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Comment by mynameishere | Hacker News Reader

Substitute the word "adult" for "consumers" in what you say,

"Adults will take as much credit as offered to them." (No, they won't.)

"A stable solution will effectively put the decision of how much to borrow in the hands of someone else: Banks, Governments etc. not adults." (Wrong again.)

etc. By contrast, if you replace "consumers" with "children" then it still makes sense.

Really, whatever solution we come up with needs to punish people according to the rules as they stood at the beginning of the game. No new ex post facto rules, please. Banks and (some) adults bet on black when the wheel went red. Let them pay.

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> Substitute the word "adult" for "consumers" in what you say, "Adults will take as much credit as offered to them." (No, they won't.)

What you are doing is suggesting that being an _Adult_ carries with it certain behaviours such as not spending more money than the adult can afford to repay. However, the word Adult actually means being of a certain age, and perhaps you would like to assume that everyone of that age has that level of maturity and prudence.

I think what you really mean is that adults ought not to o these things, and if they do these things, they are defective in some way, and therefore don't count. This is a little like those drug studies where anyone that dies while taking the experimental drug is tossed out of the study.

So when I say "Martha over there got a $26,000 line of credit even though she is a home-maker with no income and no assets in her name," you say "Martha isn't really an adult, she is a foolish child in a woman's body."

The simple fact is, adults do many things you and I might consider reckless or illogical such as borrow more than they can afford.

As proof of this, I give you George W. Bush.

When I was a kid, I was (naturally) a big fan of kid rights. I always thought that kids should be able to vote, enter into contracts, be considered legally a "person", drive if they could reach the pedals and see out the windshield, and decide whether or not they went to school.

My reasoning for this was not that kids were so smart or mature that they could do this responsibly. It was that the vast majority of adults were dumb and immature and can't do this responsibly, and yet we give them all these rights and privileges anyway.

Since becoming a legal adult in 1999, I have seen little to make me believe I was wrong in this assessment.

It's interesting - if you consider children=dependent and adults=independent, modern society has made children of us all. Everyone (except wackos like the Unabomber) is dependent on someone else now - the economy is just too intertwingled to function without other people. Folks leave the nest of their parents to become dependent upon their employers, and then leave that behind to grovel at the trough of investors, and if that doesn't go well, they become slaves of the credit card companies. That seems to be the price we've paid for all our cool new toys.

I, for one, welcome our new Neverland overlords.

Not all people are created equal.

There are distinct changes in the brain that happen, as well as changes in hormones that also may support age-based restrictions on activities.

The etymology of Adult means "fully grown." I believe the gp of this comment is using the word to mean fully grown in emotional and behavioral maturity in addition to physical maturity. So, perhaps what the gp is saying that physically mature individuals who do these things are not emotionally or behaviorally mature, and so cannot be considered "fully grown." Their arrested development means they are functionally 'children.'

Extended (perpetual?) adolescence is an interesting (recent?) social phenomena.

"However, the word Adult actually means being of a certain age, and perhaps you would like to assume that everyone of that age has that level of maturity and prudence."

It is pretty common usage to use the term adult to imply maturity, responsibility, etc. For example, when Apple was hemorrhaging money in the mid 90s, there were a lot of jokes about them needing "adult supervision," in spite of the fact that the people working there were above the age of 18.

"I think what you really mean is that adults ought not to o these things, and if they do these things, they are defective in some way, and therefore don't count."

I think he is simply saying that people can freely make whatever bad choices they want, but they also must be allowed to freely experience the direct consequences of those choices. Pretty much the standard libertarian viewpoint.

"As proof of this, I give you George W. Bush."

Another example where "adult supervision needed" jokes were made. (When Robert Gates came on board, for example.)

I would take it a step further. I think you are mistaken in your use of the word 'mature.'

So many people take it as meaning that set of behaviours & emotional states that 'should be associated with adults. They then go on & complain that adults do not display these behaviours ('men are so immature').

If it's not something we can assume people will grow into/out of, it has nothing to do with maturity.

If your definition of adult does not include most of the population over 18 (or 21), you should find a new word. That one is taken.

We can always sub-categorize:

American adults? or Adults who take credit when offered to them without thinking about consequences

I think his point was whether this category of people should be labeled as adults because they don't perceive or that they ignore the risk of not being able to repay, which leads to hardship for not just them but other innocent people.

Let's not run too far.

There is the empirical fact (unless you disagree with it) that if people are offered more credit then is good for them, they take it. Responding to that by saying: 'An adult can be trusted not to do this', is just silly. We are taking about a big chunk (possibly a majority) of adults here.

"There is the empirical fact (unless you disagree with it)" - what an incredibly interesting thing to say!

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