I'll make a tangentially related assertion that I think is a bit more defensible: people tend to become increasing resistent to training in new skillsets as a f

I'll make a tangentially related assertion that I think is a bit more defensible: people tend to become increasing resistent to training in new skillsets as a function of their age. Like you, I think they are perfectly capable; the problem is motivation. The longer someone has been doing something, the more it becomes a comfortable habit. Not just in economic skillsets, but in most everything, people will rabidly defend comfortable habits, to the point of declaring that society should be forced into steady state if that is what will keep them comfortable. Every human interest story we hear of someone who saw their industry vanish out from underneath them, and then they indignantly plant their feet and declare that we must bring their industry back is an example of this. We become resistant to change, but I do not really believe this is an inevitability of age; I think it is something that we societally accept from older people far more than we do from young people. They've worked hard their whole lives, they deserve us subsidizing the comfort they now deserve as a result. Young people haven't worked hard for long enough yet, and so they not only don't deserve comfort, but we should steal away the comfort they do have to pass to the older generation that has earned their stripes. Accusations fly in all directions, each group screaming to the other that they are the entitled ones, and that all this group wants is fairness and consideration. It's ridiculous; they are all caught up in a sense of entitlement, and all participate in an economic system that fundamentally doesn't care what they think they deserve. No matter who you are, you will never get what you think you deserve; best leave this sense of deservedness at the door, and realize there is a large random component to all of life's happenings. You might not deserve, in some existential sense, to lose ten straight poker games holding a flush or better, but the worst thing to do if you do is get indignant and either declare the game is rigged, or try to rig it yourself. So, agree with Vivtek; people in their 30s are more than capable of learning new things. But capability is orthogonal to willingness, and along that vector I think we have a lot of motivating to do.