PW (Parallel World) 3: Over 18s forbidden

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In this parallel world, everything that is forbidden to people below a certain age is, instead, forbidden to people above it.

Therefore you can vote only between birth and 18, you can drive a car only in childhood, you can smoke only until the middle of your teens and then you have to give it up (or beg children to buy your smokes for you). Children can be sent to war, but adults cannot. Children can own property, adults have to have it held in trust, administered by a child. And so on.

Children are stressed, with so much of the machinery of society to administer in such a short time. (It's particularly stressful to find a partner and reproduce in between puberty and adulthood.) They probably look forward to a long, early retirement. Adulthood will be a time when, freed from their responsibilities, they will be able to grow, play, develop, make friends, wet the bed, get educated, whatever... for decades and decades!

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Children can be sent to war, but adults cannot
What's so parallel world about this, really?

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Momus for president.

― Fatal Beret (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:25 (twenty-two years ago)

AKA This Is The Parallel World That Crumples Into A Dysfunctional Heap After Three Months Because There's No Labor Force, No Trade And No Health Care.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay...but will adults have to go to bed before the watershed?

― Fatal Beret (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:26 (twenty-two years ago)

And who will make and consume pornography and drugs?

― Fatal Beret (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Who are the unfortunate kids who have to run around preventing adults from having sex?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:27 (twenty-two years ago)

And how early will "children" start working? Are we talking about giving them a pickaxe and shovel two seconds after they've exited the womb?

― Fatal Beret (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:27 (twenty-two years ago)

HAha, I hope so!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's immediately a bloody good world, actually. Pollution and the politics of oil imperialism are instantly eradicated, because so much less driving is done. Smoking tails right off because it's kid's play and adults poo poo it. (Or do they? If kids rule the world, and smoke, maybe adults look up to them?) And the birth rate goes right down. With everyone retired, quality of life becomes the main concern. And with all that time for education, people become really smart (not to mention playful).

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Er, do the children give birth to these new children then? Then absolve parental responsibility at the age of 18 when they become children themselves?

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Who are the teachers? People over 18 aren't allowed to work at all and people over 15 aren't allowed to work without a note from their younger siblings.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:32 (twenty-two years ago)

In the impending future where the majority of labor will be performed by machines, the children will rule with the iron fist of imagination and unbrainwashedbytheysystemefication! They will buy beer for the adults, and refuse it to those who they deem unfit for consumption of libations. Oh wait...breaking news...this just in, from Grand Presidente Lukas Col3man...

"My fellow children. 1, 2, 3, ugh!"

x-post the ONE responsibilty the adults have in this particular universe shall be PROCREATION!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Who are the teachers?

Computers!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:32 (twenty-two years ago)

http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/2003Fairrington/Fairrington-best/fairrington-14.gif

― %%, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Of course, the question is, can the kids bring home the bacon? Or do they decide, one scary day, to eat the adults?

But the fact that they are destined to be those adults one day soon will ensure kindness on their part, won't it? (Then again, as a child I never quite believed that I would grow up.)

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:33 (twenty-two years ago)

What did you want to be when you were a kid, Momus?

― Fatal Beret (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:35 (twenty-two years ago)

But the fact that they are destined to be those adults one day soon will ensure kindness on their part, won't it?

Kindness is a foreign concept to most children.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:36 (twenty-two years ago)

What did you want to be when you were a kid, Momus?

My mother recently showed me a text I wrote aged 7 or 8 saying I was going to be a musician and make lots of money. Half way there!

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:37 (twenty-two years ago)

A "text"? That's a very grand term for something a 7 year-old would write.

― Fatal Beret (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, it wasn't a letter or a story. It was a blueprint or master plan. But that sounds too grand, so I'm sticking to 'text'.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Your idea doesn't work at all, Momus. There is no such thing as a functional human society that is run by children, no matter what technological level you go to.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

This is what happens when Momus watches Children of the Corn and eats chili right before bed.

― Nora Fury (LiquidTide), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay, Dan, but does it make, for instance, a good starting point for a film? A kind of revenge movie? A topsy-turvy world upside down Wizard of Oz sort of movie that gets shown at Christmas?

Shall we make the adults wear uniforms in this world?

Shall we talk to them about animals in squaky voices (well, we won't have much choice, that's just what our voices sound like)?

Shall we find them adorable and spoil them?

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

squaky = squeaky, quivery, croaky, squawky, and, er, earthquakey.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:50 (twenty-two years ago)

http://continuitypages.com/sandman/prez1SM.jpg

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:55 (twenty-two years ago)

If it's just one anomalous kid in a position of power, we're into 'Last Emperor' territory and it's less interesting. I'm as curious about what happens to adults when they're stripped of responsibility.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 22:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Um, Lord of the Flies anyone?

(Xpost, I do think the adult half is more interesting, i.e. what happens when adults have no responsibilities than when children do)

(actually we do know what happens when adults have no responsibilities = ILX)

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 22:07 (twenty-two years ago)

And who will make and consume pornography and drugs?

The entire cast of 'Bugsy Malone' to thread.

http://www.granbyhs.com/news/mar02/bugsy.jpg

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

http://members.tripod.com/~ed71155/lost/BM_Tzone2.gif

― donut bitch (donut), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 22:11 (twenty-two years ago)

According to Joseph Campbell, beginning and ending life with pee trouble is absolutely essential to societal development. We begin life peeing our pants, and we end life peeing our pants.

The bladder must come full-circle; your world ignores the basic human need to fully pee one's pants as a blabbering, senile adult. Therefore, it's doomed.

― andy, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 22:12 (twenty-two years ago)

The only parallel world I will accept is me as a nine year old wishing anything I want into the cornfield.

― donut bitch (donut), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 22:14 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.rarevideo.com/videos/3943.jpg

Gas-s-s-s (1970)

Cindy Williams, Talia Shire, Ben Vereen
Directed by Roger Corman

SYNOPSIS
After a mysterious gas kills everyone on earth over the age of 25, a wisecracking hippy (Robert Corff) and his scientist girlfriend (Elaine Griftos) wander the lawless landscape of Texas and New Mexico in search of a pueblo commune where peaceful survivors are gathering.

― andy, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 22:21 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

what other things should be restricted to those below 18?

http://www.itisamystery.com/ghost.gif

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, 23 November 2007 09:38 (eighteen years ago)

(INEVITABLE MOMUS ZING RETRACTED)

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 23 November 2007 09:41 (eighteen years ago)

Gas-s-s-s (1970)

That is one terrible film. Even by Roger Corman standards.

― Ned Trifle II, Friday, 23 November 2007 09:54 (eighteen years ago)

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