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I think we need age limits. And lower term limits. We cannot have people stuck in an era 3 decades old deciding the fate of our country as it goes into the futu

I think we need age limits. And lower term limits. We cannot have people stuck in an era 3 decades old deciding the fate of our country as it goes into the future. They are simply not equipped to deal with today's problems, let alone tomorrow's. At 60 years[1], the median age of the Senate is 20 years more than the median age of the US population[2] - if this isn't an example of how broken and entrenched our power structures are, I don't know what is. These issues are also also an artifact of a societal structure in which we use the winners of a rigged popularity contest to decide the future of our country rather than that of independent academics on a per-issue basis. Through the lens of E2EE legislation, we are seeing our democracy crumbling because we failed to enforce that our representatives actually knowing what they are talking about. [1]: https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/b8f6293e-c235-40fd-b895-6474d0f8e809.pdf https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/b8f6293e-c235-40fd-b895-6474d... [2]: https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/us-demographics/ https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/us-demographics/

jawns 7y ago
On the flip side, at 60 years, the median-aged Senator has about 40 years of working experience and (arguably) that many years of accumulated knowledge and expertise, as well as life experience and a sense of proportion that comes from having observed our nation's ebbs and flows over a longer period of time. Granted, it's possible to be 60 years old, foolhardy, and out-of-touch -- just as it's possible to be 30 years old, whip-smart, and tuned in. But in general, voters value experience, and you don't amass experience without aging. I agree with you, though, about term limits. They're a good way to balance voters' desire for experienced candidates with the need to inject new blood from both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, if there's one thing American voters stupidly fall for beyond incumbents, it's nepotism, so if term limits were in place, I predict we'd see more family dynasties in Congress.
- wpasc 7y ago
  To play the devil's advocate with you and GP, term limits can often mean that congresspeople will be perpetual novices. Governing can be complex especially when seated on various committees like foreign affairs, CBO, etc. Older congresspeople who have accumulated years of experience have seen things go right, go wrong, and have learned a great deal about governing. I think in tech we can attest to how disruption does not always mean good and how move fast and break things can go wrong. To be clear, I don't disagree entirely with the idea of term limits or age limits, I just think the counter arguments deserve a fair amount of weight.
  - protanopia 7y ago
    Perhaps government should be made less complex.
    - jhayward 7y ago
      While you're accomplishing that I would like water to be less wet, and the value of Pi to be set to three as well, please. All proposals that I've ever seen to "simplify" government amount to abdicating large functions, usually justified by some ideology around "rugged individualism" or anarchism which are completely fatuous.
      - mullingitover 7y ago
        I'm a big fan of the idea of abolishing states, having a US national government and then county/city level governments. The states were created when it was infeasible to manage large amounts of territory due to the difficulty of communicating across long distances. That's no longer the case. We could cede some state powers to local governments and some to the federal level. The idea would get pushback from those in smaller states who enjoy a disproportionate voice in national politics, but I feel that those voices don't deserve to be amplified over anyone else's just because they have a bunch of empty land backing them.
        procombo 7y ago
        I can't tell if you're trolling or not. I really hope you are because there is little to no truth in what you wrote here. Independant states are integral. Pick up any 6th grade textbook on the subject for the awesome "deets".
        procombo 7y ago
        The original 13 colonies literally predated the fed. States weren't created for the convenience of the fed, it was the other way around.
- sephamorr 7y ago
  Another side to consider is that often said Senator has 40-years of experience being a senator (or similar), and ~0 years being and employee or business owner. I often feel (anecdotally) that many representatives have spent their entire lives in government such that they have never experienced what it's like to be in the private sector, and therefore can be tone deaf to issues that matter to me.
puffyredchair 7y ago
So blatant ageism?
slg 7y ago
Term and age limits would do more to empower lobbyist than it would do anything to fix the government. You want politicians to know what they are talking about, but running a government is like almost every other job out there, you gain experience and expertise as you do it. That experience generally leads to a more productive and effective government. If you kick all those experienced people out, that knowledge shifts to lobbyist. Political officials will be even more dependent on them for guidance on governing and to learn the issues.
- xvector 7y ago
  Good point, this is a perspective I had not considered.
- sgk284 7y ago
  I'd argue the opposite. By having no term limits, lobbyists are able to build up connections over years and take advantage of them. It also means any dirt, corruption, or bribery has an unbounded time for leverage. Term limits work really well for the Whitehouse. I don't see why they wouldn't work well for Congress. And forcing lobbyists to reestablish rapport, dig up dirt, etc... with new congresspeople every few years would do wonders. There's a reason financial institutions force people to take holidays. It's good for rooting out theft.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > Term limits work really well for the Whitehouse. This certainly isn't obvious.
    - lidHanteyk 7y ago
      Compare and contrast with monarchs, as the Framers did. Edit: While I'd like to build out the analogy further, there's only one data point that I can find in the missing quadrant: The Philippines have a limited number and duration of terms for their legislators. One data point is not enough to even identify a single confounding factor, and there's too many ways in which the USA and the Philippines differ.
svnpenn 7y ago
I want you to know that in general, I strongly agree with you. However you must be careful, as these arbitrary rules could cause some collateral damage. Namely: Bernie Sanders (78)
- syshum 7y ago
  I don't see that as Collateral Damage. :)
Jaygles 7y ago
We might just be in a weird transition period where the modern technology us youngins are used to is still a relatively new thing in the long term. The fix might just be to wait until the older people in charge retire or die out and the new older people in charge are those who grew up with these modern technologies.
- rayiner 7y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but modern technology is painfully simple compared to what the older people in charge used growing up. People who are in their 40s now grew up having to assign IRQs in their modem to download porn. Today, young people use iPads and have no idea how computers work.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > The fix might just be to wait until the older people in charge retire or die out and the new older people in charge are those who grew up with these modern technologies. I don't think so. I'm an older person, and I've been immersed in these technologies for almost my entire life (since I was 12). There is nothing old hat to the younger crowd that isn't old hat to me as well. Age is not a reliable indicator of these things.
jimbob45 7y ago
I'm not personally a huge fan of taking away choices just because you're afraid someone will make the wrong choice. If you don't like older politicians, then make your voice be known. Claiming that you know better than everyone and that your view needs to be the rule of law seems a bit heavy-handed, though. Same goes for censorship.
veeralpatel979 7y ago
I like term limits. But how would you respond to those who say elections are term limits?
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Very simple: just look at the percentage of incumbents who face a primary challenger (low), and the percentage of general elections won by incumbents (high). Elections are frequently won by incumbents on name recognition. Some ballots indicate which is the incumbent candidate, and a lot of people will just automatically vote for them. I’m sure there’s research out there that demonstrates the first 2 points. I’m less sure about the second two, but I’d bet there’s a paper out there that covers at least one of them.
  - wpasc 7y ago
    >Elections are frequently won by incumbents on name recognition. Doesn't that imply that voters don't know better? arguments like that don't fare well in my opinion.
    - pmiller2 7y ago
      In your opinion? I don't understand your point. Do you think I'm underestimating the ignorance of the average voter? Also, it's "fare," not "fair" in this context, FYI.
      - wpasc 7y ago
        TY for the spelling correction. My point only is: Given that many incumbents win re-election on name recognition alone, doesn't refute the above post mentioning that elections can serve as term limits. To say to a voter, "we're instituting term limits because you voters don't learn about challengers to incumbents". This proposition would not be popular amongst voters even if it is true that people are ignorant and stupid when it comes to voting. Just because voters may not take full advantage of elections' ability to oust a politician may not suffice as reason to alter who the voters want. Voters voting on name recognition vs. actually liking a rep kinda have to be treated equally. If not, a rule curbing that may be interpreted as limiting people's choice. Again, I'm not disagreeing with you! just trying to state how a new rule like term limits could be perceived and the difficulty such a perception would create.
clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
Would you ban Ken Thompson or Brian Kernighan from holding office? Age is a lazy argument, there are extremely ignorant young people too. America should just stop electing know-it-all, greedy people.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  They're probably too smart to want to run...
  - lukifer 7y ago
    Given the old joke about wanting the job being a disqualification for having it, maybe it's time we started electing people who don't want the job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      Sortition has lots of upsides. Given the US doesn't really have an obvious source for a Monarch (which is the definitively best way option), using Sortition to fill the Figurehead role would be a good solution. The other half of the job currently named "President of the United States of America", heading the Executive function, would naturally make more sense as a route for either state leaders (e.g. Governor -> President) or the legislature (House and Senate leaders -> President) It should definitely be prohibited for one person to have both jobs as is done today. Donald Trump would make a perfectly good figurehead. The world would say yup, that's what we thought, a fat idiot who flashes his money and talks crap, America. Meanwhile the executive leader would negotiate say, tweaks to agricultural tariffs and that'd go largely unnoticed because e.g. now the buffoon is pretending "everybody" thinks Belgium is in Africa because he refuses to own up to mistakes and that's way funnier than China reducing some agricultural tariffs. The US would need to do a LOT of paperwork to make this happen though and a remarkable, disappointing fraction of Americans believe that their existing paperwork is sort of holy and mustn't be changed even though it was written in an era which is unrecognisable socially and technologically. So you're probably screwed.
ryandvm 7y ago
> We really need age limits. That's a pretty regressive suggestion. What's next? Revoking voting rights by race or gender?
rayiner 7y ago
> We really need age limits. And lower term limits. We cannot have people stuck in an era 3 decades old deciding the fate of our country as it goes into the future. They are simply not equipped to deal with today's problems, let alone tomorrow's. I’m not sure I agree. I think millennials’ commitment to freedom of speech and information is lower than that of the older generation. (“Speech as violence” and whatnot. Young people today adopt a lot of the same modes of reasoning we ridiculed Tipper Gore for 25 years ago. It’s just directed to different perceived evils.) I’m also not sure that “people just don’t understand how the Internet works” is actually anybody’s problem. It should be remembered that Section 230 actually originated in the Communications Decency Act in 1996, a sweeping attempt to regulate the Internet. A panel of three federal judges, who were then in their 50s and 60s, in Philadelphia struck down almost the entire law, leaving only the Section 230 safe harbor. Two points are illuminating. One, the decision was widely praised for its cogent articulation of how the Internet works. It was impressive in its technical detail. For example, it describes routing packets: https://cyber.harvard.edu/stjohns/aclu-findings.html https://cyber.harvard.edu/stjohns/aclu-findings.html > Messages between computers on the Internet do not necessarily travel entirely along the same path. The Internet uses "packet switching" communication protocols that allow individual messages to be subdivided into smaller "packets" that are then sent independently to the destination, and are then automatically reassembled by the receiving computer. While all packets of a given message often travel along the same path to the destination, if computers along the route become overloaded, then packets can be re-routed to less loaded computers It also described how USENET works: > For unmoderated newsgroups, when an individual user with access to a USENET server posts a message to a newsgroup, the message is automatically forwarded to all adjacent USENET servers that furnish access to the newsgroup, and it is then propagated to the servers adjacent to those servers, etc. The messages are temporarily stored on each receiving server, where they are available for review and response by individual users. The messages are automatically and periodically purged from each system after a time to make room for new messages. Responses to messages, like the original messages, are automatically distributed to all other computers receiving the newsgroup or forwarded to a moderator in the case of a moderated newsgroup. The dissemination of messages to USENET servers around the world is an automated process that does not require direct human intervention or review. The other point is that it was a radically pro-First Amendment decision: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0613cda.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/we... > We were surprised at how sweeping the ruling was," said Cathleen A. Cleaver, director of legal studies for the Family Research Council of Washington, a supporter of the law. > "They went far beyond where they needed to go," she said. "Not only did the court strike down the law against the display of pornography, but also the parts that made it illegal to transmit pornography directly to specific children. It's very radical." Finally, as a nit picky aside: of course the median age of the senate is higher than the median age of the whole population. The median age of the population includes children. Senators are, however, required by the Constitution to be at least 30. So the relevant point of comparison is the median age of people who are over 30.
dillonmckay 7y ago
Repeal the 17th Amendment?
galangalalgol 7y ago
Ageism is wrong in both directions. The notion that older people are less technical is ageist an just as unacceptable as thinking young people are too idealistic.
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  Well that's just a deformed way of thinking about stuff. What matters is whether it's true, not whether somebody will call it ageist.
JohnFen 7y ago
> We cannot have people stuck in an era 3 decades old deciding the fate of our country as it goes into the future. They are simply not equipped to deal with today's problems, let alone tomorrow's. This is not a function of age. It's a function of whether or not people are engaging in continuing education. There are many young people who are simply not equipped to handle today's problems too, after all, and there are many older people who are fully up to date.
reaperducer 7y ago
We cannot have people stuck in an era 3 decades old deciding the fate of our country as it goes into the future. While I agree that the age skew in politics is curious, and perhaps incorrect, the other side of this is, "We cannot let people with 30 years less experience, knowledge, and history decide the fate of our country as it goes into the future." Automatically associating youth with intelligence and "progress" and stereotyping people with years of accrued wisdom to being "old fogies" is textbook ageism. It's something most of the rest of society grows out of by the time they hit college, but also a thing that persists within the SV bubble and what is now called "bro" culture. Fortunately, it's also illegal in many arenas.
- dathinab 7y ago
  But when I look at the decisions today's politicians do wrt. IT, I would argue that many 30year old ex-IT students have _far_ more experience wrt. IT topics than our current politicans. The problem is that the tech landscape moved to fast and all the wisdom and experience often just doesn't apply anymore but, to make it worse, sometimes it seems that you can bend technology to make it apply but that a very dangerous fallacy. One I have seen politicans step into frequently.
  - hobofan 7y ago
    How many ex-IT students become politicians? Old politicians with no IT experience are being replaced with young politicians with no IT experience. Age limits don't improve anything here.
    - jvalencia 7y ago
      I'm also not sure that having IT-savvy politicians will change policy. The government has certain safety goals (eg trafficking) that it will still have to deal with. These might be a driver regardless of tech savvy-ness. There's an assumption that if only they knew enough -- but perhaps it's not them who don't know enough.
      - 7y ago
trilliumbaker 7y ago
> I think we need age limits. Ageism is not an acceptable solution. We complain about this in tech all the time. Why would we find it acceptable in politics?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Well for one we know plenty of technically competent older workers who get passed over in tech and it isn't a zero sum game - in a functioning system there is room for young and old workers and overall success inproving with more workers can make more room. Elected officials are finite and zero sum so the situation isn't comparable even if principles are. There are also the throughly mixed messages sent. Ageism is enshrined into law even past the threshold of 18. It is just defined with maximum hypocrisy such that a 20 year old is too incapable of drinking while a senile nonegarian year old with Alzheimers severe enough to have the mental capacity of a child is. Now there are obvious dangers to sunsetting rights but that double standard both normalizes the reverse and both equality and spite make "what is good for the goose is good for the gander" viscerally tempting to those who were disadvantaged. Not the best of mentalities but it is easy to see how someone who couldn't rent a car until recently would be less than sympathetic.
maverick2007 7y ago
I guess my cynical question is: do these legislators not know what they're talking about or do they know who's paying for their reelection and governing accordingly? I would hope and think that they have the self awareness to know what they're not experts in and surround themselves with people who are experts in what they're weak at (maybe IT). I just worry that they have that but they know if they stop voting according to party line/special interest, their reelection coffers will be much lighter.
- rayiner 7y ago
  > I guess my cynical question is: do these legislators not know what they're talking about or do they know who's paying for their reelection and governing accordingly Why is that the dichotomy? How about, they know what they’re talking about, and simply care about different things than you do?
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    How about, they know what they’re talking about An extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof.
Reason077 7y ago
> ”the median age of the Senate is 20 years more than the median age of the US population“ Has the mean age of politicians increased faster than that of the general population over time, or has it always been this way? Do politicians become older, on average, as democracies mature and power structures become more entrenched?
mjevans 7y ago
How about we require our legislators to become educated enough on a topic to understand the broad view of how it works before the regulate any given thing. In the case of regulating websites, they might need to understand (at a high level) what an IP address is, generally what DHCP and DNS do, how a web-page is like a mix of recipe and content for dynamically constructing a publication. How a database might provide some of that content and the difference between static and dynamic content. I think if there are any particular boogeymen they're after, those examples should be deconstructed and contrasted against similar publications that they find OK. Maybe the Library of Congress should have a Congressional Education sub-office dedicated to providing such instruction, and if not state colleges should definitely file briefings for congress.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  That brings to mind subdividing Congressional seats into domains to allow for specialization. The devil as usual is in the details. Issues include: * Defining expertises to not become outdated or too general to give any specialization advantage. * Handling border cases and deciding when every domain may vote on it. * While allowing specializations would the subdivisions actually be more expert in practice? We have already seen how "sabotour boards" assemble as those who are most interested in it are those who oppose it. I have already taken it as a given that qualification gatekeeping would take Goodheart's Law to new levels as refusing to recognize reality gives more concrete power. Still it is an interesting concept.
- paulmd 7y ago
  You've just suggested a poll test/literacy test for politicians. That definitely has obvious problems based on who gets to choose the "right" answers. The question that will be on the revenue committee exam: "do tax cuts pay for themselves"? (I mean, I know the answer, but which one is going to be "correct"?) It's much simpler to realize that the majority of the people above a certain age can no longer stay current with technological developments. Yes, some of them can, but the vast majority are starting to lose it and certainly aren't absorbing anywhere near as much as they used to. Just like the minimum age limits also throw away a certain number of potentially qualified younger candidates who do have enough life experience to make good decisions, it's OK that upper age limits would exclude a certain number of older candidates who could still keep up with things.
MadWombat 7y ago
Have you seen this movie? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_in_the_Streets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_in_the_Streets

jawns 7y ago

On the flip side, at 60 years, the median-aged Senator has about 40 years of working experience and (arguably) that many years of accumulated knowledge and expertise, as well as life experience and a sense of proportion that comes from having observed our nation's ebbs and flows over a longer period of time. Granted, it's possible to be 60 years old, foolhardy, and out-of-touch -- just as it's possible to be 30 years old, whip-smart, and tuned in. But in general, voters value experience, and you don't amass experience without aging. I agree with you, though, about term limits. They're a good way to balance voters' desire for experienced candidates with the need to inject new blood from both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, if there's one thing American voters stupidly fall for beyond incumbents, it's nepotism, so if term limits were in place, I predict we'd see more family dynasties in Congress.

wpasc 7y ago
To play the devil's advocate with you and GP, term limits can often mean that congresspeople will be perpetual novices. Governing can be complex especially when seated on various committees like foreign affairs, CBO, etc. Older congresspeople who have accumulated years of experience have seen things go right, go wrong, and have learned a great deal about governing. I think in tech we can attest to how disruption does not always mean good and how move fast and break things can go wrong. To be clear, I don't disagree entirely with the idea of term limits or age limits, I just think the counter arguments deserve a fair amount of weight.
- protanopia 7y ago
  Perhaps government should be made less complex.
  - jhayward 7y ago
    While you're accomplishing that I would like water to be less wet, and the value of Pi to be set to three as well, please. All proposals that I've ever seen to "simplify" government amount to abdicating large functions, usually justified by some ideology around "rugged individualism" or anarchism which are completely fatuous.
    - mullingitover 7y ago
      I'm a big fan of the idea of abolishing states, having a US national government and then county/city level governments. The states were created when it was infeasible to manage large amounts of territory due to the difficulty of communicating across long distances. That's no longer the case. We could cede some state powers to local governments and some to the federal level. The idea would get pushback from those in smaller states who enjoy a disproportionate voice in national politics, but I feel that those voices don't deserve to be amplified over anyone else's just because they have a bunch of empty land backing them.
      - procombo 7y ago
        I can't tell if you're trolling or not. I really hope you are because there is little to no truth in what you wrote here. Independant states are integral. Pick up any 6th grade textbook on the subject for the awesome "deets".
        procombo 7y ago
        The original 13 colonies literally predated the fed. States weren't created for the convenience of the fed, it was the other way around.
sephamorr 7y ago
Another side to consider is that often said Senator has 40-years of experience being a senator (or similar), and ~0 years being and employee or business owner. I often feel (anecdotally) that many representatives have spent their entire lives in government such that they have never experienced what it's like to be in the private sector, and therefore can be tone deaf to issues that matter to me.

puffyredchair 7y ago

So blatant ageism?

slg 7y ago

Term and age limits would do more to empower lobbyist than it would do anything to fix the government. You want politicians to know what they are talking about, but running a government is like almost every other job out there, you gain experience and expertise as you do it. That experience generally leads to a more productive and effective government. If you kick all those experienced people out, that knowledge shifts to lobbyist. Political officials will be even more dependent on them for guidance on governing and to learn the issues.

xvector 7y ago
Good point, this is a perspective I had not considered.
sgk284 7y ago
I'd argue the opposite. By having no term limits, lobbyists are able to build up connections over years and take advantage of them. It also means any dirt, corruption, or bribery has an unbounded time for leverage. Term limits work really well for the Whitehouse. I don't see why they wouldn't work well for Congress. And forcing lobbyists to reestablish rapport, dig up dirt, etc... with new congresspeople every few years would do wonders. There's a reason financial institutions force people to take holidays. It's good for rooting out theft.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > Term limits work really well for the Whitehouse. This certainly isn't obvious.
  - lidHanteyk 7y ago
    Compare and contrast with monarchs, as the Framers did. Edit: While I'd like to build out the analogy further, there's only one data point that I can find in the missing quadrant: The Philippines have a limited number and duration of terms for their legislators. One data point is not enough to even identify a single confounding factor, and there's too many ways in which the USA and the Philippines differ.

svnpenn 7y ago

I want you to know that in general, I strongly agree with you. However you must be careful, as these arbitrary rules could cause some collateral damage. Namely: Bernie Sanders (78)

syshum 7y ago
I don't see that as Collateral Damage. :)

Jaygles 7y ago

We might just be in a weird transition period where the modern technology us youngins are used to is still a relatively new thing in the long term. The fix might just be to wait until the older people in charge retire or die out and the new older people in charge are those who grew up with these modern technologies.

rayiner 7y ago
I hate to break it to you, but modern technology is painfully simple compared to what the older people in charge used growing up. People who are in their 40s now grew up having to assign IRQs in their modem to download porn. Today, young people use iPads and have no idea how computers work.
JohnFen 7y ago
> The fix might just be to wait until the older people in charge retire or die out and the new older people in charge are those who grew up with these modern technologies. I don't think so. I'm an older person, and I've been immersed in these technologies for almost my entire life (since I was 12). There is nothing old hat to the younger crowd that isn't old hat to me as well. Age is not a reliable indicator of these things.

jimbob45 7y ago

I'm not personally a huge fan of taking away choices just because you're afraid someone will make the wrong choice. If you don't like older politicians, then make your voice be known. Claiming that you know better than everyone and that your view needs to be the rule of law seems a bit heavy-handed, though. Same goes for censorship.

veeralpatel979 7y ago

I like term limits. But how would you respond to those who say elections are term limits?

pmiller2 7y ago
Very simple: just look at the percentage of incumbents who face a primary challenger (low), and the percentage of general elections won by incumbents (high). Elections are frequently won by incumbents on name recognition. Some ballots indicate which is the incumbent candidate, and a lot of people will just automatically vote for them. I’m sure there’s research out there that demonstrates the first 2 points. I’m less sure about the second two, but I’d bet there’s a paper out there that covers at least one of them.
- wpasc 7y ago
  >Elections are frequently won by incumbents on name recognition. Doesn't that imply that voters don't know better? arguments like that don't fare well in my opinion.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    In your opinion? I don't understand your point. Do you think I'm underestimating the ignorance of the average voter? Also, it's "fare," not "fair" in this context, FYI.
    - wpasc 7y ago
      TY for the spelling correction. My point only is: Given that many incumbents win re-election on name recognition alone, doesn't refute the above post mentioning that elections can serve as term limits. To say to a voter, "we're instituting term limits because you voters don't learn about challengers to incumbents". This proposition would not be popular amongst voters even if it is true that people are ignorant and stupid when it comes to voting. Just because voters may not take full advantage of elections' ability to oust a politician may not suffice as reason to alter who the voters want. Voters voting on name recognition vs. actually liking a rep kinda have to be treated equally. If not, a rule curbing that may be interpreted as limiting people's choice. Again, I'm not disagreeing with you! just trying to state how a new rule like term limits could be perceived and the difficulty such a perception would create.

clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago

Would you ban Ken Thompson or Brian Kernighan from holding office? Age is a lazy argument, there are extremely ignorant young people too. America should just stop electing know-it-all, greedy people.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
They're probably too smart to want to run...
- lukifer 7y ago
  Given the old joke about wanting the job being a disqualification for having it, maybe it's time we started electing people who don't want the job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Sortition has lots of upsides. Given the US doesn't really have an obvious source for a Monarch (which is the definitively best way option), using Sortition to fill the Figurehead role would be a good solution. The other half of the job currently named "President of the United States of America", heading the Executive function, would naturally make more sense as a route for either state leaders (e.g. Governor -> President) or the legislature (House and Senate leaders -> President) It should definitely be prohibited for one person to have both jobs as is done today. Donald Trump would make a perfectly good figurehead. The world would say yup, that's what we thought, a fat idiot who flashes his money and talks crap, America. Meanwhile the executive leader would negotiate say, tweaks to agricultural tariffs and that'd go largely unnoticed because e.g. now the buffoon is pretending "everybody" thinks Belgium is in Africa because he refuses to own up to mistakes and that's way funnier than China reducing some agricultural tariffs. The US would need to do a LOT of paperwork to make this happen though and a remarkable, disappointing fraction of Americans believe that their existing paperwork is sort of holy and mustn't be changed even though it was written in an era which is unrecognisable socially and technologically. So you're probably screwed.

ryandvm 7y ago

> We really need age limits. That's a pretty regressive suggestion. What's next? Revoking voting rights by race or gender?

rayiner 7y ago

> We really need age limits. And lower term limits. We cannot have people stuck in an era 3 decades old deciding the fate of our country as it goes into the future. They are simply not equipped to deal with today's problems, let alone tomorrow's. I’m not sure I agree. I think millennials’ commitment to freedom of speech and information is lower than that of the older generation. (“Speech as violence” and whatnot. Young people today adopt a lot of the same modes of reasoning we ridiculed Tipper Gore for 25 years ago. It’s just directed to different perceived evils.) I’m also not sure that “people just don’t understand how the Internet works” is actually anybody’s problem. It should be remembered that Section 230 actually originated in the Communications Decency Act in 1996, a sweeping attempt to regulate the Internet. A panel of three federal judges, who were then in their 50s and 60s, in Philadelphia struck down almost the entire law, leaving only the Section 230 safe harbor. Two points are illuminating. One, the decision was widely praised for its cogent articulation of how the Internet works. It was impressive in its technical detail. For example, it describes routing packets: https://cyber.harvard.edu/stjohns/aclu-findings.html https://cyber.harvard.edu/stjohns/aclu-findings.html > Messages between computers on the Internet do not necessarily travel entirely along the same path. The Internet uses "packet switching" communication protocols that allow individual messages to be subdivided into smaller "packets" that are then sent independently to the destination, and are then automatically reassembled by the receiving computer. While all packets of a given message often travel along the same path to the destination, if computers along the route become overloaded, then packets can be re-routed to less loaded computers It also described how USENET works: > For unmoderated newsgroups, when an individual user with access to a USENET server posts a message to a newsgroup, the message is automatically forwarded to all adjacent USENET servers that furnish access to the newsgroup, and it is then propagated to the servers adjacent to those servers, etc. The messages are temporarily stored on each receiving server, where they are available for review and response by individual users. The messages are automatically and periodically purged from each system after a time to make room for new messages. Responses to messages, like the original messages, are automatically distributed to all other computers receiving the newsgroup or forwarded to a moderator in the case of a moderated newsgroup. The dissemination of messages to USENET servers around the world is an automated process that does not require direct human intervention or review. The other point is that it was a radically pro-First Amendment decision: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0613cda.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/we... > We were surprised at how sweeping the ruling was," said Cathleen A. Cleaver, director of legal studies for the Family Research Council of Washington, a supporter of the law. > "They went far beyond where they needed to go," she said. "Not only did the court strike down the law against the display of pornography, but also the parts that made it illegal to transmit pornography directly to specific children. It's very radical." Finally, as a nit picky aside: of course the median age of the senate is higher than the median age of the whole population. The median age of the population includes children. Senators are, however, required by the Constitution to be at least 30. So the relevant point of comparison is the median age of people who are over 30.

dillonmckay 7y ago

Repeal the 17th Amendment?

galangalalgol 7y ago

Ageism is wrong in both directions. The notion that older people are less technical is ageist an just as unacceptable as thinking young people are too idealistic.

SamReidHughes 7y ago
Well that's just a deformed way of thinking about stuff. What matters is whether it's true, not whether somebody will call it ageist.

JohnFen 7y ago

> We cannot have people stuck in an era 3 decades old deciding the fate of our country as it goes into the future. They are simply not equipped to deal with today's problems, let alone tomorrow's. This is not a function of age. It's a function of whether or not people are engaging in continuing education. There are many young people who are simply not equipped to handle today's problems too, after all, and there are many older people who are fully up to date.

reaperducer 7y ago

We cannot have people stuck in an era 3 decades old deciding the fate of our country as it goes into the future. While I agree that the age skew in politics is curious, and perhaps incorrect, the other side of this is, "We cannot let people with 30 years less experience, knowledge, and history decide the fate of our country as it goes into the future." Automatically associating youth with intelligence and "progress" and stereotyping people with years of accrued wisdom to being "old fogies" is textbook ageism. It's something most of the rest of society grows out of by the time they hit college, but also a thing that persists within the SV bubble and what is now called "bro" culture. Fortunately, it's also illegal in many arenas.

dathinab 7y ago
But when I look at the decisions today's politicians do wrt. IT, I would argue that many 30year old ex-IT students have _far_ more experience wrt. IT topics than our current politicans. The problem is that the tech landscape moved to fast and all the wisdom and experience often just doesn't apply anymore but, to make it worse, sometimes it seems that you can bend technology to make it apply but that a very dangerous fallacy. One I have seen politicans step into frequently.
- hobofan 7y ago
  How many ex-IT students become politicians? Old politicians with no IT experience are being replaced with young politicians with no IT experience. Age limits don't improve anything here.
  - jvalencia 7y ago
    I'm also not sure that having IT-savvy politicians will change policy. The government has certain safety goals (eg trafficking) that it will still have to deal with. These might be a driver regardless of tech savvy-ness. There's an assumption that if only they knew enough -- but perhaps it's not them who don't know enough.
    - 7y ago

trilliumbaker 7y ago

> I think we need age limits. Ageism is not an acceptable solution. We complain about this in tech all the time. Why would we find it acceptable in politics?

Nasrudith 7y ago
Well for one we know plenty of technically competent older workers who get passed over in tech and it isn't a zero sum game - in a functioning system there is room for young and old workers and overall success inproving with more workers can make more room. Elected officials are finite and zero sum so the situation isn't comparable even if principles are. There are also the throughly mixed messages sent. Ageism is enshrined into law even past the threshold of 18. It is just defined with maximum hypocrisy such that a 20 year old is too incapable of drinking while a senile nonegarian year old with Alzheimers severe enough to have the mental capacity of a child is. Now there are obvious dangers to sunsetting rights but that double standard both normalizes the reverse and both equality and spite make "what is good for the goose is good for the gander" viscerally tempting to those who were disadvantaged. Not the best of mentalities but it is easy to see how someone who couldn't rent a car until recently would be less than sympathetic.

maverick2007 7y ago

I guess my cynical question is: do these legislators not know what they're talking about or do they know who's paying for their reelection and governing accordingly? I would hope and think that they have the self awareness to know what they're not experts in and surround themselves with people who are experts in what they're weak at (maybe IT). I just worry that they have that but they know if they stop voting according to party line/special interest, their reelection coffers will be much lighter.

rayiner 7y ago
> I guess my cynical question is: do these legislators not know what they're talking about or do they know who's paying for their reelection and governing accordingly Why is that the dichotomy? How about, they know what they’re talking about, and simply care about different things than you do?
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  How about, they know what they’re talking about An extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof.

Reason077 7y ago

> ”the median age of the Senate is 20 years more than the median age of the US population“ Has the mean age of politicians increased faster than that of the general population over time, or has it always been this way? Do politicians become older, on average, as democracies mature and power structures become more entrenched?

mjevans 7y ago

How about we require our legislators to become educated enough on a topic to understand the broad view of how it works before the regulate any given thing. In the case of regulating websites, they might need to understand (at a high level) what an IP address is, generally what DHCP and DNS do, how a web-page is like a mix of recipe and content for dynamically constructing a publication. How a database might provide some of that content and the difference between static and dynamic content. I think if there are any particular boogeymen they're after, those examples should be deconstructed and contrasted against similar publications that they find OK. Maybe the Library of Congress should have a Congressional Education sub-office dedicated to providing such instruction, and if not state colleges should definitely file briefings for congress.

Nasrudith 7y ago
That brings to mind subdividing Congressional seats into domains to allow for specialization. The devil as usual is in the details. Issues include: * Defining expertises to not become outdated or too general to give any specialization advantage. * Handling border cases and deciding when every domain may vote on it. * While allowing specializations would the subdivisions actually be more expert in practice? We have already seen how "sabotour boards" assemble as those who are most interested in it are those who oppose it. I have already taken it as a given that qualification gatekeeping would take Goodheart's Law to new levels as refusing to recognize reality gives more concrete power. Still it is an interesting concept.
paulmd 7y ago
You've just suggested a poll test/literacy test for politicians. That definitely has obvious problems based on who gets to choose the "right" answers. The question that will be on the revenue committee exam: "do tax cuts pay for themselves"? (I mean, I know the answer, but which one is going to be "correct"?) It's much simpler to realize that the majority of the people above a certain age can no longer stay current with technological developments. Yes, some of them can, but the vast majority are starting to lose it and certainly aren't absorbing anywhere near as much as they used to. Just like the minimum age limits also throw away a certain number of potentially qualified younger candidates who do have enough life experience to make good decisions, it's OK that upper age limits would exclude a certain number of older candidates who could still keep up with things.

MadWombat 7y ago

Have you seen this movie? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_in_the_Streets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_in_the_Streets