what should the age of majority (aka start of adulthood) be

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it was like that even into the 1920's IIRC
uptown sinclair's "The Jungle" laid that one out
 
Older than 21. The human brain isn't fully matured until mid to late 20's.
"The prefrontal cortex, responsible for planning, decision-making, and impulse control, matures last, often not fully developed until the mid-to-late 20s."
what if keeping people from making decisions until it's fully developed actually prevents it from developing properly like the trees in biosphere 2 or some shit
 
Getting very drunk at 16 is probably what prevented me from posting my glistening gertussy on EDF at 21. Thanks alcohol!

Anyway idk, I was stupid af at that age but so are many people older than me rn
 
Why is it a set to a specific value? It should be an equation. Something like:
  • P + M
  • M = C/(L * (B + D))
Where:
  • P = age of puberty
  • M = maturity constant
  • C = complexity of human society
  • L = median lifespan of an adult human being (not average)
  • B = child birth rate
  • D = infant mortality rate
This means that:
  • it should AT LEAST be no earlier than puberty (grass on the field = ready to play)
  • the maturity constant is the amount of time society expects children to have in order to grow up and become an adult
  • as complexity of human society increases, then it increases the maturity constant (you need more time to understand how the complex system works)
    • conversely, if human society is not complex or decreases, then it becomes less necessary to spend more time to understand it
  • as the average lifespan increases, you don't need to rush into adulthood to replace those who have died
    • conversely, if average lifespan decreases, then it becomes more imperative that adults have children sooner.
  • as child birth rates increase and/or infant mortality decreases, then there is less of a need for new children to be born sooner
    • conversely, if infant mortality increases or remains high and/or child birth rates decrease, then there is a greater need for people to start having children sooner
Note: how "complexity of human society" is defined is unknown but we can agree that modern society as of 2025 is more complex than that of 1925, which was more complex than 1825, and so on. That alone, by definition, ensures that the maturity constant increases; it also stands to reason that society in 2125 will be more complex than it is now, implying that the age of consent will likely be increases to 19 or 20 in that time.

Right now in the West the maturity constant is around M = 6 (assuming P = 12). Japan has it set to M = 4, likely underlying its low child birth rates (all other considerations remaining the same relative to other nations). For comparison, during pre-industrial times, the M value was relative low, because life wasn't nearly as complex back then as it was now, compounded by high infant mortality despite high child birth rates; those values reduced the maturity constant to maybe 2 or 3.

This is also just me spitballing the equation, I'm sure there is a more effective way to caulcate how a society should set its age of consent value consistently. I'm also sure that we can punch in some values and solve for C to then get an objective value of what "complexity of human society" is (population? GDP? median man hours to perform a certain similar function properly?)
 
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