Just when the "brain doesn't finish developing until 25" nonsense has finally waned from the zeitgeist, here comes a new pile of rubbish for people to latch onto. Not that the research itself is rubbish, but how they name/describe the phases certainly is. The "adolescent" and "adult" phases don't have any correspondence to what we normally think of as those developmental periods. That certainly wont stop anyone from using this as justification for whatever normative claim they want to make though. It's just irresponsible.

Seems a stretch to use this as the basis of any radical change like raising the voting age to 32 (although maybe it supports reducing the minimum presidential age from 35 to 32!), but it does perhaps suggest looking at what kind of soft-paternalistic structures might help “adolescents” make better life choices. It is a little absurd that we expect an 18 year old to navigate the world with the same competence as a 40 year old.

I think it's weird having an arbitrary minimum age to be president. I would probably never vote for someone in their 20s anyway, but I don't think there should be a legal barrier. In my country (Brazil) it's the same age, but we usually just copy US in think kind of policy. I wonder how common it's in the rest of the world.

I'm more bothered by the geriatric politicians in various democracies than I am that you're missing out on some amazing politician in their twenties.

The UK has a practical minimum of 18 for Prime Minister (technically there is no minimum but practically there is) but realistically never elects a PM under 40.

For British Sovereign there is also no limit, any particularly young Sovereign has effectively delegated to a council of regents historically. In practice this is also unlikely - although in theory of course we are two untimely deaths from a 12 year old taking the throne.

The US could really do with a maximum age for Presidents, and a retirement schedule for the permanent government on the Supreme Court.

> It is a little absurd that we expect an 18 year old to navigate the world with the same competence as a 40 year old.

I don't think it is. 18 year olds are smarter than most people give them credit for. They probably know math better than most 40 year olds just given their adjacency to math practice in school.

Knowing math specifically and intelligence generally are orthogonal to the skill of wise decision making.

Some of the smartest people I’ve ever known at any age have been among the worst at “life skills”.

Life skills and wise decision making are very hard to judge and most people will disagree on them though. I don't think 18 year olds make all the worst life choices and 40 year olds make far better ones, but I also can't really prove my statement, nor could you prove a counterfactual statement. It's hard to prove what life skills are valuable and who is good at them.

Math is at least important in many life skills most would consider important imo. Like budgeting, financial planning, retirement planning, investing, etc.

> The people paying for everything would get to make the decisions.

Just as a thought experiment: what if the threshold for having a vote was tied to paying a positive amount of personal income tax, and the weight of each vote was proportional to the amount paid? How skewed might such a system be? My first reaction is that in countries with high inequality, the wealthy would disproportionately influence the outcome. However, on the other hand, if people avoid or minimize paying taxes, they would lose the power of a weighted vote, which theoretically could incentivize paying taxes in full.

I think tying it to pension age would make a very interesting dynamic. I can see a lot of incentives and alignments around the issue would instantly shift around, and I think for the healthier and will incentivize finding the true ideal pension age.

Such a plan would codify an oligarchy into law, rather than the mere de facto oligarchy we have now.

Right now, the top 10% pay about 70% of federal income taxes, so your plan would effectively make 90% of the population's votes effectively worthless.

You're uneasy because you're a frequent advocate for policy positions that most people tend to be weary of once they've accrued some amount of life experiences (although the experiences and speed of acquisition differ from individual to individual) hence anything that casts shade upon the decision making of the youngest adults is a potential threat to your goals, if only a theoretical and circuitous one at that. If such policy positions do not survive life experience are they worth advocating for? 100yr ago people has been treated by the world around them as adults for at least half a decade by the time they got to vote at 21. Why not do the same today?

Regardless, specific policy implications are totally beside the point.

The problem with this "well you're not akshually an adult until X" stuff is that it is basically a re-hash of long out of fashion "women are hysterical, blacks have big muscles and small brains" type crap from 200yr ago that was used as a justification to continue preventing these people from finding their own way in life unbounded, consequences and all. First off, the logic is flawed and self referential, of course housewives and slaves couldn't adult, they never had the opportunity to gain the experience, same with 22yo college kids you're measuring today. Removing the racism and sexism by simply applying it to everyone doesn't change the flawed logic. But that's not even the big problem. The big problem is that at a societal level you're reducing the number of person-years available for full adult capacity work and productivity. You can solve this with coercion (state, social norms, etc), but people are less productive when they're not working for themselves so you're still handicapping your own society. A society that does not encourage people to develop and become adult and achieve and produce at full capacity as quickly as possible (which is likely a different timetable in an agrarian society than an industrial one, details left as exercise for the reader) WILL eventually be outcompeted by one that does, though a head start may buy time.

The older people get, the less they want youngsters to vote, drink, and drive--unless they believe they have something personally to gain from it

I'm not sure about the evidence for that gross generalization but young people are much less likely to vote than older people.

Plenty of data on this: https://theharvardpoliticalreview.com/gen-z-voter-barriers-2...

This is why you've gotta actually think about what you believe morally speaking at an early age and then stick to it. I don't vote, drink, or drive myself, and never will, but I hope I will always defend the rights of the youth to.

How do you plan on defending those rights if you dont vote.