Glyph2d ago

RE: https://mastodon.social/@glyph/116240274811219588

One can generalize my thoughts about "junior engineers" to "adolescents" in many cases. Children *are* different from adults, but far less different than popular discourse would have you believe. *Most* of the idea that they are a special class of person whose agency should be tightly controlled by their betters, is a self-soothing fantasy *by* those "betters" about their own deficiencies, not about risks to children.

To wit: "age gating" anything on the Internet is solving the wrong problem.

Show threadV2d ago
@glyph adolescents as a meaningful social category('teenagers') is also largely an artifact of modernity and post-industrialization education and social reforms.
For most of human history, most teens would have been considered more or less 'adults who haven't been through as much shit as the rest of us just yet.'
Which is not to say that was better - but that, the difference between a 'teen' and an 'adult' is not as clear as the current social-cultural context likes to pretend it is.
Show threadV2d ago
@glyph Some cases of categorizing them differently are reasonable - it's a vulnerable period, and having some protections to keep predators away is useful.
... but they're also basically just adults that don't have as many decades of experience yet, and pretending a 16 year old more closely resembles an 8-year-old than a 24-year-old only serves to fuck them over more.
Show threadGlyph2d ago
@miss_rodent this kind of discourse is extremely fraught because it's easy to veer into accidentally agreeing with the "it's actually ephebophelia" crowd, but broadly speaking I agree with you. every day, a kid is a bit less like a child and a bit more like a really naive adult. some arbitrary thresholds are reasonable but the ones our society has constructed are not particularly well thought-out
Show threadGlyph
@miss_rodent in general, a lot of what officials do is victim-blaming. they constantly substitute "how should minors be allowed to behave" for the real question, "what do minors need to be protected from", because once it's regulating the kids' behavior then it's much easier, the kids are much more vulnerable, much easier to restrict. and once you start asking what minors need to be protected from it turns out that it's the same predatory shit we ALL need protection from
Apr 13 at 4:53amWeb
Show threadGlyph2d ago
@miss_rodent (and that shit often comes from their donors, or maybe even themselves personally. but I digress)
Show threadV2d ago

@glyph People who clamour to get into positions of power passing laws to give themselves more power over their kids and grandkids? Shocking.

But yeah 'What do they need to be protected from' - and restricting what sort of shit they can be subjected to/what adults and those and power can do *to* them, is, I think, a much higher priority than restricting what they can get up to.