4 ms·

You mean if all the judges were old white men and they were somehow unable to understand what seemed obvious to young women of color so their rulings were discr

You mean if all the judges were old white men and they were somehow unable to understand what seemed obvious to young women of color so their rulings were discriminatory? Ok, I'm seriously considering it.

mellosouls 6y ago
I mean the comment I replied to was down-voted (greyed at the time) for rightly calling out the ageism in the parent. I'm not entirely sure what you are saying in response.
- superkuh 6y ago
  I thought about this sequence of comments seriously for quite a while. I accept that "grandpa judge" was inappropriate. But how would you phrase the problem of our judges not understanding technology? Is it a judge thing? Lawyers understand. But lawyer tend to be younger. There are few young judges. I think age, and the lack of life experience with tech because they grew up before it, probably is the factor that matters here.
  - mellosouls 6y ago
    I appreciate this more thoughtful response, but bear in mind that it is the role of domain experts to (hopefully) clarify complicated matters for those on the outside, whatever their demographic background. Age has positives and negatives associated with it, and ascribing only the latter to it with regard to judges and technology would mean we should set an upper age limit to all court proceedings dealing with any complicated subject - technology is hardly unique in that respect. There might be an argument for that (or at least some competency test beyond a certain advanced age), but not in the crass, prejudiced way implied in the OP.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      >I appreciate this more thoughtful response, but bear in mind that it is the role of domain experts to (hopefully) clarify complicated matters for those on the outside, whatever their demographic background. I'm familiar with one particular subset of the SCO case. Suffice it to say that a great deal of legal and expert witness time (from both sides) went into creating detailed reports that were intended to be consumed by a non-specialist that laid out history, discussed various claims, and so forth. A judge could of course choose not to spend the time and effort to digest all this information--but that would be the case whether you're talking technology contract and IP claims or you're talking some complicated and arcane case of real estate contracts.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    >Lawyers understand. But lawyer tend to be younger. Lawyers also tend to be specialists to a greater degree than judges. I know quite a few IP/technology licensing/etc. lawyers who are very technically knowledgeable and many of them are not especially young. But it's what they do for a living. And I'm pretty sure I'll pick one of them to help me out on most technology-related matters rather than a random 30 year old criminal defense lawyer. Judges tend to be much more generalists. They have to rule on all sorts of arcane points of law which they probably haven't made a career out of studying. But some of them are pretty astute on matters of technology (and at higher levels of the court, they have clerks too.) Look at Judge Alsup in the Oracle-Google case https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge-william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl... or Judge Kimball in the SCO case.
  - listenallyall 6y ago
    >> Lawyers understand. Actually, few do. However you can choose your lawyer, and therefore pick one well-versed in the relevant area of technology and who also has a network of expert witnesses and advisors.
- goldenkey 6y ago
  It's not ageism when it is true. Ism would imply a bias. We all know old people don't have tech chops like young people. It's literally scientific fact that brains get less plastic, lazier, and less adept at learning new things as they age. There's even an adage! "You can't teach an old dog new tricks!" The average age of newly appointed judges is 50. Yeah, keep on smokin that identity politics shenanigans instead of statistics and science.
  - dafoex 6y ago
    I agree to a point, but I think its more a lack of training than a purely age thing. Yes, "grandpa judge" might not be able to learn new things now, but they could have put effort into learning things then. Even if hardly anyone uses FORTRAN any more, being familiar with the field then has got to count for something now. I'm not saying a judge should know every field - far from it - but if they could read around just one other subject while in law school and specialise in law surrounding that subject, we may have a hope of having $field literate judges in the future.
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    Who do you think built most of the tech you’re using? Bear in mind that HTTP (relevant in this particular article) was invented almost 25 years ago. And TCP/IP is far older.
    - goldenkey 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure it wasn't a guy swinging a gavel around but correct me if I'm wrong.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    I would agree with you if 100% of older judges were less adept at technology than all younger people. But the fact is, that while the stereotype of older people being worse at tech than younger people is true on a statistical level, it is not true on every individual level. And that is the very definition of -ism. Assuming someone must not be good at something because of their age or group or whatever. Statistically, black people are less likely to have a college degree than white people. Does that mean it is ok to not consider black candidates for hire since statistically, they are less educated? Of course not. If the problem is that judges don't understand technology, then the solution is to get more judges that do. Not, get younger judges and hope that they understand tech better than their older counterparts because it will probably play out that way statistically.
- vezycash 6y ago
  Planck's principle agrees with the original jab at old lawmakers. "Science [in this case, scrapping laws] progresses one funeral at a time".
wolco 6y ago
I watch a lot of tv. I thought all judges were black women in their 30s. In reality you see all genders, races and backgrounds. Judges when appointed have a general good balance of genders, races, backgrounda. When voted for represent the voter population makeup. They tend to be older because experience really does help.

mellosouls 6y ago

I mean the comment I replied to was down-voted (greyed at the time) for rightly calling out the ageism in the parent. I'm not entirely sure what you are saying in response.

superkuh 6y ago
I thought about this sequence of comments seriously for quite a while. I accept that "grandpa judge" was inappropriate. But how would you phrase the problem of our judges not understanding technology? Is it a judge thing? Lawyers understand. But lawyer tend to be younger. There are few young judges. I think age, and the lack of life experience with tech because they grew up before it, probably is the factor that matters here.
- mellosouls 6y ago
  I appreciate this more thoughtful response, but bear in mind that it is the role of domain experts to (hopefully) clarify complicated matters for those on the outside, whatever their demographic background. Age has positives and negatives associated with it, and ascribing only the latter to it with regard to judges and technology would mean we should set an upper age limit to all court proceedings dealing with any complicated subject - technology is hardly unique in that respect. There might be an argument for that (or at least some competency test beyond a certain advanced age), but not in the crass, prejudiced way implied in the OP.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    >I appreciate this more thoughtful response, but bear in mind that it is the role of domain experts to (hopefully) clarify complicated matters for those on the outside, whatever their demographic background. I'm familiar with one particular subset of the SCO case. Suffice it to say that a great deal of legal and expert witness time (from both sides) went into creating detailed reports that were intended to be consumed by a non-specialist that laid out history, discussed various claims, and so forth. A judge could of course choose not to spend the time and effort to digest all this information--but that would be the case whether you're talking technology contract and IP claims or you're talking some complicated and arcane case of real estate contracts.
- ghaff 6y ago
  >Lawyers understand. But lawyer tend to be younger. Lawyers also tend to be specialists to a greater degree than judges. I know quite a few IP/technology licensing/etc. lawyers who are very technically knowledgeable and many of them are not especially young. But it's what they do for a living. And I'm pretty sure I'll pick one of them to help me out on most technology-related matters rather than a random 30 year old criminal defense lawyer. Judges tend to be much more generalists. They have to rule on all sorts of arcane points of law which they probably haven't made a career out of studying. But some of them are pretty astute on matters of technology (and at higher levels of the court, they have clerks too.) Look at Judge Alsup in the Oracle-Google case https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge-william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl... or Judge Kimball in the SCO case.
- listenallyall 6y ago
  >> Lawyers understand. Actually, few do. However you can choose your lawyer, and therefore pick one well-versed in the relevant area of technology and who also has a network of expert witnesses and advisors.
goldenkey 6y ago
It's not ageism when it is true. Ism would imply a bias. We all know old people don't have tech chops like young people. It's literally scientific fact that brains get less plastic, lazier, and less adept at learning new things as they age. There's even an adage! "You can't teach an old dog new tricks!" The average age of newly appointed judges is 50. Yeah, keep on smokin that identity politics shenanigans instead of statistics and science.
- dafoex 6y ago
  I agree to a point, but I think its more a lack of training than a purely age thing. Yes, "grandpa judge" might not be able to learn new things now, but they could have put effort into learning things then. Even if hardly anyone uses FORTRAN any more, being familiar with the field then has got to count for something now. I'm not saying a judge should know every field - far from it - but if they could read around just one other subject while in law school and specialise in law surrounding that subject, we may have a hope of having $field literate judges in the future.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  Who do you think built most of the tech you’re using? Bear in mind that HTTP (relevant in this particular article) was invented almost 25 years ago. And TCP/IP is far older.
  - goldenkey 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure it wasn't a guy swinging a gavel around but correct me if I'm wrong.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  I would agree with you if 100% of older judges were less adept at technology than all younger people. But the fact is, that while the stereotype of older people being worse at tech than younger people is true on a statistical level, it is not true on every individual level. And that is the very definition of -ism. Assuming someone must not be good at something because of their age or group or whatever. Statistically, black people are less likely to have a college degree than white people. Does that mean it is ok to not consider black candidates for hire since statistically, they are less educated? Of course not. If the problem is that judges don't understand technology, then the solution is to get more judges that do. Not, get younger judges and hope that they understand tech better than their older counterparts because it will probably play out that way statistically.
vezycash 6y ago
Planck's principle agrees with the original jab at old lawmakers. "Science [in this case, scrapping laws] progresses one funeral at a time".

wolco 6y ago

I watch a lot of tv. I thought all judges were black women in their 30s. In reality you see all genders, races and backgrounds. Judges when appointed have a general good balance of genders, races, backgrounda. When voted for represent the voter population makeup. They tend to be older because experience really does help.