> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling until they are 20. The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18. This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make decisions…
I think that makes sense in the context of a collectivist culture. Well, more sense than in a fiercely individualistic culture like USA.
> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling until they are 20. The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18. This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make decisions…
>old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country,
will have no effect in Japan since a large corpus of voters are senior citizens. In practice younger generations have no say in politics.
> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling until they are 20. The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18. This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make decisions…
These ages really should be legally aligned. If you're not responsible enough to live your own life, you've no business telling someone else how to live.
> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling until they are 20. The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18. This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make decisions…
Other than the allure of forbidden fruit I don't see what you actually lose by not drinking, smoking or gambling for those 2 formative years.
> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling until they are 20. The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18. This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make decisions…
> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling until they are 20. The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18. This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make decisions…
> decisions that will really only affect them individually
This seems to be the mainstream view of addiction in many parts of the West, particularly in the US, but is it so hard to believe it's not universal?
> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling until they are 20. The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18. This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make decisions…
If smoking, alcohol, and gambling had the same affects on all fully grown adults as it did on people with developing minds we probably wouldn’t have them.
They’re at a much higher risk for addiction, much higher risk for permanent brain impairment from alcohol, imagine if those risks and effects were instead just the baseline for everyone. For example, somehow even moderate drinking at 30 would permanently damage your brain as much as it can damage a growing brain (it can already be bad enough for the 30 year old brain but it’d be even worse) it’s hard to imagine drinking would be the viewed the same way
> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling until they are 20. The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18. This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make decisions…
In the US at least, the 21 yo drinking age is mostly a wholly pragmatic law [EDIT: laws. It's state by state but there was a big federal stick attached to highway funding.] to reduce teenage drunk driving (which affects more than the individual). Tobacco sales is mostly 18 in the US (although a few states are 21). Casinos also vary although the drinking age restricts It's hard to make an intellectual case for disparities between things like voting age, military service (which is why the US voting age was reduced to 18 in the first place), drinking/gambling/smoking, age of consent, etc. but pragmatism still sometimes wins out.
> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling until they are 20. The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18. This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make decisions…
>old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country, will have no effect in Japan since a large corpus of voters are senior citizens. In practice younger generations have no say in politics.
That’s no more true than that Asian-Americans have no say in politics. Demographic groups aren’t absolute voting blocks.