15 ms·

We need to make adulthood more desirable

104 points by galfarragem 4y ago

elmerfud 4y ago
I think this article is skirting around the edge of the issue. Yes, we need to make people more willing to enter adulthood. Yes, adulthood has more responsibilities which should be more privileges. The problem is that we're granting privileges in society without the associated responsibility. Only a fool would assume responsibility when there's no benefit or requirement to do so. This is the society we've created for people. They're only just using it to their advantage, and I can't blame them. Instead of drinking, driving, voting, etc... Being conveyed at an age perhaps there's some other meaningful metric that could be used in combination with a minimum age. One idea I've considered, but not fully, is the idea of being able to vote only if you pay taxes. The adage was "no taxation without representation" but what we've constructed is "representation without taxation" in a large portion of the population. Despite all the uproar over anything federal in the US, governance is still primarily at the state and local levels. Since nearly everyone pays some sort of state or local tax (income, sales, property, etc...) Voting would remain intact for nearly everyone at the level that really matters. The federal level it would not be as the number of tax payers is a lot less because it's primarily income based. Obviously this isn't a fully fleshed out idea, but putting an incentive to monetarily participate in society needs to be strong one. With no skin in the game, so to speak, you have no incentive to consider both the collective good with your own good.
- jen20 4y ago
  At least in Texas, 6-year-old pay sales tax on Candy (unless it’s under 50c and sold from a vending machine). Should they be allowed to vote? I am highly supportive of reforming both the tax code and the requirement to exercise of responsibility instead of just rights, but this approach definitely does not feel particularly thought through, as you call out.
  - Proven 4y ago
  - frankbreetz 4y ago
    No, 6 year old would not be allowed to vote >>perhaps there's some other meaningful metric that could be used in combination with a minimum age
- simmerup 4y ago
  > Only a fool would assume responsibility when there's no benefit or requirement to do so. I take issue with this statement. It’s such an American take to say that we need to reward all responsibility monetarily or meaningfully. A lot of time taking on responsibility for something is a privilege that you’re granted by a community, and you get a feeling of fulfilment and sense of meaning/community out of it. Replacing that human feeling with money a lot of the time cheapens it and makes the whole thing transactional.
  - synu 4y ago
    I don’t live in America so I can’t say if GP is right or not, but I don’t think GP is saying those aren’t benefits, just that those benefits are given out to everyone regardless of taking responsibility, so there’s no incentive for anyone to do so. At least that’s how I read it.
  - Dudeman112 4y ago
    Reminds me of that infamous comment[1] The reward doesn't have to be only monetary, but honestly? Actual responsibility is stressful when the cost of failure is high. It can also cost lots of time Responsibility isn't rewarding by itself to me - the things you've mentioned as intrinsic rewards can be achieved without it Maybe if I am ever financially independent and bored with everything else in life I'll rock that way to fill the void. Not before that [1] >paulriddle on Nov 16, 2019 It's funny how carefully you're stepping around financially rewarding people who do the work. It's like you know your status does not allow you to own the money generated, so you're settling for owning the results, the process, the method, the responsibility, the all. You are weak.
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    Thing is, people are not being rewarded even monetarily. Wages have been stagnating for many years. Many will end up homeless if they're not paid enough, and it's getting there. So no, replacing money with feel good benefits is not good enough. Most importantly it causes a problem where you're tied to a particular benefit if it is important. You cannot really have a community when people don't have enough to eat or place to live. Even more so, when some cop will arrive and force you out ignoring that community if you don't pay. It is also hard to build a community when you work 40+ hours a week, as people tend to be drained and need serious alone time to rest, especially if their work involves constant contact with others.
- mLuby 4y ago
  I've seen estimates of 40-60% of all households not paying anything in taxes even if they are filing them. Conditioning voting rights on having paid taxes would disenfranchise a huge swath of low income people as well as people with accounting strategies to minimize their taxes. It'd certainly wouldn't help the US's underwhelming voter turnout. I agree with your overall point about rights without duties.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    I am sure those low income people are still expected to die for their betters on a foreign battlefield?
    - mLuby 4y ago
      Teacher: Why are only [veterans] allowed to vote? Student: It's a reward for doing government service. Teacher: No. No! Something given has no value. Teacher: What's the moral difference between a civilian and [veteran]? Student: A veteran accepts personal responsibility for safety of the body politic, defending it with his life. A civilian does not. -Starship Troopers classroom scene https://youtu.be/EBxgrr0wL8M https://youtu.be/EBxgrr0wL8M (Heinlein had some weird ideas and the movie's satire isn't obvious enough to those who most need it to be.)
  - cm2012 4y ago
    The 50% number is for people who don't pay federal income tax (because their refund exceeds the income tax amount). Most of those still have payroll tax, ssn and Medicare deducted from their paychecks, and also pay sales tax.
- causality0 4y ago
  The issue with a voting tax is that the people who pay it might vote to make it harder for the people who don't to start paying it and voting.
  - jstanley 4y ago
    You could just as well argue that the issue with a voting age is that the people of that age might vote it make it harder for younger people to start voting.
    - choward 4y ago
      With age every year you are guaranteed to have your age increase by one year. You and people your age will eventually reach the voting age. At that point you can vote to change the voting age. When it comes to wealth, you are not guaranteed to ever make enough money to pay taxes. You could go your whole life not being allowed to vote.
- mabbo 4y ago
  > being able to vote only if you pay taxes You legitimately don't see any problem with this? There's a huge swath of people who are unemployed, disabled, or otherwise unable to work. There's people with criminal records who effectively are barred from most jobs. There's entire towns where the factory that employed most of the people went out of business and now everyone is unemployed, unless they move- which they can't because their homes are now worthless and they have mortgages. You're talking about taking away the voting rights of all of those people because they're too poor for you. Bad luck on their part, not being born to privilege. And of course you don't even see where this goes next. Once you start to take away the voting rights of such people, they have no ability to fight as you keep going, as you take more away from them. They have no votes, no voice, no ability to stop those with power. I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed.
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    Not to mention, specifically made illegal in multiple constitutions for more than the reasons stated above.
  - mhitza 4y ago
    > I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed. I would refrain from calling someones idea sociopathic, when left unelaborated. I've theorized myself with the idea of having only people that pay taxes vote, or rather, having representational democracy an opt-in system via taxation. Currently there is no way to opt out of taxes, and the things you get in return are rather slim privileges and benefits. I only have a shallow understanding of the form of democracy that the US employs, but what impression I have of it, is that representational democracy is just a facade when big corporations have the budget to push their agendas via lobbying. When I think of people championing for the unprivileged, I can only think of the civil society (NGOs) as having a direct effect. If the world had in place something more akin to liquid democracy, I would have better trust in the system. Do you think that currently democracy is working, when we can pull up recent examples, like a few select people having the power to make abortion illegal?
- choward 4y ago
  While I agree that maybe we should use since other metric for adulthood, I completely disagree about only being able to vote if you pay taxes. That has to be the most regressive idea I've ever seen on this site. So because you're so poor you don't pay taxes, you don't get to vote? What if you don't believe the laws are fair and that's why you're too broke to pay taxes? Oh well, your voice will never be heard. > With no skin in the game, so to speak, you have no incentive to consider both the collective good with your own good. This idea that how much money you make shows merit and how responsible are and that you have "skin in the game" is completely absurd. Everyone who lives in this country has skin in the game. How much money you make doesn't imply merit and worthyness to vote. A rich person paying capital gains taxes as their only taxes isn't a better person than someone working multiple minimum wage jobs. The results of elections can affect everyone. They can put us at war for example. They can affect the environment you live in and your quality of life. Also, how would this even be implemented. At the local level what if you pay sales tax? Do you show a receipt to vote? At the federal level what if you pay taxes but you're so poor you get it all back? Is it that you paid taxes to begin with that gives you the right vote? Do you have to net lose money to the government. Can I just donate a dollar to the federal government and call it a federal voting tax, then be able to vote? Anyway, I honestly want to know what problems you're solving by treating poor people like felons.
  - elmerfud 4y ago
    You're missing the entire point. None of what I said was about treating poor like felons. It's was a broadly conceived idea, which admittedly not fully formed, was about having everyone have a stake in what's happening. If your only stake is, my vote can be used to get me more money with no perceptible downside to me then I'll always vote more money. This is the situation the poor is in currently. Why would they not vote for more subsidies? They literally have no downside to wealth redistribution. My point wasn't about finding a way to punish then, but you encourage them to not be in that situation. That's all. Just as the OP, enter adulthood.
- bsuvc 4y ago
  > One idea I've considered, but not fully, is the idea of being able to vote only if you pay taxes I've seen some variant of this on HN recently, proposing ways to TAKE AWAY voting rights. (The last time that sticks in my mind was someone saying you should only be allowed to vote if you do so under the guidance of a sanctioned organization like a non profit social organization!) After all the progress in voting rights during the last century, it is disheartening to read people seriously proposing taking rights away from people.
  - Dudeman112 4y ago
    Everyone likes democracy. But only until the will of the people goes real hard against their views
- csydas 4y ago
  I will really try hard to not make this feel like a personal attack as I don't think you have bad intentions at all, and as you admit, you didn't flesh out this idea. But the above reads with so much complicated and murky language and the subsequent child posts have similar ones which makes it a very nervous read. (sorry, this will be a wall of text since for me there's a lot to unpack in this discussion) The point of this post is that I think it's wrong to assume we can perfectly define a system of privileges and rights because it's so wildly inconsistent in everyone's understandings. We debated such things for literally thousands of years with some fairly prestigious minds and the best we can do is just try to fix the issues introduced by previous attempts, and that is getting more and more difficult each year. Worse, monetary influence acts outside of the societal system and the desire for improved revenue/profits has undue power over that of an individual participating in society. How exactly do we define or quantify a proper amount of responsibility and privilege? How do we define the proper threshold of such things? How do we explain comparisons to other societies where the threshold for such privileges is far lower or even non-existent, and they _don't_ have the troubles that are prognosticated during discussions on social policy? Society is a very tricky subject I think and the fact that collectively humans have been debating it since we figured out how to communicate to each other tells me it's not such an easy issue to solve, and more like something you just need to constantly be revisiting and fixing/improving. Societal judgements on responsibility is wildly inconsistent and I find it exceptionally challenging to even refine a lot of privileges and responsibilities that a given individual has. I'm relatively successful in a technical career; I take on a lot of responsibilities (person management, policy making, judgment calls on constant grey-area situations), and I'm not sure what privileges I actually have that many of my staff or that a sandwich maker at a corner shop doesn't have in most cases. I have more money, sure; socially, I'm more respected because it's a "respectable" position, I have more opportunities because I tend to meet a lot more people in places of power who see results and want the results. But is that actually my privilege or is it the choice and privilege of others who grant it to me? That is, can I actually enact such privilege or is it exposure to opportunities that others wouldn't get? What exactly is privilege in practical terms, not dictionary definitions? Conversely, the sandwich maker arguably makes more people happier and society better on a day to day basis than I do; a lot of my job is telling people either what they did wrong or just flat out "no", and that leaves a lot of people unhappy, while not really making anyone else happier. After all, I didn't really make their lives better directly, I just fulfilled a role in a process which has a neutral outcome for most people. Isn't the sandwich maker far more important in their role in society than I am? Is this responsibility on their part that they bring more overall good to society by working a difficult and low-paying job? What exactly is responsibility in practical terms, not dictionary definitions? I'm not just trying to muddy the waters with semantics; I think these are real things you need to consider if you want to start a discussion to attribute privilege to responsibility since there is a very wide gap in understandings here and often I can't really fault the logic. My personal take is that society at large works because collectively most people realize it doesn't and by all means it shouldn't, and that society requires constant maintenance and evolution to keep it running. Don't forget the classic xkcd[0] about modern software dependencies, as I think this is a fairly apt comparison for society. One of the ways that technology _does_ address this is that it constantly evolves, and the former pillars of society end up becoming vestigial and eventually dropped. In society, much happens the same -- previous "givens" that were logically and heavily debated by some pretty smart people end up being completely dropped as new advances come. > "representation without taxation" in a large portion of the population. The issue I have with this is that the opposite is also true -- governance without representation is increasingly becoming more and more common for reasons that have very little logic behind them. In the US anyways, a few grams of weed in many states is enough to remove your representation. Having a lower class job or not enough money is enough to remove your representation. Living on the wrong side of the street after rezoning a district is effectively enough to remove your representation. Laws I consider to be woefully outdated/misinformed or laws that are actively hostile towards populations are a far bigger concern for me than "are the lazy stoners Bob and Alice responsible enough to vote on issues." And I don't think the answer is some council that arbitrates and thinks on these things, as it seems our willingness as humans to worship such entities is just too built-in, and furthermore, I think it's not really reasonable to claim that we can have objective systems in such a matter. The US Supreme Court is under fire for this right now (and has been from basically all ideologies for awhile), and they're suppose to be the highest court in the land [1] that are practiced and careful logicians and reasonable persons. The US still has complete worship of its constitution and its authors, despite the fact that mostly the constitution was a brainchild of a few individuals, and they borrowed a lot of it from earlier works. The original intent of design to change and be rebuild/revisited was attempted to be done with amendments, but even that has a glacial pace, with the most recent amendment taking 202 years to come to fruition [2]. Even if we did have a perfectly working council that was constantly, it doesn't really address the fact that so much of society is influenced and controlled by non-governmental entities. Remember, it as an abhorrent idea for most employers to hire people who use recreational drugs besides alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. The horror stories of what might happen were paraded around for decades, right up until a global pandemic happened and suddenly the workforce vanished, and suddenly all those stoners destined to destroy society seemed to be acceptable candidates to drive trucks. Seems the stoners have been doing pretty alright with their new jobs and none of the doom and gloom came to be, and arguably it was good for society that a lot of these services kept working. But this wasn't legislated or governed societal advancement, this was that revenue lines wouldn't go up if businesses didn't change their minds. Corporations having "rights" is a very strange concept to me, as I'm not sure what responsibility they actually take on that contributes back to society; an exchange of services is not a responsibility, and demonstrably throughout history, businesses and corporations have fought for the _right to not be responsible towards certain persons_, and many times they won. Nevermind that corporations are awful at judging what is a needed responsibility as we saw during the pandemic (think of how many "essential workers" had to go to work during the early parts, holding advertising signs and wearing costumes for shops that no one could go to anyways) It's wrong in my opinion to think about this in terms of quantifying contributions and required responsibilities versus privileges, because when we see what actually happens and how society actually works, there is not even a passing correlation between the two, with extreme power imbalances and responsibilities and privileges that fall far outside the realm of government and society. [0] - https://xkcd.com/2347 https://xkcd.com/2347 [1] - I'm not interested in discussing Supreme Court decisions, so I'd rather people read this and just agree that the court makes contentious decisions, perhaps by design. [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Ratified_amendments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unit...
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  I thought about this, it's not enough to limit voting to those that pay taxes because only a small percentage of people pay taxes in an amount anywhere near what they cost in taxes and taxes are not voluntary. You need to make the person voting have skin in the game and that means it need to be voluntary and it also needs to be enough that it will sting if things go badly. I think the best way to do that would be to make potential voters post a nontransferable nonredeemable bond for some number of years (say 10 years) amount of money with the government if they want to vote. I would suggest averaging the last five years of income tax and setting that number at the equivalent of 2 weeks of income with a floor at full time minimum wage so that guys that earn a lot have to put a lot at risk and guys that earn a little have to risk less. then for that whole period the bond is with the government the bond should be at risk if the government runs a deficit above some small wiggle room, say 1% of government revenue. When the next election comes you have to top up your bond.
- foogazi 4y ago
  > Yes, we need to make people more willing to enter adulthood. People age into adulthood on their own. I really don’t understand this attitude of enticing folks to grow up
galfarragem 4y ago
I believe the traditional incentive to enter adulthood used to be sex availability. Things clearly changed.
- dymk 4y ago
  You think teens didn’t have access to sex in every generation before ours?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - galfarragem 4y ago
    Anecdotally (according older people I know) having a supply of regular sex was way more difficult before. More shaming, more religion, less welfare, etc, may explain it. At the time, marriage could solve that biological need. edit: 80+ year old's in conservative Europe
    - deleted 4y ago
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  - rhino369 4y ago
    Before the 1960s, teenage sex lead to having a family—whether you wanted it or not—for the most part. So no, they generally didn’t have access to consequence free sex like we do.
  - trentearl 4y ago
    Even now 27% of Americans aged 15 to 24 are virgins. I have to assume this number was higher for single people 50 years ago.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - wink 4y ago
clarkdale 4y ago
Another difference is between suburbian adult lives and high-desity city adult lives. Compare an adult life in NYC or Chicago (or many European cities) and those people have easier access to visit with friends, stay out after work, see exhibits, try new restaurants. Suburban adults go home and tend to stay home. Also having children changes things quite a bit for all adults. I wish this article was longer.
- Yhippa 4y ago
  > Also having children changes things quite a bit for all adults. > I wish this article was longer. Agree on both accounts. To the first point, I had a lot of friends and hobbies before having a kid and it feels that I'm slowly losing control of my time to the point where most of it is gone and I only have like 2 hours to myself. 4 if I want to be sleep deprived the next day.
  - burntoutfire 4y ago
    Did you expect more free time? Judging by the parents I know, 2 hours of free time for yourself every day is not bad.
    - oweiler 4y ago
      The problem is not having two hours of spare time, it's that you feel so drained at the end of the day that you don't have the energy left to to anything meaningful.
      - TimPC 4y ago
        For a long time for me the problem wasn’t the amount of time for myself so much as that it wasn’t blockable time. 15 minutes 8 times a day is very different from one two-hour chunk.
        Cerium 4y ago
        I used to wonder why many older people in the office would find a productive use of the 10 minutes between meetings while younger people would just grab a drink or get distracted. Now I'm a parent and I have learned that you can do something in 10 minutes.
beebeepka 4y ago
I don't know what I expected but this short text, not even an article or a rant, left me completely unsatisfied. Why bother writing, let alone promoting on HN, when you don't have anything to say. In my frustration, I opened the front page and it's even worse.
- memcg 4y ago
  Agreed. The entire site reminds me of the racks of magazines I browsed growing up. Lots of bait, but in the end just a bunch shallow articles and lots of ads. I often learn more reading HN comments than the article that is being discussed.
- deleted 4y ago
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dym_sh 4y ago
what for? congrats, you old enough to pay taxes! now your choice is to be willingly enslaved for half of your waking life or die from starvation that's freedom of choice fo'ya.
DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
Making “adulthood more desirable” is more of the same coddling and extending childhood indefinitely. More prompting, enticing and encouragement isn’t going to help. At some point kids are going to have to make decisions on necessity, not desire. Based on hunger.
- knorker 4y ago
  You got downvoted, but you're hinting at a good point. Today we are told that any discomfort is unacceptable, and you are owed living a life without it. I think a lot of "adulting" is rejected because it comes with downsides. And more and more people seem to demanding no such downsides. They are owed cherry picking the gains, with no requirement for any of the work for it. E.g. take this comment, where this person is saying "someone else" owes them all financial compensation for a child, and on top of that they deserve a living wage salary to just be a parent: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31638715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31638715
  - streamlining 4y ago
- naet 4y ago
  I think it's the opposite. We don't need more "coddling" or protection from decision making. We don't need less adulthood... what we would benefit from IMO is keeping more of the positives of youth into adulthood. Things like a shared social context, freedom of play, continued education, and encouragements of creativity.
gonehome 4y ago
There’s not much to this article beyond the headline and even that I basically disagree with. Adulthood grants you freedom and autonomy over your life. Childhood is highly variable and you often have very little control. I went to a decent public school in the US, a lot of the teachers I had were dumb if not cruel. It was like spending a lot of time doing busy work in a prison run by the least successful adults of the previous generation. Great teachers made a difference and were outliers, but were rare. I’ll take being an adult and having control over my life a thousand times over being a child that has to wait until they can be free.
- burntoutfire 4y ago
  The best thing about childhood to me was probably being worry-free. After you've done your homework or passed a test in school, there was absolutely nothing more to worry about your mind was 100% free to play and explore. Such state is practically inobtainable for people with complex office jobs such as software engineering, and even in mindless menial jobs you can be gnawed by existential doubts ("Am I wasting my life here?") which didn't torment us in childhood.
  - mLuby 4y ago
    Working adult life feels worry-free compared to school. There was always more homework or studying to do after a full day in the classroom. One of the privileges of adult life is leaving work at the office. (I know not every adult does this but every adult has the option.)
    - AstralStorm 4y ago
      Caveats: * If you can afford it * If you don't have to take care of dependents or parents * If your boss isn't an asshole and allows it * If you have the time remaining to actually do anything There's many kinds of work that are required of adults, and the consistent low key worry of ending up on the street or starving.
      - 4y ago
subjectsigma 4y ago
The problem with this is that reality is cruel. People who don't understand this are sacrificing long-term happiness for short-term happiness. My friend group from college is split nearly 50/50 of people who "made it" and people who didn't. One half has jobs, girlfriends, cars, etc. The other half lives with their parents working part time, smoking weed, and playing video games. The second half seems a lot happier than the first, to be honest. However if (God forbid) were they ever to get into an accident, or have some medical problem, or need to do major repairs on their houses, or finally find someone they want to settle down with - there's no money to pay for that. And then they'll probably not seem as happy. Recently I asked a few people if they would be interested in a summer vacation to Europe, and the most common response was "I wish I could go but I can't afford that." Not very fun. People use to walk a lot more and do a lot more menial labor. It probably wasn't very "desirable". Now I drive everywhere and 99% of what I buy is made with machines. That's a lot more fun... Until the global warming hits. There is no free lunch. This is not to say we can't try and improve things. But for the foreseeable future life won't always be rosy.
- trentearl 4y ago
  I’ve noticed this in my friend groups as well, but the tables are starting to flip as we enter our later 30s.
jstanley 4y ago
> For many, adulthood means trading a life entirely devoted to learning for one in which you only read (maybe) two books a year. It means swapping a full schedule of sports, clubs, and music lessons for having exactly zero hobbies (unless watching Netflix counts). I don't get it. You can still do those things as an adult. In fact, it's easier, because you don't need the cooperation of your teachers or parents. You can just do whatever you want. If you're an adult, and you haven't got any hobbies, and you want hobbies, just take up a hobby? I honestly don't get it.
- TimPC 4y ago
  I think the idea is the modern adult has an insane commute due to the unaffordability of housing, a full-time demanding job that often requires more than eight hours a day and child-raising responsibilities. Finding the time can be a challenge if you’re consuming 11 hours of your day on work+commute and try and invest another 3 hours a day minimum in family. That leaves two waking hours for eating and chores on a weekday. Many people use weekends to catch up on things they can’t get done during the week. It’s very possible for adulthood to be a grind that’s unlikely anything that came before it.
carapace 4y ago
On the broadest level this is pernicious nonsense. My vocabulary is failing me this morning. What's the word for when something (humans) is like a version of something else (other primates) that hasn't fully grown up? We are like chimpanzee babies that do not mature into chimps, instead we mature into these weird big-headed talking hive apes. Um, the point is that remaining young is a large part of how humans became human. What we need to do is create a more Sesame Street-style sane and healthy environment. What we call "adulthood" is the stress and trauma of dealing with physical constraints from which we protect children. Now that those physical constraints are largely gone (thanks to science and technology) the remaining constraints are mostly leftover logistical glitches. Ergo, life should get easier, the responsibilities less onerous, and people should remain young at heart.
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  > What's the word for when something (humans) is like a version of something else (other primates) that hasn't fully grown up? I think that the word you're looking for is neoteny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny
  - carapace 4y ago
    Thank you! My brain kept trotting out "neonate" and I'm all like "No brain! That's not it!" Coffee didn't help either. So close, so close... "You're a scholar and a gentleman."
- deleted 4y ago
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planarhobbit 4y ago
The way adulthood is defined here, as in not having hobbies or personal time, strikes me as strange. I disagree with it - but I’d like to hear what people think of as adulthood. I suppose I’m an outlier (aren’t we all) but most things I have to do, I like to do them. My job is an extension of an immensely satisfying and enriching hobby. If something breaks, it’s interesting to attempt to fix it. Having a choice AND not having one are both, to me, liberating in a sense. I’m a hands on person when I can be. The things I don’t like to do I often give them to family members or friends who do like to do them. Is there an air of petulance over needing to do things from time to time? Sure, but that’s normal. Perhaps it’s to do with facing death, or seeing close friends and family pass away, or relinquishing a part of your time and energy to your kids, or seeing people change for the worse over time. But if this is what adulthood is, then whoever thinks so has not even begun to question what life is all about. But this is a sliver of contemplation, it is not a be all end all to things.
- TimPC 4y ago
  I went through the dropping all my hobbies and was happy with that decision for about 6 months when I had a newborn and didn’t have time for anything else because of unpredictable sleep and returning to work after my paternity leave. There is room to do a great job raising your kids, remain involved in their lives, work a full time job and find a bit of personal time for hobbies. I’m doing that again now that my son is nine months and mostly sleeps through the night. Honestly, some hobbies only need 3 hours a week of time commitment and you should be able to find that in your life if you have the right people around you. It’s definitely different if you’re trying to raise a kid alone (I have so much sympathy for the difficulties of single parenthood now that I know how hard it can be with two people.)
amelius 4y ago
Older generations have been walking away for responsibilities, like caring for the climate. Why would the current youth want to become one of them? Also, youth is not launching into adulthood because they simply can't have certain privileges that older generations have, like owning a decent house. Why become something if you only get downsides?
- 0xb0565e486 4y ago
  What do you mean? Where are you from? It’s totally possible for “the youth” to own a house from my perspective.
  - encrux 4y ago
    Possible, sure. In reality it's unlikely though. Unless you still believe in the american dream, I'm pretty sure we can agree that the increase in housing prices makes it exceedingly difficult for young people to buy a house without a significant inheritance.
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
"Children have leisure, adults don't. School is entertaining, work isn't." I suppose I agree. The one thing adulthood brings is money. That's really the big thing. But its best use is to be saved so you don't have to continue the "adulting" thing, so it's all a bit circular.
yhavr 4y ago
Obviously. What's the beauty of being an office... ahm, worker wasting your life to repay loans/mortgages and raise the next generation of office workers? It'd be great to research and promote alternative adult lifestyles, where you don't need rich parents or be super lucky, but that may require some hard work and dedication to build. For example, the prospect of becoming a digital nomad could be definitely more interesting for teens than turning into a typical hardworking suit.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  You can choose not to have kids- unless Christianity wins in America and turns the country into the republic of Gilead.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    > You can choose not to have kids https://childfreefriendlydoctors.com/ https://childfreefriendlydoctors.com/ is a resource for those folks.
- herbst 4y ago
  I did nomad after I had a burnout after I landed what I thought is my dream job. The one thing I learned most is that these people value their time. And with a relaxed mind and plenty of time come great ideas. Obviously most had luck or at least some business experience before they went nomad, but everyone had those small or big ideas and time to make them reality, and for a lot it just worked. If you start looking closely you'll find them anywhere, people who by luck and dedicated work found _their_ way to survive in this society.
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  > Obviously. What's the beauty of being an office... ahm, worker wasting your life to repay loans/mortgages and raise the next generation of office workers? So many people knock the 9-5 office worker and honestly, I think it's a really sweet gig. I used to work warehouse jobs, and when you went to work, you worked. I contrast with my life now where i wake up, make coffee, flip on the computer, code and take some calls for a few hours a day, it's great!
barrysteve 4y ago
The point of adulthood is to live a virtuous life, in the old sense of the word virtuous, not this modern chaotic thing where people equate a snippet of a political stance with the most desirable aim for men. Dressing up 'privileges' is just a 50c excuse for people in hierarchical positions to go to do whatever they please in the attempt to 'advertise' the value of adulthood. It's going to be summertime for the promoted. This will go poorly and the spill-over from misbehaved 'adults' will make adult-looking responsibilities less relatable. As we've already seen with Boris Johnson's covid parties and whatever else. That pattern of public discontent with loose behavior among the upper crust will continue to cascade down the hierarchy until we're all upset with project managers wasting time and killing relationships. The system falls apart and we leave it's "adulthood privileges" in the trash. The article is short and is written like a statement of intent, not an honest attempt forwarding an idea or promoting conversation.
TimTheTinker 4y ago
> Unless we do something worthwhile — fun, interesting, desirable — with those privileges, young people won’t want to apply to the society of grown-ups, and adults won’t be able to wholeheartedly encourage them to join its ranks. This is the crux of TA. It's encouraging us (adults) to live in such a way that makes adulthood look worth pursuing. It really can be tempting to waste adult years on things that won't matter next month. I know I'm guilty of foofing away a lot of my adult life on inane web surfing, for example--if only because I wasn't thoughtful and determined about focusing my relaxing time towards better goals. Just a little self denial (sleep or read a book instead) would have yielded exponentially better results.
okeuro49 4y ago
The biggest cultural phenomenon I have seen recently that revolves around encouraging young men to adopt responsibility has been Jordan Peterson. It was bizarre to see the popular media make him out to be somehow a "alt right misogynist fascist". I found he has well articulated and interesting points of view, and there were a lot of women who appreciated his message to young men, as they'd be dating this cohort of men. I think a lot can be taken with a pinch of salt, but to see the reaction against rather mild conservative viewpoint showed I think a problem.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  The same Jordan Peterson who took responsibility for his benzodiazepine addiction by nearly killing himself with a gimmicky treatment rather than toughing out detox? Perhaps that's an ad hominem, but I have a hard time taking him seriously, though I truly wish him well with his psychological/addiction/medical issues. That said, what reward does Peterson say these men should get for their adoption of responsibility? Does it entitle them to any rewards?
  - trentearl 4y ago
    He would say the reward is a meaningful life.
    - 202206241203 4y ago
      With the traditional family gone, that is probably the only thing left. Luckily, meaning can be found in different ways.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      Is that to say you provide very measurable toil for intangible benefit?
      - trentearl 4y ago
        I'm not a big fan of his so I'm not sure, I just remember him saying responsibility is a prerequisite to a meaningful life.
swayvil 4y ago
But children are the most controllable demographic. Surely it behooves us (as rulers and marketers) to encourage permanent childhood.
k__ 4y ago
Was this written by someone who peaked in high school?
UIUC_06 4y ago
For me, my life began the morning after I graduated high school. The only people from before that I'm NOT in touch with but want to be are unfindable on Google because their names are too common. I know I probably could locate them with a little more time & money, but really, who cares? What adulthood always promised, and delivered, was choice. I wouldn't have to be in situations and around people that I didn't want to be and around. Mostly. I can't say about having kids, not having any. If you hate it, you're probably doing it wrong, or maybe the rewards are deeper and more spread out, and when you really think about it, you think "it was worth it."
freedom2099 4y ago
Adulthood for me was a blessing! Finally I got time (I do have much more free time since I started working than when I was studying), money (god bless software engineers salaries) and no stress whatsoever (I was very stressed in high school and university… now work comes so easy that it’s a breeze ). Why would someone not become an adult???
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Was mixed for me. I spent my whole youth holding out for that autonomy and making sure as soon as I was legally an adult I was culturally an adult. Missed out on a lot for it, but I was desperate, living with people whom I could never get along with. And then, after hats I got what I wanted, and it was great, but over time I realized that was it, this was I had been planning for and now that I got it that's it. Now I've just kinda stagnanted, I ended up well economically, but every other part of my life has faced severe regression, including physical and social health. I have the time, and the resources now, but not the environment.
  - freedom2099 4y ago
    I am sorry to hear that! I was lucky enough to have loving parents with whom I get along very well, I met the love of my life when I was 18 and we have been together ever since (I’m 37yo) and have plenty of friends with whom I spend a lot of quality time!
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      I actually get along with them these days, looking at other relationships they've had change over the years however, it seems that distance should be maintained to maintain a good relationship.
999900000999 4y ago
Not that the article gives us much, but by and large the people who fail to launch into adulthood are people with extremely comfortable childhoods. I'll give you an example, I have a friend of mine whose parents take good care of him. They all have a great relationship, so it's fine for him to live with them well into his thirties. I've also met the reverse, someone who has a horrible relationship with their parents but still live with them well into their twenties, even after the parents repeatedly try to kick them out. After a ton of thought, and a bit of emotional maturing on my part, I stopped feeling sorry for these people. If your parents no longer have the capacity to care for you, figure something else out. You don't have a right to sit up and demand someone take care of you. This is my biggest red flag with dating, if you feel that level of entitlement to your parents, you'll feel it towards everyone else. My childhood was a living hell of evictions and other chaos, the best day of my life was when I got my first apartment. I couldn't wait for adulthood because instead of waiting for these grown ups to the side to pay a cable bill before rent, I could make those choices. I think everyone should strive to move out in their early twenties, and I won't really go out with someone who doesn't have their own apartment and a job. Luckily since I left LA, I've had no trouble meeting fantastical folks with great careers. Most dating/ socializing advice is absolutely useless since it won't mention how important location is.
- maneesh 4y ago
  What location did you find, if you don't mind saying?
  - 999900000999 4y ago
    No problem, I moved to Chicago instantly cut my cost of living by about 50%. Met the first girl I've ever gone out with for any significant amount of time, and I no longer had to drive. But you have to be the one who makes this choice. I had to stop using social media since I'd have jerks tell me I was the problem. No no I'm just not compatible with LA. Even LA used to be a much better place to live, in my early twenties. It was still affordable and people are nicer. You can still find a two bedroom in Chicago for $1,500, within walking distance from a metro line. Good luck finding a two bedroom under $3000 within distance of a Metro line in LA, and finding a job within walking distance of another Metro stop.
giantg2 4y ago
"Adulthood means taking on more responsibilities, and in turn, receiving more privileges." What privileges? There doesn't seem to be a whole lot that changes when you hit 18.
motohagiography 4y ago
The article says, "Adulthood means taking on more responsibilities, and in turn, receiving more privileges" and this begs the question in regard to, from whom? The notion of "adult," has an intrinsic inferiority in the sense it's from the perspective of what children and dependents believe about men and woman relative to themselves. It's an important distinction, because if you see adults as others and can't admit to yourself that you are a man or a woman, it's likely because on some level you still identify as a dependent - if not in a specific relationship, then to society at large. (Arguably, some even moralize it where to be an adult is to submit to being a dependent of society.) Acting as an adult is something one does for the reflected approval of others, and it is relative to the perspective and aspirations of children. Discomfort from talking about men and women directly is indicative of how disconnected we are from our true and natural identities. (If you believe nothing is true or natural and take Derrida's view that everything is an artifact of language, I'd ask if you've thought about what made choosing that belief so appealing.) Adulthood itself is a concept that is the actualization of personhood - an abstraction that includes corporations, higher primates, zygotes, and imminently some lines code. Imo, adulthood is unappealing because it has become poor substitute for concepts of manhood and womanhood. By including these non-human entities, personhood itself is a diminished and low bar. The common insult I see in public discourse is that a man is a baby or a child, and the person wielding it truly believes these words are powerful. The insult is lobbed as though the implicitly maternal lens of criticism and shaming someone as a baby has meaning to actualized men and women. Actualized men and women by definition have developed an internal locus of control, and a level of self acceptance and awareness where criticism from a rando saying they are being a bad dependent doesn't even register. When you pull it apart, what adulthood means to most people is the ability to internalize supervision and the values of a broadly social supervisor. What's worse is that this kind of transactional adulthood yields some truly psychotic moral licensing in the form of, "I've taken all the humiliations and done what was expected of me, and now it's my turn." And you can still be a good person when you act on this belief, because compared to a corporation or a primate, you're still doing pretty well. In this sense, "we" don't need to do anything about adulthood. "You" and "I" need to take responsibility for ourselves first, and then for children and other dependents, then by becoming good men and women we become our brother's and sister's keepers. This is all to say, the framing of adulthood is part of the problem. When someone occasionally admonishes me to be "an adult," I typically respond, "thanks, I'm a man," and the people who get it, get it, and the ones who don't, I just don't remember.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Young people are opting out because they’ve seen what the deal looks like and say “nah, I can do better” by doing less, or nothing at all (China’s “lie flat/tang ping” movement and similar elsewhere). You can’t make unnecessary/unenjoyable responsibility desirable to people who see through it.
peppermint_tea 4y ago
I have no idea what the author is talking about. Life is what your make it. I just turn 40 and my life looks nothing like the description of adulthood the author does. It is all about choices, if you decide to have a house, 2 cars and 2 kids, yes... it may look like that.
throwaway0x0A45 4y ago
Not sure I can relate to this message. I've been working full time since 14, paying for bills and food. Mom didn't want to be a "mom", and dad fucked off when I was 5. They should have considered abortion, but they are protestants. Childhood has no autonomy where adulthood gave me more freedom, I will never go back.
2-718-281-828 4y ago
I did read the text and I have to say it doesn't say anything ... there's no substance in it whatsoever. TL/DR: make X more fun so people want X (X being adulthood) Also - is the entire premise even true? Do people not want to become grown ups? Actually I think this is inevitable. Maybe the author comes from a proviliged pampered background but anybody else will have to pay the bills which makes you responsible for that and is pretty serious and tends to make people also mentally pretty serious. So, I don't know what that guy even intends to communicate. To me it looks like the author is trying to push his Art Of Maniless brand and last week he didn't know what to write about. Then he coughed up this half cooked piece of tofu ...
foogazi 4y ago
> Unless we do something worthwhile — fun, interesting, desirable — with those privileges, young people won’t want to apply to the society of grown-ups, I don’t get why we have to make a life of adult freedom desirable to anyone else You don’t have to apply, your time will just come up
snapplebobapple 4y ago
Possibly an unpopular opinion but we have spent the post WWII period making prolonged adolescence more desirable, what exactly did we think was going to happen? We built a welfare state that removes most of the penalty of not having children, removed all the stigma of out of wedlock sex, most of the stigma of drug use and abandoned religion. We let identity marxism sneak into the spot previously occupied by religion, replacing the goal of becoming an adult with mass confusion from an unintelligent, wrong headed ideology. I don't see any example in history where the carrot of more desirable adulthood beat out the equivalent of being a tinder f#ck boi across a whole society where there was no stigma of that behavior. This leads me to believe the stick works far better than the carrot

104 points by galfarragem 4y ago

I think this article is skirting around the edge of the issue. Yes, we need to make people more willing to enter adulthood. Yes, adulthood has more responsibilities which should be more privileges. The problem is that we're granting privileges in society without the associated responsibility. Only a fool would assume responsibility when there's no benefit or requirement to do so. This is the society we've created for people. They're only just using it to their advantage, and I can't blame them. Instead of drinking, driving, voting, etc... Being conveyed at an age perhaps there's some other meaningful metric that could be used in combination with a minimum age. One idea I've considered, but not fully, is the idea of being able to vote only if you pay taxes. The adage was "no taxation without representation" but what we've constructed is "representation without taxation" in a large portion of the population. Despite all the uproar over anything federal in the US, governance is still primarily at the state and local levels. Since nearly everyone pays some sort of state or local tax (income, sales, property, etc...) Voting would remain intact for nearly everyone at the level that really matters. The federal level it would not be as the number of tax payers is a lot less because it's primarily income based. Obviously this isn't a fully fleshed out idea, but putting an incentive to monetarily participate in society needs to be strong one. With no skin in the game, so to speak, you have no incentive to consider both the collective good with your own good.

jen20 4y ago
At least in Texas, 6-year-old pay sales tax on Candy (unless it’s under 50c and sold from a vending machine). Should they be allowed to vote? I am highly supportive of reforming both the tax code and the requirement to exercise of responsibility instead of just rights, but this approach definitely does not feel particularly thought through, as you call out.
- Proven 4y ago
- frankbreetz 4y ago
  No, 6 year old would not be allowed to vote >>perhaps there's some other meaningful metric that could be used in combination with a minimum age
simmerup 4y ago
> Only a fool would assume responsibility when there's no benefit or requirement to do so. I take issue with this statement. It’s such an American take to say that we need to reward all responsibility monetarily or meaningfully. A lot of time taking on responsibility for something is a privilege that you’re granted by a community, and you get a feeling of fulfilment and sense of meaning/community out of it. Replacing that human feeling with money a lot of the time cheapens it and makes the whole thing transactional.
- synu 4y ago
  I don’t live in America so I can’t say if GP is right or not, but I don’t think GP is saying those aren’t benefits, just that those benefits are given out to everyone regardless of taking responsibility, so there’s no incentive for anyone to do so. At least that’s how I read it.
- Dudeman112 4y ago
  Reminds me of that infamous comment[1] The reward doesn't have to be only monetary, but honestly? Actual responsibility is stressful when the cost of failure is high. It can also cost lots of time Responsibility isn't rewarding by itself to me - the things you've mentioned as intrinsic rewards can be achieved without it Maybe if I am ever financially independent and bored with everything else in life I'll rock that way to fill the void. Not before that [1] >paulriddle on Nov 16, 2019 It's funny how carefully you're stepping around financially rewarding people who do the work. It's like you know your status does not allow you to own the money generated, so you're settling for owning the results, the process, the method, the responsibility, the all. You are weak.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Thing is, people are not being rewarded even monetarily. Wages have been stagnating for many years. Many will end up homeless if they're not paid enough, and it's getting there. So no, replacing money with feel good benefits is not good enough. Most importantly it causes a problem where you're tied to a particular benefit if it is important. You cannot really have a community when people don't have enough to eat or place to live. Even more so, when some cop will arrive and force you out ignoring that community if you don't pay. It is also hard to build a community when you work 40+ hours a week, as people tend to be drained and need serious alone time to rest, especially if their work involves constant contact with others.
mLuby 4y ago
I've seen estimates of 40-60% of all households not paying anything in taxes even if they are filing them. Conditioning voting rights on having paid taxes would disenfranchise a huge swath of low income people as well as people with accounting strategies to minimize their taxes. It'd certainly wouldn't help the US's underwhelming voter turnout. I agree with your overall point about rights without duties.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  I am sure those low income people are still expected to die for their betters on a foreign battlefield?
  - mLuby 4y ago
    Teacher: Why are only [veterans] allowed to vote? Student: It's a reward for doing government service. Teacher: No. No! Something given has no value. Teacher: What's the moral difference between a civilian and [veteran]? Student: A veteran accepts personal responsibility for safety of the body politic, defending it with his life. A civilian does not. -Starship Troopers classroom scene https://youtu.be/EBxgrr0wL8M https://youtu.be/EBxgrr0wL8M (Heinlein had some weird ideas and the movie's satire isn't obvious enough to those who most need it to be.)
- cm2012 4y ago
  The 50% number is for people who don't pay federal income tax (because their refund exceeds the income tax amount). Most of those still have payroll tax, ssn and Medicare deducted from their paychecks, and also pay sales tax.
causality0 4y ago
The issue with a voting tax is that the people who pay it might vote to make it harder for the people who don't to start paying it and voting.
- jstanley 4y ago
  You could just as well argue that the issue with a voting age is that the people of that age might vote it make it harder for younger people to start voting.
  - choward 4y ago
    With age every year you are guaranteed to have your age increase by one year. You and people your age will eventually reach the voting age. At that point you can vote to change the voting age. When it comes to wealth, you are not guaranteed to ever make enough money to pay taxes. You could go your whole life not being allowed to vote.
mabbo 4y ago
> being able to vote only if you pay taxes You legitimately don't see any problem with this? There's a huge swath of people who are unemployed, disabled, or otherwise unable to work. There's people with criminal records who effectively are barred from most jobs. There's entire towns where the factory that employed most of the people went out of business and now everyone is unemployed, unless they move- which they can't because their homes are now worthless and they have mortgages. You're talking about taking away the voting rights of all of those people because they're too poor for you. Bad luck on their part, not being born to privilege. And of course you don't even see where this goes next. Once you start to take away the voting rights of such people, they have no ability to fight as you keep going, as you take more away from them. They have no votes, no voice, no ability to stop those with power. I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Not to mention, specifically made illegal in multiple constitutions for more than the reasons stated above.
- mhitza 4y ago
  > I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed. I would refrain from calling someones idea sociopathic, when left unelaborated. I've theorized myself with the idea of having only people that pay taxes vote, or rather, having representational democracy an opt-in system via taxation. Currently there is no way to opt out of taxes, and the things you get in return are rather slim privileges and benefits. I only have a shallow understanding of the form of democracy that the US employs, but what impression I have of it, is that representational democracy is just a facade when big corporations have the budget to push their agendas via lobbying. When I think of people championing for the unprivileged, I can only think of the civil society (NGOs) as having a direct effect. If the world had in place something more akin to liquid democracy, I would have better trust in the system. Do you think that currently democracy is working, when we can pull up recent examples, like a few select people having the power to make abortion illegal?
choward 4y ago
While I agree that maybe we should use since other metric for adulthood, I completely disagree about only being able to vote if you pay taxes. That has to be the most regressive idea I've ever seen on this site. So because you're so poor you don't pay taxes, you don't get to vote? What if you don't believe the laws are fair and that's why you're too broke to pay taxes? Oh well, your voice will never be heard. > With no skin in the game, so to speak, you have no incentive to consider both the collective good with your own good. This idea that how much money you make shows merit and how responsible are and that you have "skin in the game" is completely absurd. Everyone who lives in this country has skin in the game. How much money you make doesn't imply merit and worthyness to vote. A rich person paying capital gains taxes as their only taxes isn't a better person than someone working multiple minimum wage jobs. The results of elections can affect everyone. They can put us at war for example. They can affect the environment you live in and your quality of life. Also, how would this even be implemented. At the local level what if you pay sales tax? Do you show a receipt to vote? At the federal level what if you pay taxes but you're so poor you get it all back? Is it that you paid taxes to begin with that gives you the right vote? Do you have to net lose money to the government. Can I just donate a dollar to the federal government and call it a federal voting tax, then be able to vote? Anyway, I honestly want to know what problems you're solving by treating poor people like felons.
- elmerfud 4y ago
  You're missing the entire point. None of what I said was about treating poor like felons. It's was a broadly conceived idea, which admittedly not fully formed, was about having everyone have a stake in what's happening. If your only stake is, my vote can be used to get me more money with no perceptible downside to me then I'll always vote more money. This is the situation the poor is in currently. Why would they not vote for more subsidies? They literally have no downside to wealth redistribution. My point wasn't about finding a way to punish then, but you encourage them to not be in that situation. That's all. Just as the OP, enter adulthood.
bsuvc 4y ago
> One idea I've considered, but not fully, is the idea of being able to vote only if you pay taxes I've seen some variant of this on HN recently, proposing ways to TAKE AWAY voting rights. (The last time that sticks in my mind was someone saying you should only be allowed to vote if you do so under the guidance of a sanctioned organization like a non profit social organization!) After all the progress in voting rights during the last century, it is disheartening to read people seriously proposing taking rights away from people.
- Dudeman112 4y ago
  Everyone likes democracy. But only until the will of the people goes real hard against their views
csydas 4y ago
I will really try hard to not make this feel like a personal attack as I don't think you have bad intentions at all, and as you admit, you didn't flesh out this idea. But the above reads with so much complicated and murky language and the subsequent child posts have similar ones which makes it a very nervous read. (sorry, this will be a wall of text since for me there's a lot to unpack in this discussion) The point of this post is that I think it's wrong to assume we can perfectly define a system of privileges and rights because it's so wildly inconsistent in everyone's understandings. We debated such things for literally thousands of years with some fairly prestigious minds and the best we can do is just try to fix the issues introduced by previous attempts, and that is getting more and more difficult each year. Worse, monetary influence acts outside of the societal system and the desire for improved revenue/profits has undue power over that of an individual participating in society. How exactly do we define or quantify a proper amount of responsibility and privilege? How do we define the proper threshold of such things? How do we explain comparisons to other societies where the threshold for such privileges is far lower or even non-existent, and they _don't_ have the troubles that are prognosticated during discussions on social policy? Society is a very tricky subject I think and the fact that collectively humans have been debating it since we figured out how to communicate to each other tells me it's not such an easy issue to solve, and more like something you just need to constantly be revisiting and fixing/improving. Societal judgements on responsibility is wildly inconsistent and I find it exceptionally challenging to even refine a lot of privileges and responsibilities that a given individual has. I'm relatively successful in a technical career; I take on a lot of responsibilities (person management, policy making, judgment calls on constant grey-area situations), and I'm not sure what privileges I actually have that many of my staff or that a sandwich maker at a corner shop doesn't have in most cases. I have more money, sure; socially, I'm more respected because it's a "respectable" position, I have more opportunities because I tend to meet a lot more people in places of power who see results and want the results. But is that actually my privilege or is it the choice and privilege of others who grant it to me? That is, can I actually enact such privilege or is it exposure to opportunities that others wouldn't get? What exactly is privilege in practical terms, not dictionary definitions? Conversely, the sandwich maker arguably makes more people happier and society better on a day to day basis than I do; a lot of my job is telling people either what they did wrong or just flat out "no", and that leaves a lot of people unhappy, while not really making anyone else happier. After all, I didn't really make their lives better directly, I just fulfilled a role in a process which has a neutral outcome for most people. Isn't the sandwich maker far more important in their role in society than I am? Is this responsibility on their part that they bring more overall good to society by working a difficult and low-paying job? What exactly is responsibility in practical terms, not dictionary definitions? I'm not just trying to muddy the waters with semantics; I think these are real things you need to consider if you want to start a discussion to attribute privilege to responsibility since there is a very wide gap in understandings here and often I can't really fault the logic. My personal take is that society at large works because collectively most people realize it doesn't and by all means it shouldn't, and that society requires constant maintenance and evolution to keep it running. Don't forget the classic xkcd[0] about modern software dependencies, as I think this is a fairly apt comparison for society. One of the ways that technology _does_ address this is that it constantly evolves, and the former pillars of society end up becoming vestigial and eventually dropped. In society, much happens the same -- previous "givens" that were logically and heavily debated by some pretty smart people end up being completely dropped as new advances come. > "representation without taxation" in a large portion of the population. The issue I have with this is that the opposite is also true -- governance without representation is increasingly becoming more and more common for reasons that have very little logic behind them. In the US anyways, a few grams of weed in many states is enough to remove your representation. Having a lower class job or not enough money is enough to remove your representation. Living on the wrong side of the street after rezoning a district is effectively enough to remove your representation. Laws I consider to be woefully outdated/misinformed or laws that are actively hostile towards populations are a far bigger concern for me than "are the lazy stoners Bob and Alice responsible enough to vote on issues." And I don't think the answer is some council that arbitrates and thinks on these things, as it seems our willingness as humans to worship such entities is just too built-in, and furthermore, I think it's not really reasonable to claim that we can have objective systems in such a matter. The US Supreme Court is under fire for this right now (and has been from basically all ideologies for awhile), and they're suppose to be the highest court in the land [1] that are practiced and careful logicians and reasonable persons. The US still has complete worship of its constitution and its authors, despite the fact that mostly the constitution was a brainchild of a few individuals, and they borrowed a lot of it from earlier works. The original intent of design to change and be rebuild/revisited was attempted to be done with amendments, but even that has a glacial pace, with the most recent amendment taking 202 years to come to fruition [2]. Even if we did have a perfectly working council that was constantly, it doesn't really address the fact that so much of society is influenced and controlled by non-governmental entities. Remember, it as an abhorrent idea for most employers to hire people who use recreational drugs besides alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. The horror stories of what might happen were paraded around for decades, right up until a global pandemic happened and suddenly the workforce vanished, and suddenly all those stoners destined to destroy society seemed to be acceptable candidates to drive trucks. Seems the stoners have been doing pretty alright with their new jobs and none of the doom and gloom came to be, and arguably it was good for society that a lot of these services kept working. But this wasn't legislated or governed societal advancement, this was that revenue lines wouldn't go up if businesses didn't change their minds. Corporations having "rights" is a very strange concept to me, as I'm not sure what responsibility they actually take on that contributes back to society; an exchange of services is not a responsibility, and demonstrably throughout history, businesses and corporations have fought for the _right to not be responsible towards certain persons_, and many times they won. Nevermind that corporations are awful at judging what is a needed responsibility as we saw during the pandemic (think of how many "essential workers" had to go to work during the early parts, holding advertising signs and wearing costumes for shops that no one could go to anyways) It's wrong in my opinion to think about this in terms of quantifying contributions and required responsibilities versus privileges, because when we see what actually happens and how society actually works, there is not even a passing correlation between the two, with extreme power imbalances and responsibilities and privileges that fall far outside the realm of government and society. [0] - https://xkcd.com/2347 https://xkcd.com/2347 [1] - I'm not interested in discussing Supreme Court decisions, so I'd rather people read this and just agree that the court makes contentious decisions, perhaps by design. [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Ratified_amendments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unit...
snapplebobapple 4y ago
I thought about this, it's not enough to limit voting to those that pay taxes because only a small percentage of people pay taxes in an amount anywhere near what they cost in taxes and taxes are not voluntary. You need to make the person voting have skin in the game and that means it need to be voluntary and it also needs to be enough that it will sting if things go badly. I think the best way to do that would be to make potential voters post a nontransferable nonredeemable bond for some number of years (say 10 years) amount of money with the government if they want to vote. I would suggest averaging the last five years of income tax and setting that number at the equivalent of 2 weeks of income with a floor at full time minimum wage so that guys that earn a lot have to put a lot at risk and guys that earn a little have to risk less. then for that whole period the bond is with the government the bond should be at risk if the government runs a deficit above some small wiggle room, say 1% of government revenue. When the next election comes you have to top up your bond.
foogazi 4y ago
> Yes, we need to make people more willing to enter adulthood. People age into adulthood on their own. I really don’t understand this attitude of enticing folks to grow up

galfarragem 4y ago

I believe the traditional incentive to enter adulthood used to be sex availability. Things clearly changed.

dymk 4y ago
You think teens didn’t have access to sex in every generation before ours?
- deleted 4y ago
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- galfarragem 4y ago
  Anecdotally (according older people I know) having a supply of regular sex was way more difficult before. More shaming, more religion, less welfare, etc, may explain it. At the time, marriage could solve that biological need. edit: 80+ year old's in conservative Europe
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rhino369 4y ago
  Before the 1960s, teenage sex lead to having a family—whether you wanted it or not—for the most part. So no, they generally didn’t have access to consequence free sex like we do.
- trentearl 4y ago
  Even now 27% of Americans aged 15 to 24 are virgins. I have to assume this number was higher for single people 50 years ago.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - wink 4y ago

clarkdale 4y ago

Another difference is between suburbian adult lives and high-desity city adult lives. Compare an adult life in NYC or Chicago (or many European cities) and those people have easier access to visit with friends, stay out after work, see exhibits, try new restaurants. Suburban adults go home and tend to stay home. Also having children changes things quite a bit for all adults. I wish this article was longer.

Yhippa 4y ago
> Also having children changes things quite a bit for all adults. > I wish this article was longer. Agree on both accounts. To the first point, I had a lot of friends and hobbies before having a kid and it feels that I'm slowly losing control of my time to the point where most of it is gone and I only have like 2 hours to myself. 4 if I want to be sleep deprived the next day.
- burntoutfire 4y ago
  Did you expect more free time? Judging by the parents I know, 2 hours of free time for yourself every day is not bad.
  - oweiler 4y ago
    The problem is not having two hours of spare time, it's that you feel so drained at the end of the day that you don't have the energy left to to anything meaningful.
    - TimPC 4y ago
      For a long time for me the problem wasn’t the amount of time for myself so much as that it wasn’t blockable time. 15 minutes 8 times a day is very different from one two-hour chunk.
      - Cerium 4y ago
        I used to wonder why many older people in the office would find a productive use of the 10 minutes between meetings while younger people would just grab a drink or get distracted. Now I'm a parent and I have learned that you can do something in 10 minutes.

beebeepka 4y ago

I don't know what I expected but this short text, not even an article or a rant, left me completely unsatisfied. Why bother writing, let alone promoting on HN, when you don't have anything to say. In my frustration, I opened the front page and it's even worse.

memcg 4y ago
Agreed. The entire site reminds me of the racks of magazines I browsed growing up. Lots of bait, but in the end just a bunch shallow articles and lots of ads. I often learn more reading HN comments than the article that is being discussed.
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dym_sh 4y ago

what for? congrats, you old enough to pay taxes! now your choice is to be willingly enslaved for half of your waking life or die from starvation that's freedom of choice fo'ya.

DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago

Making “adulthood more desirable” is more of the same coddling and extending childhood indefinitely. More prompting, enticing and encouragement isn’t going to help. At some point kids are going to have to make decisions on necessity, not desire. Based on hunger.

knorker 4y ago
You got downvoted, but you're hinting at a good point. Today we are told that any discomfort is unacceptable, and you are owed living a life without it. I think a lot of "adulting" is rejected because it comes with downsides. And more and more people seem to demanding no such downsides. They are owed cherry picking the gains, with no requirement for any of the work for it. E.g. take this comment, where this person is saying "someone else" owes them all financial compensation for a child, and on top of that they deserve a living wage salary to just be a parent: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31638715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31638715
- streamlining 4y ago
naet 4y ago
I think it's the opposite. We don't need more "coddling" or protection from decision making. We don't need less adulthood... what we would benefit from IMO is keeping more of the positives of youth into adulthood. Things like a shared social context, freedom of play, continued education, and encouragements of creativity.

gonehome 4y ago

There’s not much to this article beyond the headline and even that I basically disagree with. Adulthood grants you freedom and autonomy over your life. Childhood is highly variable and you often have very little control. I went to a decent public school in the US, a lot of the teachers I had were dumb if not cruel. It was like spending a lot of time doing busy work in a prison run by the least successful adults of the previous generation. Great teachers made a difference and were outliers, but were rare. I’ll take being an adult and having control over my life a thousand times over being a child that has to wait until they can be free.

burntoutfire 4y ago
The best thing about childhood to me was probably being worry-free. After you've done your homework or passed a test in school, there was absolutely nothing more to worry about your mind was 100% free to play and explore. Such state is practically inobtainable for people with complex office jobs such as software engineering, and even in mindless menial jobs you can be gnawed by existential doubts ("Am I wasting my life here?") which didn't torment us in childhood.
- mLuby 4y ago
  Working adult life feels worry-free compared to school. There was always more homework or studying to do after a full day in the classroom. One of the privileges of adult life is leaving work at the office. (I know not every adult does this but every adult has the option.)
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    Caveats: * If you can afford it * If you don't have to take care of dependents or parents * If your boss isn't an asshole and allows it * If you have the time remaining to actually do anything There's many kinds of work that are required of adults, and the consistent low key worry of ending up on the street or starving.
    - 4y ago

subjectsigma 4y ago

The problem with this is that reality is cruel. People who don't understand this are sacrificing long-term happiness for short-term happiness. My friend group from college is split nearly 50/50 of people who "made it" and people who didn't. One half has jobs, girlfriends, cars, etc. The other half lives with their parents working part time, smoking weed, and playing video games. The second half seems a lot happier than the first, to be honest. However if (God forbid) were they ever to get into an accident, or have some medical problem, or need to do major repairs on their houses, or finally find someone they want to settle down with - there's no money to pay for that. And then they'll probably not seem as happy. Recently I asked a few people if they would be interested in a summer vacation to Europe, and the most common response was "I wish I could go but I can't afford that." Not very fun. People use to walk a lot more and do a lot more menial labor. It probably wasn't very "desirable". Now I drive everywhere and 99% of what I buy is made with machines. That's a lot more fun... Until the global warming hits. There is no free lunch. This is not to say we can't try and improve things. But for the foreseeable future life won't always be rosy.

trentearl 4y ago
I’ve noticed this in my friend groups as well, but the tables are starting to flip as we enter our later 30s.

jstanley 4y ago

> For many, adulthood means trading a life entirely devoted to learning for one in which you only read (maybe) two books a year. It means swapping a full schedule of sports, clubs, and music lessons for having exactly zero hobbies (unless watching Netflix counts). I don't get it. You can still do those things as an adult. In fact, it's easier, because you don't need the cooperation of your teachers or parents. You can just do whatever you want. If you're an adult, and you haven't got any hobbies, and you want hobbies, just take up a hobby? I honestly don't get it.

TimPC 4y ago
I think the idea is the modern adult has an insane commute due to the unaffordability of housing, a full-time demanding job that often requires more than eight hours a day and child-raising responsibilities. Finding the time can be a challenge if you’re consuming 11 hours of your day on work+commute and try and invest another 3 hours a day minimum in family. That leaves two waking hours for eating and chores on a weekday. Many people use weekends to catch up on things they can’t get done during the week. It’s very possible for adulthood to be a grind that’s unlikely anything that came before it.

carapace 4y ago

On the broadest level this is pernicious nonsense. My vocabulary is failing me this morning. What's the word for when something (humans) is like a version of something else (other primates) that hasn't fully grown up? We are like chimpanzee babies that do not mature into chimps, instead we mature into these weird big-headed talking hive apes. Um, the point is that remaining young is a large part of how humans became human. What we need to do is create a more Sesame Street-style sane and healthy environment. What we call "adulthood" is the stress and trauma of dealing with physical constraints from which we protect children. Now that those physical constraints are largely gone (thanks to science and technology) the remaining constraints are mostly leftover logistical glitches. Ergo, life should get easier, the responsibilities less onerous, and people should remain young at heart.

Mordisquitos 4y ago
> What's the word for when something (humans) is like a version of something else (other primates) that hasn't fully grown up? I think that the word you're looking for is neoteny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny
- carapace 4y ago
  Thank you! My brain kept trotting out "neonate" and I'm all like "No brain! That's not it!" Coffee didn't help either. So close, so close... "You're a scholar and a gentleman."
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planarhobbit 4y ago

The way adulthood is defined here, as in not having hobbies or personal time, strikes me as strange. I disagree with it - but I’d like to hear what people think of as adulthood. I suppose I’m an outlier (aren’t we all) but most things I have to do, I like to do them. My job is an extension of an immensely satisfying and enriching hobby. If something breaks, it’s interesting to attempt to fix it. Having a choice AND not having one are both, to me, liberating in a sense. I’m a hands on person when I can be. The things I don’t like to do I often give them to family members or friends who do like to do them. Is there an air of petulance over needing to do things from time to time? Sure, but that’s normal. Perhaps it’s to do with facing death, or seeing close friends and family pass away, or relinquishing a part of your time and energy to your kids, or seeing people change for the worse over time. But if this is what adulthood is, then whoever thinks so has not even begun to question what life is all about. But this is a sliver of contemplation, it is not a be all end all to things.

TimPC 4y ago
I went through the dropping all my hobbies and was happy with that decision for about 6 months when I had a newborn and didn’t have time for anything else because of unpredictable sleep and returning to work after my paternity leave. There is room to do a great job raising your kids, remain involved in their lives, work a full time job and find a bit of personal time for hobbies. I’m doing that again now that my son is nine months and mostly sleeps through the night. Honestly, some hobbies only need 3 hours a week of time commitment and you should be able to find that in your life if you have the right people around you. It’s definitely different if you’re trying to raise a kid alone (I have so much sympathy for the difficulties of single parenthood now that I know how hard it can be with two people.)

amelius 4y ago

Older generations have been walking away for responsibilities, like caring for the climate. Why would the current youth want to become one of them? Also, youth is not launching into adulthood because they simply can't have certain privileges that older generations have, like owning a decent house. Why become something if you only get downsides?

0xb0565e486 4y ago
What do you mean? Where are you from? It’s totally possible for “the youth” to own a house from my perspective.
- encrux 4y ago
  Possible, sure. In reality it's unlikely though. Unless you still believe in the american dream, I'm pretty sure we can agree that the increase in housing prices makes it exceedingly difficult for young people to buy a house without a significant inheritance.

FooBarBizBazz 4y ago

"Children have leisure, adults don't. School is entertaining, work isn't." I suppose I agree. The one thing adulthood brings is money. That's really the big thing. But its best use is to be saved so you don't have to continue the "adulting" thing, so it's all a bit circular.

yhavr 4y ago

Obviously. What's the beauty of being an office... ahm, worker wasting your life to repay loans/mortgages and raise the next generation of office workers? It'd be great to research and promote alternative adult lifestyles, where you don't need rich parents or be super lucky, but that may require some hard work and dedication to build. For example, the prospect of becoming a digital nomad could be definitely more interesting for teens than turning into a typical hardworking suit.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago
You can choose not to have kids- unless Christianity wins in America and turns the country into the republic of Gilead.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  > You can choose not to have kids https://childfreefriendlydoctors.com/ https://childfreefriendlydoctors.com/ is a resource for those folks.
herbst 4y ago
I did nomad after I had a burnout after I landed what I thought is my dream job. The one thing I learned most is that these people value their time. And with a relaxed mind and plenty of time come great ideas. Obviously most had luck or at least some business experience before they went nomad, but everyone had those small or big ideas and time to make them reality, and for a lot it just worked. If you start looking closely you'll find them anywhere, people who by luck and dedicated work found _their_ way to survive in this society.
_fat_santa 4y ago
> Obviously. What's the beauty of being an office... ahm, worker wasting your life to repay loans/mortgages and raise the next generation of office workers? So many people knock the 9-5 office worker and honestly, I think it's a really sweet gig. I used to work warehouse jobs, and when you went to work, you worked. I contrast with my life now where i wake up, make coffee, flip on the computer, code and take some calls for a few hours a day, it's great!

barrysteve 4y ago

The point of adulthood is to live a virtuous life, in the old sense of the word virtuous, not this modern chaotic thing where people equate a snippet of a political stance with the most desirable aim for men. Dressing up 'privileges' is just a 50c excuse for people in hierarchical positions to go to do whatever they please in the attempt to 'advertise' the value of adulthood. It's going to be summertime for the promoted. This will go poorly and the spill-over from misbehaved 'adults' will make adult-looking responsibilities less relatable. As we've already seen with Boris Johnson's covid parties and whatever else. That pattern of public discontent with loose behavior among the upper crust will continue to cascade down the hierarchy until we're all upset with project managers wasting time and killing relationships. The system falls apart and we leave it's "adulthood privileges" in the trash. The article is short and is written like a statement of intent, not an honest attempt forwarding an idea or promoting conversation.

TimTheTinker 4y ago

> Unless we do something worthwhile — fun, interesting, desirable — with those privileges, young people won’t want to apply to the society of grown-ups, and adults won’t be able to wholeheartedly encourage them to join its ranks. This is the crux of TA. It's encouraging us (adults) to live in such a way that makes adulthood look worth pursuing. It really can be tempting to waste adult years on things that won't matter next month. I know I'm guilty of foofing away a lot of my adult life on inane web surfing, for example--if only because I wasn't thoughtful and determined about focusing my relaxing time towards better goals. Just a little self denial (sleep or read a book instead) would have yielded exponentially better results.

okeuro49 4y ago

The biggest cultural phenomenon I have seen recently that revolves around encouraging young men to adopt responsibility has been Jordan Peterson. It was bizarre to see the popular media make him out to be somehow a "alt right misogynist fascist". I found he has well articulated and interesting points of view, and there were a lot of women who appreciated his message to young men, as they'd be dating this cohort of men. I think a lot can be taken with a pinch of salt, but to see the reaction against rather mild conservative viewpoint showed I think a problem.

hotpotamus 4y ago
The same Jordan Peterson who took responsibility for his benzodiazepine addiction by nearly killing himself with a gimmicky treatment rather than toughing out detox? Perhaps that's an ad hominem, but I have a hard time taking him seriously, though I truly wish him well with his psychological/addiction/medical issues. That said, what reward does Peterson say these men should get for their adoption of responsibility? Does it entitle them to any rewards?
- trentearl 4y ago
  He would say the reward is a meaningful life.
  - 202206241203 4y ago
    With the traditional family gone, that is probably the only thing left. Luckily, meaning can be found in different ways.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Is that to say you provide very measurable toil for intangible benefit?
    - trentearl 4y ago
      I'm not a big fan of his so I'm not sure, I just remember him saying responsibility is a prerequisite to a meaningful life.

swayvil 4y ago

But children are the most controllable demographic. Surely it behooves us (as rulers and marketers) to encourage permanent childhood.

k__ 4y ago

Was this written by someone who peaked in high school?

UIUC_06 4y ago

For me, my life began the morning after I graduated high school. The only people from before that I'm NOT in touch with but want to be are unfindable on Google because their names are too common. I know I probably could locate them with a little more time & money, but really, who cares? What adulthood always promised, and delivered, was choice. I wouldn't have to be in situations and around people that I didn't want to be and around. Mostly. I can't say about having kids, not having any. If you hate it, you're probably doing it wrong, or maybe the rewards are deeper and more spread out, and when you really think about it, you think "it was worth it."

freedom2099 4y ago

Adulthood for me was a blessing! Finally I got time (I do have much more free time since I started working than when I was studying), money (god bless software engineers salaries) and no stress whatsoever (I was very stressed in high school and university… now work comes so easy that it’s a breeze ). Why would someone not become an adult???

the_only_law 4y ago
Was mixed for me. I spent my whole youth holding out for that autonomy and making sure as soon as I was legally an adult I was culturally an adult. Missed out on a lot for it, but I was desperate, living with people whom I could never get along with. And then, after hats I got what I wanted, and it was great, but over time I realized that was it, this was I had been planning for and now that I got it that's it. Now I've just kinda stagnanted, I ended up well economically, but every other part of my life has faced severe regression, including physical and social health. I have the time, and the resources now, but not the environment.
- freedom2099 4y ago
  I am sorry to hear that! I was lucky enough to have loving parents with whom I get along very well, I met the love of my life when I was 18 and we have been together ever since (I’m 37yo) and have plenty of friends with whom I spend a lot of quality time!
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    I actually get along with them these days, looking at other relationships they've had change over the years however, it seems that distance should be maintained to maintain a good relationship.

999900000999 4y ago

Not that the article gives us much, but by and large the people who fail to launch into adulthood are people with extremely comfortable childhoods. I'll give you an example, I have a friend of mine whose parents take good care of him. They all have a great relationship, so it's fine for him to live with them well into his thirties. I've also met the reverse, someone who has a horrible relationship with their parents but still live with them well into their twenties, even after the parents repeatedly try to kick them out. After a ton of thought, and a bit of emotional maturing on my part, I stopped feeling sorry for these people. If your parents no longer have the capacity to care for you, figure something else out. You don't have a right to sit up and demand someone take care of you. This is my biggest red flag with dating, if you feel that level of entitlement to your parents, you'll feel it towards everyone else. My childhood was a living hell of evictions and other chaos, the best day of my life was when I got my first apartment. I couldn't wait for adulthood because instead of waiting for these grown ups to the side to pay a cable bill before rent, I could make those choices. I think everyone should strive to move out in their early twenties, and I won't really go out with someone who doesn't have their own apartment and a job. Luckily since I left LA, I've had no trouble meeting fantastical folks with great careers. Most dating/ socializing advice is absolutely useless since it won't mention how important location is.

maneesh 4y ago
What location did you find, if you don't mind saying?
- 999900000999 4y ago
  No problem, I moved to Chicago instantly cut my cost of living by about 50%. Met the first girl I've ever gone out with for any significant amount of time, and I no longer had to drive. But you have to be the one who makes this choice. I had to stop using social media since I'd have jerks tell me I was the problem. No no I'm just not compatible with LA. Even LA used to be a much better place to live, in my early twenties. It was still affordable and people are nicer. You can still find a two bedroom in Chicago for $1,500, within walking distance from a metro line. Good luck finding a two bedroom under $3000 within distance of a Metro line in LA, and finding a job within walking distance of another Metro stop.

giantg2 4y ago

"Adulthood means taking on more responsibilities, and in turn, receiving more privileges." What privileges? There doesn't seem to be a whole lot that changes when you hit 18.

motohagiography 4y ago

The article says, "Adulthood means taking on more responsibilities, and in turn, receiving more privileges" and this begs the question in regard to, from whom? The notion of "adult," has an intrinsic inferiority in the sense it's from the perspective of what children and dependents believe about men and woman relative to themselves. It's an important distinction, because if you see adults as others and can't admit to yourself that you are a man or a woman, it's likely because on some level you still identify as a dependent - if not in a specific relationship, then to society at large. (Arguably, some even moralize it where to be an adult is to submit to being a dependent of society.) Acting as an adult is something one does for the reflected approval of others, and it is relative to the perspective and aspirations of children. Discomfort from talking about men and women directly is indicative of how disconnected we are from our true and natural identities. (If you believe nothing is true or natural and take Derrida's view that everything is an artifact of language, I'd ask if you've thought about what made choosing that belief so appealing.) Adulthood itself is a concept that is the actualization of personhood - an abstraction that includes corporations, higher primates, zygotes, and imminently some lines code. Imo, adulthood is unappealing because it has become poor substitute for concepts of manhood and womanhood. By including these non-human entities, personhood itself is a diminished and low bar. The common insult I see in public discourse is that a man is a baby or a child, and the person wielding it truly believes these words are powerful. The insult is lobbed as though the implicitly maternal lens of criticism and shaming someone as a baby has meaning to actualized men and women. Actualized men and women by definition have developed an internal locus of control, and a level of self acceptance and awareness where criticism from a rando saying they are being a bad dependent doesn't even register. When you pull it apart, what adulthood means to most people is the ability to internalize supervision and the values of a broadly social supervisor. What's worse is that this kind of transactional adulthood yields some truly psychotic moral licensing in the form of, "I've taken all the humiliations and done what was expected of me, and now it's my turn." And you can still be a good person when you act on this belief, because compared to a corporation or a primate, you're still doing pretty well. In this sense, "we" don't need to do anything about adulthood. "You" and "I" need to take responsibility for ourselves first, and then for children and other dependents, then by becoming good men and women we become our brother's and sister's keepers. This is all to say, the framing of adulthood is part of the problem. When someone occasionally admonishes me to be "an adult," I typically respond, "thanks, I'm a man," and the people who get it, get it, and the ones who don't, I just don't remember.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Young people are opting out because they’ve seen what the deal looks like and say “nah, I can do better” by doing less, or nothing at all (China’s “lie flat/tang ping” movement and similar elsewhere). You can’t make unnecessary/unenjoyable responsibility desirable to people who see through it.

peppermint_tea 4y ago

I have no idea what the author is talking about. Life is what your make it. I just turn 40 and my life looks nothing like the description of adulthood the author does. It is all about choices, if you decide to have a house, 2 cars and 2 kids, yes... it may look like that.

throwaway0x0A45 4y ago

Not sure I can relate to this message. I've been working full time since 14, paying for bills and food. Mom didn't want to be a "mom", and dad fucked off when I was 5. They should have considered abortion, but they are protestants. Childhood has no autonomy where adulthood gave me more freedom, I will never go back.

2-718-281-828 4y ago

I did read the text and I have to say it doesn't say anything ... there's no substance in it whatsoever. TL/DR: make X more fun so people want X (X being adulthood) Also - is the entire premise even true? Do people not want to become grown ups? Actually I think this is inevitable. Maybe the author comes from a proviliged pampered background but anybody else will have to pay the bills which makes you responsible for that and is pretty serious and tends to make people also mentally pretty serious. So, I don't know what that guy even intends to communicate. To me it looks like the author is trying to push his Art Of Maniless brand and last week he didn't know what to write about. Then he coughed up this half cooked piece of tofu ...

foogazi 4y ago

> Unless we do something worthwhile — fun, interesting, desirable — with those privileges, young people won’t want to apply to the society of grown-ups, I don’t get why we have to make a life of adult freedom desirable to anyone else You don’t have to apply, your time will just come up

snapplebobapple 4y ago

Possibly an unpopular opinion but we have spent the post WWII period making prolonged adolescence more desirable, what exactly did we think was going to happen? We built a welfare state that removes most of the penalty of not having children, removed all the stigma of out of wedlock sex, most of the stigma of drug use and abandoned religion. We let identity marxism sneak into the spot previously occupied by religion, replacing the goal of becoming an adult with mass confusion from an unintelligent, wrong headed ideology. I don't see any example in history where the carrot of more desirable adulthood beat out the equivalent of being a tinder f#ck boi across a whole society where there was no stigma of that behavior. This leads me to believe the stick works far better than the carrot