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> Yes, there are cultures or where teens are forced to act as adults to function in society, but that doesn't make them they have the same capabilities as of an adult

"Forced"? This is circular logic.

What makes you think they are forced? It seems every one here agrees that teenager want to be treated like adults.

The only reason to think they were forced is if you think they are still children at age 16. You provided yourself as your own counter example, so clearly at 16 you weren't a child.

> but I lacked emotional intelligence, tact, or general maturity to handle more finer problems

This is exactly what I mean by experience. Emotional intelligence and tact (as you put it) doesn't come suddenly when you're 22; it comes with experience. You could very easily be 30 and still lack these things. I would go further and say you are more likely to lack them if your parents keep treating you like a child and prevent you from doing adult stuff and experiencing the world outside of their "protection".

> (BTW, I am 30, and when I was 16 I was basically acting as supervisor of a team of 12 workers when my family was building the house due to my father having heart problems. Yes, I was good with money, I could negotiate some, tell people what to do to a certain point, but I lacked emotional intelligence, tact, or general maturity to handle more finer problems).

So basically you're saying you was more adept at 16 with dealing with other people, responsibility and money than the vast majority of college grads are in their mid-late 20's. So I'm failing to see your point.

Because of an education you wouldn't have otherwise received you were capable of doing tasks considered vastly beyond your age's observed responsibility level, seemingly even by yourself.

If you read between the lines, the authority of his office made it possible (and necessary) to order people around, but he didn't have the experience and training to be charismatic about it--he had not yet developed leadership skills.

Your point? Only good bosses have learnt leadership skills, bad bosses generally don't have the experience or training to be charismatic about it. I've seen far more bad bosses than good bosses.

The point you're making applies as much to a 40 year old boss as it does to a 16 year old boss. Leadership is an acquired skill without an age restriction, but people here on HN seem to want to instate an arbitrary age restriction on how they determine "too young" to be a boss. I really don't get why this would be when software and other tech industries are generally youth orientated and seen as ageist.

There are pretty remarkable physical differences between a 28yo and a 40yo, yet the legal and cultural differences between those ages are quite a bit less than between 16 and 28.

I would argue that the mental differences between a 28 and 40 year old are much less, however.

I'd ask you to cite your reasoning. The average age of first child in western societies is almost hitting the 30 year old mark, so I'd argue that (in western societies at least) there is a dramatic mental difference between those in their mid 20's over those in their mid-thirties.

Maybe I don't have enough perspective. I'm only 23, and maybe I will think that I'm dramatically different when I'm 40. Right now, it just doesn't seem like it. Then again, most teenagers think the same way about being 23 (me included).

Heh - I'm dramatically different from the 23-year-old me and I'm only 34.

(And thank god, because the 23-year-old me was both insufferably stupid and didn't know it.)

(Now at least I know it.)

Remind me to ask you what you think 11 years later.

At least we know there's a nonzero probability that your perceived insufferable stupidity is monotonically decreasing. :-)

How does the fact that the average age of first child in western societies hitting the 30 year old mark support the argument that there is a dramatic mental difference between those in their mid-20s and those in their mid-30s?

I think most cultures consider their elders to have much much more wisdom than regular men.

Forty years old is an elder?

Not that per se, but wisdom increases with experience and age is a big factor in having experience. A 50 year old person is likely to have experienced much more than a 30 year old. So it's natural that you will find 16 year olds lacking in experience compared to say 28 year olds.

I'd say 28 year old entrepreneurs have very different risk profiles than 40 year olds, and therefore think very differently.

ardit33, there is NO PROOF whatsoever that these cognitive differences are a result of age and not experience. The brain is plastic; it's shaped directly by experiences.

If you never speak to a child from birth to 4 years old, it will be unable to learn to speak. That part of the brain will simply have not developed. There's no reason to believe that this is not true of all the other skills you mention.

If you had started doing that "supervisory" role 3 years earlier, you would have been great at it by 16. Similarly, most people start doing that sort of thing at 22, so at 22 they are where you were at 16, meaning they were 6 years behind.