If old people have been criticizing young people for acting dumb for thousands of years, maybe that means old people are always wrong, or maybe it means young p

If old people have been criticizing young people for acting dumb for thousands of years, maybe that means old people are always wrong, or maybe it means young people always tend to act dumb. I think a lot of old people look back on their youth, realize they were dumb, then look at the contemporary youth and see that they're dumb too. Those youth eventually mature, see that they were once dumb, and see that contemporary youth are still dumb. This hypothesis doesn't preclude a general trend of progress; rather it says something about the biological development of human brains. Despite what our modern laws might say, 18 year olds typically still have a lot of growing up to do. There's plenty of evidence that suggests brain development continues well into one's mid 20s. > It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet. The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so. https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051 https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?Con... McCandless died when he was 24. Notice that a lot of people in this thread, sympathetic or critical of him, are referring to him as a 'kid'. There's probably some real truth in that characterization.