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For what it’s worth, I think older Americans have a ton to offer to younger people in terms of mentorship. Probably the dumbest person you know now will grow in

For what it’s worth, I think older Americans have a ton to offer to younger people in terms of mentorship. Probably the dumbest person you know now will grow into an older person with some valuable wisdom to share. Imagine then how smart most older people are... This presumes there's something better about surviving to old age than not, that people learn correct lessons from their life experience, that experience is a better guide than information that can be easily accessed from books and the internet, and that people retain correct memories into old age. I don't think any of these presumptions really hold in a general sense.

bitwize 9y ago
Books and the internet can get you a long way in terms of things like learning JavaScript APIs, but life is a fair bit more complex. In particular, when someone tells you a story, especially in person, you can see how it affected them emotionally. Even if you decide to disagree with the person, you are enriched by the story having been told to you.
- macintux 9y ago
  Closely related: the piece of information most often missing from, say, online documentation for software is the reasoning behind a feature, the decisions that led to it, the mistakes along the way. That's what talking to someone who's been around the block a few times can give you: comprehension of not just the what, but the why and the how.