For the sake of discussion, which age would you want to pause at? 16, 24 for insurance reasons?
I wonder what immortal oligarchs would even do…
that ‘modern’, ‘developed’ civilizations haven’t devolved this way yet isn’t because we’re all so cultivated now, but because we’ve lived in an unusual period of extended growth and excessive abundance which keeps destructive competition at bay. but infighting (i.e., tribalism) has been rising over the past 50+ years and is threatening to overthrow that period of prosperity and civility.
From Lilli Lehmann's How to Sing, page 108 (originally authored in the late 1800s):
"No woman of less than twenty-four years should sing soubrette parts, none of less than twenty-eight years second parts, and none of less than thirty-five years dramatic parts; that is early enough."
Yes, humans can be violent but we are obviously more predisposed to be cooperative otherwise we would have never made it this far as a species. You can't put 10,000 unrelated members of any other species in one place and not expect chaos, with humans it's no problem as long as everyone involved has food in their bellies and the promise of going home after a few hours. That's our real defining trait, getting along with each other, our intelligence wouldn't do a lick of good if we didn't have that.
27-29 is probably exactly the maximizing range, for this reason.
I guess it comes down to: is the capacity of strategy developed as a result of age, or as a result of experience?
we’d still get the most bang for buck if our age was ‘frozen’ in the late 20s because experience would still accumulate regardless, but we’d have maximized the combo of physical and mental growth. it’s only obvious in retrospect how immature we are at 18, both physically and mentally, or even at 25. that’s why sports is such a neat test bed, because it taxes both facilities enough to tease out these otherwise unnoticeable dynamics.