Immaturity Level Rising in Adults 862
Ant writes to tell us that a Discovery News article is exploring the old adage, "like a kid at heart", which may be closer to the truth than we would like to admit. New research is showing that grown-ups are more immature than ever. From the article: "Specifically, it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth. As a consequence, many older people simply never achieve mental adulthood, according to a leading expert on evolutionary psychiatry."
Not sure about this guy's definitions (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure if that's the world's best definition of immaturity, since its corollary would suggest that maturity is defind by predictability, having balance of priorities (what does that mean?), and not overreacting (does that mean reacting appropriately - how do you define appropriate?).
I hate to reduce things to an argument over definitions, but this stuff seems a little fruity to me. I think a simpler definition of maturity is a willingness to accept responsibility for oneself and for others. By that definition, then we definitely do see a lot of immature, i.e.: irresponsible, behavior among adults - probably because irresponsibility no longer gets you eaten by lions and tigers and bears the way it did for our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
But this guy is definitely right about the value of maintaining mental elasticity as an adult. My grandfather is a good example. He was a prof at a big university and has always had an amazingly agile and adaptive mind. And today I got an email from him of some pictures he took on his digital camera that he doctored in photoshop. Th guy is 86 years old. Email went mainstream when he was in his late 70s, for God's sake.
Personal position (Score:5, Interesting)
I reject the traditional concepts of maturity. I refuse to spend my life doing things I don't like because of some outmoded notion of 'have to.' The pressure to grow up, to think like an adult, is ridiculous and useless from an objective standpoint.
This doesn't mean shirking responsibility is part of the mindset. It simply means I try to retain a childlike viewpoint on the world. One of the most important things children have that most adults lack is a sense of wonder and discovery. The benefits are astonishing.
That said, I didn't actually read the article, as it were, so I may be wildly off-topic. In true immature fashion, whatever.
Re:Does this surprise anybody? (Score:2, Interesting)
Academics, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
The theory's creator is Bruce Charlton, a professor in the School of Biology at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England...
"People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence..."
I'm amused that he singles out academics, teachers and scientists - pretty much the exact description of people he has in his department. Not that I wish to suggest that the fine fellows at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne are in any way immature (I did my Bachelor's degree there), but I can't help thinking that his paper is by implication not exactly flattering to them.
Kohlberg scale and selling/war? (Score:3, Interesting)
profits, war and control?
What if they start wanting and understanding ethical principles?
Best keep them all at stage 2?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg's_stages_of
It depends (Score:5, Interesting)
And its true. We'd just rather spend all of that child-rearing money on ourselves and keep our options open (go out/take trips whenever), while not having to put up with the hassles of tending to kids.
I'm sure many traditionally-raised folks might see this as immature or selfish, but it all depends on the point of view.
something I noticed (Score:1, Interesting)
Take comics for example, I was surprised to know that comic book companies in the USA now target adults much more than children. I was surperised more to find that adults dress up as comic characters in conventions. The same applies for Sci-Fi movies and TV shows. I don't know about video games, but with the increasing violence I'm guessing that again the main target is now a mostly adult audience.
The aim of this post isn't attacking adult comic readers (or whatever), but there's a difference between some people buying something they like, and the current situation where adults 'hijacked' whole categories of products initially marketed for their children.
Can anyone explain to a non-American how this happened?
Re:Responsibility (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you left out one of the most important factors - the government's use of hysteria about "protecting the children" to justify all kinds of nanny-state laws. We have this strange dichotomy enforced on us that people are helpless, naive babes in the woods until they reach 18 (and in some cases 21) years of age, which is completely geared to isolating them from any maturity-developing life experiences.
I see it as the social sciences version of that recent study indicating that children raised in too clean of an environment end up with weakend immune systems because they've never been exposed to grit and grime of the real world and thus never had the opportunity for their immune systems to mature and build up sufficient biological defenses.
Its Simple Really (Score:4, Interesting)
You produce them as such.
Thomas Doherty once quipped that "movies reflect teenage, not mass - and definitely not adult - tastes". Hollywood, The TV industry, glossy magazines, etc, are all interested in doing one thing: producing you as an unquestioning consumer whose core concerns are childlike.
Take for example these new Nike Ronaldino ads whose catchphrase is "never grow up". I don't want to go all Barthes here but these ads are so shameless in their meaning production that you wonder how any adult with an IQ over 80 could fall for their message. It's pitiful really.
The trouble is.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who wants to be six again? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are Farts Funnier in Church? (Score:3, Interesting)
An argument could be made that as we're neotenic by evolutionary design it's "only natural" that psychologically we exhibit overextended developmental immaturity.
Our sense of humour is based on broken symmetry. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience [amazon.com] by Erving Goffman was an early effort to set out the myriad markers we use to establish a contextual frame and the wit we employ to break that frame for various reasons, humour not least among them.
Our relatively oversized brain is conjectured to be an outgrowth of our intricate social relationships. Our fetishes and rituals have come under scrutiny by dint of recorded history and cultural cross fertilization. In the vein of familiarity breeds contempt it may be that we've simply come to more easily poke fun at ourselves.
The Marx brothers said it best: Groucho:"I wouldn't want to join any club that would have me as a member"; and Karl: "Moi, je ne suis pas marxiste."
It may be that those who are now seen as relatively immature are those whose lives most correspond with the material wealth that permited playful immaturity. I suggest that Freud's concept of polymorphous perversity can be extended from sexuallity to all aspects of our lives as a description of our ability to transcend our basic nature.
Explaination (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not sure about this guy's definitions (Score:4, Interesting)
The funny part about that is the last customer who said that was talking to our Toshiba representative who's got a pretty good grip on current tech. When the rep asked when he was born in response and got something back that was around the 50's, the rep replied by saying he was born in the 20's. Just shows you that if you keep your mind fresh instead of just letting it sit there unchallenged you don't have to be left behind.
Re:Resignation. (Score:3, Interesting)
Being young, wee and full of vim is certainly a fun thing to be; of course our memories of the times are rosy and wondrous, etc. etc. But saying such glory cannot be found again, that innocence and purity and what-have-you are vital to true happiness is misguided and overly nostalgic. I'm sixteen years old, and despite the weight of earning the driver's license, getting a job, working on those grades, and the horrors of social contact in general, I'm twice (if not thrice!) as happy as I was when I was six. It's the feeling of moderate independence, the freedom to make absurd decisions that in no way affect the long term, the feeling of accomplishment at just about everything you do (well at least all the stuff you like), and (especially) the quasi-distorted, palpable, truly scrumptious view of the future.
I know that eventually I'll have to trade it in for some less-than-stellar job and a smelly home with a wife I quickly tire of, but in the meantime, life is as delicious as a ham salad, and just as savory.
In other words, I'm more correct than you.
Re:Responsibility (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at the rate of war, murder, and general chaos, you'll find that those regions of the world where children are not allowed to mature before being forced to act like adults are far worse off than places like the west. While I won't argue that western children are "spoiled" far more often than their african counterparts -- I think I'd rather my children be spoiled than broken.
I don't think that is true - at least not universally. Where I am there is obious poverty and hardship wherever you look however the city is thousdands of times safer than most Western cities. Crime is very low here (virtually unheard of) and most of the crime that might happen is very small petty theft.
It is of course true that hardship can lead to desperation and desperation could lead to violence. So if you point is Africa is more violent than Western Europe then that might be true. However, there are other factors involved rather than just poverty and hardship. However, I would hardly say the US is a non-violent nation it is just the type of fighting undertaken by the US is usually more distant. Long range missles rather than street to street. The visual impact is therefore different and people mistakenly think that dropping cruise missles is somehow more humane.
However, my point is not directly about hardship but about responsibility. People here (in Africa) generally have to act responsible from a young age where socially they are required to look after themselves and their families from a younger age. In the West the children are generally spoilt and don't even have to look after themselves.
Also, I am not saying that one way is better than the other. I think childhood is great time and it is a shame that many children here in Africa miss out on being children. I am just highlighting what might be a potential cause of the alleged increase in immaturity.
Re:Burden is an illusion (Score:4, Interesting)
Well Í have. It's sad BECAUSE two personalities (genius vs. retard, excusez les mots) are described, and none are preferable. The responsibillity of having to make choices, and be doomed to bear the consequences: thát's what it's about. Being cared for at six, play with sticks and mud-pools, enjoy life as it is without having to thing further than another day, perchance a week. When summer holidays lasted forever, chocolate was plain good, bikes could fly if you just tried hard enough and animals could speak. Have you ever read Calvin and Hobbes? Winnie the Poeh? 'His Dark Materials'?
Was this world made by "mature" people? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't claim to know what maturity means, exactly, but it seems to be the ability to care, love, to provide for others, and to not be impressed by propaganda och values created by somebody else, perhaps with a political or religious agenda.
But what do I know? I'm not exactly a model person. I'm just happy I've made is this far. All I want is to do what I love and love what I do.
Re:Responsibility (Score:5, Interesting)
There's something about barely having a childhood that makes me want to be childish. I was 40 when I was 15, so I think I deserve the luxury of a few video games and a silly outlook now that I've made something of myself. I know what it's like to live a banal existence where laughs are forced or tied to shutting out everything looming menacingly ahead. I burned out at 18, and reached the conclusion that people take life too seriously; I made a vow to live and enjoy the little time I've been allotted. It's a cycle, really. I could spend the rest of my days resenting my past, be a bitter old fart ranting of rules and rigid discipline to reach success, but I know where that road leads.
Responsibility? Sure, no question. Maturity to a fault? No. We have a rare opportunity to retain some of our childish antics in our old age, so why not enjoy it? Ever notice people generally calm down considerably once they are grandparents? They've experienced the utter maturity of raising children, they've tried the rules and regulations, punishments and experimentation. Grandma knows the deal now, she conspires with your children to undermine your authority, because she knows something you haven't quite learned: sometimes it's better to be "immature."
But the parent poster had a major point: spoiled children aren't merely immature, they're sheltered and unprepared for maturity. It's a critical difference, and one the article misses. Without any other recourse, people continue with what they know and slowly realize it doesn't suffice when confronted with the inherent complexity of the adult world. Without a bailout, these people flounder horribly, and make immature decisions mostly through ignorance. They'll "grow up," but it'll take longer. Now we see where "helicopter parenting" truly leads.
Not pretty, is it?
By the way, some of those friends of yours who act immature? Talk to them sometime. That part of them which lived hard and grew up before their time is still there. Tell them to flip the switch and speak candidly, and they'll likely comply. If you ever want to see one of your funny or seemingly flippant friends suddenly become a wise old sage, it's a simultaneously terrible and awe-inspiring sight to behold.
Re:Resignation. (Score:2, Interesting)
My girlfriend dumped me. My cat died. I realized I have more white hair than otherwise. (What's left of it, that is.)
So, I traded my Video Conferencing Project Manager job for a job as a English Teacher for 4-10 year olds in a different country.
Now...
-I live "colors".
-I give encouraging words relentlessly, and I receive hugs in turn.
-I bark like a d-o-g, Dog. I meow like a c-a-t, cat. I roar like a l-i-o-n, lion.
-I play kickball. (And tag, and hacky-sacky, and hide-n-seek.)
-I run just to run.
-I sing songs just because.
-I throw waterballoons. (Female teachers in wet T-shirts. Ulterior motive.)
-I don't pay rent. (My employers do that.)
-I walk 10 minutes to work.
-I went for a 6 hour bike ride today because I had nothing else that I "HAD" to do.
Call me immature if you want, but I like it.
It's not all wine and roses.
-I've had 5 family and friends die this calendar year.
-All the bad stuff that always has been, still is.
But, thanks to 300 or so little kids, I don't worry about that.
On a daily basis, all I worry about is:
-ABCDE...XYZ
-Smile (Not me, them.)
-And, most of all, encouraging the belief that, Everything IS possible.
-----
Btw... Here's a good song you can use to help teach your youngsters about colors....
Red and yellow
Red and yellow
Black, Green, Blue
Black, Green, Blue
Sing a song together
Sing a song together
Me and you
Me and you
(Make sure you point at the colors while singing, and gesture appropriately during "Me and you")
Most of you seem to be missing the point (Score:1, Interesting)
My fiancee lives on the third floor of a 3-story 3-apartment house. About 8 months ago two girls who recently were done with college moved in. The apartment building rules are made very clear: each apartment has assigned parking and there is no smoking indoors. The first day the girls parked in my fiancee's spot. She thought nothing of it as they were moving in. The second day they were done moving in and they continued to park where they want and in a manner that reduced 4 parking spots to 3. My fiancee knocked on theie door and politely told them that they were in her spot and explained where their spots were. She was greeted with:
"Who the fuck do you think you are? The lanlord told us we could park anywhere we wanted."
Shocked, my fiancee went upstairs and called the landlord to tell him of the incident and that she had no idea how to proceed. He called the girls and explained to them where they were to park. The next day, things seemed better, as everyone parked where they were supposed to. But over the next few weeks, the parking degenerated and the girls went back to parking where they wanted, having friends park in spots that were'nt for parking, etc. The times they used my fiancee's spot, she would knock on their door and be greeted with rudeness and indignation. The girls got to the point that they would flip us off if they saw us. Yet all we wanted was the one parking spot we were paying for.
Then, they started smoking in the house and coming home late from the bars bringing in untold number of people. The smoking policy is there for two main reasons: the air system is such that smoke in the house moves throughout all of the apartments and it smells like you smoke in the apartment when you don't. Also, it is a fire hazard. So when the girls would smoke, my fiancee's apartment smelled like we were running a bar. I went and asked them once to please stop and they denied they were doing it. "We don't smoke." So we complained to the landlord. He came by and confronted them, to which we got a nasty letter written in bad english stuck to our door. It rudely introduced themselves to us, explained that the polite and neighborly way to handle things was not to go through the landlord and that if we had problems we should talk to them.
Smoking continued off and on, but the girls decided to be even worse. They would come home at 3am, deliberately bang doors, stomp up and down stairs, just to make the point that they could do what they wanted and we had no say. However, to our advantage, all the while the second floor apartment was keeping notes and also calling the landlord. Long story short, the girls decided they could do whatever they wanted since they were paying for the apartment. They had no respect for the other apartments, lied when convenient, broke good policies for their benefit, denied any responsibility, and wen tout of their way to exact revenge for their own out of control behavior.
Foruntantely, the landlord evicted them. Unfortunately, he was afraid of being sued and waited until just recently to do so, and did it in a manner which really wasn't an eviction but more of a denial to renew their lease. My fiancee is moving out and we only have one more month until we can get her out of there. The second floor apartment already vacated.
I see more and more of this kind of behavior within the people just coming out of college. (I am only 31 and in fact in grad school so I am still in college). They seem to do what they want and take no responsibility for themselves. I had my own "girls" story with a group of four living in my apartment complex that would play loud music and one night I watched as a very drunk one came home (in pants too tight to carry keys I guess) and
People bashed you, but I won't... (Score:2, Interesting)
Now I have a 6yo boy and a 2mo girl. And I have it all again.
Everytime he smiles because of his new YuGiOh card -- he made himself in a piece of A4 paper with his color pencils -- and everytime she smiles satified after feeding and everytime I hug both of them at night when it's cold and the three of us just cuddle watching the Simpsons or the Fairy Oddparents on TV, I forget about all the crap that is being an adult, and I am just there with the two people I love most in the world, completely happy.
A couple of years ago, the boy asked me "Dad, why do the adult make all the decisions", and I answered: "life is not fair -- adults got to make all the decisions, and children got to have all the fun."
Re:Resignation. (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember that statement the next time you stop at a streetlight in your car, and it actually stops. Or when you want something to eat. Or a thousand other examples.
Without those 'factory workers' your 'adult' life would be pretty dismal.
Re:It's all about definitions (Score:2, Interesting)
>> Sorry but I really can't let that pass. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/maturity [reference.com]
>> has the definition The state or quality of being fully grown or developed.
The author is not writing for pop-psychology, this is a scientific argument. The definition you have from the popular dictionary is of physical maturity, not of psychological maturity from a scientific, biological, evolutionary viewpoint. In the field of biology, maturity is when the animal has acquired enough Stimulus --> Response reactions to make quick decisions. These S-->Rs become hardcoded into the brain and become knee-jerk reactions. They have evolved for purposes of survival. The adult must often make quick decisions to survive. This age-related hardwiring of the brain has been proven many times and in many ways in brain research. It's a bio-chemical thing that is difficult to reverse.
I'm right close to fifty, also. You can't let pride get in the way of science, though. The things I'm discussing are just part of who we are, like it or not. Adults are rigid thinkers and immaturity implies creativity of S-->R patterning. Maybe knowing this is true can help older people listen more to the ideas of young people.
I'm presently a teacher (college) and I repetitively spit out my knowledge to my students. Every now and then a bold student asks why something is the way it is. My knee-jerk reaction to say it is just that way and accept it. That's my old age talking. I find that as I get older it becomes more painful to even consider new solutions to old problems. I have learned to listen to the student's questions and go back to rethink why things are the way they are. It has been very educational. I have to tell myself that it is successful to rethink these things because I know maturity has made me mentally blind to new ideas. I can overcome that if I try.
Most all of the posts on this thread are way off track and people don't realize this author is writing a paper on the topics of psychology, evolution, and biology from a scientific standpoint. The ridge thinking of the mature mind is not a new theory, it is old, well accepted, and proven. The author is discussing what happens when the mature adult can't solidify a S-->R rule set because the environment will not allow it. What is the outcome on development of the individual's psychology? Will the necessity to create new S-->Rs through a lifespan require the individual to remain in a psychologically immature state? Probably so. How will this change society?
Freud also mentioned, in his lectures, that people in creative fields seem to be in a mentally juvenile state well into adulthood. This is not a new concept.
Re:It depends (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes and no...
Talking about "nontraditional" happy people - People who (could) make quite enough to compete favorably in the rat race but choose to only work 20 hours a weeks and live in a double-wide so they can afford frequent vacations. Those people validate your point, but come few and far between.
Talking about the ever-growing masses of n'th generation welfare families, you have it absolutely wrong. When you need to live on the dole to survive, you should NOT have kids. But those people seem to have the most kides - Look at a cross section of the US in terms of income (or education) vs average number of children, and you have a VERY strong inverse correlation. The poor breed, the wealthy breed (but don't suffer for it or exist in large enough numbers to sway the above-mentioned correlation), the middle class have to choose between lifestyle and kids.
I heard a story on NPR the other day, about TN cutting back on their socialized healthcare system. They portrayed this as a real sob story, a poor victimized crippled woman who had to choose only five prescription drugs per month to fill.
Mind you, this woman already got $600/mo just for existing! For breathing and eating the government cheese, she gets paid. Then she gets five prescriptions per month... Not one or two, but five. They went on to tell a tale about how, when she got an infection, she had to pick which drug to temporarily live without. And of course, after rent and food and basic bills, she only had $9 out of her free $600 remaining per month.
Do you know how many free prescriptions I get? ZERO! Do you know how much I have left each month from my government pay-me-to-exist check? ZERO, because I don't get one! And $600 wouldn't even pay all of my rent, because I don't qualify for section-8 vouchers. Can ya hear the goddamned violins? Can you???
But back to the NPR story... The next generation no doubt did better, right? Her kids can help... Nope. Her kids also live as white trash, getting their own little slice of government cheese, and can't afford to help Mom because their own kids have huge regular medical bills (apparently also over the five-script limit? The story didn't make that part clear).
This story absolutely infuriated me - This woman needs to take just one last prescription - for the lead pill; and her progeny need to stop spreading their legs until they can afford to feed themselves! End-of-fucking-story. I didn't just describe a situation of "differently happy" - I described a case of hereditary poverty largely through their own acceptance of that situation.
Manmaking (Score:4, Interesting)
As more traditional culture is lost, more people go through life without the benefits of it, or a "new version" that can update it to work in modern society.
Girls have lost more of these procedures, filtered out along with lots of oppressive female institutions, and probably represent lots of the people not converted into adult personalities. If women's culture included explicit "rites of passage" from girlhood into womenhood, more girls would become women. At least some men have the bar mitzva, or the fraternity pledging.
I think that if every girl learned about the biology of becoming a woman in "midwife clubs" assisting a group of adult midwifes for a year, then celebrated their own "coming of age", they'd be a lot better integrated with their gender identity as well as their maturity identity. Boys would benefit from it as well, but not as much as girls, just as girls benefit from the masculine cultural bar mitzva, but not as much as boys.
Re:Wasted energy competing. (Score:4, Interesting)
It is not enough for some people to be happy that they win. Others must lose as well.
Re:Mod parent Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
>> It makes sense that this environment doesn't allow the mental wiring to solidify.
We have not evolved to be this way. Interesting experiment, no?
One side effect of this sustained immaturity will probably be that people learn to keep learning and society will have the ability to adapt more rapidly to new situations. In the past the elders would retain rigid rules that made society more stable, but also make it inflexible to change over several generations.
"Psychological neotony" is a perpetual state of relearning and rethinking the environment. It is what creative and innovative people do. It is also called "arrested psychological development". Arrested development might become the norm and people who are not arrested will need treatment.=-}
Re:Indulgence? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think about this a lot - the common thread is politics. Politicians (warlords, whatever) deciding that they are more important then the people they control. When you give to a charity, what percentage of the money/help makes it to the people that need it? In some countries, it is close to zero - and in most countries with serious problems the charity money ends up buying weapons for the warlords, making the problem worse (see food for oil, the African relief efforts, etc.). The best thing to give to right now seems to be people that go there themselves - doctors without borders, etc. (I also donate a large portion of my income to charities).
The sad thing is that what these people really need is an invasion - remove the dictators, put it "good" people. The catch 22 is that the kind of people that would invade/revolt are not the kind of people that you want running the country! Even democratic republics (though typically better than other alternatives) do not work reliably - see Iran where the elected people are hate mongers, see Argentina where the elected government took the american continent's second best economy and destroyed it in 5 years through handouts, etc.
There doesn't seem to be a perfect solution - I don't think we really even understand why the US has been so successful. Other countries have more resources, more land, more people, more freedom, less corruption, etc - but none of those countries can match the US technologically or economically.
Why isn't politics run as a real science? Let's stop treating the most important aspect of modern life as an emtional game, and start doing double blind studies and experiments to figure this out. Want to really end world hunger? Become a true political scientist!
From the "The more things change" department... (Score:3, Interesting)
So what is so new about this? Some doctor needs to be published and put a name to this thing.
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees well they'd be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
Then they showed me a world where I could be so dependible,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.
There are times when all the world's asleep,
the questions run so deep, for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned?
I know it sounds absurd, please tell me who I am?
This isn't about not maturing, but wishing that he wasn't forced to mature so young,
and wanting to go back to a simpler time.
Today kids are kept from learning a lot of things that would get them ready for adulthood.
I mean please...removing swings and other equipment from playgrounds because they're too dangerous?
http://kutv.com/health/local_story_086170456.html [kutv.com]
In an effort to shield children from anything dangerous while they grow up, parents and other adults
fail to prepare children for the real world. And any public institution (read schools) that doesn't
conform to this complete "safety" policy for children get sued out of existence or can't afford insurance.
Growing up, I thought my generation would be smart enough to avoid the dumb things my parents' generation
did to shield us kids from life. Unfortunately my generation is screwing it up even worse.
It's no wonder so many people have "psychological neoteny" but I doubt the explanation is as simple as TFA says.
Re:Absolutely! (Score:4, Interesting)
(Sure my family is
However, being immature does not, for me, mean I am not serious about things it's necessary to be serious about.
Re:Indulgence? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that brand new 35 inch plasma TV really worth working 60h/weeks?
Does buying a first generation Blu-Ray burner really compensates for commuting 2h/day every day?
Does getting a SUV instead of cheaper car really compensates for not going on vacations for 3 months to a paradisian island?
Buying stuff is a means to and end.
Working is a means to an end.
Here's a sugestion - everytime you want to buy something, ask yourself the following:
In my experience most people could work 2/3 or even 1/2 as many hours as they do now and still have the same level of living that that have now
In many countries that would be 30 or even 20h/week.
Calcification? (Score:4, Interesting)
Although the article doesn't describe this, I'm wondering if calcification is happening earlier due to a lack of urgency to change one's mind, or if it's happening later because people are presented with more tempting options.
Re:It depends (Score:3, Interesting)
And people who are not insane will see it as mature and responsible.
People who do not want children should not have children.
People who think everyone should have children, or that anyone has any kind of "duty" to have children, are childish and immature. They can't separate their own desires from those of others, and they don't understand that it is the basest kind of evil to create a human being who is not fundamentally wanted and loved, but rather considered a burden or a duty.
We live in a society that doesn't particularly value children, and I frequently see parents who view their kids as a burden. If you listen to the "back-to-school" ads at the end of summer you will see how anti-child we are, and how wide-spread the assumption is that everyone is really looking forward to shipping their kids back to the warehouse. As a parent who actually likes children, I hate the end of summer as much as they do. And yes, I do work for a living--just in a way that gives me time to do what I really care about.
If you don't like doing kid-stuff with kids, you shouldn't have kids. Anything else will just increase the unhappy population of the Earth, which is more than large enough already.
Green is the yucky flavor. (Score:3, Interesting)
Green Jello is NOT lime. It's green flavor.
The worst is probably Surge. Eeeeew.
Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a bizarre list. In my fifties now, I can recall as a teenager having a much longer attention span. For instance, if I began reading a book in the evening I'd often stay up through most of the night to finish it. I don't do that any more. Sometimes I'll get that focused on a programming problem - but the young have all the advantage in attention span there too.
Cultural shallowness? Most cultural depth comes from youth. Many of the greatest works of the greatest classical composers were achieved while they were young. And all of the great musical advances and inventions of the 60s - aside from those of Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis - were accomplished by people in their twenties - many of whom had encyclopedic knowledge of the musics they were extending from.
Short cycles? Sure, invention can move quickly. But arbitrary fashion? Are long-cycle fashions less arbitrary? Should we more respect the whale-bone corsette than bell bottoms on boys? Were the centuries of wearing powdered wigs more "mature" than the several years of goatees and mullets?
And are we better off in life with no sensation? Would this psychiatrist prefer we were all comfortably numb? Figures. But I'd hardly call his the "mature" approach.
The difference between aging and maturing (Score:3, Interesting)
The author of this article lacks any understanding of the difference between the negative effects of aging and maturing. Being flexible and adaptable are good things, which if kept while you are getting older are a sign of wisdom. Acting irresponsibly is totally unrelated to being flexible. People tend to become inflexible and set in their ways if they don't make an attempt to keep growing. However, personal growth takes effort and while necessary to achieve a minimal state of competence as you grow up, it becomes less important once you reach minimal competence. As a result many people would rather coast and become set in their ways than to put forth the effort and take the risks of growing further.
Once you have become familiar which one area of life, you take a risk branching off into a less familiar areas of life/learning and expose yourself to the possible ridicule of (small minded) others for making the beginners mistakes in this new area of growth or learning. The payback is well worth it, but you have to be willing to put forth the effort and accept the growing pains.
People tend to coast if they are not goal driven in some way to continue to improve. Sometimes, a wiser person gives us a nudge or sparks our curiosity so we continue to grow. Most people become more inclined to settle for less as they grow older, especially if you achieve a certain level of financial success intitially.
The problem is, once people become set in their ways, they want everyone else to act the way they do, so that they feel less insecure. I'm over 50 now, and my worst nightmare is becoming set in my ways, and fearful of change. In the meantime, I will continue to downhill ski down expert ski slopes, go backpacking in the mountains, learn new computer languages, tools and techniques and meet new people.
Re:Indulgence? (Score:3, Interesting)
My lifestyle is pretty cheap. I don't really buy many expensive things. I generally just buy what I need to live and some simple things to make life fun, such as books or TV show DVDs. I could easily live on half my salary and work half as many hours.
However, no-one is interested in a part-time software developer. There's less overhead in one full-time (40hr/week) employee than two 20hr/week employees. Even though I would love to work a 20hr week in exchange for half of my salary, there are lots of people out there that are happy to work 40hr weeks, meaning there's no market for 20hr/week staff. Unless everybody agrees to half their hours, and thus allows the economy to adjust, as far as I can tell I'm stuck with my 40hr weeks and more money than I really know what to do with.
(and no, I'm not earning that much compared to most developers. I don't know how those guys manage to spend it all.)
Re:I agree wholeheartedly (Score:2, Interesting)
Great line. It's funny that when I was a kid one of my favorite technology predictions was that we would have an entire meal in a single pill. Oh, the things I would have missed.
Distrust of intellectuals is at an all time high, because it takes work to understand what they're saying.
Unfortunately, the black hole of post-modern thought has (at least in the eyes of popular culture) thrown academia into obsolescence. Not only are a lot of academics (usually the loudest ones) wrapped up in circular, navel-gazing, meta-scholarship, the post-modernist attack on, and misapplication of, the scientific method has been taken up by religious and political ideologues. I think people just got fed up with the drivel and apparent infighting and stopped listening. (I know it's unfair and inaccurate to characterize all intellectuals this way, but it definitely seems to be how popular culture portrays them)
Not Quite (Score:2, Interesting)
The "Vae Victis" saying is just part of the myth's of early republic times unless you honestly believe that a conquered people would argue over the amount of tribute in order to save their city. Secondly, latin does not pronounce "v's" like we do. All V's are pronounced as w's and that is that. How hard is it to believe that something sounds "odd" to your ears but sounds normal to those living in that society (ie: japanese substituting r's for l's). Therefore it is very foolish to assume that because something sounds odd it is wrong.
Re:I agree wholeheartedly (Score:4, Interesting)
We can give the political equivilant of "I'm gonna hold my breath 'til you give me my candy" -- because we aren't in very much real danger. We live in the first world, a world where "poor" doesn't mean digging for food in the trash, dysentery, or even a shack made of cobbled together materials. "Poor" means no plasma screens, no statilite TV, and Dial up internet.
We can waste time argueing about flag-burning and gay marriage because we really don't have that many serious domestic problems to be dealt with. Other nations would laugh at our battles. What -- we're "persectuted" because the Wal-Mart greeter doesn't say "Merry CHRISTMAS"? Okay, so exactly what is it called when a man can be beheaded for daring to not be a muslim? We think it's censorship because some jackass wants to ban the sale of M-rated games to 16 year olds? What about the http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/16/saudia12049 .htm [hrw.org]Saudi teacher sentenced to 40 months and 750 lashes for "declaring listening to music, smoking, adultery, homosexuality and masturbation as permissible under Islam"?
The problem -- if you could call it that, keeping Americans and Westerners in general in a "childlike state" is that we don't have nearly as many problems as other people. We stay childlike because the hardships that force other people to grow up quickly just don't happen here.
Adult children are the intended product of schools (Score:2, Interesting)
In his exceptional book "The Underground history of American Education" John Taylor Gatto details that the stated intent of our education system is to produce permanent childhood.
He explains that, due to an unusual set of circumstances at the time the USA was formed, young people where given adult responsibility and adult work. The concept of the teen years as a part of childhood did not exist. It was only with the introduction of mass forced schooling that young people lost the ability to deal with adult responsibilities. In fact Gatto contends that compulsion schooling has produced a measurable drop in literacy, inventive thought and maturity.
Some quotes:
This is from the book:
Re:Burden is an illusion (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm 51, and despite all my mature attitudes [g] I still swing around the corner pole EVERY time I go to the post office, and I don't care who sees me do it. I watch ants. I examine interesting pebbles. I dig in the dirt (okay, so we call it "gardening" -- but it's still fundamentally digging in the dirt).
No smart remarks about my second childhood...
Re:It's a symptom of the cause, (Score:2, Interesting)
"Pathetic" is in the eye of the beholder (Score:3, Interesting)
And, for the record, no I do not live with my parents. Nor do I live with a wife who tells me what I can or can't do.
-Eric
Re:Easy Work Around (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife and I raised our son this same way. We noticed that he prefered to talk with adults rather then children at his age. And, not having the social skills that adults learn through years of social interaction, he would often either embaress adults by catching their mistakes, or faulty logic. We had teachers telling us that he would constantly correct them when they were wrong and his baseball coach used to call him the union rep!
Ah yes... Aside from all that, interacting with your child on a deep and REAL level is wonderful. All children should be raised as such. And I really feel that it will help with learning in that the child is presented with more complex conversations and thus forcing the brain to learn..
Congrats...
Re:To that I say... (Score:1, Interesting)
Because you only talk to people who you agree with. This can cause emotional stunting and atrophy in the various brain parts associated with... well, with everything.