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Comment by dunmalg | Hacker News Reader

The devil is in the details of the implementation, though. If we discard age for a system of "achievement unlocked" style phases, who will be in charge of evaluating and approving these phase decrees? Subjecting an entire population to a potentially capricious bureaucracy to deal with a handful of edge cases seems like swatting flies with a 2x4.

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Seems like something for the courts. Most people would still be considered adult at 18 or 21 or whatever, but the few exceptions can have it changed in court.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, just that it's a better idea than changing the actual age number like this article proposes.

Yeah we already do have a somewhat similar mechanism for legal insanity or incompetence to stand trial the two are separate things - technically someone who was so out of it they think their victims they killed were demons wearing human skins and everyone else is crazy for not seeing it and a dementia afflicted serial killer may or may not have been culpable at the time of crime but both aren't suitable to stand trial now.

The implementation is messy and imperfect for those fringe special cases but it is an exeception handler.

We have e.g. legal emancipation in many/most jurisdictions. But just because you may gain the ability to form a binding contract, etc, doesn't mean most people will treat you like you have.

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