Not a pedophile, just wondering.
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Laws aren’t suposed to be ambiguous. By their very nature in a democratic country, they must be universal, and apply equally to everyone. People had to agree on a number, and those ae the ones we have.
There is no test for maturity that is reliable. So societies just came up with an age. Not every society uses the exact same ages. Cultural norms play a role of course.
There are practical considerations. Physical maturity and strength (broadly from 17 onwards). And societies generally don’t punish their young as harshly as their adults – so it really ties into when a person is deemed old enough to assume full responsibility for their actions.
Some countries don’t allow private gun ownership generally for anyone whatever the age.
Military service may be related, at least in the US.
Need to make the people feel they have at least some agency, back when the draft was a thing and now, when they want to make decisions which impact them and others.
In my country it lines up with education. Not sure if it’s deliberate but the various ages line up nicely with stages of education.
Primary education ends at 12 –> The minimum legal age of employment is 13 years old.
Secondary education ends at 16 –> Age of consent is 16.
Tertiary ends at 18 –> Alcohol & smoking is 18*.
Military service (for males) ends at 21 –> Voting age is 21.
*Smoking was recently raised to 21 because the government is really trying to stamp it out.
It’s impractical to evaluate the maturity of every single person every time, so politicians agreed on fixed age thresholds. This is somewhat arbitrary, and you can see different countries (or even different parts of a country) choosing different thresholds. Sometimes these thresholds are changed if enough people agree that this is a good idea.
My “Not a pedophile” text post has a lot of people asking questions that are already answered by my text post.
Well, you have to have the standard. 18 is a breakpoint many consider to be a cognitive developmental breakpoint and ideally you would want to enable someone between that time and the time that they start to decline, but to be frank there’s much about this area we don’t fully understand so YMMV if someone’s gonna “uhh ackshually” me. Also, these things do change. Before the Vietnam war, the voting age in the US was 21. Age of consent already varies by state. Gun ownership varies around the world.
I read it was decided (at least in the US) by the Temperance Movement. I don’t remember the specifics of why 18 was the decided age.
I do know the age of consent was low as 7 in a couple states.
The public, through a tug-and-pull using culture and politics is able to generally settle on an age number for different issues. If the age number is too high, the majority of people are discontent with not being allowed a freedom and the age is tugged down. If the age is too low, the unwanted consequences of immature actors is either too severe or complicated for society to be peaceful and the age is tugged up. Culture generally sets the expectations, then politics reflects the age of least pushback, and the tension between the two end up at any given age. Even though maturity is a complicated biological and psychological concept that can vary widely over populations, societies can usually organically calibrate a rough number.
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