4 ms·

Thank you for explaining it for younger audience, but I dont think many of them visit hackernews.

by pojzon 4y ago

bee_rider 4y ago
The YOLO crowd have to be in their mid to late 20's at least, now, right? That seems like prime HN demographics.
- OrderlyTiamat 4y ago
  What are the hn demographics? Is there a regular survey or anything? Would people be interested in a survey?
  - kergonath 4y ago
    That would actually be very interesting. There’s a bunch of young idealists, but also a bunch of old geezers, and I assume everything in between.
  - reducesuffering 4y ago
    You can roughly tell by the prevalence of Twitter compared to Snap/IG/Facebook. 30s is definitely highest proportion, not 20s by a longshot.
sph 4y ago
The younger ones are not the one that need an explanation, as the distribution of votes in favour of Brexit was strongly correlated with older age. Brexit reinforces my very controversial belief that pensioners should not be able to vote. The future is not theirs. Elderly wisdom is a terrible cultural meme. People grow wiser as they age, but are not wiser in the absolute. Also, a young mind ingests many orders of magnitude more information about the world than a person with declining mental faculties and ossified beliefs. /rant
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  Hmm. I am going to oversimplify a little bit. On average, young people see the world, see that it does not work, and want to change it. Hence, they chant: "Change things!" On average, old people see the world, they already settled on a routine that mostly works for them ( genuine survivor bias ) and do not want to change one thing for fear of losing what little they have. Hence, they chant: "Stop changing things!" It is a question of balance. I always said that the biggest problem with democracy is its weakest link as it depends on a well informed voter. Fear is not a great advisor, but it is a great motivator.
  - sph 4y ago
    The other huge problem of democracy is that it doesn't account for human biases, such as the Donning-Kruger effect: people with high expertise tend to see flaws in one party or the other and will tend to not vote for anybody, while people with low expertise and knowledge buy any politician's lies wholesale and thus can be easily swayed by the best liar. So on average more liars get to govern us than good politicians. Additionally, the other issue is that the best people with the expertise to solve a country's issues are exactly those that couldn't be bothered to get into politics. Likewise, career politicians tends to be absolutely inept and unqualified to run a country. Democracy is the least worse form of government, but it still is very very bad.
- andrewinardeer 4y ago
  My grandfather is 98 years old. Despite family protestations he still drives. There is no law in my state which demands he undergo yearly driving tests to ensure he still has the capacity and mental faculties to do so. This is not going to end well for him or more importantly someone else. It is crazy.
  - DonaldFisk 4y ago
    He presumably remembers how to drive a car. Private pilots don't have to resit their flying tests annually beyond a certain age, but they do have to prove they're medically fit to fly. If you're allowed to fly a light aircraft after passing a regular medical examination which checks things like eyesight, chronic illnesses which would affect their ability to drive, and reaction times, a similar arrangement should be adequate for driving a car.

Thank you for explaining it for younger audience, but I dont think many of them visit hackernews.

by pojzon 4y ago

Thank you for explaining it for younger audience, but I dont think many of them visit hackernews.

bee_rider 4y ago

The YOLO crowd have to be in their mid to late 20's at least, now, right? That seems like prime HN demographics.

OrderlyTiamat 4y ago
What are the hn demographics? Is there a regular survey or anything? Would people be interested in a survey?
- kergonath 4y ago
  That would actually be very interesting. There’s a bunch of young idealists, but also a bunch of old geezers, and I assume everything in between.
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  You can roughly tell by the prevalence of Twitter compared to Snap/IG/Facebook. 30s is definitely highest proportion, not 20s by a longshot.

sph 4y ago

The younger ones are not the one that need an explanation, as the distribution of votes in favour of Brexit was strongly correlated with older age. Brexit reinforces my very controversial belief that pensioners should not be able to vote. The future is not theirs. Elderly wisdom is a terrible cultural meme. People grow wiser as they age, but are not wiser in the absolute. Also, a young mind ingests many orders of magnitude more information about the world than a person with declining mental faculties and ossified beliefs. /rant

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
Hmm. I am going to oversimplify a little bit. On average, young people see the world, see that it does not work, and want to change it. Hence, they chant: "Change things!" On average, old people see the world, they already settled on a routine that mostly works for them ( genuine survivor bias ) and do not want to change one thing for fear of losing what little they have. Hence, they chant: "Stop changing things!" It is a question of balance. I always said that the biggest problem with democracy is its weakest link as it depends on a well informed voter. Fear is not a great advisor, but it is a great motivator.
- sph 4y ago
  The other huge problem of democracy is that it doesn't account for human biases, such as the Donning-Kruger effect: people with high expertise tend to see flaws in one party or the other and will tend to not vote for anybody, while people with low expertise and knowledge buy any politician's lies wholesale and thus can be easily swayed by the best liar. So on average more liars get to govern us than good politicians. Additionally, the other issue is that the best people with the expertise to solve a country's issues are exactly those that couldn't be bothered to get into politics. Likewise, career politicians tends to be absolutely inept and unqualified to run a country. Democracy is the least worse form of government, but it still is very very bad.
andrewinardeer 4y ago
My grandfather is 98 years old. Despite family protestations he still drives. There is no law in my state which demands he undergo yearly driving tests to ensure he still has the capacity and mental faculties to do so. This is not going to end well for him or more importantly someone else. It is crazy.
- DonaldFisk 4y ago
  He presumably remembers how to drive a car. Private pilots don't have to resit their flying tests annually beyond a certain age, but they do have to prove they're medically fit to fly. If you're allowed to fly a light aircraft after passing a regular medical examination which checks things like eyesight, chronic illnesses which would affect their ability to drive, and reaction times, a similar arrangement should be adequate for driving a car.