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[lyingheart]

Two questions.

1.) Who are the least responsible adult (18+) imPorts here?

2.) Is anyone interested in doing summer tutoring in higher level mathematics, chemistry, biology, or modern and ancient history? Geography is also useful. I won't be able to pay well at first, but we can work out different forms of compensation.

- A. Leonhart

Comments

[boobwindow]

Most people have some sort of bone to pick with each other. And I won't be surprised if most under twenty-ones are going to say all of us adults are irresponsible and yadda yadda.

Is the education system different where you're from?

[lyingheart]

I wonder why. In the context of my own world, I've been an adult for years. Age shouldn't matter as much as it seems to here.

Ah... it is. The education we received during military training was very specific to what we needed to know. Before that, how long you stayed in school depending on different factors. Most of us know how to read and write, do mathematics, and what history is made official. Biology is more limited, and geography covers the territory of the Walls. There's nothing documented further out.

[boobwindow]

[ Alright, there's a lot to cover, but she'll start with the basics first. ]

This is the second or third time I've heard these "Walls" mentioned.

And how old are you, by the way?

[lyingheart]

By me, or by some of the others from that world?

16, best as I know.

[boobwindow]

Others. I guess from your world.

"Best as I know"? So you're not sure?

[lyingheart]

There's a decent chance. Not that I can say with certainty people don't have other Walls to talk about. That's as likely as anything else.

I don't know how calendars here line up with calendars back home. So I'm 16, by my best guess, until my best guess says I'm 17.

[boobwindow]

Okay, that makes a lot more sense.

[ She was thinking more along the lines of "selective amnesia". ]

Military enlistment starts young where you're from?

[lyingheart]

You're eligible at twelve. It's a better option than starving in the fields. You'll eat more regularly, if you can hold up under the stress and not get yourself killed before graduation.

[boobwindow]

Why is it so young?

[lyingheart]

Why would it be older?

[boobwindow]

At seventeen you can enlist where I'm from, but you still need your parents' signature at that age.

I'm sure you've noticed there are A LOT of laws in place. Drinking, smoking, driving, etc.

[lyingheart]

I hear about them more in passing than I find any of them laid out to take in.

[boobwindow]

There's a lot of laws set up to try and ensure the safety of minors. You count as one here.

[lyingheart]

What's the benefit in considering people to be under adult age for so long? What caused that protection to extend out over so many years?

[boobwindow]

The benefit is supposed to be ensuring up until eighteen or twenty-one (depending where you live) the kids are raised to be healthy and safe, with a decent education so they can learn to be independent, functioning adults on their own someday.

[lyingheart]

How successful is the practice?

[ Seems like a hell of a lot of time not expecting people to be independent, functional adults to her - but so it happens when one's circumstances are so wildly different. ]

[boobwindow]

I think successful enough, but obviously with flaws.

Hey, mankind's made it this far so far in this world.

[lyingheart]

I'm not saying differently. I'd be curious to learn if these ages have always been considered the best ones for taking independent responsibility for yourself.

[boobwindow]

It's changed as society evolved. Look into the Industrial Revolution in the West.

[lyingheart]

I'll add that in to my study list.

[boobwindow]

A major turning point in history. There were a lot of technological changes, but it had an effect on society as well.

[lyingheart]

History seems like it should be full of things like that. Is it? When looking at spans of years longer than a dozen decades?

[boobwindow]

Small changes leading up to bigger ones.

[lyingheart]

What about big, sudden changes? Changing things as they flood through the landscape?

[boobwindow]

They happened. Still happen.

Not all of them are good.