I'm ony 10 years old.

[LordDPS]

With me i dismiss opinions after i have an opinion of them. Age does not have a factor in that. If someone insults me in an ignorant way then i won't listen to them. I don't care about age just tell me what you have to say, I'll value your opinion even if it's stupid because at least your being sincere. It just happens that most people around my age group (10-16) say stupid stuff cause they think it's cool you get the ocasional exception like me (a charasmatic 15 year old olimpian that may or may not be an evil genius mwhahahaha...okay im not any of those things....maybe) Meh maybe i said too much?

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

Person to person basis. I've always been a talented debater and can out think many adults but my parents are still smarter then I. I'm 15.

 

[Nouw]

It depends on what you're discussing. 10 year-olds have less life experience and so yes their opinions are of lesser 'importance' but other subjects which require no said experience, they are just as capable of making a decision.

Yes, you're less mature and experienced if you're 10. it gets fuzzier when you get older than that, but I have yet to meet a 10 year old who is socially mature.

To be honest I began maturing when I was 11.The year I came here.

 

[tharglet]

Depends on the subject in question, and the person being asked. A 10-year-old is much more *likely* to have a less well-qualified opinion, but it isn't necessarily the case.

Yes, people tend to have an expectation bias as to the value of the information, but it's a pretty well-deserved one. Also not uncommon for people to think they're smart, age a few years then realise "... maybe I wasn't as smart as I thought I was back then".

Seen several indignant debates online, largely caused by people who don't realise how things will change. WoW forums used to see the "why do some guilds have 18+ rules?" threads every so often.

 

[atol]

It doesn't lessen the value of their opinion, but it lessens the probability that their opinion would be valuable.

 

[Kermi]

If the ten year old can express themselves as eloquently and thoughtfully as someone older, then great.

Usually they can't.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

By and large ten year olds don't have the ability to appreciate the full consequences of their actions, the ability to logically follow a situation through to it's logical conclusion or the sheer experience needed to put together a complex hypothesis.

There's nothing saying that a ten year old can't be correct but they are less likely to be able to extrapolate an answer they don't already know because they are less likely to be able to interpret evidence correctly.

Pretty much this. Taking part in a debate contest with adults and people of various ages I can say that while I met some very intelligent younger people (not as young as 10, more like 13) their ability to reason effectively from experience was pretty poor and they tended to make rasher jumps of logic in an attempt to hold an argument together. I saw that rather than concede a point the younger contestants would rather change their argument to the point that they made themselves sound weak at sticking to a point and very hard to pin down as believing in a point as absolutely true. This culminated in the wiki leaks debate where a younger contestant tried to push that (he is arguing it is good) that Julian Assange has the perfect right to tell and not tell us things that he feels like and wiki leaks can still hold integrity, when pushed time and time again about the fallible nature of the owner corrupting the concept of wiki leaks.

The judges were much much older than the contestants and the younger contestants found it hard to outright disagree with a judge, which is perfectly fine and i did on several occasions. Younger people didn't want to disagree on the point with an authority figure such as the judge, but rather try and compromise, which doesn't do well in discussion.

Younger people are bad losers usually, they cannot concede a point and progress an argument as effectively, and tend to find it hard to stick to a point or develop it, instead meeting any challenge by changing their argument in a different direction.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Yes cause clearly you're too young to know of the ways the world works. do you pay bills? do you have to scrounge money to survive? go bak to you mother's teat and be quiet, you're in the presence of adults here.

...

oka, in all seriousness, no, not really, as long as you could make an intelligent argument.

 

[Dendio]

Ten is a little young. I'd say around age 12-13 children start becoming more aware of the world around them and begin developing stronger opinions. So yes age does matter when it comes to considering ones opinion on certain matters

 

[teisjm]

If the argument is based on logic, it shouldn't really matetr who it comes from.
If the argument is based on facts, which are provided, it's how trustworthy the facts are, that matters, if they're used correctly.
If it's based on "i think..." the sources credibility becomes a factor, and since there are few things 10 year olds have more knowledge about, than adults their credibility is often less than that of an adult.

 

[Cyanin]

It's dependent on the validity, coherence and eloquence of a person's argument (to me). I've talked to some sharp kids and had good conversations with them, but by and large I haven't really heard much from them.

That said I don't really talk to 10-12 year olds that much, 13 year olds I've found can be a bit stereotypical. But that's the people I know, maybe I don't know the right people.

 

[Srs bzns]

Or let's say, hypothetically, that I was. Does that lessen the value of my opinion? Does that make my part in a discussion less worthwhile?

Let me explain. For reasons that have gradually been lost to mankind, I was thinking about age. This eventaully led to me thinking about the value of a ten year olds opinion, which eventaully led to this discussion: Does age lessen the value of opinions/the worth of their part in an argument or discussion? And I'm not talking about teenagers. I'm talking about 10-12 year olds, those idiotic little twerps that continue to call me a gay nazi ****** who sleeps with his dog(there beinng several problems with that statement, one that gay people were persecuted by the nazis, and two that I don't have a dog).

And you might say, 'It doesn't, but no ten year olds are going to put together a valid argument.' That is wrong. I have spoken to ten year olds that could hold their own in a debate with their parents. I was a ten year old like that. But apparently, age is the factor that decides how much your opinion is worth, and age can totally be used against you as an insult.

And no, I'm not 10. How could you think that? I'm 9! (By the way, that was me making a funny. So don't murder me. I was joking.)

You have much better punctuation and historical knowledge than most people in your age group, I'll give you that. Hell, you're better than most of my friends.

OT: The experience point has already been made, that and the fact that many debates with younger forumgoers usually degenerate into slanging matches. Sometimes it's easier to just fob them off.


Sorry.

 

[DSQ]

I think when talking about most things the 12 and unders have a total valid opinion.

I mean why is my opinion about the art style of Animal Crossing any better than some 12 year old who has also played the game?

But it is hard not to immediatley think that a 10yr does not know the finer points of the Israli Palestinian conflict. I have no doubt that they can understand it but 10yr old arn't known for watching the news.

 

[novixz]

Yes but what you don't realize is that most 10 year old's don't come up with these arguments, they just say facts they read off a web site or heard.

 

[Del-Toro]

It depends on the kid, but if all I had to go by was a line of text and the knowledge that the author was ten, I'd be pretty quick to dismiss it outright. Ten year olds, no matter how mature they insist they are, are at an incomplete stage of mental development. Actually, youths in general are this way, they literally haven't developed to the same degree an adult has, but they whine endlessly about older people ignoring them. Probably because those older people remember being fucking stupid at their age. I'm only 19 and I remember being fucking stupid when I was younger. So yeah, I do think being ten makes one's opinion less valid, at least compared to someone whose lived more of life, all things being relative.

 

[retyopy]

This is an interesting video, and it says a bit of what I'm saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__xB0FIiWoY&feature=fvwrel

 

[s0denone]

Of course it does!

Lack of life experience = less sense of what is actually going on in any given setting.

Just like I wouldn't take a virgin seriously in a debate regarding sex, I wouldn't listen to what a ten-year-old had to say about... Anything, really.

 

[Zarmi]

To me, yes, it does lessen the value of your opinion quite a lot. Because personally, I don't waste my time on kids.
Fact: A grownup is smarter than a 10-year-old, hence the adults decision is more important than the 10-year-olds because he/she is not old enough to make a proper decision, or even be part of a valid argument. I personally prefer discussing politics, which I stick to doing with people of at least the same intelligence level.

I don't ever want to discuss with a kid, because the small fuckers can't tell right from wrong.