How To Solve The Big Tech Problem Without Violating Anyone's Rights

"Big Tech is the new Big Tobacco" is often bandied about these days.  And while that has a kernel of truth to it (a kernel the size of a cornfield, in fact), it is also used by authoritarian zealots with a very illiberal (and ageist) agenda.  Mandatory age verification, censorship, repealing Section 230, and other related illiberal restrictions would open up the door to many unintended consequences to privacy, cybersecurity, and civil rights and liberties in general.  Even those adults who don't support youth rights will eventually experience these consequences sooner or later.  Kafka, meet trap.  Pandora, meet box.  Albatross, meet neck.

And none of these things will actually solve the collective action problem of Big Tech and the "Social Dilemma".  But here are some things that will, in descending order of priority and effectiveness:

1. First and foremost, take a "Privacy First" approach as recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  Pass comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages that, at a minimum, would ban surveillance advertising.
2. Audit the algorithms and internal research of the Big Tech giants, and make the results publicly available for all to see.  Sunlight is truly the best disinfectant. 
3. Require the strictest and safest privacy settings to be the default settings for all users of all ages, which can then be adjusted more liberally by the users themselves.  For example, "friends only" sharing and "no DMs enabled from people whom one does not follow" by default.  And allow the option to turn off all DMs completely as well.
4. Require or incentivize the use of various "architectural" safety features on all social media, such as various nudges, #OneClickSafer ("stop at two hops") to reduce the pitfalls of frictionless sharing, and increase the use of CAPTCHAs to root out the pervasive toxic bots.
5. If after doing that, We the People feel that we must still get stricter in terms of age, then don't make things any stricter than current California standards (i.e. CCPA and CAADCA).

The first two items on the list in particular would of course be vehemently opposed by Big Tech.  That's because their whole business model depends on creepy surveillance advertising and creepy algorithms, and thus incentivizing addiction for profit.  They would thus have to switch to the (gasp!) DuckDuckGo model if these items were done.  (Plays world's smallest violin)

For another, related collective action problem, what about the emerging idea of phone-free schools?  Fine, but to be fair, how about phone-free workplaces for all ages as well?  In both cases, it should ONLY apply while "on the clock", which for school would be best defined as being from the opening bell to the final bell of the day, as well as during any after-school detention time.  And of course, in both cases, there would have to be medical exemptions for students and employees who need such devices for real-time medical monitoring (glucose for diabetes, for example).  Surely productivity would increase so much as a result that we could easily shorten the standard workweek to 30-32 hours per week (8 hours for 4 days, or 6 hours for 5 days) with no loss in profits? 

We must remember that, at the end of the day, Big Tech is NOT our friend.  But neither are the illiberal control freak zealots.  These measures will actually make both sides quite angry indeed.  But truly that's a feature, not a bug.

Big Tech can go EFF off!

America Is Still Drowning In The Bottle

Americans are still drowning in the bottle to this day.  While the pandemic and especially the lockdowns were gasoline on the fire, that fire has been burning for a very long time before that.  The ageist abomination that is 21 drinking age, and all of its illiberal ancillary laws, has clearly done NOTHING to stem that tide in the long run.  And it's truly no coincidence that alcohol (of all types, but especially hard liquor) is now the cheapest it has been in many, many decades relative to inflation and (especially) income.  That's largely because alcohol taxes have greatly lagged behind and were thus eroded by inflation in recent decades, with the tax on distilled spirits lagging the most of all.

Thus, as Twenty-One Debunked has long advocated, we need to raise the alcohol taxes across the board, and harmonize them all based on alcohol content.  To raise just the beer tax alone, for example, would result in drinkers simply switching to liquor, similar to how minimum unit pricing in Scotland disproportionately affected strong cider and perversely incentivized switching to liquor.  MADD has long heavily beaten the drum (though not so much recently) for raising the beer tax, but has also largely been strangely silent on the distilled spirits tax.  Perhaps some alleged palm-greasing from both the liquor industry and/or foreign beer industry may be at work here?  Things that (should) make you go, hmmmm.....

We advocate raising all federal alcohol taxes to about $30 per proof-gallon, equal to the inflation-adjusted value for the distilled spirits tax in 1991, the last time it was raised. That would add anywhere between one and two dollars (depending on alcohol content), to the price of a six-pack of beer, a gallon of wine, or a fifth of liquor, while also incentivizing reduced-alcohol beers and wines.  And while that may not be very much of a difference to a moderate drinker, for heavy drinkers it sure adds up, as it also does for the youngest drinkers as well.  And contrary to what some believe, the price elasticity of demand for alcohol is NOT zero or trivial, and the public health benefits of higher alcohol taxes and prices are well-known and established.

To sweeten the deal, we support a relatively reduced tax rate for the smallest producers, and we also support tax incentives for producers who fortify their beverages with thiamine (vitamin B1) and perhaps other vitamins as well.  And we would also support phasing in alcohol tax hikes a bit more gradually if that is the only way to get them passed.  But raise these taxes, we must.

(And, of course, we also also lower the drinking age to 18 yesterday, full stop.  We are still Twenty-One Debunked, after all.)

It is true that Thomas Jefferson once famously said, "no nation is drunken where wine is cheap".  Granted.  But the second half of that very same quote was, "and none sober when the dearness [expensiveness] of wine substitutes ardent [distilled] spirits as the common beverage.  It is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey."  And now in 2024, it would seem that ALL categories of alcoholic beverages are too cheap for America's own good, and a fortiori for ardent (distilled) spirits today.

What Will Come Of 2024?

Happy New Year, everyone!  What will 2024 bring in regards to youth rights and drug and alcohol policy?  2023 was generally not great in that regard, especially in the Anglosphere overall, although New Zealand surprisingly seems to have wised up a bit in regards to tobacco policy.  What do you think will happen in 2024, everyone?

Science Finally Shows When (Cognitive) Adulthood Begins

No, this is NOT the usual "teen brain" junk science that we have quite frankly gotten tired of debunking.  This is the real deal, so listen up and pay very close attention. 

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh recently published a new, large, and groundbreaking study in Nature Communications that examined nearly two dozen laboratory measures of "executive function" of a whopping 10,000 participants (ages 8 through 35) across four different datasets.  And the results dovetail nicely with what we at Twenty-One Debunked have been generally saying all along, and we quote (emphasis added):

"The resulting analysis showed a common dynamic of executive function maturation that was shared between both sexes: a rapid burst of executive function development in late childhood to mid-adolescence (10-15 years old), followed by small but significant changes through mid-adolescence (15-18) that stabilized to adult-level performance by late adolescence (18-20)."

"Other important behavioral factors that complement executive function, such as the ability to control one's own emotions, can change with age. The ability to use executive function reliably improves with age and, at least in a laboratory setting, matures by 18 years of age."

In other words, 18-20 year olds are in fact adults, not only biologically, but also neurologically and cognitively as well.  And the data show that even 15-17 year olds are actually pretty darn close as well.  Thus, there is really no scientific reason to set the age of majority (or any related age limit for that matter) any higher than 18, period.  In fact, one can even justify setting some age limits a bit lower than that based on this research (after all, it's not binary like flicking a light switch, but rather a gradual process).

So why have so many other, flashier studies seemed to have suggested otherwise?  Well, the brain technically does continue developing to some extent well beyond 18, of course, but that apparent development has been known for over a decade now to continue well into the 30s, 40s, and likely even beyond that as well.  Clearly, any development that does occur from 18 to 21 or 25 is on the very same spectrum as the development that continues beyond that as well.  A brain that continues to change and develop throughout life does not lend itself to simplistic explanations of a magical age of neurological adulthood based on its superficial appearance on a brain scan.  Rather, the real question becomes when the brain is no longer developing on a critical or fundamental level, and when one can achieve an adult level cognitive capacity and performance.  And the University of Pittsburgh study above answers that question far better than just about any other study has so far to date.

So basically, we as a society have three choices on what to do given these findings:  1) radically redefine adulthood, 2) radically redefine adolescence, or 3) simply accept 18-20 year olds as adults, in every way, period.  Occam's Razor would clearly agree with the third option, as would any serious consideration of liberty and justice for all.

To argue otherwise is, at this point, nothing short of warmed-over phrenology at best, if not full-blown political Lysenkoism that will ultimately go down in history as the epitome of bigoted crank science.

UPDATE:  Much to the chagrin of some purists, this study is also the strongest hard evidence to date that adolescence does in fact exist as a distinct life stage that is not entirely socially constructed.  Adolescence appears to be no more socially constructed than adulthood is, in fact.  And to that we say, so what?  Glibly denying all group differences and/or attempting to erase adolescence entirely does not do young people any favors either, and it plays right into the hands of the biological determinist bigots and cranks.  That said, the study finds no scientific support for the specious idea of "emerging adulthood" as a life stage somehow distinct from young adulthood, and we really should simply jettison the term "emerging adulthood" from our collective vocabulary. 

In any case, there is nothing magical about turning 21, 25, or any other age north of 18 for that matter.  And while even 18 is hardly magical either, it is arguably the least arbitrary place to draw the default line where once you are an adult, you are an adult, period.

Have A Safe And Happy Holiday Season

 (This is a public service announcement)

It is that time of year again when the holidays are upon us, and many of us Americans (and around the world) will be celebrating with alcohol and/or other substances, pretty much back to normal now.  We at Twenty-One Debunked would like to remind everyone to be safe and celebrate responsibly.  There is absolutely no excuse for drunk driving at any age, period.  We cannot stress this enough.  It's very simple--if you plan to drive, don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive.  It's really not rocket science, folks.  And there are numerous ways to avoid mixing the two.  Designate a sober driver, take a cab, use public transportation, crash on the couch, or even walk if you have to.  Or stay home and celebrate there.  Or simply don't drink--nobody's got a gun to your head.  Seriously, don't be stupid about it!  And the same goes for other psychoactive substances as well, and a fortiori when combined with alcohol.

ARRIVE ALIVE, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!   If you plan to drink, don't forget to think!  The life you save may very well be your own.