I was thinking about how 16 year olds in England are full adults, the idea that teens can decide their own medical care and move out without parental consent sounds amazing and could have honestly saved the lives of some kids I went to high school with. letting 16 teen year olds vote too makes sense since the obviously have a stake in the future more so than older people I would say. On the other hand the idea of 16 year olds binge drinking and being with older adults, and god forbid getting married to adults turns my stomach. I know we have some users from England so I am curious to hear your thoughts. I guess my instinct is to stagger everything at the appropriate ages. honestly sometimes i think 18 is too young to get married lol.
isn't there an average age where the brain is considered developed? maybe it will vary person to person.
future process: go to the dmv or cool socialist equivalent, get a free ultra high res fMRI, receive your state sanctioned "your brain will be fully developed" day and i dunno have a party when that day arrives.
Damn, I really was a late bloomer. I didn't outgrow my bullshit and start acting like an adult until I was literally 25.
monkey's paw curls: the classification algorithm that determines brain maturity as a binary variable is a neural network trained on biased data from rich waspy kids' brains in a way that led to the classifier to determine non-white brains to be allowed to work at 10 but not smoke weed until 80
Technically the brain never finishes developing due to neuroplasticity. 25 tends to be the cutting off point for frontal lobe growth, but it isn't like a cut and dry thing. Some people have it develop much earlier, and others have limited growth due to various factors. I feel like it would be ableist to base adulthood on a stereotypical 'developed' brain structure as it would remove autonomy for pretty much every neurodivergent person.
Pretty sure in the 30s