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On December 22 2019 01:47 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 01:29 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On December 21 2019 23:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 21 2019 23:15 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
What age range is the youth group for you? The large umbrella would be under 50, but climate, guns, and working poverty has been driving growing movements across the country in the under 35 demo, and most unusually, people 17-23 (and younger, but they're just fucked). That said only Sanders brings them out, no one else. I say anyone other than Sanders is a sure loss and even Sanders doesn't guarantee victory, just that if he win's it isn't entirely Pyrrhic. On December 21 2019 23:57 Lord Tolkien wrote:On December 21 2019 21:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
Am I the only person that didn't know Trump raised the smoking (or more importantly) vaping age to 21?
Both parties really want to energize the youth vote to kick their asses out don't they? I see no reason why this ought to be an issue. The legal age of e-cigs should correspond. With cigarettes, and maybe it'll stop the marketing tailored to kids. But that's me being a hopeless optimist. It won't change much. Kids love their vapin and hate old people telling them what to do though. Then there's the whole we'll give em a rocket launcher and send them half way around the world to get their limbs blown off and then deny them the ability to smoke a cigarette because they aren't responsible enough to make that decision for themselves. Under 50 is exceptionally optimistic to be called youth. A case of GH operating under terms that is separate from commonly defined terms. I'm sure there are many people happy to be counted as youth at the age of 49. Whatever you choose to call youth, is a lesser population, so it's no suprise if they aren't a targetted group. In any case, smoking and vaping and their products needs to be regulated more. On a scale of 0-10 of terrible things Trump may or may not have done, this rates as 0. + Show Spoiler +I wouldn't use the term youth to specifically identify them but "younger voters" as opposed to the over 50 crowd which describe "older voters", which is notoriously more reliable to vote. 35-45 is typically where the cutoff is somewhat arbitrarily placed depending on who is talking about it.
Youth is typically the current/newest voting generation but with Z coming of age this election it puts millennials in a grey area for a bit.
As someone who regularly points out the horrific stuff Trump and the US government in general does, obviously I didn't think this was some egregiously terrible action lol? The point was it's the kinda thing that pisses off people 17-20. That they can sign-up to die for the military industrial complex specifically to avoid crushing poverty, but people insist they don't have the capacity to make a choice about smoking a cigarette and must be protected by law from even seeing them promoted. Surely banning the advertisement to and recruiting of 17-20 year olds should be banned for the military too? If they can't smoke a cigarette on their break at their shitty wage-slave job, the military shouldn't be able to try to bait them into killing brown people half way around the planet so they can ( maybe) have a ( probably hazardous) place to live when they get back.
This same argument applies to drinking, renting a car, and many other activities that 18-year-olds can't do while they can die in the military at that age.
They bitch about all of it but ultimately do nothing about it.
Source: I serve with these people. They are still too apathetic to get out and vote.
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On December 22 2019 03:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 01:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 22 2019 01:29 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On December 21 2019 23:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 21 2019 23:15 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
What age range is the youth group for you? The large umbrella would be under 50, but climate, guns, and working poverty has been driving growing movements across the country in the under 35 demo, and most unusually, people 17-23 (and younger, but they're just fucked). That said only Sanders brings them out, no one else. I say anyone other than Sanders is a sure loss and even Sanders doesn't guarantee victory, just that if he win's it isn't entirely Pyrrhic. On December 21 2019 23:57 Lord Tolkien wrote:On December 21 2019 21:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
Am I the only person that didn't know Trump raised the smoking (or more importantly) vaping age to 21?
Both parties really want to energize the youth vote to kick their asses out don't they? I see no reason why this ought to be an issue. The legal age of e-cigs should correspond. With cigarettes, and maybe it'll stop the marketing tailored to kids. But that's me being a hopeless optimist. It won't change much. Kids love their vapin and hate old people telling them what to do though. Then there's the whole we'll give em a rocket launcher and send them half way around the world to get their limbs blown off and then deny them the ability to smoke a cigarette because they aren't responsible enough to make that decision for themselves. Under 50 is exceptionally optimistic to be called youth. A case of GH operating under terms that is separate from commonly defined terms. I'm sure there are many people happy to be counted as youth at the age of 49. Whatever you choose to call youth, is a lesser population, so it's no suprise if they aren't a targetted group. In any case, smoking and vaping and their products needs to be regulated more. On a scale of 0-10 of terrible things Trump may or may not have done, this rates as 0. + Show Spoiler +I wouldn't use the term youth to specifically identify them but "younger voters" as opposed to the over 50 crowd which describe "older voters", which is notoriously more reliable to vote. 35-45 is typically where the cutoff is somewhat arbitrarily placed depending on who is talking about it.
Youth is typically the current/newest voting generation but with Z coming of age this election it puts millennials in a grey area for a bit.
As someone who regularly points out the horrific stuff Trump and the US government in general does, obviously I didn't think this was some egregiously terrible action lol? The point was it's the kinda thing that pisses off people 17-20. That they can sign-up to die for the military industrial complex specifically to avoid crushing poverty, but people insist they don't have the capacity to make a choice about smoking a cigarette and must be protected by law from even seeing them promoted. Surely banning the advertisement to and recruiting of 17-20 year olds should be banned for the military too? If they can't smoke a cigarette on their break at their shitty wage-slave job, the military shouldn't be able to try to bait them into killing brown people half way around the planet so they can ( maybe) have a ( probably hazardous) place to live when they get back. This same argument applies to drinking, renting a car, and many other activities that 18-year-olds can't do while they can die in the military at that age. They bitch about all of it but ultimately do nothing about it. Source: I serve with these people. They are still too apathetic to get out and vote.
Those have all been that way their whole lives so they've been baked in. This is something actually taken away from 18-20 y.o's I'll actually be interested to hear what you hear among them and officers expected to discipline them regarding it.
They're a little pot committed at the point you see them in service tbf though.
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On December 21 2019 23:58 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2019 23:57 Lord Tolkien wrote:On December 21 2019 21:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
Am I the only person that didn't know Trump raised the smoking (or more importantly) vaping age to 21?
Both parties really want to energize the youth vote to kick their asses out don't they? I see no reason why this ought to be an issue. The legal age of e-cigs should correspond. With cigarettes, and maybe it'll stop the marketing tailored to kids. But that's me being a hopeless optimist. It won't change much. Kids love their vapin and hate old people telling them what to do though. Then there's the whole we'll give em a rocket launcher and send them half way around the world to get their limbs blown off and then deny them the ability to smoke a cigarette because they aren't responsible enough to make that decision for themselves.
Again, it's not like it actually changes much. Are you telling me that teenagers are actually going to stop vaping? They were vaping in high school bathrooms when the legal age was 18, they'll do so when it's 21.
It does raise some awareness about the health risks, but it's basically a nothingburger.
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On December 22 2019 03:59 Lord Tolkien wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2019 23:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 21 2019 23:57 Lord Tolkien wrote:On December 21 2019 21:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
Am I the only person that didn't know Trump raised the smoking (or more importantly) vaping age to 21?
Both parties really want to energize the youth vote to kick their asses out don't they? I see no reason why this ought to be an issue. The legal age of e-cigs should correspond. With cigarettes, and maybe it'll stop the marketing tailored to kids. But that's me being a hopeless optimist. It won't change much. Kids love their vapin and hate old people telling them what to do though. Then there's the whole we'll give em a rocket launcher and send them half way around the world to get their limbs blown off and then deny them the ability to smoke a cigarette because they aren't responsible enough to make that decision for themselves. Again, it's not like it actually changes much. Are you telling me that teenagers are actually going to stop vaping? They were vaping in high school bathrooms when the legal age was 18, they'll do so when it's 21. It does raise some awareness about the health risks, but it's basically a nothingburger.
It's less about the practical enforcement (for white kids anyway) and more about the ability to crystallize a larger issue of their rights and future being mortgaged without their consent under a thin guise of wise and helpful guidance and a thick layer of blatant hypocrisy. Particularly, combined with the urgency/immediacy with which they can be taken away without much attention or care.
It's easy to say kids or adults shouldn't smoke (or the story doesn't matter), I'm more curious whether anyone that thinks it's nothing major thinks we should also ban advertising and recruiting to the military for those same people?
That people chose not to engage that question thus far is interesting to me.
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There is an easy parallel in recent history when the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21. Most states lowered the drinking age to 18 when the voting age was lowered to 18. Then the federal government strong armed the states in raising it back up to 21. Today the drinking age is still 21 and young people don't vote, but surely vaping will be the hill to die on.
On December 22 2019 03:35 GreenHorizons wrote:
officers expected to discipline them regarding it.
What makes you think officers are expected to discipline them or will bother? When I was 19 our leadership didn't care if we drank and were active participants in allowing us to drink safely.
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On December 22 2019 04:41 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:There is an easy parallel in recent history when the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21. Most states lowered the drinking age to 18 when the voting age was lowered to 18. Then the federal government strong armed the states in raising it back up to 21. Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 03:35 GreenHorizons wrote:
officers expected to discipline them regarding it.
What makes you think officers are expected to discipline them or will bother? When I was 19 our leadership didn't care if we drank and were active participants in allowing us to drink safely.
I think that might actually be legal? Particularly under their supervision.
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Drinking age 21 is so ridiculous.
But mainly because you still let people under 21 vote, sign up for the army, handle jobs. Well... Being an adult.
I really don't get how such a ludicrous and random exception from being an adult ever got passed by any lawmaker.
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On December 22 2019 04:59 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 04:41 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:There is an easy parallel in recent history when the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21. Most states lowered the drinking age to 18 when the voting age was lowered to 18. Then the federal government strong armed the states in raising it back up to 21. On December 22 2019 03:35 GreenHorizons wrote:
officers expected to discipline them regarding it.
What makes you think officers are expected to discipline them or will bother? When I was 19 our leadership didn't care if we drank and were active participants in allowing us to drink safely. I think that might actually be legal? Particularly under their supervision.
Most states it is with the legal purchasing age being 21 (no laws regarding consumptions in most states). North Carolina is possession though so illegal.
NC Statute 20-138.3, a minor (under 21 years of age) cannot legally consume, purchase, or possess alcohol in North Carolina.
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On December 22 2019 05:00 Velr wrote:
Drinking age 21 is so ridiculous.
But mainly because you still let people under 21 vote, sign up for the army, handle jobs. Well... Being an adult.
I really don't get how such a ludicrous and random exception from being an adult ever got passed by any lawmaker.
I kind of have the opinion that literally everything, from driving a car, to smoking, to voting should only be allowed at 25.
This is because that's the age when the brain is more or less fully formed. Doing anything before that is unethical.
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On December 22 2019 05:04 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 04:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 22 2019 04:41 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:There is an easy parallel in recent history when the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21. Most states lowered the drinking age to 18 when the voting age was lowered to 18. Then the federal government strong armed the states in raising it back up to 21. On December 22 2019 03:35 GreenHorizons wrote:
officers expected to discipline them regarding it.
What makes you think officers are expected to discipline them or will bother? When I was 19 our leadership didn't care if we drank and were active participants in allowing us to drink safely. I think that might actually be legal? Particularly under their supervision. Most states it is with the legal purchasing age being 21 (no laws regarding consumptions in most states). North Carolina is possession though so illegal. Show nested quote +NC Statute 20-138.3, a minor (under 21 years of age) cannot legally consume, purchase, or possess alcohol in North Carolina.
Guess the military's criminality is pervasive from the mundane to the horrific war crimey type. I was generally referring to how in some states minors can be given alcohol under supervision though just to be clear.
On December 22 2019 06:19 Uldridge wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 05:00 Velr wrote:
Drinking age 21 is so ridiculous.
But mainly because you still let people under 21 vote, sign up for the army, handle jobs. Well... Being an adult.
I really don't get how such a ludicrous and random exception from being an adult ever got passed by any lawmaker. I kind of have the opinion that literally everything, from driving a car, to smoking, to voting should only be allowed at 25. This is because that's the age when the brain is more or less fully formed. Doing anything before that is unethical.
You're including enrolling in military service too right? EDIT: How about you Mohdoo?
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On December 22 2019 06:19 Uldridge wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 05:00 Velr wrote:
Drinking age 21 is so ridiculous.
But mainly because you still let people under 21 vote, sign up for the army, handle jobs. Well... Being an adult.
I really don't get how such a ludicrous and random exception from being an adult ever got passed by any lawmaker. I kind of have the opinion that literally everything, from driving a car, to smoking, to voting should only be allowed at 25. This is because that's the age when the brain is more or less fully formed. Doing anything before that is unethical.
Agreed. There are medical reasons for late drinking and smoking ages. Those are more important than our customs that we formed before we knew what we do now.
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It's ridiculous to pick a single variable that influences a person's cognition and votewall them based on it, while ignoring the thousands of other things that have at least as large an effect but are somehow fine.
If you want to have a competence test for voting then sure, push for a minimum IQ, I'm sure nobody here will complain. But try telling Greta and friends that their brains aren't fully formed so they can't vote while Homer, Cletus and Barney file past behind you. This is why we have universal suffrage: because it's incredibly dangerous to start deciding who is and isn't a worthy voter.
Yes, it's useful to have an arbitrary line for adulthood, but if anything it should be going lower to minimise those biases and push back against entrenched disadvantage, not higher.
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On December 22 2019 06:43 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 06:19 Uldridge wrote:On December 22 2019 05:00 Velr wrote:
Drinking age 21 is so ridiculous.
But mainly because you still let people under 21 vote, sign up for the army, handle jobs. Well... Being an adult.
I really don't get how such a ludicrous and random exception from being an adult ever got passed by any lawmaker. I kind of have the opinion that literally everything, from driving a car, to smoking, to voting should only be allowed at 25. This is because that's the age when the brain is more or less fully formed. Doing anything before that is unethical. Agreed. There are medical reasons for late drinking and smoking ages. Those are more important than our customs that we formed before we knew what we do now.
If medical reasons were important, drinking and smoking should be forbidden all together. With drivers, old people are also an often overlooked safety risk, so forbidding driving at 70+ should be more effective than setting the limit at 25+.
With sex, smoking and alcohol, laws can't be too detached from how people live their lives. Criminalizing a huge part of the population will damage respect from authorities. You can never control everything about the lives of the citizens, so you are much better off making laws people will follow volenteerly.
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Also yes, we literally just had a whole discussion about whether to legalise freaking heroin, but now we're going to criminalise vaping for under 25s? Come on.
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On December 22 2019 04:19 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 03:59 Lord Tolkien wrote:On December 21 2019 23:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 21 2019 23:57 Lord Tolkien wrote:On December 21 2019 21:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
Am I the only person that didn't know Trump raised the smoking (or more importantly) vaping age to 21?
Both parties really want to energize the youth vote to kick their asses out don't they? I see no reason why this ought to be an issue. The legal age of e-cigs should correspond. With cigarettes, and maybe it'll stop the marketing tailored to kids. But that's me being a hopeless optimist. It won't change much. Kids love their vapin and hate old people telling them what to do though. Then there's the whole we'll give em a rocket launcher and send them half way around the world to get their limbs blown off and then deny them the ability to smoke a cigarette because they aren't responsible enough to make that decision for themselves. Again, it's not like it actually changes much. Are you telling me that teenagers are actually going to stop vaping? They were vaping in high school bathrooms when the legal age was 18, they'll do so when it's 21. It does raise some awareness about the health risks, but it's basically a nothingburger. It's less about the practical enforcement (for white kids anyway) and more about the ability to crystallize a larger issue of their rights and future being mortgaged without their consent under a thin guise of wise and helpful guidance and a thick layer of blatant hypocrisy. Particularly, combined with the urgency/immediacy with which they can be taken away without much attention or care. It's easy to say kids or adults shouldn't smoke (or the story doesn't matter), I'm more curious whether anyone that thinks it's nothing major thinks we should also ban advertising and recruiting to the military for those same people? That people chose not to engage that question thus far is interesting to me.
I'm not saying that there are not issues with raising the legal age, depending on how enforcement practices pan out, but to frame it as an issue of youth rights is somewhat disingenuous. There are worse things that are happening that affect youth's "rights and future" much more urgently, climate change the most obvious one. I'm personally not yet convinced that consistent use of nicotine won't have long-lasting effects on a person's body, but the science isn't there yet given how novel the e-cig industry is.
On the military age, it's a tangent that's more complicated than you make it out to be, and it thus detracted from the issue you're raising, namely vaping age. If we want to discuss that fully, however:
1) Primary education ends at 18, and the general cultural expectation in the West (or specifically the US) is that you either go to college or you start working a job at 18. It's how economy now works.
2) Medically, we can now say that the frontal lobe (that regulates empathy, self-reflection, judgement, etc.) is fully developed by around 25. There's strong evidence that addiction formed during early/late adolescence has long-lasting effects on a person physiologically.
With the military, it's a career track/profession; for low-income communities, the military is often one of the best options for upwards mobility in this country (given how poor social mobility is in the US in particular), so moving it up to age 21 or 25 basically means people are denied a career track and opportunities between 18-25. On the other hand, cigarette/alcohol/drug use would generally fall under medical direction for what should or shouldn't be done (or morality laws in general).
That's not to say that you're wrong; early military recruitment still problematic, because the military is still hierarchical: the difference in opportunities between enlisted and officers (or MOS) are still present in terms of advancement, and also there's the issue of how we reintegrate veterans back into civilian life (which is often still poorly). Etc. But that's generally why we don't talk about raising the recruitment age.
With technological development and the current trajectory of military technology, however, warfare may shift away from a need for young, "unskilled" soldiers to ones seeking "older", higher skill recruits anyways. Managing a drone swarm or plotting ballistic missile defense is increasingly a higher demand skill. Alternately, this could mean that it becomes more of a career, with the military looking for longer contracts in order to maintain such expertise, which does include a greater demand for ROTC and thus university training for the military, etc. Basically, it can start to self-select for "older" recruits.
Outside of current operations in Afghanistan which require "boots on the ground", most of the fighting we'd actually do in a hot war in the future will probably require less grunt work, or the need to "hold a rocket launcher" as it were. Our geostrategic competitors in a hypothetical war would be China and Russia, and such a conflict will largely be carried out in cyberspace, aerospace, and on the seas. Other areas of concern would be North Korea (in the event of regime instability/collapse), and Iran (much lower probability).
On December 22 2019 07:44 Belisarius wrote:
Also yes, we literally just had a whole discussion about whether to legalise freaking heroin, but now we're going to criminalise vaping for under 25s? Come on.
Heroin should remain a controlled substance, but nothing; as should all (highly addictive) substances. Honestly, I think nicotine should fall under that category, but hey.
How we address drug addiction does need to change, however, and that's where the issue in US drug policy lies: criminalization instead of medical rehabilitation. There are some signs of change in that area, but it's not happening fast enough, and drug policy in the US is tied with the wider issues with the folding of welfare and the social safety net into the incarceration system.
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On December 22 2019 07:52 Lord Tolkien wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 04:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 22 2019 03:59 Lord Tolkien wrote:On December 21 2019 23:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 21 2019 23:57 Lord Tolkien wrote:On December 21 2019 21:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
Am I the only person that didn't know Trump raised the smoking (or more importantly) vaping age to 21?
Both parties really want to energize the youth vote to kick their asses out don't they? I see no reason why this ought to be an issue. The legal age of e-cigs should correspond. With cigarettes, and maybe it'll stop the marketing tailored to kids. But that's me being a hopeless optimist. It won't change much. Kids love their vapin and hate old people telling them what to do though. Then there's the whole we'll give em a rocket launcher and send them half way around the world to get their limbs blown off and then deny them the ability to smoke a cigarette because they aren't responsible enough to make that decision for themselves. Again, it's not like it actually changes much. Are you telling me that teenagers are actually going to stop vaping? They were vaping in high school bathrooms when the legal age was 18, they'll do so when it's 21. It does raise some awareness about the health risks, but it's basically a nothingburger. It's less about the practical enforcement (for white kids anyway) and more about the ability to crystallize a larger issue of their rights and future being mortgaged without their consent under a thin guise of wise and helpful guidance and a thick layer of blatant hypocrisy. Particularly, combined with the urgency/immediacy with which they can be taken away without much attention or care. It's easy to say kids or adults shouldn't smoke (or the story doesn't matter), I'm more curious whether anyone that thinks it's nothing major thinks we should also ban advertising and recruiting to the military for those same people? That people chose not to engage that question thus far is interesting to me. I'm not saying that there are not issues with raising the legal age, depending on how enforcement practices pan out, but to frame it as an issue of youth rights is somewhat disingenuous. There are worse things that are happening that affect youth's "rights and future" much more urgently, climate change the most obvious one. With vaping, there . I'm personally not yet convinced that consistent use of nicotine won't have long-lasting effects on a person's body, but the science isn't there yet given how novel the e-cig industry is. On the military age, it's a tangent that's more complicated than you make it out to be, and it thus detracted from the issue you're raising, namely vaping age. If we want to discuss that fully, however: 1) Primary education ends at 18, and the general cultural expectation in the West (or specifically the US) is that you either go to college or you start working a job at 18. It's how economy now works. 2) Medically, we can now say that the frontal lobe (that regulates empathy, self-reflection, judgement, etc.) is fully developed by around 25. There's strong evidence that addiction formed during early/late adolescence has long-lasting effects on a person physiologically. With the military, it's a career track/profession; for low-income communities, the military is often one of the best options for upwards mobility in this country (given how poor social mobility is in the US in particular), so moving it up to age 21 or 25 basically means people are denied a career track and opportunities between 18-25. On the other hand, cigarette/alcohol/drug use would generally fall under medical direction for what should or shouldn't be done (or morality laws in general). That's not to say that you're wrong; early military recruitment still problematic, because the military is still hierarchical: the difference in opportunities between enlisted and officers (or MOS) are still present in terms of advancement, and also there's the issue of how we reintegrate veterans back into civilian life (which is often still poorly). Etc. But that's generally why we don't talk about raising the recruitment age. With technological development and the current trajectory of military technology, however, warfare may shift away from a need for young, "unskilled" soldiers to ones seeking "older", higher skill recruits anyways. Managing a drone swarm or plotting ballistic missile defense is increasingly a higher demand skill. Alternately, this could mean that it becomes more of a career, with the military looking for longer contracts in order to maintain such expertise, which does include a greater demand for ROTC and thus university training for the military, etc. Basically, it can start to self-select for "older" recruits. Outside of current operations in Afghanistan which require "boots on the ground", most of the fighting we'd actually do in a hot war in the future will probably require less grunt work, or the need to "hold a rocket launcher" as it were. Our geostrategic competitors in a hypothetical war would be China and Russia, and such a conflict will largely be carried out in cyberspace, aerospace, and on the seas. Other areas of concern would be North Korea (in the event of regime instability/collapse), and Iran (much lower probability). Show nested quote +On December 22 2019 07:44 Belisarius wrote:
Also yes, we literally just had a whole discussion about whether to legalise freaking heroin, but now we're going to criminalise vaping for under 25s? Come on. Heroin should remain a controlled substance, but nothing; as should all (highly addictive) substances. Honestly, I think nicotine should fall under that category, but hey. How we address drug addiction does need to change, however, and that's where the issue in US drug policy lies: criminalization instead of medical rehabilitation. There are some signs of change in that area, but it's not happening fast enough, and drug policy in the US is tied with the wider issues with the folding of welfare and the social safety net into the incarceration system.
Pretty much, and I think that describes/is emblematic of a terribly sick society in desperate need of intervention.
To just pull it out:
so moving it up to age 21 or 25 basically means people are denied a career track and opportunities between 18-25. On the other hand, cigarette/alcohol/drug use would generally fall under medical direction for what should or shouldn't be done (or morality laws in general).
Moral: recruiting desperate teens to kill people half way across the planet for money
Immoral: Allowing them to smoke tobacco.
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I'm in the "if you're old enough to be a soldier, you're old enough to be a voter or a drinker" camp, but I don't think it's completely unreasonable to believe that recruitment age should be lower than drinking or smoking age. You can say that a soldier doesn't have to be an adult because he's only supposed to follow orders. Someone who chooses to drink alcohol makes their own choice, and as such has to be an adult because drinking requires responsibility you can't expect from children.
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United States24680 Posts
On December 22 2019 08:30 Sent. wrote:
I'm in the "if you're old enough to be a soldier, you're old enough to be a voter or a drinker" camp, but I don't think it's completely unreasonable to believe that recruitment age should be lower than drinking or smoking age. You can say that a soldier doesn't have to be an adult because he's only supposed to follow orders. Someone who chooses to drink alcohol makes their own choice, and as such has to be an adult because drinking requires responsibility you can't expect from children.
I wouldn't agree with that. It's true that the junior enlisted are expected to follow orders, but they also do need to think. Anyone, from the most junior recruit to the most senior officer, can be placed into an unexpected situation where they need to make a judgment call with complex ethics and major consequences involved. The argument I would be willing to make is that you can recruit someone into training shortly before the arbitrary line for adulthood on the condition that they don't go out into the field, so to speak, prior to crossing that threshold. That's still controversial because they apparently made the decision to join the military prior to being recognized for their ability to make independent decisions as an adult.
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Norway28665 Posts
I thought drinking was really fun when I was 16-17-18-19-20-21. Prolly the years where alcohol was the most fun for me.
And I think it is important that we factor in enjoyment when designing society. 
(I'm fine with legal drinking age of 18 for pragmatic reasons - even though I liked drinking at 16 myself, and most people I went to school with started drinking at 15-16, legal age of 16 would prolly see more 13-14 year olds drinking and there I just don't think they really have any business doing it. )
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The general argument would be that addiction has differing effects on adolescent/developing brains which makes them more vulnerable to addiction. There's a decent field of study on addiction and differences between adults and adolescents.
It's less about "I can choose/can make independent decisions to smoke/drink alcohol" as opposed to "I am still developmentally more vulnerable to addiction, and it can cause [greater] health problems down the line". Both can be accepted. It's still an arbitrary line, but I see no problem with having a higher age limit for potentially addictive substances.
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EPT
