
Japan plans to lower age of adulthood to 18 (2018) - gscott
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43391498
======
fenomas
This article is a year old; the law it discusses was approved last June.

------
pattusk
> But teenagers will still be banned from smoking, drinking alcohol and
> gambling until they are 20.

The logic of this escapes me. Although the article does not seem to mention
it, it seems probable that the voting age will likely also be lowered to 18.
This means teenagers will be considered old enough to make decisions that will
affect the entire country, all the while being considered too immature to make
decisions that will really only affect them individually.

~~~
ghaff
In the US at least, the 21 yo drinking age is mostly a wholly pragmatic law
[EDIT: laws. It's state by state but there was a big federal stick attached to
highway funding.] to reduce teenage drunk driving (which affects more than the
individual). Tobacco sales is mostly 18 in the US (although a few states are
21). Casinos also vary although the drinking age restricts <21 yo in a lot of
casinos.

It's hard to make an intellectual case for disparities between things like
voting age, military service (which is why the US voting age was reduced to 18
in the first place), drinking/gambling/smoking, age of consent, etc. but
pragmatism still sometimes wins out.

~~~
Tehnix
I would argue that it actually ends up having the opposite effect. The culture
towards drinking that the US has, means that young people either have to hide
really hard that they are in fact drinking, or that they never learn control
before much later in life, because they go all in when they are 21. This,
funnily enough is after they have had their drivers license for some years,
and those two mix bad together (lack of experience drinking, and a drivers
license).

I contrast this to my own country, Denmark, where we are much more lax about
drinking. You can buy alcohol lower than 16% at age 16, and you can get your
drivers license at 18. Parents accept that people will probably slowly start
out drinking before this though, and are therefore more involved with this
aspect of young people’s lives. This means they also has a chance to
supervisor, guide and help their children manage this new experience of being
drunk, and educate them on how it works.

At least that’s my armchair take on it :)

~~~
ghaff
I'd like to agree but the evidence suggests differently, e.g. [1] Arguably,
there was an increased awareness in the US of drunk driving as a problem
during that period but the effect still seems to be real even correcting for
that.

Of course, if we assume a completely different culture around alcohol, the
results might well be different.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20497803](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20497803)

~~~
Tehnix
Ah, I should maybe have been more clear. My point was that it would have
better effects to change the culture around drinking, rather than increasing
the age limit of when you can drink.

I’m not suggesting that it’s an easy thing to do though.

~~~
danans
Another approach is to change technology.

Volvo has keys with a built-in breathalyzer:
[https://accessories.volvocars.com/en-
us/C30/Accessories/Docu...](https://accessories.volvocars.com/en-
us/C30/Accessories/Document/VCC-449113/2013)

And of course, autonomous vehicles could make drinking a non-issue for getting
around, just like trains and buses do today.

~~~
saghm
If this were a universal thing, I could see it helping, but unfortunately I'd
be surprised if only people who opt in having this feature makes a significant
dent in the issue.

~~~
Y_Y
Well people do exercise this option if they are obliged to by a court ruling,
or if it gets them a lower insurance premium.

~~~
saghm
Fair enough!

------
miki123211
If you restrict people under the age of <magical unexplainable constant x>
from doing something, they usually will find the means and do it anyway, but
out of govt control, so it migt be even worse than if you didn't try. That is
true about porn, alcochol, tobacco, working (I could never get that one) and
lots of other things.

~~~
ramblerman
I agree that the number is arbitrary, and probably not a good one but I'm not
sure that warrants not having it at all.

Surely we would agree 7 year olds should be kept from (porn, alcochol,
tobacco, working 'for money')

~~~
praneshp
Some HN-ers would say "why dictate a 7-year old, let them watch what they
find", then head to a YouTube kids thread and brag about only giving their
kids 1990s style phones.

~~~
TremendousJudge
I think those are probably separate groups of people. In fact, the ones that
argue the first point tend to not actually have kids/interact with children in
general

------
saagarjha
> The bill includes clauses that are designed to protect against this problem.
> For example, young people will be able to cancel a contract if they believe
> salespeople have manipulated or pressured them into signing it.

I’m curious to know how this is codified legally. Presumably this isn’t just a
blanket “oh no I was conned into an agreement that should be invalidated”?

~~~
hnarn
Many countries have laws that require certain types of contracts to have an
obligatory right to withdraw within a certain time. In my country, all
contracts that have been entered "remotely" for example (over phone, over the
Internet, etc.) have this, meaning that if you enter a contract over the
phone, it can be nullified within a certain period for any reason.

So in these cases, whether you were "conned" or not is not a part of the legal
language, which is probably very much a conscious move. It simply extends the
customers right to withdraw from an agreement, keeping the reason for it
legally irrelevant.

~~~
microcolonel
Though there is a downside. I decided to start working when I was 16, and it
was hard to keep business with no right to enforce my own liabilities in the
contract.

~~~
slavik81
The right to be held to your side of the bargain is perhaps not immediately
obvious as an important right, but there's a decent bit that has been written
on the topic. For example:

 _" Among the legal privileges of corporations, two that are mentioned in
textbooks are the right to sue and the "right" to be sued. Who wants to be
sued! But the right to be sued is the power to make a promise: to borrow
money, to enter a contract, to do business with someone who might be damaged.
If suit does arise, the "right" seems a liability in retrospect; beforehand it
was a prerequisite to doing business."_ ~ Thomas Schelling, _The Strategy of
Conflict_

------
nkkollaw
Where does the age 18 comes from? I see that it's the age of adulthood in most
countries.

Your brain and body stop developing at 23 if I'm not mistaken?

~~~
qntty
Presumably some sort of pragmatic balance between protecting children from
child labor and war on the one hand, and having enough young people in the
society to keep the economy going and military staffed.

