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pwno comments on Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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The government picks arbitrary ages for when an individual has the mental capacity to make certain decisions, like drinking alcohol or having sex. But not everyone mentally matures at the same rate. It'd be nice to have an institution that allows minors with good backgrounds and who pass certain intelligence/rationality tests to be exempt from these laws.
I think drinking is also about the idea that it might cause problems to people who aren't fully grown. I don't know if that's true, but I don't think that matters politically.
This has been proven true in rats.
Not arbitrary! Those are not small effect sizes. To determine that someone's neurological development is such that they are not at the same level of risk for alcohol dependence as the general population, requires a test that doesn't exist. Moreover there is no need for such a test to exist because simple rules work better than complex rules. The drinking age law is simple and effective.
That rather depends on your definition of "better".
An even simpler rule is two words: "No alcohol" -- for everyone. As I recall, the US Prohibition wasn't such a great success, though.
The U.S. prohibition was very successful at its goals (whether those goals were correct depends on your values). The minimum drinking age is also quite effective at its goals.
US prohibition was very successful at its goal of reducing alchohol consumption, and you are right that this is insufficiently appreciated. But it also resulted in massive organised crime. Your linked article is extremely unpersuasive on this point.
Ha! And lest anyone thinks I'm being unfair, that is literally its only discussion of the massive increase in organized crime caused by Prohibition. In an article that repeatedly discusses the possibility of people being socialised into different modes of behaviour, too!
Now, "don't cause a massive increase in organised crime" wasn't exactly a goal of the WCTU et al when they were campaigning for Prohibition. It was simply not on their radar, so you're kinda right that Prohibition succeeded in its goals. But looking at the implicit goals more broadly, Prohibition was a disaster, despite its success at its ostensible primary goal, in exactly the way that Lumifer's "blinking ad" example demonstrates.
Heh. Was it successful, full stop? Do we want more of it? Was repealing Prohibition a mistake?
If I want my computer to not show me the blinking ad, I can smash my computer to bits. Was I successful at my goal? Yes, I was X-/
I'm sorry, I find it very draining to respond to snarky, content light comments. I've provided substantial data to back my specific claims and I'm not going to get dragged into a meaningless debate.
Who would you trust to design the tests and the criteria for good backgrounds?
This is called emancipation of minors.