It's true, youth does not imply immaturity in the sense of boolean logic, where that statement means "if youth, then immature". However, it does imply immaturity in the sense of the venacular, where that statement means "if youth, then likely immature." Given the actual statements said, in context, I don't think our conclusions were necessarily bad or harmful. We basically said that, given youth, it was unlikely (in a statistical sense) that the person was mature enough. However, we also did maintain the debate since this is a specific instance of a person and the person does not necessarily fit into the statistics. We also, among ourselves, discussed whether, given the statistics, whether it was worthwhile since, although this may be an individual who was mature enough, it was more likely that it wasn't. Of course, I myself am only 20.

I have to admit, my reasoning for making a statement was simply to debate. As my father likes to point out, I love to argue, despite the annoyance it brings to some people. I hope I didn't offend you. On to an actual response: I didn't comment on the harmful effects of your conclusion, simply that I would rather see that conclusion drawn from her immaturity as a person and not due to her age. I didn't mean for my reply to come off that way.

Hell, I'm not offended. You should see me on slashdot (different account name. no, I won't tell you what it is; the account has a different name for a reason). Over there, I argue both (or all N) sides of a debate equally. If anyone notices, I bet it confuses the hell out of them. I was mostly just pointing out that the conclusion wasn't necessarily faulty, and that it only would have been faulty had it caused actual harm, by nature of the conclusion. Further, we have no real grounds to draw conclusions about her immaturity *except* through statistical and circumstantial evidence. We work with what we have :P

I have no response for you other than laughter. Your entire post amuses me. I'm still trying not to chuckle while writing this. :] To be honest, I've never even heard of the site. I'm now tempted to go explore... What is it, exactly?

Well, the slogan for slashdot is "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters" so you can probably figure it out from that :P Yeah, I'm a nerd. It happens.

I agree that experiences affect the way anyone reasons. However, from a more scientific standpoint, the brain is still developing throughout adolescence, so despite how open-minded or intelligent a teen may be, there could still be some limitations on his/her ability to reason and form an argument. Though this does make it all the more imperative that young teens such as cuppycakes be exposed to different points of view while her brain is still developing and creating novel ways to process and apply new information.

LOLOLOL U JUST PROOVED THAT YUNG PPL R IMMATURE Okay, that was just painful to type. Never doing that again. Seriously speaking, though, you are still well-argued and are _certainly_ a good example to show why our conclusion was only statistical and not absolute. I hope to see you around this site more!

Haha, yeah, I was actually going to ask if she was being sarcastic with that one, just because it fits so well with what I just said about younger people being unable to make well-formed arguments... But yeah. Just a funny coincidence. ALSO: do we never sleep?

Well, I pretty much never sleep. I was considering making an exception in a few minutes, but then this had to happen and now I have someone interesting to talk to. Given that, I *still* think we need to figure out some way to talk to each other not in comments. (I'm assuming that you, like I, don't really want to give out IM handles or other clearer contact info publicly here.) Maybe that way we could help each other never sleep. :P

I don't know how you will develop personally, but my perspective leads to me seeing a huge gap between 17 and 20. I can identify several stages of my life where I made huge developments, and the period between when I turned 18 and when I turned 20 was one of those. Since, for me, I've changed and matured so much, 17 just seems so... young. Not necessarily immature, since that's a person-to-person sort of thing. Just... young. Man, human psychology is awesome.

This makes me feel lame for not developing significantly since... I don't know, 16? Haha.

Like I mentioned, I'm actually a very odd case... My development has been a bit messed up. To put it simply, I had the maturity of a sixteen-year-old at age nine or ten. It depends though, to be honest. I'm more mature about some things and less so about others. And I suppose I would seem young to a twenty-year-old, especially seeing as I haven't graduated high school yet (one more year...) and you are probably in college or working at the moment. I made that statement more in jest than as a serious comment.

Oh, I know how the statement was meant. It just seemed that your intent didn't matter at all when I could totally go off on random tangents no one cared about in the first place. Dammit, I'm starting to feel like a literary critic who adheres to "the author is dead". I hate those kinds of critics.

Sent and awaiting reply ^__^

Also sent to and awaiting reply :D Sadly, all of my old accounts are either still in use, use the same name but different domain as one of my currents, or are even more identifying. Fortunately, this problem is solvable with me not giving out an email address on FML, so all is well with the world. This is also much easier than the solution I was about to propose that included public-key cryptography. Less fun, though :/