Re: What age do you think children can consent?

"Because I regard understanding people as something unknowable, I do not engage in social engineering. I think ALL social engineering fails in solving what it attacks and often creates more problems by the side, precisely by assuming that people can be understood."

Good comments overall, but this is the best one.

One advantage of lacking the natural ability to guess the intentions of others (which I think most people have) is that I have been quicker than most to recognize failures in understanding others. For the majority, who tend to think alike and might be right in guessing the intentions of others 90% of the time, it might appear that a perfected system is possible. For those of us who more frequently guess wrong it is obvious that no system can be perfected.

And it doesn't take many wrong guesses about how others will act before any system based on this will fall disastrously apart, as everything after the first error will fail to coincide with the planned path and outcome.

Better then to find a few simple rules (no initiation of force, threat of force, or fraud) and trust that the majority will work together for their benefit and for ours.