Anywho, I haven’t started anything else yet, but have a couple vague ideas.  But for now,

Waiting:

The first two are of some old broken down building on the beach in the Ellwood area.  Then, just a really neat house right by the ocean, and a pic of UCSB lagoon.

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I never thought that I’d use this site for any actual blogging, but alas I moved and no longer see the people I care most about on a regular basis.  I know the world at large doesn’t care about my day-to-day happenings, and so I say to the world at large: go suck a lemon. This is for the few people who do. ;)

And, for no reason other than to see how wordpress handles it, here’s a picture:

I’ve only read about half of it, but got tired of the premise that adulthood is met checking off items on a list. Drop the labels, and look at the facts of human life. Without any reference to cultural differences, what we see across the board is being born with a severely limited consciousness, with ever expanding awareness based our experience that lasts until death. Before it even makes sense to pursue the question of when people become adults (and whether or not it is cultural) we need to isolate what we even mean to achieve by the application of the label, “adult.” That is, of what use is the word?

There are several aspects of life that we dance around when we apply the word, and it diminishes the usefulness of the word to do so. As far as I can make out, there are two (main) spectra that we reference in applying the label of “adult.” They are, 1) The spectrum of dependency, and 2) The spectrum of responsibility. And, each one is often subject to conflation due to having two distinct understandings: internal (one’s character trait) and external (community-imposed accountability). I’ll explain what I mean by that.

1) Dependency
Dependency is a function of one’s ability to provide the necessities of life for oneself. On one side we have complete dependence, and on the other complete independence. In a simple society of hunter gatherers, it is easy to imagine, there is defining moment of when a person ceases being a dependent and starts being a provider (a sub-class of independent): they day that child starts going on hunts (or whatever other role changes). The point at which a society requires its younger members to change rolls is, in a manner, arbitrary. For instance, they might require as much help as possible, and so perhaps they might have the change in roles occur at 12, before they’re even fully able. Or, conceivably, at 30 if they didn’t need much help. Implicit in this example are the factors of internal-trait and external-accountability. Think of them this way:

Internal dependency (trait): There’s a value from 0 to 1 assigned to each person, based on their ability to provide for themself. At birth, a person’s dependency trait=0 (completely dependent), and at some point becomes 1 (completely [capable of being] independent).

External dependency (accountability): There’s a value from 0 to 1 assigned to each person, based on the extent to which their society holds that person accountable for providing for themself.

Now, an individual cannot (fairly) be held to an accountability rating that exceeds their trait rating. For instance, it makes no sense to hold an infant to accountability=1, when their trait=.01 (don’t get mad at an infant for not joining in on the hunt). But, it might make sense for a society to hold a 16-year-old to accountability=.2 even if their trait=.7 (i.e., when assistance isn’t needed).

2) Responsibility
Responsibility is a function of the extent to which an individual’s actions are their own, from not at all to completely. This scale is also subject to conflation of the internal-trait and external-accountability understandings.

Internal responsibility (trait): There’s a scale value from 0 to 1 assigned to each person, based on the extent to which they are responsible for their own actions. At birth, it is 0, and at some point (hopefully) becomes 1.

External responsibility (accountability): There’s a scale from 0 to 1 assigned to each person, based on the extent to which a society holds that person to be responsible for their own actions.

And just like in the case of dependency, a society cannot (fairly) hold a 3-year-old of trait=.1 to accountability=1 (We wouldn’t prosecute such a young child for murder), but a society might hold a 16-year-old of trait=.7 to accountability .5 (For practical reasons — such as uniformity in law, or inability to precisely access their trait rating).

I’ll refer to internal dependency trait as “D-trait”, external dependency accountability as “D-accountability”, and similarly internal responsibility trait as “R-trait”, external responsibility accountability as “R-accountability.”

Whew. With all that groundwork out, we can intelligently discuss adulthood. At birth, one’s D-trait and R-trait are both 0 – completely dependent and non-responsible. Over time, with proper development, they both increase and hopefully become 1 – a fully independent and responsible adult. (Again, when I talk about being fully independent I mean to speak of the ability to provide for oneself, which does not require that they actually do; a person can be fully independent in this sense and receive tons of help from others.) While that person develops, a fair society will not impose more accountability than their traits prescribe.

The problem with this article is that it takes largely anecdotal external evidence (trends in D- and R-accountability), and purports to show that people’s D- and R-traits are developing more slowly. For instance, car rentals at age 25. The implication is that the car industry decided that people aren’t responsible (in some sense) until they are 25, and so aren’t seen as adults. But, the sense in which this is true has absolutely nothing to do with R-trait. That is, they didn’t decide that people aren’t (sufficiently) responsible for their own actions until they turn 25, only that it’s too much of a financial risk to rent to them. It might be fair to say that sub-25s are seen by the car-rental industry to be “irresponsible” in the sense that they are careless/reckless, but that is completely different than saying they are not responsible for their own actions. The car industry is not making any such appraisal.

And then there’s the checklist of (perceived) societal norms, such as college, career, and marriage, that are supposedly required for adulthood. Now, it’s fair to point out that the presence of these things generally indicates raised D- and R-traits, but the absence of them does not indicate low D- and R-traits. It’s called the fallacy of denying the antecedent. Someone can be fully independent and responsible without ever going to college, having a ‘career’ (as apposed to ‘just a job’, or simply planting their own food, etc. [or just having the ability to do so]), or getting married.

And then there’s the legal issues: drive at 16, vote (sign contracts/be tried as an adult/join military) at 18, drink at 21. The interesting thing is the legal issues have nothing to do with D-trait, but rather only with R-trait. The government assesses the population at large to be sufficiently responsible to engage in activity X at age Y. But again, watch for conflation of “responsible.” Is the reason children under 16 aren’t allowed to drive because they are careless, or because their R-trait isn’t high enough? It seems to me to be a safety issue, based on the former. It seems that turning 16 just indicates that they are no longer (by and large) too much of a risk to allow on the roads – not anything about how responsible they are (in the R-trait sense).

The slew of things that happen at 18, however, are directly about R-trait. People are then seen as adequately responsible for their own actions such that they can sign contracts (including join the military, and the implicit social contract so that they are tried as an adult, and vote their say). It’s somewhat arbitrary to pin down a particular age, but 18 seems about right, and for practical reasons the law just needs to pick one. [I grant that the drinking age being 21 is baffling – if an agent is seen as sufficiently responsible for their own actions to enter into contractual obligations, then they should be able to ingest what they will. That is, it’s their own fault if drinking screws up their life (or liver).]

Anyway, I’m getting rather long-winded, so I’ll wind down. One might argue that a trend of people relying on their parents more indicates a lower D-trait, but just because someone doesn’t provide for themself doesn’t mean they are incapable of doing so, so we shouldn’t come to that conclusion so quickly. And, one might argue that people are making “irresponsible” decisions more frequently, but they are still responsible for them. That is, I lend some credence to the claim that society may not be fostering D-trait quite as well, but I’ve seen no reason to think that R-trait is developing any more slowly. And, in my opinion, responsibility (for one’s actions — not carefulness) is the far more important trait when it comes to attributing adulthood anyway. Maybe dependency is more important for a hunter-gatherer society, but responsibility is more important in a society of laws.