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Comment by normalnorm | Hacker News Reader

> Plus, the reason teens are not considered adults is not that their IQ would be low. The reason is impulsivity and similar considerations.

Maybe what we call "impulsivity" is just an healthy reaction against absurd constraints and monotony? We forget very easily that we are animals, and the way we have been living for the last few centuries is radically different from the way we were evolved to live.

Perhaps factory-like schooling is inherently painful, and what we call "adulthood" is just learned helplessness...

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1.) My life was way less monotonous when I was a teenager. The most monotonous period started when I had children. You dont get more monotonous then that currently. In school, at least you learn about something different every day and can do different things during breaks or read or play games.

2.) Before factory like schooling, I guess we mean feudalism and traditional farm households, teenagers were not free at all by any meaningful definition of that word. No one was.

3.) How far exactly in history do you want to go? Because you really have to go so far that we dont really know how people lived. But, it might involve getting pregnant at 14 by a strong dude who decides restrictions placed on you due to being stronger.

Medieval peasants (and serfs) had a lot of freedom with how to spend their day to day. They had chores, and several weeks a year of grueling sun up to sun down labor. But it's not usually harvest season or planting season, and they had nearly half the year off. Working hours increased dramatically during the industrial revolution.

Winter was not off. You still have to care about animals and you still have to care about tools and you still have to cook and care about toddlers and babies.

You still need to sew cloth, create shoes, create candles, feather-bed and what not.

People in traditional societies are also impulsive in that age. Besides, other mammals have the same transient period as well, from the domesticated (dogs) to the wild ones. It'not just modern human society.

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