Nerd Pride Radio

Just for fun for the following vices/privileges list what you think should be the minimum age to participate in them. Here are mine.




drinking:18
driving:21
cigarettes:16
guns:25

drinking:18
driving:18
cigarettes:18
guns:25

drinking: in smaller amounts corresponding to brain size - I think the way US culture does it is all backwards and it should be treated like any other food or drink, with an extra-precaution warning attached. tastes of wine, champagne, etc just fine. Teach the facts.
driving: over my dead and cold body
cigarettes: over my dead and cold body
guns: when you can grasp the safety rules and not hurt yourself in the process - age may vary, but young

Being from farm country, I'm a bit more lenient on the driving piece. There were youngsters, early teens, driving pickup trucks around the farms all the time. And I was driving a small motorcycles at around age 10.

I think so much of this is dependent upon the person involved. Like Phoebe's comment on guns, there are some kids ready for driving early (15 or so), and some adults that shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of any vehicle at all. But I'm happy with the 16 y.o. limit for driving in general.

For drinking and smoking, I think it should be 18. If you're old enough to join the military, then by golly, you should be able to drink and smoke.

For purchasing a firearm, it'd be hypocritical to not also say 18 for the same reason, though I really might want to bump that up to 21. And that's for gun ownership, not firing dad's gun at the local range under dad's supervision.

My husband should not be allowed to smoke tho. What do we do? I hear you on rural driving. Truth is I let my kid drive a weird cart-type vehicle and a tractor. That's cool. But she isn't coordinated enough to do other things that I feel are prerequisite for driving a death-dealing hunk of metal. I'm pretty lax on all this stuff but would tackle the kid to the ground if I found a death-stick in their mouth. Ughhhhh, learn from thy elders.

I'm a bit surprised at how most of you want to restrict driving age. I get it, it's terrifying letting your child out to drive, especially when you think about some of the stuff you did in a car when you were their age. But c'mon, you're talking about young adults, 18 to 21 in Zen's case, who could very well be living on their own outside their parent's house, making their own living or serving in our military, but you don't trust them to drive a car to and from work unless they have someone else in the car with them, or have other restrictions on what/when/who/how they can drive? But you want to trust them to make the right decisions about drinking and smoking at a younger age than that?

And Phoebe, I understand the smoking thing. I don't WANT any of my kids to smoke. But at some point, what I WANT for my kid or any other kid doesn't matter for shit. They're going to do whatever they want to do, as they should, because they have free will and the right to make stupid decisions in our society. So what age should they be allowed to do that at? Why not at the age we trust them to do all the other "adult" stuff, where we make them legally responsible for their own dumb decisions rather than holding their parents responsible.

When I'm dead is the only way, because otherwise I'm going to keep running up to knock the cigarette out their hands, even when they're, like, 40.

Driving: Classes and very limited amounts per day, no late-night driving, at age 16. At age 18, you can get a "limited license" pursuant to a work needs and such. Between 16 and 18, you've got a huge amount of classes that are required for this along with a number of real-world tests, which will be federally mandated levels of driving competency. It will not be left up to individual states. Additionally, you'll need to learn and pass several examples of being faced with weather condition tests. At age 19, after another solid year of testing, you can receive a full license. Additionally, once you have a full license, you can now rent vehicles. Because it's damned annoying to be 22 and not be able to rent a fucking car when your own is in the shop. Repeated yearly tests and reviews will be required until age 21. Reviews will also be required on a five year basis after this for everybody, forever. The problem with driving is that we need a great deal more review and practical training. Driver's ed is a load of happy horseshit anymore that just gets you an insurance rebate.

Drinking: Earlier introduction, ditch the hell out of the 80's-era DARE style ideas on mental programming that have proven horribly ineffective, and install automated tests into every vehicle. Alternately, let's just finally get humans out of driving entirely, because we're universally far worse at it than we think we are. Self-drive for all, and toast your new robot overlords with a beer. While I have no particular feeling on an appropriate age, I do find it pretty damn silly that we allow folks to sign life-impacting contracts but disallow them an alcoholic beverage. So, we either move contract age or drinking age.

Smoking: Same as goes for drinking. Honest and factual education. You'll make your decision at that point one way or the other. Also, get a bunch of smokers who aren't utter fucking toolbags to instruct those who do smoke how to be a polite goddamn smoker. It is absolutely possible.

Guns: I'd like a 25 year test period under a largely Western European style firearms enforcement, just to see how one generation feels without America's Cult of the Gun. Barring that, nobody gets any ever? Seeing as that isn't possible or even reasonable, I'll go with 19, but subject to the same level of recurring scrutiny, early education, and safety training as driving described above. Federally licensed and registered without exception. Installing alcohol testing devices isn't a terrible idea here either.

Drinking, Cigarettes, Marijuana and Guns: None. Parents discretion.
Driving: 14? I also think the answer to this might be "none" but that the realities of insurance would mean that anyone under 14 probably won't be driving.

Their brains don't function properly, period, in a way that supports the life and death gravity of driving. Keep in mind I'm driving a kid to a high school every day and the things I see blow my mind. Pretty much none of those people should be on the road behind a wheel. They think they're invulnerable and that driving well = physical coordination. No.

I hear you. We avoid our high school area before and after school as much as possible. But much of the assholery we see from the kids isn’t much different than what we see from their parents on the highway at rush hours, which we also avoid whenever possible. And I’m fine with graduated licenses. But as for stretching things out to 21+ because their minds aren’t developed, that starts to get at Jeff’s comment about ridiculous restrictions on certain activities for someone we otherwise treat as an adult for legal and contractual purposes.

I kind of DO want that. Where is my empire?

I'm hard-pressed to figure out what universal rules I'd set. The fact is that it was easier to get drugs than alcohol in my high school, and there was some kind of "you can't buy cigarettes" rule that proved utterly meaningless, since everyone and their brother had cigarettes whenever they wanted them. But I don't want my kids smoking at any age! If other people's kids smoke at a very young age I'm not sure that's any of my affair or that it is even practical to enforce such a rule. In France when they tried to lower the smoking and drinking ages they ended up finding that a lot more kids smoke and drink than they did before.

Driving and guns are different because there is a great risk of killing other people accidentally. Teenagers seem physiologically deprived of reason and accurate perceptual judgments about risk. Most people in Iowa shouldn't be driving cars at all, so what you going to do?

Ok, 12 it is.

Not if you're MY kid.

Don't put burning material into your lungs.

Some people should never have guns. Some of them wear badges. This is a training and judgment question. See caveat.

Driving, can be as young as 14. Operation of complex machinery isn't the problem, it's unpredictable others. AND it needs to be separated from other activities, like drinking and cell phones, forever. The best thing about moving the drinking age was an attempt to break the convergence of those two cultural milestones. Either age could have been shifted, as long as they are separate.

Drinking. I once saw two twelve year olds on lunch break in Germany down two flagons of beer each. Likely sleeping in class that afternoon. A little when you're little is ok, but we never do anything with balance in mind.

Caveat: The key, for me is consequence. Legal blood alcohol while driving should be 0.0000. period. With dire consequences. Your car or your gun is involved in something terrible? You are totally liable. Unless you called the police first about its theft, you are an accessory to the collision or the murder. Consequences. This is what we pretend some arbitrary chronology suddenly switches on. In more and more people it never switches on. Those people should not drink or drive or shoot, ever. Nobody should smoke. It's an ancient drug delivery system that should go the way of having fire inside your house without a proper vent.