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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

I know by law a 23 year old is considered an adult, but full blown seems to be hyperbolic.

Being old enough to go to war means being old enough to make life altering decisions by herself.

It is pretty well accepted that the human brain does not fully mature until mid-20s. So a full blown adult is different than legally considered adult.

> So a full blown adult is different than legally considered adult.

We have to create a line somewhere and currently that line is the age of majority. Some people mature faster than others, and even you didn’t provide a specific age. How are we supposed to make decisions about what constitutes an adult without a firm cutoff?

I think it's reasonable to have different lines for different decisions. Driving at 16 is fine, voting at 18 feels young (subjectively, but more young people should vote), drinking at 21 feels responsibile, can consent to suicide at the age of the 95th percentile where brains have stopped growing/maturing feels reasonable? I think I heard your brain is growing until the age of 25, and IIRC The odds of being diagnosed with schizophrenia goes up until the age of 26, so maybe 26 is the age which you're considered adult enough to consent to suicide?

Where do you think the age of being allowed to enlist in the army should be?

Oooh, that's an interesting question. So, normally I'd reject the hypothetical here, and say war is bad, so "should" doesn't apply. But instead, if I can assume it's required for existence, society should define the minimum age as high as possible to ensure victory. Fighting in a war is actively harmful to feeling safe. Feeling safe is required for individuals to grow at the maximum rate. Growing as a child has the same effects as compounding interest, so the absolute best growth possible should be the target for everyone, as early as possible.

If you're talking about joining a standing army without consideration for combat. I don't think there's any minimum age. I used to teach a "combat sport" to children as young as 4. Then, for the US army, which I know about, I think 18 is perfectly reasonable, where many people could gain very useful skills/education from the training that joining the US military entails.

> most people could gain very useful skills/education from the training that joining the US military entails

And also can get very dead from the numerous conflicts in which the US keeps getting involved in.

Even during peaceful years like the 90s or in non direct combat roles being in the military is very hard on the body though infantry get the brunt of it.

Maybe but why should their Dad still have a say in this?

> pretty well accepted

[citation needed]

It's certainly the case that suicide and reckless death are more common in young people and teenagers, but I'm not convinced by all this mature brain argument as it tends to be deployed selectively to infantilize people.

Amd then it starts to regress right after. So, you get 5 min of full maturity in your life - by that logic.

Any scientific source on that "well accepted fact"?

that study actually has a lot of noted flaws. they didn't include patients over 25, I think, so you can't really say that you're fully mature at 25. maybe the brain never stops maturing.

I believe that within a decade this perspective will be ridiculed.

Adults are just children with more money.

Everyone needs guidance. There are plenty of stories of interrupted suicides that ultimately changed the fate of an individual. They were saved and they were glad they were saved. This happens at all ages.

The fact that you can say that being old enough to go to war means that someone is old enough to make life altering decisions as if just this arbitrary numeric number means something because it was encoded into law shows that you’re not ready to say who has the right to go to war, go to war yourself, nor say anything about who has the right to go suicide.

Think before you follow some arbitrary rule and make that rule the axiom for your logic.

Napoleon Bonaparte was lieutenant-colonel of a battalion at 23.

Had he not been lieutenant-colonel at that age maybe he could have had a quiet happy life instead of ruining and ending the one of thousands of his contemporaries and having his own life end so badly.

I guess that's true, but we're straying from the point of discussion I think.

Founding fathers age on July 4, 1776:

James Monroe, 18

Aaron Burr, 20

Alexander Hamilton, 21

James Madison, 25

Which shows pretty well how things have changed. People grew up earlier, before. Now, so many people at 30 years old are still children.

How old is 'full blown' in your view then? 30? 40? 50?

As a society, through laws, we've decided there's an age where a person is mature enough to be granted autonomy separate from their parents. If we start trying to decide when they're mature by brain development we'll probably find the brain never really stops growing and changing and even if there is a general age it'll be different for every person as everyone develops differently. That's an untenable standard.

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