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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1287 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 27, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Eighteen is the compromise between ‘c’mon now, teenagers obviously need the guidance of their elders’ and ‘they can’t stay kids forever’ we’ve already settled on as a society. Is it intrinsically better than 16? Only by already being established. For that reason I don’t see that changing.

Eighteen was not an organic compromise as you imply it was. It was borne of the top-down imposition of California's own culture, where the age is 18, through its worldwide reach in media. Arkansas's age of consent is 16 and could just as easily convince you that 16 was "the compromise" if we let them control what the world watched in its living rooms for several decades.

Yes, I just said that 16 as the generally agreed upon compromise is not clearly worse than 18. It simply happens that one is generally agreed upon and the other is not. But, well, something has to be generally agreed upon.

What I responded to:

Nobody will be willing to advocate for anything other than 18

I explained why I thought maybe that could change one day. To which you respond no, it won't change. To which I disagreed. I don't dispute here that "something has to be generally agreed upon."

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