Whatever Happened to Grown-Ups?

Let's start from infancy: if a baby gets hungry it doesn't cook itself a meal to eat, it cries. If a baby gets cold it doesn't put on something warm, it cries. If it's sick it doesn't make an appointment with a doctor, it cries. As it gets older its brain and body develop. Barring a severe handicap, a twelve year old will be physically stronger than a six year old. The brain will also develop an increased capacity in its prefrontal cortex. But the child's activity will also play a role. When muscles are exorcised, they grow stronger. When the brain is exorcised, it will also grow stronger (it will develop an increased density of white matter to do so). Practicing emotional restraint will train the prefrontal cortex to handle the emotions from the limbic system.

Children are generally not developing their physical health these days due to a decline in physical activity (which will also have some effect on the health of their brain). I suspect the exorcise which develops the brains capacity for patients, focus, and emotional constraint is also declining. I also think drugs will have long term consequences. If drugs are used to suppress impulses from the limbic system, how can the prefrontal cortex develop its ability to deal with them?

There are also cultural elements involved. If a man is insulted should they ignore it and walk away? Some would call that maturity, others weakness or cowardice. The notion that someone will grow into your idea of maturity without being molded into it by experience is illusory. The notion that people used to have different values and behave differently is quite accurate however. Unstructured play is becoming less prominent in childhood; replaced with TV, video-games, and extracurricular classes (I suspect there's more emphasis now on keeping them busy, but there used to be more emphasis on meaningful experience). Parents tend to spend more time at work and less time with their family. People grow up not knowing their neighbors. Gender roles are breaking down. Marriage is becoming less popular. People are having children later in life (and fewer of them). Differences in life experience will lead to differences in culture and behavior.

a reply to: Profusion

Where are the mature adults these days?

You will find them wherever life is still genuinely hard, dangerous and demanding.

Wealth, technology and medicine have made such conditions rare in today's wealthier, more advanced world. Protected by mighty weapons and the rule of law, coddled by the consumer society, we can afford to relax and be a bit childish nowadays.

But in places where the going is still genuinely, life-threateningly tough, you'll find your grown-ups. Some of them will be still, technically, children.

a reply to: VP740

A very well explained and written piece, VP740, in my perspective.

Over the years, I've observed the great differences between my parents' generation, my generation and the succeeding generations. I find it sobering at times.

Going outside to play and explore year-round, in all types of weather, as a child has unparalleled benefits. I'm ever thankful that, at the very least, doing so was a huge part of my childhood and I lived in an ideal setting for just that. To this day I don't like being cooped up inside for very long and I can't count how many times I've felt a deficit occurring because so many children are inside during much of their "free" time.

Maturity. A very worthy subject to discuss in this day and age!!

Peace.

If Fukushima is somehow the example to support the thread title, I fail to see the connection. It's like crying wolf, after a while. Everytime I research this I come to the conclusion it's not as bad as people here often claim. I've looked, I'm not lying. There seems to be a far greater threat from coal power than Fukushima. It's killed more people, by far.

The end resuilt is I'm not happy about any of it. But YOU try running this economy and not polluting or causing trouble? Far as I know, nobody has WORKING examples of a better way. That's what mature people are trying to do and they make mistakes. Mature people arne't perfect. Accidents occur every day. Some negligent. We learn as we go too.

So is your solution to kill the economy completely? Idk of any other way. Nobody is offering an alternative that I know of!

I live on the west coast of the US btw. I HAD to research this because I was afraid. We were in the path of some of hte fallout. My conclusions were the fallout wasn't the apocalypse, but still frightening. And given there're some unknowns because of secretive dealings, there might be some dirt. Yet mostly what I can see is people crying and few giving qualifying answers which withstand test of time. It's fear porn mostly!

Here's an example piece of research:
climate.nasa.gov - Coal and gas are far more harmful than nuclear power ...

From NASA. Actual scientists looking at the problem.

From the link:

To compute potential future effects, we started with the projected nuclear energy supply for 2010-2050 from an assessment made by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency that takes into account the effects of the Fukushima accident (ref. 4). We assume that the projected nuclear energy is canceled and replaced entirely by energy from either coal or natural gas. We calculate that this nuclear phaseout scenario leads to an average of 420,000-7 million deaths and 80-240 GtCO2-eq emissions globally (the high-end values reflect the all coal case; see Figs. 1 and 3). This emissions range corresponds to 16-48% of the "allowable" cumulative CO2 emissions between 2012-2050 if the world chooses to aim for a target atmospheric CO2 concentration of 350 ppm by around the end of this century (ref. 5). In other words, projected nuclear power could reduce the CO2 mitigation burden for meeting this target by as much as 16-48%.

More information here on that research:
pubs.giss.nasa.gov - Pubs.GISS: Kharecha and Hansen 2013: Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical.....

EDIT: And I know nuclear isn't all rosy. We have waste problems. Here's a sobering look at some of our aging reactors and safety concerns:
www.scientificamerican.com - How Safe Are U.S. Nuclear Reactors? Lessons from Fukushima...

I wish nobody ever died from disasters or anything. But sadly people do. Nothing is perfect and I doubt it'll ever be that way. Maybe when we die we go to a better place where nobody has to suffer. For now we just have ot keep our head up and try to do what's best.