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This assertion keeps on being made and it seems almost deliberately obtuse to me.

If you do something bad when you are 17.9 should we wipe the slate clean once the odometer rolls over to exactly 18.0 where for some reason that age creates a solid barrier where the person emerges like a chrysalis and all their sins are washed clean?

And as a 50 year old, the difference between a 16 year old and a 19 year old are not very big. An unfortunate fact is that if you fuck up pretty big when you're 16 that people aren't going to trust you very much when you're 19. You need to do the time to build up more collateral. I've seen people who were assholes when they were teenagers change, but they didn't wake up on some magic birthday a new person. They were still assholes in their early 20s but their trajectory was such that by the time their early 30s came around they had changed themselves.




The rate at which we forgive and forget prior actions should decrease as someone ages in a monotonic way. Reason being an individual’s capacity and willingness to learn and change their values and behavior decreases with time. Sure, the 18yo cliff makes no sense.


Pretty much hard disagree with that.

50 year olds may be set in their ways because they don't see any need to change and what they've got going works for them, but you can change at any age.


> The rate at which we forgive and forget prior actions should decrease as someone ages in a monotonic way.

Everybody ages in a monotonic way. :-)


When I said ‘generally’ I meant generally. Children “prosecuted as an adult” is a thing. I also said there’s a common belief in redemption, not automatic forgiveness.

As for the difference between a 16-year-old and 19 not being big, that probably just depends. At 19, I was absolutely mortified at things I did in high school.




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