4 ms·

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 bet

by 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.

by chaxor 5y ago

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.