07-18-2019, 04:27 AM
(07-17-2019, 09:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Meanwhile, kids are making their cultural influence known earlier as markets for music and video. The voting age is down to 18, which may have some influence upon voting patterns.I think socially childhood is now longer than ever. Kids live with their parents longer than ever, marriage is also postponed. That's why I expect voting age or age of consent to go up eventually, especially given the fact young adults don't make responsible choices. The psychologist Robert Epstein talks about extended childhood disorder, but it's not clear to be that is indeed a disorder. Maybe a longer childhood is optimal for growth of personalities. In the past people had to grow up early only because death could happen at any moment due to epidemics, war and hunger. Now we can have children at 35, and still be in good health when our grandchildren arrive. If there is radical extension of lifespans, even a very long childhood won't be an obstacle for anything. Stapledon's Fifth Men had a childhood that lasted 200 years, but they lived up to 3000 years so childhood was less than a tenth of their lifespan.
Quote:Maybe 90 is now a better guess on the length of a saeculum.
For the time being, yes. A turning is defined by a new generation coming of age, so longer childhoods mean longer turnings and saeculums. If future people are considered adults at 30, a saeculum will last about 120 years.