Sort of fine in theory (assuming for the sake of argument that children can consent)...terrible in practice. It suffers the same issues as something like communism or democracy...people aren't perfect, and some like getting things they shouldn't have or don't deserve. So, no, this is a recipe for abuse of the worst kind.
Utopianists are the worst. Any society planned to be ideal has to take into accounts that humans aren't ideal. And if humans were perfect, utopia would simply follow; you wouldn't need to plan shit, and you wouldn't need laws, or even community agreements. People would be perfect, wouldn't abuse children, and all interactions would be 100% consensual, because perfect people wouldn't take advantage of people.
Any utopia that involves in anyway pretending that people are better than they are is a recipe for the worst kind of nightmare scenarios.
assuming for the sake of argument that children can consent
Children, by definition, can't (legally) consent, making this statement self-contradictory. However, we define "child" somewhat arbitrarily as "persons under the age of 18", which has nothing to do with ones ability to give actual (informed) consent, which is naturally going to come at different times for different people on different subjects, as they gain experience. And as an aside, society currently abjectly fails to prepare even 18 year olds to give informed consent on a wide variety of subjects, let alone those who are even younger.
The rest of your argument is sound (utopianism in any form is a deeply flawed philosophy), but that one statement bugged me.
And I meant sort of what it sounds like you're talking about; some people under eighteen are mature enough to consent to various things others might not be. But, considering people aren't perfect, acting like everyone is is a recipe for abuse. That's all I meant; in a perfect society, with perfect people, you wouldn't need age of consent because everyone would just respect consent, and be able to read if someone is capable of giving it. But, considering that's not the case, that's why this is an absolute disaster of a scenario.
Sort of fine in theory (assuming for the sake of argument that children can consent)...terrible in practice. It suffers the same issues as something like communism or democracy...people aren't perfect, and some like getting things they shouldn't have or don't deserve. So, no, this is a recipe for abuse of the worst kind.
Utopianists are the worst. Any society planned to be ideal has to take into accounts that humans aren't ideal. And if humans were perfect, utopia would simply follow; you wouldn't need to plan shit, and you wouldn't need laws, or even community agreements. People would be perfect, wouldn't abuse children, and all interactions would be 100% consensual, because perfect people wouldn't take advantage of people.
Any utopia that involves in anyway pretending that people are better than they are is a recipe for the worst kind of nightmare scenarios.
Children, by definition, can't (legally) consent, making this statement self-contradictory. However, we define "child" somewhat arbitrarily as "persons under the age of 18", which has nothing to do with ones ability to give actual (informed) consent, which is naturally going to come at different times for different people on different subjects, as they gain experience. And as an aside, society currently abjectly fails to prepare even 18 year olds to give informed consent on a wide variety of subjects, let alone those who are even younger.
The rest of your argument is sound (utopianism in any form is a deeply flawed philosophy), but that one statement bugged me.
I completely agree with you, actually.
And I meant sort of what it sounds like you're talking about; some people under eighteen are mature enough to consent to various things others might not be. But, considering people aren't perfect, acting like everyone is is a recipe for abuse. That's all I meant; in a perfect society, with perfect people, you wouldn't need age of consent because everyone would just respect consent, and be able to read if someone is capable of giving it. But, considering that's not the case, that's why this is an absolute disaster of a scenario.