5 ms·

I can't help but wonder how much better our governments would operate if the median age of their workers were somewhat lower (IIRC that's around 45).

sidlls 5y ago
That's more than a little ageist. Age has little to do with it. I've worked for--and been managed by--thick-headed, egotistical 20-somethings and stodgy older folks alike. Youth who think they're forging new territory usually aren't, but there are plenty who think they are and have an arrogance about it that is insufferable.
- msla 5y ago
  > Youth who think they're forging new territory usually aren't But that's part of the point of the article: The territory actively changes, so even if it's the same location in some sense, it's still new territory, ripe for exploration. Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago.
  - sidlls 5y ago
    I don't see how doubling down on the ageism brings anything to the discussion. Old people aren't "only...willing to see what was there decades ago."
    - msla 5y ago
      I didn't imply they were. You're seeing insults I never made.
      - toss1 5y ago
        Or, you are not seeing insults you did make (however un-/sub-consciously / unintentionally)
        msla 5y ago
        Old people can see with fresh eyes. I don't know why that's controversial.
        toss1 5y ago
        >>Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago. The controversy arises from the structure of the sentence. It implies that 'looking with fresh eyes' is the rare thing, and the common thing is that older people are "only being willing to see what was there decades ago." Sure, you technically acknowledged that it was possible, but the sentence structure guides the reader to conclude that your view is that old people only see the old stuff, thereby treating them as a monolithic unit, and thus ageist. I've often had this sort of issue myself. I've found the only thing that helps is merciless self-editing, and keeping in mind two things. First is a passing comment from a professional writer friend who was weighing how our choice of allocating more words or fewer gave different weight to each concept we were trying to get across in a short piece we were writing, saying something like "using that many words here gives it too much weight". The second thing I've found often useful is to put the key concept and a key word at the end of the sentence and paragraph, where it is actually most punchy and emphatic. The beginning is second best, and the middle just buries it. I notice that you sentence buried the 'fresh eyes' concept in the middle, and used a much longer ending phrase ending in 'decades ago', so compared to your intent stated here, the emphasis was kind of backwards. Perhaps better would have been "Old people can see that, and although everyone's tendency to see just what they already know, they'll see the new opportunities just as well as anyone else when they make the effort to see with fresh eyes.". I hope this helps.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      At least in science there's the Planck's principle which is essentially "Science progresses one funeral at a time" - that adoption of major new mental models is driven mostly not by people changing their minds, but by them "dying out" and being replaced with new people who have adopted the new model since the beginning.
    - niknoble 5y ago
      Not disputing the claims of you or msla, but how is this sentence ageist - > Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago. while this one is not - > Youth who think they're forging new territory usually aren't, but there are plenty who think they are and have an arrogance about it that is insufferable.
dariusj18 5y ago
Head to Capitol Hill and you'll see that the legislative side of that is much much younger. Though perhaps the age of the legislators skews the average.
chaxor 5y ago
This doesn't make any sense. Aging is certainly a problem that needs to be solved, but the idea that you expressed here seems to be that younger people are better at their jobs - which is very wrong. This line of thinking is akin to "If less of the postmen had diabetes, I would get more of my mail faster!" Don't fall for these ageist logical inconsistencies
- bsedlm 5y ago
  > Aging is certainly a problem that needs to be solved by that logic, childhood is also a problem that needs to be solved. I have to get metaphysical to argue against the mindset, but IMO the origin of seeing aging as a problem stems from seeing death as the opposite of life.
  - ivalm 5y ago
    But also children don’t have position of great power while cognitive decline with age is real and affects nearly everyone.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  > but the idea that you expressed here seems to be that younger people are better at their jobs - which is very wrong That is not the idea I took from the GP's comment about government workers being younger. Younger people have a different perspective to older people. That might lead to a better direction. If you think about progress/improvement as a vector, there's speed and direction. Young and old people might have the same speed but different directions, and younger people might have a direction which is more beneficial long term.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  It's less that I think they'd be individually better at their jobs and more that I wonder (without evidence fwiw) if a slightly younger organization would have more diversity of thought because they're coming to things with objectively fresher eyes.
- niknoble 5y ago
  "If my chess team of 45-year-olds were 10 years younger, I would win more games." Is this also an ageist logical inconsistency? At some point claims like this are testable. On a separate note, of course 20-year-olds are better at their jobs than 100-year-olds. So the phenomenon of younger people being better at their jobs is true at an extreme. You can argue that it doesn't extend much further than this extreme, but saying it doesn't exist at all is silly.
germandiago 5y ago
It would go perfect if they were not bothering and spoiling citizens and making dependents. We would be far more useful ourselves and less restricted to do real contributions to the society.

sidlls 5y ago

That's more than a little ageist. Age has little to do with it. I've worked for--and been managed by--thick-headed, egotistical 20-somethings and stodgy older folks alike. Youth who think they're forging new territory usually aren't, but there are plenty who think they are and have an arrogance about it that is insufferable.

msla 5y ago
> Youth who think they're forging new territory usually aren't But that's part of the point of the article: The territory actively changes, so even if it's the same location in some sense, it's still new territory, ripe for exploration. Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago.
- sidlls 5y ago
  I don't see how doubling down on the ageism brings anything to the discussion. Old people aren't "only...willing to see what was there decades ago."
  - msla 5y ago
    I didn't imply they were. You're seeing insults I never made.
    - toss1 5y ago
      Or, you are not seeing insults you did make (however un-/sub-consciously / unintentionally)
      - msla 5y ago
        Old people can see with fresh eyes. I don't know why that's controversial.
        toss1 5y ago
        >>Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago. The controversy arises from the structure of the sentence. It implies that 'looking with fresh eyes' is the rare thing, and the common thing is that older people are "only being willing to see what was there decades ago." Sure, you technically acknowledged that it was possible, but the sentence structure guides the reader to conclude that your view is that old people only see the old stuff, thereby treating them as a monolithic unit, and thus ageist. I've often had this sort of issue myself. I've found the only thing that helps is merciless self-editing, and keeping in mind two things. First is a passing comment from a professional writer friend who was weighing how our choice of allocating more words or fewer gave different weight to each concept we were trying to get across in a short piece we were writing, saying something like "using that many words here gives it too much weight". The second thing I've found often useful is to put the key concept and a key word at the end of the sentence and paragraph, where it is actually most punchy and emphatic. The beginning is second best, and the middle just buries it. I notice that you sentence buried the 'fresh eyes' concept in the middle, and used a much longer ending phrase ending in 'decades ago', so compared to your intent stated here, the emphasis was kind of backwards. Perhaps better would have been "Old people can see that, and although everyone's tendency to see just what they already know, they'll see the new opportunities just as well as anyone else when they make the effort to see with fresh eyes.". I hope this helps.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    At least in science there's the Planck's principle which is essentially "Science progresses one funeral at a time" - that adoption of major new mental models is driven mostly not by people changing their minds, but by them "dying out" and being replaced with new people who have adopted the new model since the beginning.
  - niknoble 5y ago
    Not disputing the claims of you or msla, but how is this sentence ageist - > Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago. while this one is not - > Youth who think they're forging new territory usually aren't, but there are plenty who think they are and have an arrogance about it that is insufferable.

dariusj18 5y ago

Head to Capitol Hill and you'll see that the legislative side of that is much much younger. Though perhaps the age of the legislators skews the average.

chaxor 5y ago

This doesn't make any sense. Aging is certainly a problem that needs to be solved, but the idea that you expressed here seems to be that younger people are better at their jobs - which is very wrong. This line of thinking is akin to "If less of the postmen had diabetes, I would get more of my mail faster!" Don't fall for these ageist logical inconsistencies

bsedlm 5y ago
> Aging is certainly a problem that needs to be solved by that logic, childhood is also a problem that needs to be solved. I have to get metaphysical to argue against the mindset, but IMO the origin of seeing aging as a problem stems from seeing death as the opposite of life.
- ivalm 5y ago
  But also children don’t have position of great power while cognitive decline with age is real and affects nearly everyone.
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
> but the idea that you expressed here seems to be that younger people are better at their jobs - which is very wrong That is not the idea I took from the GP's comment about government workers being younger. Younger people have a different perspective to older people. That might lead to a better direction. If you think about progress/improvement as a vector, there's speed and direction. Young and old people might have the same speed but different directions, and younger people might have a direction which is more beneficial long term.
notreallyserio 5y ago
It's less that I think they'd be individually better at their jobs and more that I wonder (without evidence fwiw) if a slightly younger organization would have more diversity of thought because they're coming to things with objectively fresher eyes.
niknoble 5y ago
"If my chess team of 45-year-olds were 10 years younger, I would win more games." Is this also an ageist logical inconsistency? At some point claims like this are testable. On a separate note, of course 20-year-olds are better at their jobs than 100-year-olds. So the phenomenon of younger people being better at their jobs is true at an extreme. You can argue that it doesn't extend much further than this extreme, but saying it doesn't exist at all is silly.

germandiago 5y ago

It would go perfect if they were not bothering and spoiling citizens and making dependents. We would be far more useful ourselves and less restricted to do real contributions to the society.