>Kidults are people who preserve their teenage likings (from video games, anime and fantasy, to a responsibility-free lifestyle) until they are 30-35 and older
This is always something that has bothered by society's concept of adulthood. Are people just supposed to not like things past 35? Is the only acceptable use of your free time as an adult reading non-fiction about finding the meaning of life?
Agreed. I am married and have meaning of my life pretty much figured out, but I do play games and watch anime on the side.
The biggest problem with average contemporary "true adults" is that they only act as if they have their shit figured out. In reality they mostly tend to be incredibly close minded, have super limited knowledge of the world due to their TV addiction and are generally more authoritarian due to our socioeconomic system being super authoritarian.
The (more intelligent and cultured) outliers are actually closer to these supposed "kidults". More open minded, more tolerant, way less zealous.
I think we enjoy pathologizing choices we don't make and lifestyles we don't understand. So a non-gamer might see the adult gamer as infantilized, while the gamer sees the the non-gamer as a victim of an authoritarian socioeconomic system, or something.
I'm not convinced either person is correct about anything. They probably would drop those thoughts if they got off social media and got to know each other instead.
The boomers were all about not selling out until they did and became the Man. GenX are now wrinkly tattooed grey hairs that still wear skater clothes while eyeing their 401ks.
Idk. I think that view of adulthood is pretty biased.
I think it is more that the “games” that we play become less overt, and overt games tend to be replaced by covert ones, such as social stature, and personal growth, IRL social “games”, like relationships and solo or shared challenges, “levelling up” in accomplishments such as books written or papers published, business or notable accomplishments, etc.
Overt games give way to applying learned behaviours that use game theory to create personal value, wealth, or legacy… but it’s still very much “playing a game” just with greater risks and rewards.
IRL games make practice games seems quite boring by comparison, their challenges mundane and their prizes irrelevant.
Idk, use it to make the world a more just and survivable place? Help to develop practical fusion power so we can avoid extinction? Preserve some biodiversity? Anything vaguely useful to the next generation?
Nations prosper when old men plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.
You can watch all the anime you want, the only thing we “owe” the world is to attempt to offset our costs of existence to future generations, which given our current personal footprint is not a trivial task.
Otherwise you’re just another jerk that wants all the cake for themselves.
I work hard at work, and have multiple side projects outside of work which I rotate working through daily. At 28 I'm a top 1% earner for my age group. By every measure of my friends I am one of the most productive people they know. In the words of one of them yesterday "you're a beast". I still game every Tuesday and for a few hours on the weekend, I also watch Anime.
I find your argument pretty ridiculous. It's not like these things are mutually exclusive.
The reality is everyone gamer or not is just generally inneficient with their time.
Yeah kinda same, as many people on HN. Similar age range.
My partner and I are in the top couple percent of incomes, have more savings than the average retiree, have both achieved a lot in our careers, and have spent time volunteering for causes that genuinely improve people’s lives or contribute to the world.
I also “waste” a lot of my time doing silly things (including video games, but other hobbies as well). I got the new Legend of Zelda game on release day!
It makes no sense to say that these two can’t coexist. I think that doing enjoyable hobbies like video games makes me a more interesting person overall. Friends at work were asking about the new Zelda game when I said that I’d spent the weekend playing, for example.
But like, why work so hard if I can’t do my video games and art and athletic hobbies?
Really, no one cares about your earnings or your gaming. The question you should be asking yourself is what you are leaving in your wake? What are you doing to make the world as good as or maybe slightly better than when you showed up? What do you produce to offset your resource consumption and environmental footprint?
I started asking myself these questions in my thirties, and because of that I now write software and farm organic coffee, cacao, avacados, and a handful of other permaculture crops on a small scale. The farming makes zero money, but it is worthwhile, and I strive to create a space that benefits not only myself, but my community.
Your original comment was painting a picture that people who game aren't productive, where you provided entirely arbitrary items you consider productive. My point was you can game and be productive. Your response tells me you've never done anything of note towards the next generation. Forgive me if I entirely ignore you, I'll continue actually doing things and let you get on with your armchair quarterbacking. At least I'm trying, instead of being passive aggressive on the internet.
No one from the next generation cares about your “productivity”. They care about the net impact of your existence. What is your vaunted productivity creating? How does that look in 50 years?
For many of us, looking in that particular mirror can be an unpleasant experience.
I mean a lot of projects that so far other people are using to build cool things?
Information that has helped other people fix problems or learn something they thought was hard.
What has your tearing down of others accomplished? Have you considered a deeper look in the mirror yourself? From where I'm standing your the only one who seems in need of it, all of this sounds like projection to me.
If you spend your money on the "child-like" activities (fantasy, gaming, etc) as opposed to adult-like ones (huge suburban house, car, boat) you help preserve biodiversity and help other people as a side-effect.
Also - planting trees is largely pointless. Trees plant themselves if you leave land unused. If they don't that usually means you have to waste a lot of resources to maintain the trees that you planted in particular spot.
Wow. You really only think of the costs of your consumption?
It’s the costs of our production that propagates through time. Your consumption ends with you and is largely irrelevant. What are you helping to create? What does that look like in 50 years?
I can’t imagine justifying my existence by what I don’t leave in the toilet.
You implied someone else is a jerk in another comment, but really, I think that title might belong to someone else here. You're being quite judgemental.
You don’t have to do it big, just do it small. You aren’t making landfills, you don’t need to save a forest.
Make a little house for solitary bees on your windowsill. Guerilla plant a tree once a week. Flower-bomb some vacant lots for the local bees. Create something useful that reduces wasteful consumption, and open source it to the world.
The key here is that everything I mentioned is a positive motion. It creates something new that is useful. You cannot create a worthwhile world just by using public transportation or biking instead of driving. Sure, reducing your footprint matters, but it will go to zero when you die anyway. Do things that can transcend your tiny life, do them frequently, and some of them actually will.
All of those things are doable with minimal effort, and everyone who does those kinds of things it changes the world in significant ways.
I sometimes observe things in the phrasing of comments which might incline some to downvote on the basis of incentivizing a better discussion (if I assume generously of the downvoters’ intentions). The comment stating, “I dunno, how about [Suggestions]?” could instead be “[Suggestions].” and the downvoters’ perspective is that it should be.
It’s not necessarily being used as a disagree button in such a case. It’s similar to, “This might be unpopular but ...”; some people will principle-downvote (right or wrong) for what they see as conducive to a bad discussion.
It's an age of account | depth of engagement thing.
Stay a while longer, get a few more upvotes on your comments (the general key is to add substance), and one day you'll get the option to downvote comments | flag topics / comments, etc.
Downvotes and more are unofficially documented here.
Mostly I agree with your take, my assumption is that the karma requirement for downvoting is to help prevent downvote spam, but that's just me making crap up.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I hope to set it up so my grandchildren and great-grandchildren don't have to carry debt around like millstones and boat anchors chained to their necks.
And while by no means is it certain, hoping I succeed a little earlier and settle that for my children too.
Once those issues are secured, maybe there will be a little extra to buy a few toys.
I mean, you can also teach them French or German and they’ll never have to be in debt.
If you never have fun, especially next to your children, your kids won’t forget. Your great grandchildren won’t know you and they probably don’t want to be shackled with the expectations that comes with your money.
When I decided I wanted to be a father, I realized that the rest of my life would become one of being a bullet shield or spare parts as necessary. Seriously, every once in awhile I catch myself wondering exactly how I'd manage to become a heart donor for my kids if they ever needed that.
I started too late to be able to be anything but a K strategist, but even if I could've been the other I wouldn't want to. My children are my life.
The part no one reading this comment will believe is that my life has been so much better than it was before. I was a worthless asshole, and all the misery I experienced was no one else's fault but my own.
Use it to keep playing the game of acquiring wealth, silly! But seriously, the answers are probably forego entertainment and try to build something, or like donate it or something.
Open minded and contributing less to society or closed minded and contributing more. Which is more valuable to society overall? Tough question.
It's easy to be open minded when nothing is at stake. As soon as you have something to protect the game changes drastically. You start eliminating ideas from your head that provide no value.
For example, someone who works retail and plays video games and opines on the way the world should work vs someone who works as a nurse raising two kids and doesn't have time to opine and instead just wants to put a conservative in office to lower their taxes.
Neither is right or wrong but one has a more measurable external impact.
I’m confused about your example; who is closed-minded and who is open-minded? (Serious question)
I otherwise disagree with the dichotomy in the first paragraph. It seems to me that one might be open-minded and contributory.
On the topic of “opining vs. voting”: what’s the difference? Additionally, couldn’t the retail employee go vote and have the same sort of measurable external impact?
I guess I’ll attempt to answer the question in the comment: all else being equal, an open-minded person is more valuable to society than a closed-minded one.
A curious choice of examples. What about someone who is open minded and as a result builds or invents something new that substantially improves peoples lives?
Considering the debate is about choice of the entertainment, neither close minded nor open minded are contributing anything. That part is about what people do to relax.
This is a strange dichotomy to posit, full of stereotypes. I suspect that the reality is that contribution to society and open/closed mindedness is not very strongly correlated, and that the correlation that does exist could well run in the opposite to what you suppose.
> Are people just supposed to not like things past 35?
I suspect the authors have noticed a number of separate phenomenons:
* Young people living with their parents for longer and longer. IMHO arguably this is because of our incredibly inflated house prices.
* A rise in people reporting they "don't know how to adult", that they don't know what they're doing at work, and reporting struggles with simple tasks like answering the door and making phone calls. IMHO arguably this could just indicate we're more open to talking about mental health.
* People eschewing professional wear like shirts, in favour of things that let them avoid ironing. IMHO arguably this is because of changing fashions, and the fact far fewer people have a stay-at-home spouse taking care of their laundry
* The film industry being dominated by disneyfied content from franchises (initially) aimed at children. IMHO this is because making your action movie kid-friendly as well as adult-friendly maximises your audience. And nobody needs to go to the cinema to see scantily clad beautiful women any more, so some adult elements aren't a competitive advantage.
* People getting married later, and having children later. IMHO this is because young people are saddled with more education debt and find it harder to buy houses than ever before.
* The rise of computer gaming, anime and adult board games. IMHO this is simply because those things have got vastly better and more easily available over the past 40 years.
Personally, I think these phenomenons are all largely unrelated.
Presumably the authors think these are all examples of the same thing and see it as larger than just people liking video games.
There is a balance between creating a separation between parents and self and living above one's means.
There's always Disney content. Who cares? There's plenty of other content.
The rise of distractions coincides with, or causes, the loneliness epidemic. People now are far more distracted than they were in 1950 or 1980.
People getting married later, having children later, and "childfree" views are contributing factors towards soft population limits that could have a genetic basis from an evolutionary psych perspective: when resources get scarce, people don't have as many kids.
So then what's our central factor? I'd guess something like, increasing corporate ownership of all aspects of our lives have driven profit from every ounce of joy that used to exist. Young people now find it impossible to do the things their parents did when entering adulthood because for most, those things have been priced drastically above their means. This outlook, combined with the looming ecological crisis, and doom and gloom pushing social media has led people to much higher rates of mental illness, causing them to fold inward even further. And video games are there and better than ever, board games too but with a modest purchase there's an incredible library of experiences curated to give you the sensation of meaning. How could someone who has no ability to "live up to their expectations" not find the games way better than the world, and why should we blame them?
Then there's the, "living up to expectations". Whose expectations? What rule of life says we have to buy a house when we're 25, or that living with extended families is bad and should be avoided. What rule says money and monetary capability are the measure of a persons worth. Now, the money one has real consequences but i'd argue our attitudes on all these questions are culturally informed and created and solidified. Our parents say, that's who, because their parents said because their parents said.... I'm not saying the desire is not real, but
It's notable how many influential scientists have had a playful attitude towards their work. Feynman emphasised his "playing" with ideas just because they were interesting or fun to him. John Conway was another example of having fun and enjoying his maths and games.
I don't think that what applies to 5σ mind can be generalised to the general population. While we surely should derive joy and playful pleasure from all things in life, that should be the result and not the goal in my opinion.
Otherwise we end up with adults spending ridiculous hours playing video games, chasing that beautiful feeling they gave them when they were kids, all the while avoiding real life.
> adults spending ridiculous hours playing video games
What do you consider to be "ridiculous hours"?
There are definitely times when I end up playing online games for >20h/week. That's well above the median I'm sure... but how many hours per week did my parent's generation spend on average watching TV? My dad is retired now, and spends probably ~40h / week in his shop just... tinkering.
How is my playing War Thunder any less "real life" than him rebuilding his 124th Coleman lantern?
People need a way to recover from the stresses of everyday life. I don't understand why gaming in particular is so often discounted, while various other non-productive pursuits are readily accepted.
Pretty much everything is life. The hedonistic pursuit of dopamine, in isolation from others in the way he was describing doesn’t sound like the best way to spend that precious resource though.
But to each their own, I just get a gross feeling after I’ve spent too long engaged like that. But movies are arguably even more passive and empty, and I like those!
> chasing that beautiful feeling they gave them when they were kids, all the while avoiding real life.
What you're describing is a coping mechanisms to a life they don't wish to face. It does not make them any more of an adult if they instead chose gambling, drinking, illegal drugs, shopping, or any another method of escape.
Real life under capitalism is overrated. It is somewhat hard to find an engaging game after 35, since you have already played everything there was and know all the tropes.
Maybe if we did not have a school system that completely kills any innate curiosity in people, they might do something real instead of virtual. Well, one can dream.
Board games also reward the kinds of abstract thinking that American schools have been trying to promote. Taking standardized math tests all day may not make you better at real life, but it will make you better at complex Euro-games.
> Board games have exactly the same tropes and design patterns as computer games.
To an extent, but board games can also highlight ambiguous interpretations of the rules. Just last night, I was playing Cosmic Encounter with some friends and a good proportion of the fun was banter and arguments about some of the specific rules. I think board games can get away with a lot more randomness and chaos than computer games as they have a big social aspect to them. If you go from a successful, winning strategy to losing in a computer game because of someone having a specific card, then you'd probably stop enjoying the game, but with a board game it tends to spur a round of laughter instead.
Hearthstone allowed for a lot of card dynamics that were not available in Magic The Gathering due to its digital only format. Particularly random card effects involving unowned cards. So... While I appreciate rules lawyering conversations as much or more than the next person, whether digital or analog games have more RNG may not be so straightforward as you write here.
> I think board games can get away with a lot more randomness and chaos than computer games as they have a big social aspect to them. If you go from a successful, winning strategy to losing in a computer game because of someone having a specific card, then you'd probably stop enjoying the game, but with a board game it tends to spur a round of laughter instead.
I'm not sure why you think there's any difference. RNG is RNG. At least that's how we treat it in our group.
The difference is in the design of the game. A computer game that has too much of the gameplay assigned to randomness will get boring quickly, whereas a board/card game can be unfair and unbalanced as part of the fun is the players' reactions. An example would be the Fluxx card game which dramatically changes the rules as play continues which makes strategising almost useless.
> A computer game that has too much of the gameplay assigned to randomness will get boring quickly
Are you familiar with roguelikes? Nethack?
The games that I replay most often are the ones that are ridiculously difficult and callously unfair to the player - because they're also the ones that get my mind engaged the most, and where I get the most enjoyment from overcoming an unfair situation.
Well they eradicated vocational and technical schools in major cities, I was one of the last class of students to attend one in my major metropolian area.
I think once you escape the system you don't find games or other distractions enjoyable anymore. When you're fully actualized and are capable of "going your own path", satisfaction then comes from making things and trying to improve the world. That is if you don't want to have children, as is the case with me.
I think we've been conditioned from childhood to get a job, work for the corporate world and chase material goods. All of those further the interests of those in power.
Update: Wild foraging, living with nature, moving to another country, or doing what hunter gatherers did. Running your own business. Camping out in the wild, while still making money from something. There are so many other options, you need to be creative about it...
Anyway @NoMoreNicks I've flagged your post and I'm closing this HN account down (by deleting the password)....
> I think we've been conditioned from childhood to get a job,
This is a hilariously millennial take on how life works. For the past million years or longer, humans learned (and quickly) that if you didn't want to starve you'd need to work to avoid that. The means to avoid starvation have changed. We're no longer hunter gatherers, and few of us are subsistence farmers--and I can have some sympathy for those who would prefer those occupations--but the truth of the matter is that nothing more than the details have changed in all that time.
People weren't "conditioning" you to get a job. They were gently introducing you to reality. It seems a little too gently, by the looks of it.
> All of those further the interests of those in power.
Huh? It furthers the interests of those who don't want to starve. But you've never even been hungry, not really, and so it's all still highly theoretical for you.
Maybe "get a job" means "join a large organization that offers W2 employment", which is -- if not completely unique to the modern West (like, maybe you were joining the Qing bureaucracy, or the East India Company, or the Roman Army) -- is at least not universal. Even today, many parts of the world are much more about small proprietors and scrappy permissionless entrepreneurship. And there are still a few hunter-gatherers. In fact, many of the identities that defined America -- like, "homesteader" -- weren't exactly "getting a job".
You can also say that we really are conditioned, by education, to slot ourselves into organizations, identify who the teacher/boss is, and do what they tell us to.
So while the past required effort, I can see how OP (1827163) could have a point.
I suppose the point here is that, if you're not a member of this hypothetical tribe, then you still do need to "get a job"? This relates to property rights in a way: The members of this tribe have collective ownership, passed down through inheritance, and you don't. It's certainly true that inheriting wealth beats having to work for it.
If we imagine that life is good for hunter-gatherers -- or at least that they have individual autonomy -- then we get a way to frame the issue: The Machine easily steamrolls these people, taking their land from them, but, people born inside The Machine are enslaved to The Machine.
Maybe you were responding to my word "permissionless": You cannot actually hunt on tribal lands without permission. Makes sense. What I had in mind in the "permissionless" sentence was something more like operating an informal business in a developing country -- which appears to be common. Perhaps there are networks of patronage there too, that you don't see? Protection, security, "turf"?
Anyway, I'm not sure what the point of all this is, except for mood: OP was arguing from a sort of utopian perspective, and you insist on a more competitive, resource-limited worldview.
I think my point, that there are societies not built around large organizations and formal employment, still does stand, however. Perhaps everything is bad, but it's presumably bad in different ways.
Yes, but the thing is we have increased productivity tremendously because that's what our species does. So first we didn't need everyone working in the fields, after that we didn't need everyone working in the factories, and we're at this point in which we have to make up more and more absurd necessities and regulations so people have jobs, but we aren't going to need everyone doing that either. The clear socioethical paradigm that made sense after we realized that growing food was easier than hunting and foraging is heading a wall.
> So first we didn't need everyone working in the fields, after that we didn't need everyone working in the factories,
Do you own any fields? Do you own any factories? If you owned those, then you might be able to work in them and produce what you need to live, or at least something to trade for the things you need.
You seem to think there's a "we" here. There isn't. No one else is much in the mood to support you.
Yes, I own fields. No, the ROI isn't there so parishioners keep them for sentimental value mostly. It isn't worth it, it was but it's been decades that it's not.
Of course there's a "we". We depend on supply chains and working societies to even be writing anything here now. No one is willing to support anyone but we're a social species with division of roles, that's the "we".
No, there isn't. You use the word, and deep in your lizard brain you hear yourself say "myself and all these other people who care about me and love me and are on my team".
There's no "we". No one wants to be part of that "we" with you, and those who lie and say they do want to be part of it with you are hoping they get more out of the deal than they give to be part of it. I'm probably the closest thing to being your friend that you have when I'm at least honest and tell you that's horseshit.
If people like yourself spent more time trying to solve the much smaller problem of "how do I make my way in this world" instead of "how do we make it so everyone gets what they want", then quite simply more of you would get what you want.
> but we're a social species with division of roles,
Your role's about to be eliminated. Might take 20 years, the timeline's hard to pin down. But the guys who get to keep their roles are perfecting autonomous war drones. Your odds don't look good.
You're right that we're not going to get fully automated luxury space post-work, communist or not, because the "entrepreneurs" ushering it in will not be able to shake the motive of "profit" out of their lizard brains and would rather kill everyone not in their social/economic class than see the death of the world order that puts them at the top. But it is amusing that you comment gleefully that someone else's job is about to be eliminated, but upthread are bitching about childishness and people not wanting to work. We're supposed to want to work in a world that is actively obsoleting jobs (and leaving nothing "better" in its wake, to boot)? A bunch of people going "fuck you, got mine" makes more people better off than cooperation? If post-scarcity somehow happened your lizard brain would implode.
I think the idea is that adolescent activities prepare us for life as adults, as adults we concern our self with the grown-up version of the same thing. Whether it's running a business or waging war or building machines or whatever.
That's predicated on adulthood being a state where you're autonomous and free to do something with your life, and falls apart when we're up to our ears in debt and working as wage-slaves.
In the latter scenario, you may satisfy the itch for the thing you've been preparing for by additional preparation. We play video games or watch TV-shows about people going on adventures instead of actually going on adventures ourselves because that's not an option.
Yeah, buy an expensive jersey with your sports heroes name on it, paint your face the team colors, yell and wave flags in the parking lot, then go find your $2000 chairs in the big building like real adults spend their time.
Reading between the lines here but it seems to be a coping mechanism for psychologists that are uncomfortable with change and how an individual life's course has become unpredictable for them.
i think what is happening is that in earlier generations (before computers were common) there were not many "childrens"-activities that translated into adulthood, so the games for adults necessarily looked very different from the games for children, mostly sports, and classical games like chess, playing cards, maybe model trains and model building, etc.
this is no longer the case. besides computer games, things like board games have massively expanded, lego and compatible bricks have sets targeting adults, and more.
the difference between childrens games and adult games is no longer so clear.
and to add another counterpoint to the article, all those supposedly kids games that i am playing now, except for lego, i did not play as a kid. so i didn't preserve my teenage likings. and even lego i stopped playing as a teenager and i didn't get back to until i had kids of my own.
Lots of "childhood" American things i only found in my third world country as an adult many years later so yeah regional differences are also at play here. Also some "child" games i encounter are hard af i dont even know how a child is supposed to be able to finish it.
Oh, you can love fantasy and be highly professional, and you can be "adult" while being incredibly inmature, childish even. I prefer people that far in the first bucket.
I think some things that are generational are being confused for things that are infantile. Anime and Video games mostly got introduced in the form of children's entertainment first, and as those kids grew up they were still interested in the medium and more mature takes emerged.
> Is the only acceptable use of your free time as an adult reading non-fiction about finding the meaning of life?
Of course not! You could also read about productivity. Or maybe a biography of Napoleon? I think those are both fine (got to check with my boss first).
It is branding. Pokémon and Harry Potter started the trend of extending kid things into adult life. Comic franchises pounced. Star Wars went 15 years without a sequel then saw the cash cow. It’s not about not liking things, it’s about continuing to only choose topical things of an infantile nature and remaining incapable of handling mature thought processes. I don’t think it is a big deal. If future generations become less mature we just devolve a little bit as a society until there’s a course correction that favors maturity. No big deal IMHO.
I think the lumping there is certainly sloppy, but there is something there. There seem to be a large number of adults who like comic books, young adult fiction, or other entertainment primarily intended for children… which I think is fine… but also have no interest in anything else, or have some sort of expectation that these media will start to include decidedly adult themes without significantly changing in style. That’s strange and a bit unsettling to me.
I'm not sure if I'm old enough to be part of this group but am pretty sure I'll join it.
I have tried to get into "adult" fiction but oh my god it's so boring and dry how do you all stand it? It's like how with horror you don't touch it unless it has an R rating, any book that's trying to cultivate an adult audience is gonna be bad. And I devour YA series to the point of losing sleep because I didn't realize how long I've been reading so it's not that I just don't like reading. Maybe some switch will flip eventually but I doubt it.
I don't read comics but what? Of course comic book movies are an adult activity but reading the source material -- children only.
I wouldn’t consider a Marvel movie particularly “adult,” no. Anyway, every book written for an adult audience, over literally thousands of years, is “dry and boring”? At a certain point you need to look in the mirror.
Then name one, choose any book that would be totally unappealing to a teenager/early college (so no Dune, Hitchhiker's, Martian, Clockwork, GoT, American Gods, Good Omens) but is fun and exciting. There are books that are for everyone except young children, and there are books that are trying to appeal exclusively to adults. The former are great, the latter are a slog.
I feel like this just boils down to you liking certain books and not other books, where the other books tend to be preferred by adults and not younger audiences. /shrug
I do think anyone can enjoy Dune. Although it's still essentially about coming of age, it has a compelling plot and universe, if you're into that sort of thing.
But compare with one of my fave books, Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Main character is a middle aged guy whose life essentially starts unravelling. And it's like.. if you haven't yet gotten to that point in life where you can empathise properly with the characters and your sense of meaning of your own existence starts unravelling, it's not really going to make as much sense and maybe won't be quite as interesting or meaningful I guess?
A bunch of crazy shit happens, sure, but not of the pew pew lasers and kicking people in the teeth kind. I do think I would've enjoyed it a lot as a YA but maybe not as much. And the level of writing is different, Murakami (as translated) writes very simply but it's much more complex in terms of the underlying concepts and it's not like you stop getting better at understanding shit once you hit 25 years old.
I have no idea what your tastes are but I found both Journey to the West and the Odyssey to be very fun and exciting, with elements of what would appeal to someone about more kid-oriented stories (adventures, fantastical creatures, fighting), but written with a more mature audience in mind. Moby Dick is another I would put in this "tale of adventure" bucket but it can be polarizing with the info-dumps about whaling.
If you want to try going in a totally different direction, I am a big fan of Abe Kobo's avant-garde work, such as The Box Man or the Ark Sakura. I guarantee it's unlike anything else you've read if you've avoided straying from the kiddie pool, playing with the whole structure of the novel itself and challenging your expectations constantly.
If you want to try some nonfiction, I have rarely read a Paul Theroux travel book I was bored by and I think Ryszard Kapuscinski is also great.
I liked the Odyssey, but I also read it in high school so I'm not sure if it counts. Journey to the West ordered! I can't make heads or tails of The Box Man so it doesn't seem like a good intro so Ark Sakura it is.
Is this still "society's" concept of adulthood? Or is it just certain demographics? Most people I know in tech-type careers still play video games (or would if they had time), read a wide range of fantasy and sci-fi books, enjoy hobbies etc. I would regard someone as being immature if they thought that, as an adult, you shouldn't do the things you enjoy once you've met your responsibilities.
"Kidults" is a silly term, and feels like another baseless attack implying that younger generations shouldn't enjoy life and should instead be productive. My grandparents would get together with their friends and play card games well into old age (I wonder at what age they learned those games?). My parents' generation (the baby boomers) seem to still enjoy movies, national sports, TV, and other leisure activities of their generation. There is nothing wrong with anyone enjoying leisure activities, and humanity has probably done so since the earliest of times.
Show me an oldtimer whose life goal is to stay at home and play card games/ and I'll call him a kidult as well. Jordan Peterson might not be right about many things, but one he got right for sure: meaning is brought into your life by responsibility.
It probably has something to do with engaging in activities that promote higher-order analysis and meta-thought. Older adults are usually capable of this; younger kids would struggle.
Consider the way you are “supposed to” watch an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine versus Better Call Saul. Both are fun for their respective age groups.
If you watch the former in the form the latter, you start to see moires that probably escaped the writers (1).
When it comes for difference between teen and adult entertainment, the line seems to be pretty arbitrary. E.g. it has been perfectly fine for an adult to enjoy crime fiction or watch football, while it doesn't require a lot of maturity or sophistication, and teens would enjoy the same activities too. Somehow we never got a significant market of computer games for adults though - maybe because adults don't care as much as before about appearing mature.
OK I mean real adults :) The same demographics who you would imagine as a typical reader of Agatha Christie or Tom Clancy, football or horse race enjoyer in the era before computer games and internet
I think the idea that thriller novels or horse racing are more mature than video games questionable, however. Your average adult thriller (or hollywood AAA movie) has a plot that would sit right alongside video game plots.
Computer gaming is a $300bn industry. Kids alone don't have that kind of money.
There is a real "maturity/sophistication" barrier, though. Games came close to breaking through about a decade ago, then enough "gamers" decided they absolutely did not want that and made sure to destroy that possibility.
There are definitely games that skew older — I don’t think that many young kids want to play MS Flight Sim or iRacing. To a certain extent even stuff like fighting games I feel probably overrepresents the over-30 crowd.
That is an important point. I'm not an anime fan myself (nothing against it, just not my thing) but I understand there is a sub-genre which is essentially thinly veiled pedophilia.
In my late 30s I’ve noticed less and less of my peers and friends still have hobbies and interests, it seems like at some point many people either give up or lose interest and just work and get passively entertained. To me that makes them pretty boring, and hard to connect with. I connect better with people that are passionate about something, even if it’s not something I’m personally into.
Which, with as many prohibition movements there've been against it in American history, has basically been the most pervasive use of one's free time the last 200+ years in the states
I think they're overlooking the change on the content production side there. If a Guardians of the Galaxy movie is going to cost a 250 million to make, you can't exclude some big audience. They need people of all ages buying tickets.
It shouldn't be surprising that something designed to appeal to young and old alike, is consumed by both groups.
It is also weird, because most people actually end up stuck liking things we liked as young. With work and familly, you don't have that much time to explore, your peers don't explore and you end up listening to same music just because how world works.
And that is fine. Elvis Presley generation listened to Presley whole their lives.
It shouldn't matter what exactly you're doing, if at age 30 you didn't find any new things to truly enjoy since you were 15, you probably didn't grow up. These tentative new things typically require sacrifice, as cheap pleasure is just that - cheap.
It all boils down to responsibility and let's call it the "metaego": the trappings of childhood are immaterial and orthogonal to the balancing of priorities. An adult will do what's best to ensure their future, while a kidult will avoid making hard choices and opt for what's fun or pleasurable. OTOH if one becomes a dead, loveless, overly-serious robot in their quest for adulting, then they've also failed at life. A responsible adult thinks for themselves and constructs an internal leader who observes, plans, and executes at higher levels of abstraction than does a child.
There are people who are responsible, resourceful, and able to care for others well, then there are average people who stumble through life without clear goals but get by okay, and then are people, i.e., addicts, borderline personality-adjacent, and the "failure to launch (ever)" types who absolutely shouldn't have kids and are themselves burdens to others intentionally or through disability without fault of their own.
The point is to be a highly-productive caregiver requires a greater level of organizational, wisdom, and internal model formation than someone who is, say, both very young and immature in attitude and behavior. That part of them hasn't developed enough yet to be able to prioritize appropriately and produce better outcomes.
The reverse is seen in the decline of aging as we lose more than good habits. I anticipate having to look forward to both ARMD and dementia due to genetics.
Yes, most people lose interest for video games, cartoons, superhero movies, etc when they grow up. This happen to me as well. Some keep clinging to childish escapism.
It relies on a cliche of the idea of what an adult should be. But the premise that adults were more mature and not showing these traits before is flawed. Many 60+ years old strongly exhibits all the traits of the described "infantile personality" when their lifestyle and world vision is challenged, be it in their private or professional life. Sure if you judge by the capacity to masquerade and give the appearance of showing the traditional adult image of the older generation by definition the younger one will score worse. But it's a facade, on the inside the majority of older adults are still children.
> characterized by immature feelings (‘childish’ reactions, lack of willpower, lack of confidence), external locus of control (other people are blamed), inflated self-concept, low demands on self (accompanied by high demands on society), and egocentrism.
So you tell me none of your older neighbours will display this and instead be models of "emotional maturity (rationality, self-control, lack of impulsivity, etc.)" when you talk to them about lawn mowing, car usage/size, energy, meat eating, land use regulation, ...?
There is no more infantilism than before, what has changed is the definition of achievement.
People forget that the history of the Prohibition movement was already 100 years old when it finally won constitutional prohibition in 1919 (and people literally empowered the Italian and Irish mafias to get around it; so empowered we got a President and an US Attorney General out of it). The Whiskey Rebellion started over a tax that was backed by lots of reformer types who wished to leverage a de facto 'sin tax' to control drinking.
People use to drink all the damn time.
My grandfather was a silent generation career man for GE, worked there 40 years, fought in WWII by lying about his age and fought in Korea, raised a family, bought a house, the very type one would venerate as a true adult man... and he drank a lot. He didn't stop drinking until I was 8 or 9 and had suffered a heart attack.
There's no mention of money or real estate prices, nor of extended educational requirements and time in university, nor the increased cost of child-rearing. For a couple, following (what's claimed to be) the traditional path means spending tens of thousands of dollars on an engagement and wedding, hundreds of thousands on a mortgage, having each parent work a full-time job, and buying all the overpriced junk that's expected as part of raising a kid.
People are still willing to follow that path, of course, but they increasingly need to build up their savings to afford it. It's incredibly unsurprising that big barriers to entry prevent people from passing through traditional life stages, and instead lead them to sit on the couch smoking weed and watching anime.
I think this is spot on. Most people want to grow up, but they simply can't. They can't afford the same lifestyle without far more debt inducing schooling, both parents have to work, housing is unaffordable, our congress and presidency is filled with ancient people who have no idea how an iPad works, so policy is far behind the times.
It's no surprise many people just...gave up. There's nothing to latch onto or own - everything is blocked by someone who already got theirs.
Infantilism is such a silly term in this context. I'm a fully grown, reasonably successful person. I know who I am and what I'm doing. I also play video games and absolutely refuse to wear suits except for a few religious and government events.
In my ever-longer life, I have found that many people at some point expect to put on an adult suit, a metaphorical phase change that involves wearing suits, no longer smiling, putting away the xbox, and the like. I have also found that the vast majority of people who feel very strongly about that adult suit suffer from crushing insecurities. That's ABSOLUTELY not to say that all people who wear suits and do stereotypically adult things are insecure--just, by and large, the ones who lecture and finger-wag at people who don't put on the adult suit.
Put another way, I have extremely high demands of the people I work with. Wearing a suit and not playing xbox does not, by itself, give me confidence that your work product is superior. If someone can give me a good product while wearing a bathrobe on a break from a marathon Fornite session? You do you, boo!
The odds of a fortnite binger in a bathrobe turning out a "good product" are rather slim. Putting work (i.e. delayed gratification) before play (instant, or pre-measured artificially-designed-delay gratification) does not guarantee better output, but is pretty much a pre-requisite.
I partially reject the premise, that people who play video games are pursuing instant gratification vs. those who "work." Of the hundreds of people I've worked closely with, I've seen no significant difference in willingness to work among the two groups, and there are slackers in both. And, consistently, the gamers, players, infantilists, or whatever produce vastly more creative, interesting work and fine more creative and interesting solutions. In my experience the proper 28-year-olds who put on their proper adult suit and behave like proper adults give me work product that is, at best, competent. I'll take the gamer almost every time, because they're far more likely to be confident and creative.
One dark issue here is that you can surely let yourself to be immature towards the age of 35, but for women it becomes progressively harder to have children after this point. Males have it easier, but if you plan to have a "normative" family with small age gap between spouses, these problems are also yours. Quality of the offspring also suffers somewhat, though this may be offset by superior medicine and post-natal care.
That, or exchange a prolonged youth for having effectively no adulthood, while also moving your society in unsustainable mode*
So our social behavior no longer matches our biology, in which by a quirk we (at least women) are only fertile for around 1/4 of our total life, and less than that in socially acceptable fashion.
* Caveat emptor, perhaps it would be great if we could deflate population of most countries by having low birth rate for a while, but this is not what we are good at - instead, countries seem to race into hyperurbanization and population replacement
This may be offset if women froze their eggs beforehand, but, obviously not everyone can afford it, and also until recently, it wasn't really needed as couples would have children earlier in life.
Man that's insane! I have always wanted kids but never got married. I am a man in my late 20s so finding someone my own age is starting to scare me a little
Women only become fertile at age 15, and socially acceptably fertile at 20. 45-50 is a very optimistic upper bound, even with that bound you end up with ~1/3 figure.
menarche tends to average around 12 (with a wide range), but most cycles don’t involve actual ovulation for the first few years after menarche, so fertility and menarche aren’t simultaneous.
These who are able to have healthy offspring late in their lives are at tremendous evolutionary advantage now, whereas historically it was a selectionary 'meh'.
Lifespan is almost worthless if you are not in tolerable mental and physical condition, and prolonged fertility likely correlates with both. You need to be fit to be fertile.
I'm going to venture the opinion that advertisements and ad-adjacent broadcast media is bursting with adults acting like kids, or adults acting like kids would imagine adults would act, or whatever's slightly appropriate for the product or show being vended. All the way from the "influencer" invented personality down to even where you wouldn't expect it, such as Mythbusters.
So we invent the kidult, which is just a scapegoat for all of this -- oh, when will the kids grow up and realize they are adults and act like it? It's a sign, it's a symbol, for what we can't talk about, because you never, ever discuss the way the money influences us.
> Kidults are people who preserve their teenage likings (from video games, anime and fantasy, to a responsibility-free lifestyle) until they are 30-35 and older.
It seems like this is painting with an extremely broad brush… is liking video games (or, I don’t know, the Offspring) really that similar to putting off employment or parenthood?
> People's life courses have become unpredictable. For example, people earn a degree, work, and then study again and change their profession.
When we moved to Italy me and my SO joked that people in the west have two youths: one for generally screwing around and the other for picking up their first jobs, making initial career choices etc.
Back home the age at which women give birth for the first time is lower than the EU average, but so is fertility rate - it's actually some of the lowest in the union.
And this was visible when we returned after four years - in the meantime some of our friends went the, as my aunt puts it, "marriage, mortgage, family" route, while others seemingly changed nothing in their lifestyles.
The best predictor of this that I can think of is whether someone's parents both expect grandchildren to appear eventually and are willing to provide support - be it by helping finance real estate or participating in care for the infant.
> The best predictor of this that I can think of is whether someone's parents both expect grandchildren to appear eventually and are willing to provide support - be it by helping finance real estate or participating in care for the infant.
I think this is a good insight. I don't agree with your other comments that one can draw up a rational "pros vs cons" list to weigh the merits of reproducing and inevitably find it's a bad deal. It's ultimately a question of what gives you joy in life.
We are now in an era where people who do not want to reproduce can choose not to without being celibate. Over time, this will select for a population more full of people who value children and will choose to have them. And, to your point, it will select for people will also choose to help their own children do the same.
Essentially, strong selection pressure is currently being exerted (at least in developed societies) which selects specifically for people who innately want children. And that apparently also correlates strongly with other beliefs, like religiosity and traditional views.
Personally I don't believe in "reasons for having children". You either feel naturally compelled to do it, or not. Any reason for/against having children is a bad one.
Anyone trying to do a "pros and cons" list on this topic will eventually arrive at the logical conclusion that it's not worth it.
Whoever did such a summary and still decided to follow through is in for a bad time, because "pros" inevitably include someone else's expectations.
That being said I've seen people postpone or, eventually, eschew having children entirely due to lack of support in the time window they had - especially from prospective grandparents applying pressure.
And herein lies the crux of the issue: some people support bringing another generation to this world, others don't. As it stands the latter have slim chances of ever having grandchildren.
I might be in the wrong here, but I see a number of parallels with gender - a somewhat-strict biological component (age) vs a social component (maturity). Both having alternative models of the normative ones.
>‘Legitimation’ of infantilism can also be related to its assessment as a protective mechanism, a way to overcome the difficulties in life. Nancy McWilliams, a psychoanalyst from the U.S., emphasized that the term ‘infantile personality’ is disappearing from the official list, which is logical; in modern terms, it’s just an alternative life course.
Fall of Rome vibes...
I'm sure the parents of e.g. "back to parent's house at 30 to find myself" types are also delighted for their alternative life course involving freeloading on them...
If you have good relations with your parents as a young/middle aged adult it's actually not a bad idea moving back; it doesn't necessarily mean freeloading off them. If you have kids they get to look after your kids and you get to look after them. After experiencing independence perhaps it isn't so bad learning interdependence with family.
Yeah, those are not the cases I had in mind - or the extended family living together of times past.
More about the "30 year old avid gamer living in parent's basement" or "coming back to live with parents after the dream of skateboarding-pop-singer career didn't pan out".
Those are all extremes (yes, these days, even extended family living together is rare), and quite visible ones. But what about the "dark matter" of "alternative life course", i.e. regular people who either can't afford to move out, or realize it's an economically stupid move given the housing costs? Wouldn't surprise me if plenty of such people were casted as "basement gamers", because it's easier to claim new generation refuses to grow up than to accept that prior generations treating housing as investment is preventing the next generation from growing up.
Not trying to needle you at all here: How many people are like that? I tried to google around for this, but really didn't come up with much, statistics-wise.
Yeah I don’t think most NEETs “ coming back to live with parents after the dream of skateboarding-pop-singer career didn't pan out” as described by GP. In fact, most NEETs I’ve interacted with don’t even have the confidence to get a retail job.
Rome fell for a million reasons, but 'the average Roman got decadent and lazy and unproductive' or 'Romans stopped calling it how it is' weren't among them.
From a purely selfish-gene perspective, our only purpose is to survive until reproduction, and then maybe be sure our children do, too. And their children. Maybe to help your siblings and extended family. And so on.
I've clearly failed that way, having no kids, so I'm in no position to lecture other people.
If you're religious, then you think your purpose is to serve God.
However, the fixation in this thread on games, especially video, is weird. There are four mentions of "parents" and only one of "games."
I cannot think of more childish folks than adults adulting because their age number demands it.
When society itself is hellbent on turning up the volume on consumerism that is already destroying the conditions for life on earth, I say unto the shrinks: “ show me your adults who are responsible”
Individual humans have occasionally impressed me, society has only disappointed me.
To butcher and paraphrase Ghandi: “what do you think about snivelization? I think it would be a very good idea.”
> Some studies have shown that when live communication is replaced with digital communication, empathy decreases and ‘autistic-like behaviour’ grows (self-absorption, escaping reality). This leads to emotional immaturity.
There's just no doubt about the destructive aftermath of abandoning physical reality for life inside one's own mind (i.e. online).
I would argue that growing up in a comfortable Western lifestyle is contributing to this infantilism and will be one of the contributors of the decline of the western world.
If you are a Syrian refugee, the last thing you are caring about is the new Mario Nintendo game and Starbucks frappucino.
Time to get serious and have children (me talking to myself)
Once the Syrian refugees arrive somewhere safe and settle, they quite like the creature comforts too. It's not an innate property of different groups, it's a Maslow situation.
I suppose you can move to Syria then. Thankfully the mature mindset of the socioeconomic realities have led to prosperity, and not total collapse, like the childish west.
Adulthood is what we choose to make it. Any concept of age brackets is an arbitrary definition we impose on ourselves. Given the current economic and ecological situation, fucking you do you.
So let me get this straight: the authors of this study find that adults are showing signs of infantilism. And rather than looking at what are the consequences, they focus on the causes, and label the child - adolescent - adult stages as...traditional, hinting that it's just one of many ways in which we can "stratify" lifespans, so to say.
In fact, in the very first sentence, they say that this view is no longer relevant. As in, for who knows how long, it was. Suddenly it isn't.
This framework for viewing ways of organizing society as equally valid and inconsequential defeats the purpose of what, I believe, social sciences are for. I don't need a taxonomy of options, I want actionable insights!
> This framework for viewing ways of organizing society as equally valid and inconsequential defeats the purpose of what, I believe, social sciences are for. I don't need a taxonomy of options, I want actionable insights!
The article is describing academic research, not self-help. In this context it is perfectly reasonable to examine causes rather than consequences, and taxonomies rather than "actionable insights". Thats not to say that consequences etc aren't valid areas on inquiry, just that this article isn't examining them.
> This framework for viewing ways of organizing society as equally valid and inconsequential defeats the purpose of what, I believe, social sciences are for. I don't need a taxonomy of options, I want actionable insights!
social sciences suffer from a lack significance and repeatability more than others, which suggests to me that they are indeed foremost required to establish taxonomies and definitions because anything more is just guessing with a great potential to harm ppl.
Ha ha ha, you're probably right, I came across as an entitled teenager.
But seriously though, taxonomies are part of the whole science enterprise. Unless we formulate hypothesis that can be used to predict new phenomena, we're missing out. Or just cargo culting.
For example, Lego is now targeting adults as well as kids. You can make a living out of collecting sets as an investment vehicle or by starting a YouTube channel where you review and show your collection.
What surprises me the most is that this was from a russian university. Compare with today, where "western decadence" is one of the main talking points of the russian narrative.
(The paper is from 2018, so before the invasion, but already after maidan, so the narrative was likely already taking shape)
"Western decadence" isn't anything new. It's been a talking point in USSR just as much. It's a talking point in Europe. It's a talking point in the US too. The generic "${contemporary dominant / liberal culture} decadence" has been a staple of religion and philosophy since the ancient days.
In the late '00-s, Ministry of Education of Russia had set some incentives to universities, including the number of papers published in top-rated international journals. The more liberal, West-oriented folks were much more capable of doing this, hence they concentrated in many top-tier universities. Sometimes this led to political fights with the conservative top management. The latter got huge salaries from the ministry and was informally demanded to keep loyalty and suppress dissent. (Figures that I heard from a big regional uni: rector's salary $12K/mo, teacher's around $700/mo, part-time teacher doing a course twice a week ~$100/mo.) So rectors would bring as many capable people as possible, no matter their political position, and then softly tried to stop them from making political stances/scandals.
Ahh, there you go. Reading the .ru TLD at the main page, first thing that came to my mind is "I wonder how long it takes until someone makes this political. And there you go. No surprises anymore in this day and age.
Russian propaganda of the last three years has used "western decadence" as a theme a lot, but obviously the concept pre-dates that and is common in rightwing messaging throughout the 20th century.
HSE has been one of the places which allowed a relative academic freedom - as soon as you don't criticise the government directly. These places existed for the whole duration of Putin's regime, and only after 24th of Feb 2022 the government declared zero tolerance to any dissent.
Strange - I interpret a lot of the far right movements to be very immature. MAGA enthusiasts would seem to fit a lot of those descriptions and there does seem to be a lot of childish opinions not anchored in reality spouted from far-right politicians (e.g. it conflicts with MY religion, so it should be banned).
I agree, almost all of far * movements are immature. The antiquated left-right political dimension is a circle with a very small gap between the extremes
So basically you're saying that people presenting infantile traits end up in... Immature ideologies.
It has nothing to do with left or right, you yourself is saying the left-right dimension is antiquated but still using the term to try to pull your argument.
It has to do with people incapable of thinking in higher-level orders, to understand nuance; to understand systems and how they relate to oneself, others and societies; to understand more mature views of the world, and to be able to parse through those views. They are present in any part of the political spectrum but the more immature sides attract more immature people.
You could just have avoided the whole political jab, it'd be a more interesting conversation.
I didn't read it as a "jab". I think it's important because people on the left often justify doing extreme things for "good" reasons, while people on the right justify doing extreme things for "moral" reasons. In other words, both sides also attract mature - indeed, philosophically diverse and well-marinated - people who are willing to say that the ends justify the means precisely because they understand one version of history and have drawn drastic conclusions from it. People who have thoroughly thought-out belief systems and historical examples to back up their contentions - and who have even considered or flipped from opposing points of view - are much more dangerous as spreaders of radicalism than any immature true believer.
The jab was more targeted because one of these extremes is much more represented than the other, currently. It has become popular to be far left; it hasn't been popular to be far right in decades.
> It has become popular to be far left; it hasn't been popular to be far right in decades.
It's become popular in your cohort to be far left perhaps - but it hasn't in mine, and it definitely hasn't in the generation currently in high school.
Note that I don't care about that source in particular, it was just the first one that came up when I searched. The point is, that school had a vocal "rebellion" against what is commonly seen as a leftist plank. The reaction of the school's administration - and now, the media - certainly hasn't helped. If anything it has solidified those kids' views.
For me, where I live (the US "Mid-South") it never became popular to be on the left. While perhaps "far" right isn't exactly popular; it's not uncommon, is accepted, and being on a moderate/right position is by far the majority of adults.
As dumb as it sounds on its face, I honestly believe that "memes got Trump elected". The popularity of Internet culture, the sheer amount of nuance you can pack into a single image meme, and the sense of tribalism that comes from following the evolution of various memes (as in "image meme formats") over time that prevents "others" from understanding why they're funny is... well, it's hugely influential.
If you see yourself as being on the left or far left, and you believe that the right is "uncool", I think you're going to be in for a rude awakening. The left-wing anti-establishment in the US has been the establishment for a long time now. Young people tend to be rebellious, and the only way to rebel against a rebellious culture is to embrace conformity.
> it hasn't been popular to be far right in decades.
I think we are living in very different realities then. I had never seen in my life vocal and open support for white supremacism as it's been since around 2015, I'm not in or from the USA, mind you. I also had never seen popular figures with the youth to be spouting Nazi-adjacent rhetoric as I've seen in the same time frame.
I believe you should look better into your biases... Everything has become more polarised, and support for fascism and/or protofascists has grown in a way I had never expected it could happen again after WW2.
Do you think that the voters of Trump are far right? Some of them are, sure. The success of Trump was due to the failure of the Democrats, not the popularity of far right.
The rhetoric of the far-right definitely became more commonplace, it's not necessarily that the majority Trump's voters are far-right but he has definitely opened a floodgate to empower the far-right not only in the USA but in other countries as well.
If you hang out with Nazis, if you brush up with Nazis, you are very likely to become a Nazi yourself because no one that rejects Nazis would put themselves into that position... And I think it's pretty clear that Trump brushed shoulders with Nazis.
I think it's important to recognize how we got to the point where we are now. Infantilism is a big component in far anything communities, but the internet has made it way worse in some cases
If you go to (excuse my outdated concepts of extremist communities) Parler to talk about LGBT in a positive manner you will get about the same amount of vitriol as if you went to r/FemaleDatingStrategy to call out misandry or if you went to a specific /pol/ thread to fight antisemitism.
I think the bottom line here is, vitriol is pretty much omnipresent among us. The difference between communities is how they run the ductwork to siphon it out of our daily conversations. That's where the discourse is formulated and fine-tuned to the specific needs of its members.
When you build bubble-like communities, you will get echo chambers that breed infantile subjects. If you allow people to call each other certain slurs, but not other ones, you will naturally optimize for resistate to the former. If you build a forum with usernames and perhaps even an upvote system, people will recognize and build up reputation bound to their names. If you make an Anonymous board, people won't care about reputation. These are just two options on a huge spectrum of possible alignments. Engagement-oriented platforms (by that I mostly mean social media and Reddit), are however a special case.
Maybe an anecdote makes more sense: A few years ago, in high school, I used to find joy in trolling. I felt especially at home on the imageboard that starts with four, but when the thread would scroll over the limit and plunge into oblivion I realized how little those three people that I made seethe actually mattered. To contrast that, on platforms that value engagement, it was and probably still is a lot easier to reply with something inane and watch the replies roll in. A single statement that would go into the archives mostly unnoticed instead made an impact on dozens if not hundreds of people. After getting out of my turbo edgy phase I realised that I hurt a pretty good amount of people in both cases, and it feels somewhat dishonest to believe that every single downvote, reply and slur hurled my way was born in infantilism.
What I'm trying to say is that when we increase the number of interactions, we as a byproduct also increase the number of "bad" interactions. When I talk to "bad" people with "bad" opinions, I try to recognize that even if they are 90% infantile garbage, the rest can come from honest pain and discontentment. But sometimes that's just being too charitable. People are hard.
> Infantilism is a big component in far anything communities, but the internet has made it way worse in some cases
I definitely agree with this. I've seen it in my own ideological development.
I'm about 40 years old now. I've labelled myself lots of things over the years: Republican, conservative, libertarian, Objectivist, Anarcho-Capitalist, and more. I still identify in some way with all of those, which makes sense because while my ideas and beliefs have been refined over the years, much of the foundation and all of the personal experiences that informed them haven't.
I stopped calling myself a Republican when I saw that most Republicans had strong beliefs that ran counter to mine. I've never cared who someone loves or how they live. I'm happy to live peacefully and respectfully with whomever is around me as long as they're happy to do the same. I've always been opposed to the unbound growth of government and particularly opposed to government violating its own rules in pursuit of a goal that happens to be "an exception". The people I knew who called themselves Republicans increasingly differed from me, in these areas and others, so I looked for a new (or perhaps "more specific") community.
Libertarians seemed to fit that mold for me, and that worked for a long time. That term became associated with the Libertarian Party for me. For a while the LP seemed to be making some progress. I was an ardent supporter of Ron Paul and would have loved to see him take the Presidency. He didn't, so I started to care more about building a solid foundation so the "next Ron Paul" could be better supported. That looked like it might work for a while, but ultimately the LP fell apart and was taken over by people who weren't there for the same reasons that I was.
Objectivism was a more well-defined label, and at first I agreed with almost all of it. I loved that it was so consistent! But over time I found more and more edge cases where it wasn't consistent at all, and I realized that the people I interacted with were more interested in what Ayn Rand said than they were about thinking critically about things. I came to see Objectivists as "Randists", and abandoned the label.
Anarcho-Capitalism was similar. It's consistent, I agree with the foundations... but the people who apply it to themselves began to feel more and more "shallow" to me. Most of them were self-described Ancaps because they saw it as edgy; most those that earnestly believed it have such a shallow understanding of the way social systems work that they expected to be able to throw out all government tomorrow morning and everything would work out great. I (think!) I know better - while I believe government in its current form is immoral and should ultimately be abolished, trying to do it in one fell swoop is a sure recipe for social and economic disaster. Historically that's always followed by a period of violence and the rise of authoritarianism. No thanks.
These days my views are pretty much just my own, and I don't strongly identify with any label that I know of. My username is sorta tongue in cheek, even - I've seen it used as a slur for ancaps in the past, and it was mildly amusing to me, so I adopted it.
TL;DR: I think I've grown as a person to the point that I know my beliefs change over time, allow for the idea that I could be totally wrong, and am really just looking for a way to leave in peace and harmony with those around me. If I can find common ground with them and work together to move toward our shared goals - awesome. If not, that's OK too. I'm happy continuing to ignore the things I can't change.
I think that it's more the authoritarian movements that are especially immature and of course that's orthogonal to left/right classifications.
As a lefty myself, I find that right/capitalist politics to remind me of the toddler stage when kids are claiming things to be their own ("mine!") and exaggerating all of their accomplishments (e.g. Trumpism). Lefties tend to have more of a notion of sharing and trying to be emphatic with others, but there's certainly a breed of self-righteous, angry lefties too (c.f. Linus Torvalds' angry outbursts).
Edit: Another thought - is the infantilism better associated with populism? i.e. to appeal to a large demographic, it's best to keep slogans simple (e.g. "Get Brexit Done" from the UK Tories) and having simple ideas that can appeal to people despite the ideas not actually being practical (e.g. "Eat the rich")
I feel that "Eat the rich" reaction is simply an outcome of when people realize that they are in fact being exploited. Many were feeling similar in USSR. "Who does not rob the state, robs his own family" was a pretty popular slogan back in those days.
About the "immaturity", I don't have a good grasp of what it's supposed to mean. Maybe we should stop using it altogether (outside of biology) and concentrate on specific skills.
> About the "immaturity", I don't have a good grasp of what it's supposed to mean.
I interpret it as an infantile reaction to when events don't go your way. A classic example here in the UK is Boris Johnson's reaction to the just released "Partygate" report. A mature reaction to criticism would be to either dispute it if it's inaccurate or to acknowledge your own shortcomings otherwise. His reaction is more akin to a tantrum though that could be related to his narcissism.
Nowadays, I'm thinking that a lot of modern politics are becoming like a scene from Lord of the Flies.
(I wonder if climate catastrophes will make "Eat the rich" a popular slogan)
I find the only predicting factor in which policies the right or left will adopt to be what sort of parent would implement them- the right wing want the state to be a father, the left want it to be a mother.
By that lens, it makes total sense that the more seriously one takes the right-left polarity, the more one needs a parental figure!
Traditional gender roles seem like a reasonable proxy for political party in the US.
As of 2019, women tended to identify as Democrats (56%) much more often than as Republican (38%). Men identified as Republican more frequently (50%) than Democrat (42%).
I'd call that a proxy for what kind of parent you prefer your state to be, but it's probably complex enough that you could just as well start the feedback loop at gender role and work out from there.
All animals produce CO2 just by breathing. Should we cull their populations? Sterilise the largest mammal species so they can become extinct?
To revert global warming, the breathing of animals such as ourselves is rounding error. Furthermore, reducing population is only useful to the extent that the population is assumed to have a carbon footprint (breathing excluded) which is still unsustainable as is that of the current population. It is a measure that can have an effect on the macro policy level of "promote the conditions that will encourage demographic transition" [0], not on the micro "don't have kids" scale.
Honestly, the idea that having kids is irresponsible because "population growth causes global warming" is a prime example of an infantile idea.
Peter Pan has a carbon footprint, and leaves the world a worse place than when he arrived. The Peter pans of the world need to get out and plant some trees, at least, to justify their existence. Or stop playing childish games and join one of the many clans of “escape extinction” 3.0.
This is always something that has bothered by society's concept of adulthood. Are people just supposed to not like things past 35? Is the only acceptable use of your free time as an adult reading non-fiction about finding the meaning of life?