Do you have an actual argument against what I wrote or did you just want to throw me in here for good measure?

one of the better paragraphs in the thread, PB! it's an excellent elaboration of the idea behind the quote, ''dont ever take down a fence until you know why it was put up''. i sincerely wonder how many of the political and legal actors in a position to modify or demolish the current system of fences understand or appreciate the intention(s) behind them. what do you think? lawmakers seem pretty clever to me, but it's easy to forget how a problem was solved after the problem disappears.

well, this whole thread started with nichelmn making the (trivial) observation that age is an imperfect measure of discretion, foresight, and compassion and that paternalist policies could be greatly improved if we could measure those traits directly. given that his proposed solution was both very non-specific (a test of some kind!) and wildly (self-evidently) impractical it does seem unfair to belabor its vagueness and impossibility. i guess the game pvn is referring to might be called ''arguendo'' and one of its unwritten rules is to only say things that keep the discussion going, even if that discussion is insane.

so, re: a general critique of your posting, i will say two things: i) i only read this forum because you post on it, and i know others do the same, and; ii) occasionally you spoil the fun by actually knowing where reality is located and pointing to it when it helps you win. that's unsporting! i prefer it -- i like knowing where reality appears to be -- but i can see why those with reasons to deny reality might absolutely hate it.

i want to reiterate a point made by phone booth elsewhere in the thread: it really isn't one size fits all because actors at each stage in the legal process are granted discretion. they administer their own informal tests of ''maturity'' that lawbreakers pass or fail. if they pass enough their transgressions are excused. given that people aren't up in arms about ''abuses of authority'' we can safely assume that the judgments being made are generally reasonable. iow, your system is already in place, it just doesnt look like it.

re: demonstrating knowledge of risks via a pen and paper test, this is impossible. knowledge of facts about risk is not equal to knowing how to make decisions involving risk. you only learn how to make good-decisions by, you know, making them over and over again, and you really can't help but ''give away'' your decision-making tendencies, your ''values'', in a million little ways that can't be formalized because empathy ("mind-reading", ''interpersonal simulation'', whatever) is required to perceive them.

My argument is not a complaint about arbitrary cut-offs. Of course, so long as cut-offs exist in any form, they're going to be arbitrary. My point so far as age limits go is that "sort by age" as vhawk puts it is a rough measure of maturity and that a test could make it more precise. The fact that it could theoretically be improved to arbitrarily high levels of supposed precision does not mean that the entire exercise is "meaningless". If a test is already precise, then Nichlemn-2's argument that "the test isn't quite perfect yet" is less convincing. But in any case, the potential for future "Nichlemns" to make similar arguments does not mean we can't have a debate on whether further proxies for maturity are worthwhile right now.

Ironically, your argument can itself be generalisable to a great deal of proposals. One could imagine a world where government jobs are filled entirely on the basis of age, with no regards to experience or qualifications. I could claim that age is a weak criteria of quality, and it might be better to use resumes and job interviews to get a better measure of applicant quality. Using the same argument, you could say "you haven't found a problem with the system! Next time, you'll be claiming that job interviews aren't enough! There's no end to the possible objections!" Of course there are differences between criteria for jobs and criteria for vices. But not all of them are in favour of the former. In the former case, the primary beneficiary of more precise screening is the government who gets a more effective person for the job, in the latter, the primary beneficiary is the person allowed to do what they want.

Yeah, but the ability to truthfully say "I'm 18", now that demonstrates knowledge of good-decision making.

The test doesn't have to "measure" decision-making ability. Hell, it could be a quiz about Shakespearean trivia. So long as the people who pass it are slightly more likely to make good decisions, it can be used to improve on a solely age-based system.

Sounding a lot like more government.

One argument against testing isn't that tests don't matter, but that they matter so much that we already force those tests through our education system. Even if you have no intention of ever smoking, it is required by law that you learn the adverse effects of it and be tested on that knowledge. Testing again would simply be repetitive. At what age are all government required health courses completed? Non-coincidentally its 18.

Sure there's still some cracks in the system. Some students will learn all the risks at ages earlier than 18. Some dropouts will never learn. But it just isn't worth a system overhaul just so smart 16-year-olds can smoke and dumb 20 year-olds can't.

Also I think the bigger issue here is paternalism in the stricter sense of the word. Its not about societies protecting their citizens but more about parents protecting their children. Parents don't really care how smart or responsible they think their kids are, they don't want cocaine readily available for them at a 711.

Thread is slow pony.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/41...ategy-1291456/

Wow, long time no see! Hope all's well - how's life?

Flattering interpretations aside, reality-deniers, on the internet or IRL genuinely annoy me for reasons that have to do with my personal shortcomings and I'm far too honest not to express annoyance and contempt. A few years ago, I was intellectually fascinated with various forms of mental dysfunction, so I was extremely patient in engaging alternate-reality arguments, but I'm far too busy for that now.