Comment on Norwegian government to set 15-year age limit for using social media
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks agodemonstrate knowledge of trivia
Government structure isn’t trivia, it’s a pretty foundational part of an election and part of K-12 education. You need to know which promises a candidate can and cannot deliver to make an informed decision IMO. This doesn’t apply to anyone 18+ because the Constitution (at least here in the US) guarantees a right to vote, so this would merely be a metric to separate interested underage individuals from those w/ crazy parents who want to try to stuff ballot boxes. We should also probably require anyone under 18 who votes to do so at a private ballot booth (as opposed to mail voting, for example), without their parents present, so they can’t be coerced into voting a particular way. If you have a legal guardian, there’s always the possibility of that guardian manipulating you to serve their own interests, and that needs to be accounted for in any broad-reaching policy like extending voting access.
We don’t really understand how a lot of brain function works
Fair, but that’s like saying “we don’t know the exact terrain of Mars so we can’t build a rover.” We know a lot about how brains develop, what parts of the brain do what, and so on. We use it in developing treatments for the brain, and those treatments work, and we’re learning more about why those treatments work every day.
Yes, there’s no magical cutoff for brain development because everyone is different. But there is a range, and AFAIK the consensus is that the brain is largely completed developing (however you define that) by your early 20s. Some people are ready sooner than that, some aren’t ready until later, but in general, most people can be considered “fully developed” around 20-25 yo. There’s little to no scientific evidence that 18 is a reasonable number for much of anything, and that number seems to be largely driven by culture (i.e. you’re strong enough to work on your own, so go work on your own).
I’m not suggesting any change in official or unofficial policy WRT age, and I think we largely agree that we should have more consideration for maturity (again, however we define that) rather than age. An 18yo dating a 17yo is a lot different than a 17yo dating a 14yo, yet the former is technically illegal in many areas while the latter is fine. But that doesn’t mean any discussion about age is unproductive, and having some age ranges makes a lot of sense when reasoning about a problem.
the entire field absolutely reeks of phrenology
That’s a bit reductionist.
sandbox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yet more oppressive shit for no good reason.
Who fucking cares if someone knows, or doesn’t, who, or what, a legislator is? It doesn’t matter. 99.999% of voting adults might just about be able to name the President, but we don’t need them to confirm that. All they need to do is put a mark next to a candidate whom presumably they’ve heard about. Or maybe they haven’t. Who gives a shit? The important thing is that we do not exclude people who do give a shit.
The sort of tests you propose historically have been used to disenfranchise black voters, and you’re just suggesting that they be used to disenfranchise young voters. More phrenology vibes.
Your whole “private poll booth” thing is again just needless and exclusionary. Again, what’s to stop an adult child being coerced into voting a certain way, or an adult with an abusive partner, or even just housemates? All of these people and more are very capable of manipulating others into serving their interests, and yet you are only interested in abridging the rights of children. Maybe we should also force disabled people to come and vote in person, too? And if they can’t, because their wheelchair doesn’t fit, well… at least they weren’t coerced!!
I’m not convinced that we do. We think we know a few things, but a lot of what we “knew” about brains has been proven completely wrong time and time and time again. This is just the latest, wrong, thing. So yeah, phrenology. I’m not interested in it at all.
This obsession with making something which is not measurable (maturity) into something which is (number of days alive on the planet) isn’t helpful. So god knows why we add that extra hoop of “brain development” into there, it’s just yet another unknown unmeasurable.