3 ex employers and 2 ex letting agents believe I'm 1 year older than I really am. Its like, "You have to be 18 to have a job and live in a house, otherwise you should be in care or living with parents". Now that im 26 though, its no longer a problem, although I do have a baby face and still get ID'd when buying booze or entering a club, but those are legitimate reasons.

So, wait.. you are willing to accept that buying booze and going into a club requires you to be 18 but you weren't willing to accept that you had to be 18 to live on your own? Am I the only one seeing a slightly bizzare double standard there?

(btw, last I checked you could have a full time job at the age of 16)

I had a job at 16.

But I'm lucky that folks like that landlord just looked the other way; my family had a bit of a breakdown and moving out was the only way to have a secure home.

A job a teen can get in America (don't know where Species is). Other key stuff? Only if you lie or if someone else, maybe a stranger, will take a risk on you.

Phantom points out a pretty funny incongruity (personally, lol @ drinking age limits) but I have a vague sense of where Species is coming from and all that.

But on topic? If we're all talking loose here, I'm gonna go ahead and equate it to jaywalking.

It's illegal 24/7. But everyone knows sometimes it's 2 am and you're staring both ways down a long stretch of empty road and you don't want to walk all the way to the crosswalk. So you go. We've all done it. And we've all gone on forums before we were 18. And clicked "I agree" to install software.

We know the spirit of the law and we use our judgment.

Laws can be a little bendy. I once caused a minor traffic accident by riding out on my bike in front of a car. I got a fine, they got a fine, my bike was boned, their insurance paid for it, I was sore for a bit, ...

So they go to traffic court to contest it and I get subpeona'd. They did break a law by definition. But they didn't actually do anything wrong, I stupidly rode out past where a bush blocked the view and didn't stop at the intersection. And I thought that if that's on their legal record, their insurance company would smack them too so I told the judge that; it really was my fault due to the rule I broke and was fined for.

He shrugged and tossed their traffic violation. That was that. The government officially looked the other way.

So. Going to bend the law? Ask yourself; is it miles of empty road with no visual obstructions? Or are you going across an intersection on a bike at rush hour because you saw a green light somewhere or something?

And if it's the former, you know, it's OK for that law to be there even if it isn't universally applicable. There is a reason that you can't sign a contract below 18 in typical states. It just so happens that this technically applies to some things that usually seem pretty silly, like chatting about XNA. The law doesn't have a dozen contingencies added (e.g. "but it's OK to jaywalk if you're sure there's no cars!") because it's better to expect people to use sound judgment in application of the law than to introduce ever more ridiculous failure modes by codifying every exception.

Society condones your use of forums to learn a profession. Really, it does. No it's not codified that way, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. Realize that and you'll feel better about it.

[quote name='speciesUnknown' timestamp='1312899355' post='4846686']
3 ex employers and 2 ex letting agents believe I'm 1 year older than I really am. Its like, "You have to be 18 to have a job and live in a house, otherwise you should be in care or living with parents". Now that im 26 though, its no longer a problem, although I do have a baby face and still get ID'd when buying booze or entering a club, but those are legitimate reasons.

View it from the perspective of an employer or rental agent. If you are under 18 there is literally nothing stopping the renter from saying, "peace out. I'm leaving and not paying you anything anymore. BTW our contract is null and void. gg no re." Same with any employer that might have an NDA or NCC, "Oops. I just legally spilled all of your confidential information."
[/quote]

The fact that, as a culture, in the west we treat 17 year olds the same as we treat 2 year old toddlers is one of the causes for youth delinquency; maturity doesn't develop suddenly when you turn 18, it also develops from experience, and we can expect 15 year old kids to continue to contribute nothing to society and learning very few social skills so long as this continues. Landlords and employers of course are not to blame, they are simply obeying the law - a person under the age of 18 cannot sign a legally binding contract, so rental agreements and legal obligations in the workplace are impossible to enforce.

We often lament the fact that young kids "hang around" and do nothing helpful, but this is something we have developed over the last couple of centuries by preventing young people from being independent and learning the skills they need in society; the law at present means that a 17 year old who wants to leave home, even willingly like I did, is forced to live on handouts for a year, during which time they are likely to find "other ways" to supplement their income, or get involved in consumer culture.

We want them to behave like adults, and when they break the law we even lock them in prisons similar to adult prisons; they are allowed to train for the armed forces, from the age of 12 they are legally expected to put their heads down and work hard in school. So why do we stop them working *any* job until they are 16? And, why can't they be legally responsible for themselves until they are 18?

I left home at a young age by choice - my parents knew I was lying about my age, but they thought this was great - I was being responsible for myself. However, a lot of young people around that age group who suffer abuse at home are *forced* by law to stay there or live in poverty.

"in the west we treat 17 year olds the same as we treat 2 year old toddlers is one of the causes for youth delinquency"

I've always felt this. A lot of times the subtext of how adults talk to teens is "you are supposed to be a wild, raving idiot" and folks have a way of doing what they think they're supposed to. Teenagers get a lot of mixed messages from a society that underestimates the power of social proof.

I appreciate that my parents sent all the right messages and encouraged me to be a serious person from early on.

EDIT: I should add, western societies also don't have any formalized right-of-passage ritual where you go into a smokey tipi and come out as an adult and whatnot. In America, getting your driver's license and your 21st birthday can sorta be seen in that light, but they're not quite what I mean. These rituals are a formalized message that makes it very, plainly clear what an individual is supposed to do with himself, and that we have nothing like it and our entertainments seem to paint +20 year olds as acting like children who can buy beer seems to fit with this theme of "mixed messages".

I'm not advocating rituals. Just thinking out loud.

EDIT (again sorry): I meant "coming of age" ritual above.

End of the day you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere and where ever you draw it there will be someone, somewhere who thinks 'waaaah, it's not fair!'.

Exactly, so knowing this, why bother setting up a 'forum' aimed at 'hobbyists' aimed at 'game making' with a more the usual 'stricter' enforcement of 'minimum' age.
This is 2011 with Microsoft!

It's a bug due to recent site changes, as I stated before.

[quote name='Watermelon Chris' timestamp='1312900206' post='4846697']
Exactly, so knowing this, why bother setting up a 'forum' aimed at 'hobbyists' aimed at 'game making' with a more the usual 'stricter' enforcement of 'minimum' age.
This is 2011 with Microsoft!

It's a bug due to recent site changes, as I stated before.
[/quote]

Source?