... so we're charting new territory as far as sexual development is concerned.
I find extending childhood extremely problematic. To give you the chain of my thoughts: When you raise kids by the practice that everything else but biology comes first, you end up with adults who are at high risk to stay in an infantile state of mind, since they were put in the situation to avoid the responsibility to lead a household, to manage finances or the numerous other tasks like taking care of other family members.
The extended childhood leads easily to a false sense of entitlement and to adults who then, well over their thirties and forties, still expect their parents/or government to take care of their needs (and demands).
... I would not call it "new territory" though, but a territory in danger of becoming too narrow and closed up. One, which will be avoided on top of what we already got, if you allow children and teens to not only delay puberty but make it impossible through puberty blockers and irreversible surgery. And to take only their own word for it.
Let me ask you a question: When you were a kid and your parents said "no" to one of your whimsical desires, how do you judge it from your present perspective?
My question of course implies that the desires of the pre-pubescent are all but mature, since the maturity to become aware of ones self centered desires, is to undergo puberty in full. So that at the end of that painful process you built up enough self esteem according to your man- or womanhood. The brain of the child and teenager is not fully developed, either. Would you give them the responsibility to decide what "social gender" they want to be? Adults, who think that way, are themselves stuck in immaturity, I suppose.
... I think I might know your overall position, please correct me if I am wrong. My man (who you resemble in my mind), has the attitude to see the great picture and to have trust that things will balance them out. Still, you need something/someone to balance those things. While he is often enough right, he often enough is wrong in the detail (same counts vice versa). To spare the intimacies ;)
To delve a bit further on this, I am talking about a phenomenon that has been observed in human and non-human species. It is called Neoteny. This is a biological concept that refers to the retention of juvenile characteristics by mature individuals such as floppy ears in dogs and curly tails in pigs. At the behavioral level, it appears that when the environment becomes too complex, animals delay adulthood by extending the "play" period of infancy. This allows the species to adapt to the complexities of the new environment. Physiological neoteny is also seen human (large head, flatter face, small arms, and slow development), and I think that we can make a good case that retention of juvenile characteristics extends to the psychological-behavioral domain. We now live in a technologically complex environment, and it is therefore necessary to retain juvenile characteristics to be able to adapt to it. So, extending childhood appears to be currently the evolutionarily adaptable thing to do. This is what I mean by extending childhood.
The fascination with changing people, genetically, surgically and psychologically, is a phenomenon that has been around for a long time. I don't approve of any of these three methods and clearly don't subscribe to them. As far as a change in mentality occurs gradually and I hardly notice it, so be it. That is the way of things. But I don't give much credence to the doomsday scenarios, nor do I believe the vaunted progress. In my opinion, both are exaggerated.
That's why our interests here are divergent and, just as you can't inspire me much for neoteny, I can't inspire you for traditional lifestyles.
I split my response into two comments (for it hat gotten longer than I expected).
Cheers and greetings!
It's too late. You already show signs of neoteny. This blockchain network is a part of the new complexity of the Web3 environment. As it is with new tech, it's mostly used by younger people, but we also see some older users playing around with this new blockchain technology. By using this technology, those older Hive users are behaving as if they're young and are therefore extending their juvenile stage. So those of us Hivers who are over 25 are showing signs of neoteny- rejuvenation. You see, neoteny is biological reality, it happens whether you agree with it or not. So welcome aboard, @erh.germany! 😎
Damn, I lost all the contents of the second part of my comment. Meh. Don't know if I will be able to formulate that again. Will see.