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."
To that I say... (Score:5, Funny)
Explaination (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely! (Score:5, Funny)
Absolutely! You are only young once, but you can be immature forever!
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:Absolutely! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely! (Score:5, Funny)
Which term would describe a 40 year-old living in his mother's basement, watching 7 hours of Adult Swim every night as an alternative to being employed?
Re:Explaination (Score:5, Funny)
In a way if you are sufficiently far from realizing you are pathetic, it is indistinguishable from not being pathetic. It's like being so far away from being a normal human being that you approach a semblence of it, as it were, coming from the other direction.
Re:Explaination (Score:5, Insightful)
Bitter?
No. It only sounds that way because of the general paucity of irony in the world.
I think of this as an optimistic viewpoint.
What I'm saying is nobody is pathetic -- or at lest nobody needs to feel pathetic. And if you don't feel pathetic, then the contempt of others is a waste of time. It's the person who is disturbed by others who don't measure up to his values is closer being pathetic than the object of his scorn. If the only way you notice other people is to scorn them, then the person who doesn't notice other people at all is better off.
The example I used was chosen to be the most conventionally contemptible one I could come up with. Apparently it hit some moderator a bit close to home.
Re:Explaination (Score:5, Funny)
Well, depends on how you measure age:
(1) Old enough to remember a 300 baud modem as an upgrade.
(2) Old enough to have used TIPs to access the ArpaNet.
(3) Old enough to remember bang notation on email addresses.
(4) Old enough to remember V7 Unix and have worked on Multics.
(5) Old enough to remmeber how sdb was big improvement on adb, but still using adb sometimes because it was easier to patch object code with it if you knew machine language.
(6) Old enough to remmber CPU clock speeds measured in KHz.
(7) Old enough to have worked on a system with a 5MB hard disk.
(8) Old enough to have seen punched cards, drum memory and CRT memory in the flesh, albeit as surplus hulks in the basement and not working machines.
(9) Old enough to have bootstrapped a computer via its front panel switches.
(10) Old enough to remember when "core" memory was actually made out of cores -- magnetic beads.
(11) Old enough that when I started in the business, I had older colleagues who would say things like, "I remember getting 4K of RAM on our 1401; we thought we had the world by the balls. That was a stored program jobbie, you know". Sometimes, as we sat around on the cracker barrels whittling new dot matrix print heads, a few would admit to being old enough to have worked on Whirlwind (which was programmbed by plug boards).
(12) Old enough to have a five digit
Re:Explaination (Score:4, Funny)
I had to catch a bird and press it's beak against a revolving stone slab!
Easy Work Around (Score:5, Insightful)
Become a parent. Then spend lots of time with your children.
Re:Easy Work Around (Score:5, Insightful)
This is definitely true. My father had a "second batch" of children when I was about 22 so I've had an opportunity to watch him parenting from an adult perspective. One of the things that he does REALLY well is to talk to babies and kids without baby-talking. He has real conversations that are somehow at their level, about things they're interested in.
He's also very in tune with their truly being small people, with complex feelings and viewpoints. One of the things that annoys him is when a parent tells an embarassing story about a young child while the child is in earshot. I think he's quite right in his belief that kids are able to tell when they're being laughed at before they can really express that they feel embarassed.
I think paying attention to these things really does a lot to help kids develop, both emotionally and intellectually. My little siblings are two of the most articulate little kids I've ever seen. I think in large part this is because they've been exposed to "adult" talk since long before they could put syllables together. They've definitely been allowed to be kids, but they have also been given a lot of respect as humans. This is definitely something I hope to emulate when I become a father (in about 8 weeks... *gulp*).
Re:To that I say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nu-uh! You're a poopy-head!
Re:To that I say... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The fact that that was modded "insightful"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Myspace (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Myspace (Score:4, Insightful)
("ppl"? give me a break... You are on SLASHDOT. Sorry.)
Resignation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Adult Resignation
To Whom It May Concern:
I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult.
I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of a 6 year old again.
I want to go to McDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant.
I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make ripples with rocks.
I want to think M&Ms are better than money, because you can eat them.
I want to play kickball during recess and paint with watercolors in art.
I want to lie under a big Oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summers day.
I want to return to a time when life was simple.
When all you knew were colors, addition tables and simple nursery rhymes. But that didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care.
When all you knew was to be happy because you didn't know all the things that should make you worried and upset.
I want to think that the world is fair. That everyone in it is honest and good.
I want to believe that anything is possible.
Somewhere in my youth...I matured and I learned too much.
I learned of nuclear weapons, war, prejudice, starvation and abused children.
I learned of lies, unhappy marriages, suffering, illness, pain and death.
I learned of a world where men left their families to go and fight for our country, and returned only to end up living on the streets... begging for their next meal.
I learned of a world where children knew how to kill...and did.
What happened to the time when we thought that everyone would live because we didn't grasp the concept of death?
When we thought the worst thing in the world was if someone took the jump rope from you or picked you last for kickball?
I want to be oblivious to the complexity of life and be overly excited by little things once again. I want to return to the days when reading was fun and music was clean. When television was used to report the news or for family entertainment and not to promote sex, violence and deceit.
I remember being naive and thinking that everyone was happy because I was.
I would walk on the beach and only think of the sand between my toes and the prettiest seashell I could find.
I would spend my afternoon climbing trees and riding my bike.
I didn't worry about time, bills or where I was going to find the money to fix my car.
I used to wonder what I was going to do or be when I grew up, not worry about what I'll do if this doesn't work out.
I want to live simple again.
I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness and loss of loved ones.
I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind and making angels in the snow.
I want to be 6 again.
Re:Resignation. (Score:5, Funny)
I want to think M&Ms are better than money, because you can eat them.
Clearly you were unimaginative as a kid, and thus missed out on the special trip to the hospital.
I want to go back to the time when green was a flavour.
Re:Resignation. (Score:3, Funny)
Wow, you guys went to a hospital ?
We went to a place called "Enterprise Village", but I was sick on the day everyone picked jobs, & got stuck working a dead end job as a cashier at Eckerd Drugs instead of the radio station like I wanted.
Holy Shit ! I just realized that thoose special trips really do have an effect on the rest of your life !
Who wants to be six again? (Score:5, Insightful)
I prefer a world where I have greater control over my freedom, where my education is in my own hands as is my destinty. A world where I can paint watercolors any damn time I feel like no matter what I'm wearing and while I am aware of nuclear weapons I can also dismiss such vapid fears casually to enjoy a warm summer day.
Being an adult is awesome if you just follow the golden words of Paul McCartney and let it be!
Re:Who wants to be six again? (Score:3, Interesting)
Burden is an illusion (Score:5, Insightful)
What weight? Is there a physical cinder block upon you? Put it to the side then. All other weight, especially mental weight, is chosen by you. You are the one who decides if weight of your imagining is dragging you down or something to stand upon.
The point I am making is that being much older I have had many more experiences and am able to enjoy them in ways a six-year old is not, as I can enjoy more esoteric pleasure just as much as splashing in a puddle (alluded to in the words of the musical Chess with "The Queens we use would not excite you"). My higher level of awareness also leads to greater ability to experience joy. While it is true that also means a greater ability to experience esoteric suffering, I would not give my far vaster scope of ability to simply feel more just because sometimes there is pain. There was pain when I was six as well so what would be the difference except that by opting to stay six forever I would wish myself to be enclosed in a box.
Have you ever read Flowers For Algernon? There is a reason why that story is a sad tale instead of a joyous return to a blissful state of ignorance.
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'?
Re:Burden is an illusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Calvin and Hobbes I don't take as a great example. Calvin is emotionally unstable, creates a lot of problems for those around him, and doesn't strike me as being particularly much happier than the other characters in the story. Hobbes makes an interesting foil; he's often used to underline the silliness of Calvin's destructive behavior. He's much more mature than Calvin, gets along with others better, and doesn't harbor nearly as much anger. Calvin may be the protagonist, but he's not the hero.
Winnie the Pooh was written for children, so the characters are naturally going to be very childlike. However, I don't see a single life lesson that comes from Pooh which can't be applied in adult life - indeed, Pooh's easygoing attitude is something I see in adults far more often than in children. I don't have kids of my own, but at least in public I often marvel at how strongly they can fixate on small, inconsequential objects, which strikes me as just about the last thing Winnie-the-Pooh would ever do. I'd say that, of all the characters in the Pooh series, Pooh and Christopher Robin represent the attitudes and ways of thinking of children that I've met the least well. Far more often, they remind me of Rabbit or Tigger.
Really, if I had to say anything about Pooh's character, I'd say that he represents the patience and equanimity that are the best qualities of well-mannered adults, and that he was made somewhat dim in an effort to counteract his otherwise overhwelming wisdom in an effort to keep the character entertaining, as well as to make it easier for children to relate to him.
Let me tell you a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
"Ah, do you remember when they captured us and took us to a concentration camp?"
"Oh yeah."
"And how they wanted to take us to the gas chamber?"
"Aw man, how can I forget that?"
"And then there was this bombing raid, explosions everywhere and we ran through a hole in the fence? And they chased us with dogs and we hid in the swamp for a week?"
"Oh yeah. Man, those were the good times."
Well, admittedly, childhood usually isn't _that_ bad, but still, everyone remembers the good parts, but never remembers the annoyances and frustrations. Or remembers some sanitized rose-tinted version of them. I suppose it must be some mechanism of the brain to stay sane.
But if I'm to really remember childhood, and without even going into the parts that were due to my parents being... well, completely unfit to be parents, it wasn't _that_ idyllic anyway.
E.g., take school alone. I could read since the age of 3. In fact, I could read and write in two foreign languages by the time I got into school. I could calculate a transformer or solve other physics problems up to that level. (I guess I must have asked something like "why is the sky blue?" and my parents, god bless their totally nerdy souls, gave me a physics book.) And yet there I was in school required to write a page of oblique lines or loops. Or to write a page worth of the letter "a". How boring is that?
And that's just one of many issues.
On the whole, I'll go and say I'm actually a _lot_ happier as an immature adult than I ever was as a child.
_Now_ I can actually do what I want. If I want a chocolate, I can go buy a chocolate. If I want to buy a doll, I can go buy a doll. (Or The Sims, which is one hell of a doll house simulator.;) If I want to stay up late playing with it, I can jolly well stay up and play with it. Back then I had a ton of people who knew better what I should be doing, what I should be thinking, what I should be saying, etc.
As for Calvin and Hobbes, or Winnie the Pooh, they're not written by a kid. They're written by an adult, and through rose-coloured nostalgia glasses _and_ from second-guessing the "enemy" at that. They see "man, this kid never listens to a word I say", or "man, he's throwing a tantrum again when I'm trying to teach him proper manners", and from there they go and paint some image of the kid being completely care-free and living in some imaginary wonderland. They don't however, see the frustrations like being treated like a brainless idiot. Or the frustration of that "teaching manners" meaning "Moraelin, say 'hello' to the nice lady?"... again... in front of 10 strangers and 2 of my friends. Or about a hundred other little issues.
In fact, I'll go and say that all that seeing the kid as a care-free brainless _idiot_ is just... selective confirmation. People start with the preconceived idea that the kid is inherently retarded and unable to ever comprehend adult logic, and from there remember every detail that confirms that, but conveniently forget the details that don't. Or acts like they're some one-in-a-million occurance that's surely just a freak accident.
And let me also say that a lot of the time, "adult logic" _isn't_. Adults are just as good as kids at rationalizing backwards from what they'd like, to some half-arsed unconvincing "facts" to justify it with. E.g., they start from some pre-conceived wish, like that they want to go camping or fishing (bonus points when it's just to fit in some group, not because they actually like it), and from there work their way backwards to some half-arsed justification, like that shivering in a tent in the rain builds character or that fishing is some kind of valuable RL skill. (How? What for? Exactly in which situation can one possibly catch enough fish with a fishing rod to support a family that way?) Even when they actually do have a point there, they're so convinced that you're an idiot and can't possibly
Re:Who wants to be six again? (Score:3, Funny)
If you enjoy Risk I'd say you're still undeveloped mentally.
signed
a Tabletop Gamer
I agree wholeheartedly (Score:5, Insightful)
As an adult, I am subject to a wider variety of feelings and emotions than a 6 year old. Being an adult is more subtle - we gain access to joys that a child couldn't even understand. When you're six, you know happy, sad, fear, hungry, tired. As an adult you also can experience bemusement, irony, sarcasm, terror, bliss, longing, melancholy, and a host of other things that make the experience of just living through your day more deep and meaningful. Your mental palette is larger. Yes, it means you can be hurt or suffer in larger ways than a child. But you can also rise above them in ways a child could not. The game is bigger, so the rewards are bigger.
And speaking of the palette, food is an excellent way of describing the difference. As a 6 year old, all you crave is candy. Big ugly blocks of sugar. As an adult, you're complex enough to tell the difference between good sushi and bad. Really expertly done fresh sushi with fresh ground wasabi and some nice sake on the side is sublime, and that's the joy of it, and a child could never understand it. Think of how many things there are like that.
Another good reason - look at what you would have to go through today. At the risk of sounding like an Auld Farte, think about how bad teenagers have it today. All the good music is gone. Pepsi decides what is cool these days. You have three choices basically. Stupid thumping gangsta rap whose only function is to shake your car's quarter panels, bubblegum crap pop, or Nu Metal where guys with long hair get up in front of the mike, blast the distortion and whine about their relationships.
And you can't do anything fun or dangerous in this bubble-wrap world we've made. As soon as one kid gets hurt doing something it gets outlawed or regulated past the point of any fun whatsoever. How many childhood memories do you have where you were experiencing both big fun and mild danger at the same time? Are their any stories you have about your childhood that you haven't told your parents yet because you don't want to give them a heart attack? Kids today will never have those kinds of vivid childhood memories. We've outlawed them.
If God All-Mighty came down from the clouds and told me he would be willing to make me a six year old again, I would politely decline. I've got it better now than I've ever had it, and I feel genuinely sorry for children born in this time.
Re:I agree wholeheartedly (Score:5, Insightful)
The subtleties of maturity beat the thrills of immaturity anytime. The world is a complex place, and I love the complexity of it. The best taste in life is bittersweet, with only enough sweetness to prevent the bitter from being bland. It's no surprise that diabetes is on the rise. People have lost the palate for strong tastes. Even fibre comes in a pill, as if eating raw oats and bran is some sort of trial too harsh for people to bear. The world is divided into simple primary colors and basic binaries: red and blue, left and right, liberal vs conservative. Only the caricatures that pass as media personalities fit into these categories. The world is just not that simple.
It is revealing to contrast the tone of public discourse 50 years ago to what it is today. Ronald Reagan abandoned formal rhetoric for folksy chat, and now we're stuck with it. G W Bush got elected by appearing to be just a regular guy--at some point, people forgot that you don't want just a regular guy as your leader, you want the best and brightest. Distrust of intellectuals is at an all time high, because it takes work to understand what they're saying. But democracy takes work, every single day.
I've always suspected that the main point of "family values" and all of these exhortations to "think of the children" are just scare tactics to turn the world into the largest nursery in history, where you cannot even have an adult conversation, and where kids aren't even allowed to play unsupervised. Can you imagine a childhood where you have to make "play dates," where it is no longer possible to just walk anywhere? Thanks to media scaremongering, parents see the world as a frightening place with a child molestor or Satanic cult member lurking in every playground. The fact is, your kids are about a hundred times as likely to get killed by a car as they are to be kidnapped. But that doesn't sell soap.
Even God has been turned into the cosmic wetnurse, who will rapture us up, clean our nappies, and dry our tears. ID promises us the fantasy of every child; that we are the center of the universe, that it's really all for us. Since you're saved by faith alone, you don't have to do jack, just show up at the mega-church for the show and listen to a postmodernist drivel which is equal parts fairy tale and new-age glurge. You gotta hand it to them, they know their market. Why stop at frying your pancreas with candy, when you can get diabetes of the soul too?
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.
Re:I agree wholeheartedly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Resignation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I just have to find somebody to clothe, feed, and house me while I indulge myself.
Indulgence? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is enough food in the world to feed every human on the planet, though hundreds of people starve to death every day.
There would be enough shelter in the world too, if we only looked after what we had and built things to last.
Practical clothes can be churned out by machines in a matter of seconds, if we set them up and tell them to do it, yet much of what is worn in the so-called first world is made by hand by people leaving in poverty conditions in less-developed countries.
One can say similar things about medicine, education, the natural environment, and a host of other important issues.
What's the common thread among all of these shortcomings? A lot of adults haven't grown up, and still suffer from greed, selfishness, and other negative emotions. With the resources and technology we have available to humanity today, we could provide for every human being on the planet, and we could all work only 20 hours a week.
If you're an adult who has grown up, please consider what you can do to help. Make a small donation to a charity that supports someone less fortunate than you. Change something in your life to be a little more environmentally friendly. Volunteer a couple of hours of your time to a good cause. Have the courage to vote for a someone who stands for these values, even if they have no chance of getting elected (this time), and tell everyone why you voted that way.
The more people grow up, take some personal responsibility for the state of the world, and do their small part in improving it, the better life will be, and there's really nothing indulgent about it.
Or we could just say "Yeah, whatever" and make it someone else's problem. Not that that would be childish, or anything.
Re:Indulgence? (Score:5, Insightful)
If everyone on the planet only worked 20 hours a week, and relied on technology and handouts for food and clothing, there would be no technology, no clothes and no food.
Wasted energy competing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of society and culture is wasteful and useless if your goal is to live and be happy.
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:Indulgence? (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think that? It is pretty easy to demonstrate that a large portion of North Americans do that now. The other 20+ hours per week is usually sunk into entertainment and comfort rather than necessities.
Re:Resignation. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry, my ex-wife already has that position filled.
Re:Resignation. (Score:5, Insightful)
I find this to be a rather appalling abdication of responsibility. Which I suppose is the entire point.
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 happ
Re:Resignation. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Resignation. (Score:5, Insightful)
I just want to say I hate shit like this.
This chain-letter bullshit is all the same. On some ultra-shallow level it seems great, and sentimental, but with 3 seconds of thought and usually two sentences in it becomes obvious what trite crap it is. Whether it's wanting to be 6, or learning everything you need to know from your dog, or whatever other BS that gets mailed around it all sounds like it was written by the same person on a Robotussin binge. Just awful stuff, horribly written and with no intellectual value whatsoever.
On a less general note, if you want to be 6 again, fuck off and go be 6. Work in a factory, it's got about the same level of responsibility. It doesn't sound like somebody whistfully remembering childhood, it sounds like a man-child that doesn't want to contribute to society because it's hard.
Now, before you ask who pissed in my Fruit Loops, nobody did. I have a sense of humor, and am usually a pretty carefree guy. This type of "humor" just manages to push almost every last button I have. The only way it could get worse is if some sadist let George Carlin have a whack at it, with lots of Jeff Foxworthy-worthy lists, some booger-eating references, and "fuck" every 4th word to make it sound adult. When are people going to realize that guy's a hack?
Re:Resignation. (Score:3, Insightful)
Most insightful part of the post.
Re:Resignation. (Score:4, Funny)
As a fellow curmudgeon, I have to say that you're not doing it properly. You have to do something to hide it, or you won't get invited to peoples' birthday parties. When you attempt to paint yourself as "a carefree guy with a sense of humor," don't follow it up immediately with the humorless excoriation of a popular comedian. That undermines your message and makes your curmugeonosity obvious. Instead, try following it up by complimenting some piece of popular culture.
WRONG: I have a sense of humor, and am usually a pretty carefree guy. Jeff Foxworthy is stupid, and is betraying his fellow southerners to make money.
RIGHT: I have a sense of humor, and am usually a pretty carefree guy. For example, this morning's Family Circus had me chuckling all day. Billy wandered the entire neighborhood looking for a spatula. Why did he expect to find one down by the river? Nobody knows.
In the case of the WRONG example, people see that you've become so adept in your curmudgeoning that you can't even think on the subject of humor without going on a rant about the parts that piss you off. In the RIGHT example, you are shown to share your audience's taste for shallow, hackneyed popular culture. This will get you invited to social gatherings.
If, on the other hand, you're like me and have embraced your inner misanthrope, then there is no reason to describe yourself as either funny or carefree in the first place. I find it to be a refreshing way to live.
I'm AOC, and I hate pretty much everything! C'mon, now you give it a try. It will be like a weight lifted off your shoulders.
Re:What is wrong with being child-like (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you've ever seen two 6 year olds fight over a useless toy both of them will forget in about 2 hours?
Have you've ever seen a 6 year old go into extreme crying/temper tantrum mode causing fustration to their parents (you know, the ones who feed and love them) just because they can't get a small shiny colourful package of candy?
Sometimes 6 year olds don't have it right.
Re:What is wrong with being child-like (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Resignation. (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember being six... (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of "wishing to be six," I want to learn to be a adult that thinks like a six-year-old. I want to be able to deal with problems in a responcible manner, but still understand the fun of silly hats. I want to understand that there are bad things in the world, but still meet the world with smiles and a it-will-work-out deminer. We have the misconception that we must be cyical adults just because we have reached a certain age. I'm going to be a kid forever!
Oh, and remember, if you became 6 again, you would have your teenage years to look forward to *shudder*
6 year olds? (Score:5, Insightful)
Laugh or Cry (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Laugh or Cry (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a reason why most stand-up comedians are people with a hard personal history.
Humour, cynicsm, sarcasm... all defence mechanisms.
Does this surprise anybody? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason people are suing everybody, there's a reason tobacco companies have been losing so much money in courts; we're like a cuontry of 8 year olds, always pointing at somebody else in the back of class that through the paper airplane.
That said, I think we're going to see a turn around with the generation in college right now, less divorces, less stupidity because it seems that more and more young people are sick and tied of the bullshit.
Re:Does this surprise anybody? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they are deliberately killing people. Or put more accurately, but lengthily, they knowingly lied about the medical risks and addictive qualities of cigarettes, portrayed them in advertisements as cool, including marketing that was deliberately designed to appeal to children, and, as if all that wasn't bad enough, they knowingly added ingredients which are very toxic and purposefully formulated cigarettes that are even more addicting than they naturally were!
Not gonna happen. The reason is that your lament is millennia old. Seriously. There are writings from ancient Greece and Rome that read exactly like the cranky old man of today, who decries the awful state of the youth "these days". If you want the divorce rate to go down, the number one thing you can do is to make it so that the middle class is strong and vibrant, and that people have great financial security and physical health. If you, on the other hand, make it so that both members of the married couple have to work long and hard just to scrape by, how can you possibly be surprised that the stress of daily life will have a detrimental toll on their marriage?
Wishful thinking made by someone who clearly hasn't turned on a television in the last 20 years. Just as it had always been, youth culture will reject the rigid demands of old coots like yourself. Just like always, there will be a segment of the youth who will be very responsible and upstanding. And just like always, life will go on and a whole new cadre of old coots will spout the same old nonsense about how the "youth of today" are worse than ever, just as it has always been for thousands of years.
Re:Does this surprise anybody? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does this surprise anybody? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course there is. That's because you constructed a straw argument. A known, unhealthy habit which contains known addictive poisons was compared to a normally healthy food doped with poison.
Re:Does this surprise anybody? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would be in favor of tort reform if the monetary damages were limited but if found guilty the doctor or the CEO went to jail. You know hold people personally responsible for their actions and decisions.
It will never happen of course. They will limit the monetary damages and also make themselves immune from any other punishment too.
Re:Does this surprise anybody? (Score:5, Funny)
Did it happen during english class when they were teaching the word "throw"?
Re:Does this surprise anybody? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh I agree ( Was Re:Does this surprise anybody?) (Score:4, Insightful)
You hint it right on the noggen; the number of so-called adults who seem to have the maturity of a child seems to be an increasing phenomenon in our society; I just look down the road and on the news; the 'everyone elses fault except my own' syndrome. There are people on the benefit having children, knowing full well they don't have the funds to pay for the associated costs, we have couples having more children than they can afford, then demanding that the tax payer for the bill for their lifestyle choice.
All this is actually a biproduct of our modern day welfare state, and the nanny state complex which people have adopted, that we shouldn't take responsibility for our actions, because good old nanny state will always be there to whipe out bottoms, and stop us from doing moronic things.
Regarding smoking, the health issues have been known for over 60 years, if people CHOOSE to live under a rock, and REFUSE to take in the information that is readily out there, who is to blame? I don't blame the cigarette companies - they're like any other company, make their product look sexy, close over any possible health issues, and keep on pushing.
If you're going to blame cigarette for the associated health costs of smoking, why not allow people to sue fast food companies who fail to put warning labels and advertise that if their product is consumed in excess, it could cause health problems? why not extend it to the confectionary and snake food companies? heck, why not put a big sticker on cars that warn that due to the bad driving of others, you could possibly die!
Honestly, it is getting to the point where I ask, when are people going to take responsibility for their actions - that is the cornerstone of being an adult, making your choices and accepting the consequences of those choices.Re:Oh I agree ( Was Re:Does this surprise anybody? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are other aspects of our culture that dilute personal responsibility. Corporations, by design, insulate managers and shareholders from actions they benefit from personally. We're okay with that, though. No problems there. But if an INDIVIDUAL avoids responsibility, suddenly western civiliazation is in dire trouble. If a corporation files bankruptcy so the shareholders don't have to ante up to pay the debt for the entity they own, we don't bat an eyelash, but if Joe Sixpack declares Chapter 11 then we get all concerned about the state of humanity.
Government habitually hides behind secrecy to avoid responsibility. Where is the hue and cry? Why is it only the morons on Jenny Jones who get our contumely?
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.
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:Not sure about this guy's definitions (Score:5, Funny)
It's all about definitions (Score:5, Insightful)
A "child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviors and knowledge" is probably adaptive to the increased instability of the modern world, Charlton believes. Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, "unfinished."
and
"By contrast, many modern adults fail to attain this maturity, and such failure is common and indeed characteristic of highly educated and, on the whole, effective and socially valuable people," he said.
So it looks like his definition of 'maturity' coresponds to my 'boring old fart', which, at the age of 53, I hope I'm not.
youth culture killed my dog (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot posters especially tend to overstate the value of youthful flexibility and forget what evil little pricks children often are.
Part of maturing is learning to handle the fact that you are part of the world and that you don't always get what you want. Adult temper tantrums are increasingly viewed as the way to get things done, a vicious and childish response to being balked is hailed as being "forceful" and "practical".
It's a symptom of the cause, (Score:5, Insightful)
But the real cause of bad jokes is that people are as desperate as ever to be well liked. I blame that on the growing culture of sexual presumptiveness in our society. You can't just go up to a stranger and start conversing with them usually without her/him thinking your up to something, no matter how natural you are (unless you have a reason to be talking). People in general are paranoid, presumptive, and take themselves too seriously. They have nightmare stories in the back of their minds from 'Unsolved Mysteries' that tell them never to talk to strangers because they will rape and kill you!
At least, that's the way people are in my town. I dunno about yours.
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.
Responsibility is key (Score:5, Insightful)
I myself am happy to maintain a child like outlook on life but I also take responsibilities and commitments and relationships very seriously. Perhaps it is the erosion of serious relationships in society (and that could mean anything from partners to very close friends) that is tainting other aspects of life for some people.
Because it has to be done (Score:5, Insightful)
Man I would hate to see your toilet, though you neighbours can probably smell it... I, on the other hand, still watch cartoons, still throw paper airplanes, but when I 'have to' do something I don't like to do, I fucking do it.
Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
I think part of the problem might be that people are not forced to grow up and take responsibility at such a young age as they were before. I am now living in Africa but comparing my experiences to when I was living in the West I see this every day. Many children here have to take serious responsibilities in life from a young age. Perhaps they have to look after whole families or simply go out and find food every day for themselves. Regardless, when speaking to some of the young people you find that they are relatively mature.
Perhaps in the West people are too protected and hence don't need to grow up. Many people by the age of 18 have never gone to bed with hunger pains. They have probably never had a real job. They are probably given an allowance from their parents that they can go and waste on useless luxuries. The kids in the West are pampered and spoilt. No wonder there is a trend towards immaturity.
Re:Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, sorry.
The friends of mine who HAVE had to take responsibility at a young age, who HAVE gone to bed with hunger pains (and not out of choice) are far more immature and unable to take care of themselves than those of us who were children until the age of 18. Being introduced to hardship doesn't cause one to grow up faster -- it causes one to stop growing and start muddling through, even if they're not ready.
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.
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: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: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 a
Re:Well I dunno man (Score:3, Informative)
If what it takes to be "responsible" or "mature" is starvation, child labour, and so on then please, sign me up for immaturity. I would also point out that in that "mature" environment we have more crimes against humanity than, well, proably anywhere in the modern world. Ethnic clensing, tribal warfare, brutal torture, etc. Seems that perhaps having the weight of the world thrust on your shoulders as a kid and haivng to mature fast is perhaps not the best method for a stable and successful future.
I think
A way to deal (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Worldwide? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:It depends (Score:4, Insightful)
So something like: If you can't deal with society's rules, you aren't socially mature. If you can't succede in modern jobs you aren't intellectually mature. If you cannot find happiness in life you aren't emotionally mature. That kind of thing. That we don't defie it as some traditonal lifestyle to meet, but rather as having a good life in the world as it is today.
Also an interesting thing about the childless it is it perhaps a new kind of maturity that we have to accept. There is a limit to the number of people we can have in the world, that's just a simple fact. It would seem we are already pushing that limit too far. Well, it will eventually solve itself via things like starvation, but I think a better idea might just be to procreate less. Given the number of people who decide that they want to have more than two children, it is socially repsonsible to have no children. That is, of course, not to advocate everyone goes childless, but there's something to be said for those that don't have kids.
I just don't think that the definition of maturity as "Living your life like the last generation" is a useful one.
Re:It depends (Score:3, Insightful)
The world isn't over-populated. Some parts of the world are overpopulated. I believe Japan has recently been experiencing negative population growth, and Australia is predicted to in the near future. That is why, in Australia at least, they introduced new tax breaks for new parents - because, especially as people live longer past retirement, there are not g
Re:It depends (Score:3, Insightful)
If it was reversed then civilization would have been much further ahead by now.
Re:It depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately the dumber you are the more kids you have, all the dumb people I know have multiple kids, all the smart successful ones have none.
Surely it depends on your definition of success and not everyone works towards the same goals in life. If sucess is having a big house, international holidays and a fast car....then you might want to forget about the kids. However, for me success is having a happy family. I much prefer to spend days playing with my children than staying in some luxury resort. So in that way when I have children I am successful as I am achieving my goals.
I have a friend who has 12 children in the UK. It seems extreme but I have never seen a family who are as happy, polite, well mannered and as educated. I don't think it is true that the dumber you are the more kids you have. The parents of these children are like walking encyclopedias and have knowledge of so many things in life. They are also generous and peaceful. I would say they have been successful in life. But the father drives a mini-bus rather than a sports car (he has to with 12 kids).
This topic is producing a lot of childish replies (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Create Immature Adults through Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm reminded of an ex-girlfriend who seemed to me to over-react to situations. I was puzzled until I realized that she was acting as if she were a character on a television program; where drama is important. We may have a couple of generations now doing the same thing.
Nice work.
The trouble is.... (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.
Old fart maturity? (Score:4, Insightful)
Being mature doesn't have anything to do with being predictable, boring, let-me-read-my-diary old fart or being playful, childish, fun and sometimes impredictable and impulsive.
As long as I accept the consequences of my acts let me play all I can and enjoy simple things and not worry more than I have to.
Maturity (Score:4, Insightful)
I see two definitions (Score:4, Insightful)
The other definition (and I feel the more relevant one) is the responsibility factor. I would say "accountability" works better than "responsibility," even though responsibility is how everyone is refuring to it. As for this, I feel it is definately true that people aren't accountable enough. People (in America at least) seem to be told to watch themselves, and people stop looking out for the guy next to them. We all affect each other, and we all need to be accountable for that. NO PERSON IS AN ISLAND.
The trick is to take the best of both worlds. Enjoy a good pie fight, but have the courtecy to help clean up
Dreams and responsabilities (Score:4, Insightful)
Being friendly and joking with people is not the same as being immature.
Being serious all the time and totally giving up one's pleasure in life for the sake of family, community or just to be like everybody else is not maturity, it's being a drone (in my opinion, a sheep).
Real maturity is achieved when one achieves the level of self-confidence needed to outgrow the "fitting a mold just because thats what one is '(not) expected to do' behaviour" and one finds out it's possible to balance responsabilities and fun without beraking the first or giving up the second.
Unfortunately, our society is designed around the expectation that most people will "settle down", and become "hard-working family men/women". The push is constantly there to be a nice little drone, work hard to make money, buy loads of stuff that don't really make you happy (consume, consume, consume), become what your neighbours expect you to be and expect the same back from them, accept that you're just another average working stiff, accomodate and don't make waves.
BTW: Dressing up in a specific style (geek, retro, necro, whatever) to "make a statement", "be different" or "cause a reaction" can be just as much a form of "trying to belong", "accomodating to a sterotype" or in general "being relative to others" as wearing a suit for work - ask yourself "am i dressing this because of who i am or because of who i want to be?". Clothes are a tool - dressing a certain way can help you progress to certain aims, and it's what you are aiming at that matters, not what you wear.
Let's Try a Few (Score:4, Funny)
My lawyer could beat up your lawyer.
Boy: I never said I knew where the WMDs were.
Father: We saw you do it, son.
Boy: No, no, no, no, no.
Boy 1: That idea is mine!
Boy 2: No, you gotta share!
Boy 1: It's mine! (punches boy 2)
Boy 1: Wanna play Kerberos?
Boy 2: Yeah! Only you gotta show me how.
[They play]
Boy 2: No, you can't use MD5.
Boy 1: Yes I can, we always used MD5.
Boy 2: It's my house, we play by my rules.
Yup, sounds about right.
One telling quote from the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
"People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence in the sense of being unpredictable, unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact."
So yes, childlike wonder and flexibility are good for learning new stuff, and tend to follow with a more dynamic society. The consequences of it are that people are going to be unbalanced, rash, irritable, and childish.
There is a guy I work with. He's in his mid-30s, and generally a nice guy. However at times (typically six or eight times a day) I want to scream at him, "GROW UP!!! Take some responsibility for what you're doing!!!" However, I don't. Now there are three 'maturity' issues at play here.
1) His lack of self-responsibility is immature (lack of responsibility)
2) My instinctive reaction is immature (ranting and raving like a kid)
3) My actions are mature (either nothing, talking to his manager, or talking to him professionally)
I bring this up not to prove my maturity (there are a lot of other cases that aren't so complimentary to me
In a modern workforce, I would expect that maturity equates fairly close to professionalism, and I can definitely say that I've seen a decline in professionalism in the last decade or so. Outside of the workplace, it's a bit trickier. People with kids who try to hard to be their kids' best friends and refuse to apply any discipline are a target, but it's a hard line to draw cleanly. Similarly, one poster mentioned that he and his wife have decided against having kids, because they're not done being kids themselves. This personally strikes me as a bit selfish (a fundamentally immature behaviour), but at the same time they seem remarkably mature in their immaturity.
At the base of it, I put a lot of the blame on pop culture and society. We venerate and idolise people who embody every negative aspect of immaturity (actors, rock stars, etc.) and naturally come to not only forgive but accept and rationalise their behaviour. At the same time, we know that getting stoned and trashing a hotel room is wrong, so we don't emulate them--however, the bar has already been set, and it's sitting in the mud. We have such a LOW standard of behaviour to exceed that an average eight-year-old is a more mature person than the stars who show up in the tabloids.
Society's final anti-maturity shot is the entire 'hide your age' industry. Makeup, surgery, and clothes are all designed to avoid aging, because aging reminds us of death. We're a culture so terrified of death that we'll spend billions to shove it under the rug. Unfortunately, that leads to consciously NOT acting like we think grown-ups should do, but rather as kids.
I could also mention a lawsuit-happy culture discouraging people from taking responsibilty for their own actions, but that would be another page of text, and this post is long enough already.
Maturity means responsibility. Taking responsibilty for your own life and your own actions, as well as acting responsibly and dealing responsibly with the actions of those around you. It is my personal belief that it doesn't necessarily preclude doing frivolous or foolish things when appropriate, but that historically it was never considered appropriate for adults to do such things. (Anyone remember Mary Poppins?) One exception has always been academics--the image of an absentminded or childlike genius professor is an old one indeed. In contemporary society, immature behaviour is allowed for all adults, and even encouraged. The new marque of maturity will be one who behaves in a mature and responsible fashion (a) when necessary, and (b) when desirable, but not necessarily (c) when not needed.
Maybe it's really a weakening of true maturity, but as long as (a) and (b) are achieved, I can happily deal with a society that has accepted (c).
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.
Interesting hypothesis, crackpot research (Score:4, Insightful)
People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence...
Again, I ask, what is the "research" described in the article using as a control or baseline? This is never discussed -- and it sounds like this "research" is nothing more than an elaborate opinion-piece. TFA even use David Brooks as a kind of "reference." I enjoy David Brooks, even if I don't always agree with him. He is a respectable social commentator and pundit, but he is ultimately a professional opinionist, not a respected psychological researcher.
Also, can someone help me out with this quote from the article:
Charlton added that since modern cultures now favor cognitive flexibility, "immature" people tend to thrive and succeed, and have set the tone not only for contemporary life, but also for the future, when it is possible our genes may even change as a result of the psychological shift. [bold emphasis mine]
Genes shifting as the result of a psychological shift? WTF? It was my understanding that genes needed a bit more than "psychology" to change. Are these guys implying a Lamarckian evolution based not even on physical characteristics but somehow "attitudes affecting evolutionary physiology"? With little snips like this, it makes this work seem very fishy to me, bordering on crackpotism.
Anyway, while the basic hypothesis has merit, the research the article describes doesn't seem to demonstrate or prove (or even have the ability to demonstrate or prove) the proposed effect.
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.
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.
Re:Haha (Score:3, Insightful)
Doing what the boss above tells you and never question it.
Accepting that everything that the boss/media tells you is the right thing.
Knowing that your place in life is to earn as much money as possible by any means so you can spend it on shiny things.
Realizing that anyone not confirming with these rules are evil or misguided.
Understand implicitly that the world revolves around those that tell you what to do.
Unfortunally, what I wrote is only half a joke. Too ofte