyone you know. Keep a few friends you can go crazy with.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
In such a case then the convicted should be placed in a psychiatric prison. Such sentences tend to be longer than if they had not pleaded insanity as psychiatrists are somewhat hesitant to release someone who may go on to commit other violent crimes.
What do you have against snowflakes you fucking racist piece of pig shit?
Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.
Or Massachusetts.
The amply titted, dont need brains.
Nothing reveals immaturity in a person more than their way of behaving on the road.
May not be immaturity as much as it is a changing risk profile. Not that I was a stupid git on the road when I was young, but as a 21 year old if my car got impounded and my license suspended it would have been a nuisance. If it had caused me to loose my job, well I had a safety net of parents to fall back on, and no doubt my girlfriend would ridicule me.
If the same happened to me now it would almost definitely result in me losing my job, something which wouldn't make my wife very happy when we can no longer pay the mortgage. People of all ages generally do stupid things when they don't understand the risk / rewards properly, or when the risk / reward are skewed in their favour.
That said I think the risk of killing someone gets developed in our brains with age. Teenagers in general don't tend to think about others in terms of their personal consequences. That may be what we could define as "maturity", realising you're not the only person in the world.
If you think that insurance calculation is so simple then you've clearly never looked at insurance pricing properly.
What you suggest is an aspect of it. But far from the only thing. There are age group cutoffs that come into it regardless of how long you've had your license, or how many accidents you've had. You are judged by risk, how long you've been driving only determines one part of that risk.
The justification for leniency makes no sense to me. If a criminal is driven by impulse and lack of emotional control, shouldn't he (and it is usually a "he") get a longer sentence, since he is a greater danger to other people?
No that is not how justice work, if they are dangerous you should send them to wards not prisons. You are punished according to your criminal intent, which is bigger when not emotionally unstable.
Do you honestly think murder should carry a smaller sentence than homicides of a lower degree?
See here. Also, I have no brain so whatever. ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Interesting that killing a spouse caught cheating is a crime. In ancient Athens, a real democracy, it was the honorable course of action expected of a man.
Mine definitely dropped when I was 25. Maybe being married by then and having a couple of kids helped too? I know my driving habits certainly changed when I realized my behavior could adversely effect other lives, that is for sure. Instead of darting in and out of traffic I finally realized that being the tortoise was much more rationale than being the hare.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Why I like farting so much?
By their logic there's many adults who shouldn't be voting either.
Most 16 year old individuals will do whatever the popular media tells them to or vote for whoever the 'cool kids' in school vote for. It's not so much about cognitive development and more about independent identity vs. Sustainable reward / risk equations relating to sustainability. Of which 16 year olds and many adults have no practical experience to make choices that not only affect themselves but millions of people around them.
tl;dr:
Promise every 16 year old a free Motorcycle and they will vote for that candidate regardless of the consequences they are unable to visualize.
The historically astute will recognize this has been done before with disastrous results.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
even if they're in their early 20s. "Most crime situations that young people are involved in are emotionally arousing situations -- they're scared, or they're angry, intoxicated or whatever."
Judge: "Young man, why did you steal the car and run down your ex Girlfriend?"
Young man: "WHAT EVER!"
Judge: "I see. You are free to go now"
Brains don't start to sag when you get older.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Human beings are designed to be emotional and irrational at precisely the age when they are most fertile. (Which for women is in their early 20's).
As fertility decreases, but wisdom (also useful to the survival of the tribe) increases, irrationality decreases.
In short: Emotional irrationality is an evolutionary feature, not a bug.
In a nutshell, purely logical beings lack the randomness, aggressiveness and impulsive action which genetic variation loves.
When young people are experiencing the irrationality of passion, jealousy, obsession and madness -- nature is happy.
We are illogical creatures.
Or Massachusetts.
Next time you're caught speeding I hope you get the death penalty.
I guess this explains why a lot of adults I know pat themselves on the back for doing what's expected of them (aka, "adulting")?
...then we desperately need to factor it into voter registration.
The justification for leniency makes no sense to me. If a criminal is driven by impulse and lack of emotional control, shouldn't he (and it is usually a "he") get a longer sentence, since he is a greater danger to other people?
It depends on what length of sentence we are talking about. If a person is going to grow up and no longer have impulse control issues then then you don't need to give them a longer sentence just a long enough sentence to have them age out of that behavior if that's possible.
"If you want to know when adulthood really starts..."
Adulthood starts when a nap changes from something you don't want to do into something you do want to do.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Psychological research indicates that people do not firmly connect their actions to consequences until around age 26. I have experienced that, and seen it many times in others.
Lowering the voting age means you believe that young people have adult analytical skills. Lenient sentencing means you believe that they do not. Cannot have it both ways.
The justification for leniency makes no sense to me. If a criminal is driven by impulse and lack of emotional control, shouldn't he (and it is usually a "he") get a longer sentence, since he is a greater danger to other people?
Is there a reason to punish the mentally incompetent beyond what is required to ensure public safety? Confining them to a mental institution seems like a better option than prison.
Says you. Brains are physical, they fall apart just as much as the rest of the body. No, you are not "better" at 45 than at 25; you're just senile and have forgotten your youth.
In America, Charity is a 350 billion dollar industry! source.
The American wealthy LOVE supporting noble charities. We are the largest supporter in the world!
The notion that American rich people are all selfish assholes is perpetuated by teeming masses of American poor people who don't like the fact that they might have to do unpleasant work, and dial back their preferred level of luxury, in order to make ends meet. So they stamp their feet and demand free money. It is actually quite disgusting.
If I dont think the same way you do I am a child? Got it, wheres the short bus picking me up?
You need to have some hard times. You need to grow from these. You need to learn from life. This is the key to becoming an adult.
Chris
Owner CEL Financial Services
Registered bonded California CTEC Tax Preparer
Income Tax Preparation Santa Paula Fillmore Piru
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But at least it doesn't show so obviously. I can still fake being good, but try that when you can play hacky sack with the implants.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I made note of the notion that a person should receive legal mercy due to being drunk or on drugs. Really a teen is thus confessing to two crimes rather than one. I was stoned when i killed that guy means you have a drug crime as well as the murder. Too me that means the penalty should be more severe than if the person had not been on dope or alcohol.
The immature defence argument works in two ways: #1 - Don't lock 'em up because diminished responsibility and #2 - Don't lock 'em up because of USA's brutal, dehumanising penal system. We can make the public safety argument in #1, i.e. protect the public from people with diminished responsibility, but we can't argue that traumatising and brutalising children and young adults is in anyone's best interests. We just end up creating generations of hardened criminals who'll never know anything but crime and the penal system throughout their lives. The Thatcher regime tried "short, sharp, shock" with its borstal system in the 1980s. It was such an epic failure and flew in the face of all that is reasonable and humane that it spurred Alan Clarke to write and direct "Scum" in order to bring it to the attention of the British public: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... There was a public outrage and shortly after, the borstal system was shut down.
...is mandatory. Growing Up is optional, especially for men.
As long as the same goes for a woman ?
Marriage did lower my insurance rates, but not my overall expenses.
Now that people are learning to drive later in life, insurance companies are starting to move away from age as a risk factor for precisely the reason that the GP states. Someone who learns to drive at 25 is not particularly safer after 5 years (at 30) than someone who started driving at 16 after 5 years (at 21). States' "graduated drivers' licenses" are needing adjustment as well. When I got licensed in NJ starting at 16, I had to take a 6-hour road course with a school (after passing the written test of course), then I could drive with parents until 17, then I could drive by myself and one non-family member (and nowadays a red sticker) until 18 when I got a full license. So by 18 I'd already done hundreds of hours of accident- and ticket-free driving, but they still wanted a fortune for insurance. Meanwhile someone I know got licensed in NJ at 22, and they pretty much turned him loose after filling out some paperwork, 3 months of "supervised driving" (which he didn't actually do for more than a few hours, being out of the country for most of it), and passing the "road test" which consists of driving around a parking lot - and his insurance starting out was cheaper than mine after 2 years of driving despite having spent about 10 hours in the drivers' seat.
In general, car insurance companies are not particularly good at estimating individual risk. My insurance rates were unaffected by becoming a certified emergency vehicle operator (for my town's volunteer ambulance agency) on my 18th birthday, which requires special training. For some reason the computer goes "ding" if you have a good high school report card (which I did), but spending a day of classroom and on-the-road training in how to handle vehicles and other drivers while operating radios and sirens doesn't count. Becoming a pilot didn't count either, despite extensive training and practice in high-stakes multitasking, situational awareness, and "thinking ahead of the vehicle" that you can feel working on every drive. But getting a high-paying job in a city where I don't drive at all (and thus lose practice)? Sure, lower rates.
For flying, your insurance has to do with the value of the airplane modulated by your experience as a pilot (in number of hours) as well as any advanced ratings on your certificate. For instance an instrument rating dramatically lowers what you pay. For driving they have their tables based on age and length of license, but those are aggregate statistics. Even if you kept a logbook of every drive and its duration and special skills required on that drive (analogous to the one pilots keep for flying), they wouldn't be interested. This is why the insurance companies are so interested in those ODB plugs with cell modems to report on your driving skill, to actually get that info.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Now that people are learning to drive later in life
That's something you'll need to backup with facts. In the past 10 years where I've lived various governments have caved under pressure to let kids get their L plates at an earlier and earlier age.
Someone who learns to drive at 25 is not particularly safer after 5 years (at 30) than someone who started driving at 16 after 5 years (at 21).
Didn't say they were. What I said is Insurance is complicated. It's a multi-variable equation with lots of emphasis on the multi bit. Driving history has always had a larger influence on insurance prices than age has, when you have that history to go on.
In general, car insurance companies are not particularly good at estimating individual risk.
That would have a lot to do with very little information being passed onto them and people complaining about it everytime they do. How they would love to know how many hours you spend behind the wheel, as you already alluded to :-)
but spending a day of classroom and on-the-road training in how to handle vehicles and other drivers while operating radios and sirens doesn't count
Not only did it count for me, the insurance company promoted the classes and I was able to claim back the cost of the class from the insurance company.
Becoming a pilot didn't count either,
Really to be fair, flying a plane is a very different skill set than driving a car. It is a much more refined skill with a metric shitload of inference based on information provided by instrumentation. Where looking out the window becomes important a lot of information is incredibly subtle (at height the landscape can appear almost unmoving) By comparison one of the biggest problems with new drivers is they spend too much time looking at instruments in a scenario where pretty much anything can jump out infront of their windscreen at any moment. It's a very different kind of situational awareness, and personally I don't believe that being a pilot would make you a better (or worse) driver on the road but I would be happy to see some stats to correct me.
That said defensive driving courses should be mandatory. People shouldn't just learn how to drive, they should learn what to do when it all goes wrong, something that pilots do get extensive training in. People should learn what to do if tires slip, if they need to avoid a vehicle or obstacle, and should learn to drive on ice and water. Instead we take them for a lap around the local school zone at 40km/h.
Slightly irrelevant but funny side story last week my aunt had an accident (other car indicated, started turning but then changed it's mind) and aunt then t-boned the other car so incredibly lightly that the only damage to her car was to her license plate. It would have ended there if the other driver didn't panic, force another car in the oncoming lane off the road into a pole, proceed to hit 3 parked cars and then drive quite ironically into the wall of a car repair shop.
I'm not saying people should be entitled to employment. Rather the government should not be interfering with access to voting or working regardless of age. Not via "drivers licenses", "occupational" or "business" licenses. Life has risks and when you get on a roadway you are taking a risk. Democracy has some risks and when you give the government the power to interfere with peoples rights to travel you hinder their ability to work, vote, and live life. On the same token we shouldn't setup wealth redistribution schemes: government schooling, social security, welfare, medicare, etc.
There is a place for charity and Americans used to be very good at it contributing as much as 10% of their incomes to it voluntarily. Now we utilize violence to redistribute wealth via government actions that tend to destroy the lives disproportionately of certain minority groups. This includes fathers of divorced parents. They will suspend your drivers license if you aren't coughing up what a judge thinks you should be paying based on what they think you should be able to make. In other words they are depriving people of their ability to gain useful employment and those who defy the state they are jailing (driving on a suspended license). Many parents have some employment, but not what the judges demands.
http://www.freestateproject.org/
http://www.freekeene.com/
That's something you'll need to backup with facts. In the past 10 years where I've lived various governments have caved under pressure to let kids get their L plates at an earlier and earlier age.
With the reference to L plates, perhaps you're British? Here is a Guardian article with some statistics in the first paragraph about decline in licensure among 17-to-20 year olds, as well as 21-29. Here's a similar set of statistics for the US.
That would have a lot to do with very little information being passed onto them and people complaining about it everytime they do. How they would love to know how many hours you spend behind the wheel, as you already alluded to :-)
So we're in agreement - without that data they can't do much more than average across the population. But that unfairly (for some definition of "fair") benefits some people while punishing others, assuming you believe in some notion of the intrinsic safety of a driver
Not only did it count for me, the insurance company promoted the classes and I was able to claim back the cost of the class from the insurance company.
This wasn't a class the public could take - it was a class about emergency driving, with lights and siren. It did involve going on a skid pad and learning how to drive through a loss of traction, as well as slalom and reverse-slalom as well as general situational awareness (there's no rear window so you have to track where nearby cars are). Most useful to me was learning driver "psychology" as it were, learning how people in aggregate respond to unusual situations and seeing lots of examples of the ways drivers can screw up given a surprising event means I'm rarely surprised by what someone on the road does. I've had to take evasive action several times to avoid an imminent crash and it's certainly helped to know the limits of the vehicle performance, the road surface, and what the other driver(s) are likely to do given the circumstances.
I don't expect the insurance company to promote or pay for such a class, and in fact they would have no business doing so, but if they took it into consideration it would be a sign that they were willing to individualize their notion of driver risk. But they aren't interested.
Really to be fair, flying a plane is a very different skill set than driving a car. It is a much more refined skill with a metric shitload of inference based on information provided by instrumentation. Where looking out the window becomes important a lot of information is incredibly subtle (at height the landscape can appear almost unmoving) By comparison one of the biggest problems with new drivers is they spend too much time looking at instruments in a scenario where pretty much anything can jump out infront of their windscreen at any moment. It's a very different kind of situational awareness, and personally I don't believe that being a pilot would make you a better (or worse) driver on the road but I would be happy to see some stats to correct me.
The biggest problem with new pilots is that they spend too much time looking at instruments, too. Most private flying is done visually and "seat of the pants", and a flight instructor will commonly cover up all the instruments if a new student is fixating on something (usually the artificial horizon) to try to fly the plane without a "feel" for it. We don't typically fly high enough for the landscape to seem still; it's typical for me to fly at 3500' or 5500' and I spent a lot of time lower than 2500'.
I never said that they were exactly the same skillset, and I don't have any data, but becoming a pilot forces you to become very very good at multitasking, risk management, planning ahead (both before you get in the p
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
In America, Charity is a 350 billion dollar industry! source [givingusa.org].
The American wealthy LOVE supporting noble charities. We are the largest supporter in the world!
The notion that American rich people are all selfish assholes is perpetuated by teeming masses of American poor people who don't like the fact that they might have to do unpleasant work, and dial back their preferred level of luxury, in order to make ends meet. So they stamp their feet and demand free money. It is actually quite disgusting.
I make well above the median annual income of ~$50,000 but I feel I don't have nearly enough put away for my golden years and I'm getting long in the tooth.
So my New Year's Resolution for 2017 is to cut my discretionary spending by 1/3rd for as long as I can.
I wonder what would be the economic impact of everyone at $50,000 and below doing the same from January 1st to July 4th, 2017??
Imagine that many consumers spending 1/3rd less on fast food / dining out - yes including Starbucks / coffee, movies & snacks, cigarettes, alcohol, lotteries & gambling, airline flights, vacations, clothing and fuel.
My guess is it would trigger a collapse to rival 2009. Thoughts?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
In the US, rental cars will cost you about 50% more if you're under 25 than over.
Some companies in some states and cities won't even let you rent a car from them if you're under 25.
It looks like it's a localised case then. I grew up in Australia, hence the L plate comment. In Australia drivers license ownership is down for everyone except 16 year olds in NSW. More interesting than that outlier is the rate of young people driving is dropping slower than the rate of the rest of the population. That's why it surprised me. Also I'm currently in Holland and it was here that they this year they ran an experiment giving 17 year old's drivers licences for the first time with the condition that they drive supervised with adults, and this was in part due to heavy load on driver trainers. That experiment ends this year so it'll be interesting how this works out.
Thanks for the information on the flying. It was a bit different than I thought so I can see it makes sense. There's only one thing that I would still add which is that if you're doing a private course that isn't open to the public it doesn't really surprise me that the insurance company didn't take it into account. Why would they go out of their way to check / certify something that isn't accessible to the public.
It is based on the Judeo-Christian idea of culpability. If you knew you were committing a sin, then the act was done in rebellion of authority and thus deserving the maximum penalty. If the act was done out of innocence of thought and malice, then the penalty at most should be a gentle correction. Most people in western civilization who do not claim to believe in this religious tradition still hold to those basic tenants when it comes to justice.
Who is surprised?
We observe this in people all around. My collegue at work is 23, wears shirts and dress-pants all the time, is part of a influental political think tank and is always called to customer meetings for his calm level-headed and forthcoming handling of clients. He appears 10 years older easyly.
I'm in my mid-40ies, am regularly judged lateish 30 and still feel like I've got a lot to learn in social skills. Experience wise I'm a computer expert and bilingual cosmopolitan, but for instance in the ladies-man-camp I've just outgrown my inner teenager. The human soul and it's device, our brains, are super-complex fascinating things that can, at any stage, show the most fascinating aspects of humanity. Emotional control comes with experience in a given field. Where I might appear as a wise grand-master in one, I will look like a childish n00b in the other.
And it will show in my brain.
No surprise here.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Sentences, to my way of thinking, have multiple reasons to exist. They are, in no particular order:
1). Direct consequences. For the criminal, you perform crime X, you get sentence Y;
2). You would like the criminal to learn from their negative experience, to discourage them from performing crimes in the future. This is aspirational though and if the criminal does not learn, the criminal justice system must function adequately without it;
3). The need to separate the criminal from society. This is a protective function, though time limited;
4). Send a message to others. The rationale here is to discourage crime by using existing criminals as a public example.
A lot of muddy thinking about sentencing comes from only considering one of these factors.
Hey, how long is calling anyone they disagree with "alt-right" going to be a thing for snowflakes? I ask because it's already gotten pathetically boring. I guess that's why virtually every successful American comedian is alt-right.
It's stupid how some lone snowflake who manages to come up with something even remotely original gets so pathetically parroted by the snowflakes.
In summary, you're a stupid parrot who clearly says what they are told to say.
I don't think they're intellectually incapable as such, I have the impression that most drove responsibly alone. Pretty much all the really reckless driving I saw was showing off or egging each other on and nobody had the social maturity to stand up and be the uncool party pooper.
Probably not intellectually incapable, but I think that the many young drivers greatly overestimate their own abilities. Including when they're driving alone.
To use myself as an example: at 19 I had lightning reflexes and good technical driving abilities, but to think back at how I sometimes drove then (including driving alone) gives me the shudders nowadays (I'm 40). If something unexpected had happened I could have killed myself or someone else due to sheer inexperience. Maybe luckily for me, something unexpected happened while driving at only 50 km/h which caused me to not be able to brake to a stand-still in a moment of inattention, and I hit the car in front of me. Entirely my fault, no injuries to anyone, but substantial material damages. It made me realise how much one needs to expect the unexpected when driving in traffic.
So, nowadays, I'm a very careful driver. I believe that between my 20 years experience and my previously mentioned (but diminishing as the years go by) technical driving abilities I'm at a peak of my lifetime safe-driver-factor. Still, contrary to most men, I consider myself only an average driver. It goes downhill from here, and I'll drive accordingly. My insurance is very, very cheap, and in my case I think it matches the risk :)
And, I have onions on my belt, or something. Sorry for the rambling.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!