[hsrada]

The lure of making money as a child is a temptation far stronger than most can resist. If I had access to the things these guys had, I can totally see myself going down the exact same path.

Now, a little older, the prospect of fines that will take a lifetime to repay and/or prison is way more deterring. As a kid, you just never think about it.

[wolfgke]

> Now, a little older, the prospect of fines that will take a lifetime to repay and/or prison is way more deterring. As a kid, you just never think about it.

I believe one does think about that, but concludes that the risk to get rich is worth it (because one has few such chances in life) and if all things go bad, there is still the suicide option.

[klenwell]

Actually this subject is taken up directly in a chapter of Robert Sapolsky's Behave that I just read titled, appropriately enough, "Adolescence; or, Dude, Where's My Frontal Cortex?"

Some interesting stuff in there, some of which you're probably already familiar with. You could argue that a kid does "think" about it. But to use the word "concludes" may be a stretch.

I found this passage by Sapolsky on the neurobiology of risk/reward assessment in adolescents especially interesting and relevant here:

Age differences in absolute levels of dopamine are less interesting than differences in patterns of release. In a great study, children, adolescents, and adults in brain scanners did some task where correct responses produced monetary rewards of varying sizes. During this, prefrontal activation in both children and adolescents was diffuse and unfocused. However, activation in the nucleus accumbens in adolescents was distinctive. In children, a correct answer produced roughly the same increase in activity regardless of size of reward. In adults, small, medium, and large rewards caused small, medium, and large increases in accumbens activity. And adolescents? After a medium reward things looked the same as in kids and adults. A large reward produce a humongous increase, much bigger than in adults. And the small reward? Accumbens activity declined. In other words, adolescents experienced bigger-than-expected rewards more positively than do adults and smaller-than-expected rewards as aversive. A gyrating top, nearly skittering out of control.

This suggests that in adolescents strong rewards produce exaggerated dopaminergic signaling, and nice sensible rewards for prudent actions feel lousy.

That's not the whole story when it comes to kids' decision making, but it's of a piece with the rest of the chapter and shows that most kids are literally -- anatomically -- unable to think about things like this in a way they will be able to a few years later.

[thewhitetulip]

It starts as fun

Then profit

Then greed!