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Is it that odd? Think of it like this: your 20s are like that new program in Rails. Nothing holding you back. No legacy structures to support. Just wonderfu

by mdasen 18y ago

Is it that odd? Think of it like this: your 20s are like that new program in Rails. Nothing holding you back. No legacy structures to support. Just wonderful. But as life goes on, it starts looking more like that Java program with jars everywhere, weird structures no one knows why they were made, requirements that no longer make any sense. Eventually, you build up enough cruft that you have Cobol programmers picking over lines just to keep you running. I'm in my 20s, but kinda lame so I'm already thinking about a house, what city I'll end up in, planning for my retirement. Every one of these decisions locks me into something. As I put money into retirement accounts, I become less agreeable to changes in the tax code. For example, I'm not as for wonderful new national pension since I've already locked money away for retirement. As I lock myself into a city/area, I become less amenable to things like market competition. For example, if I moved to Seattle for the long haul, I would want the government to defend Boeing since its downfall would really hurt the place I've invested myself in. We achieve more ownership in the world as we age. It ties us into the decisions of our past. Most importantly, at that point, a lot of change becomes negative. One of my professors from college is teaching a course to state Cobol programmers to teach them Java. They hate it. They just want to hang on and not loose something rather than compete with young Java programmers in a language they just learned. We make changes as a society. Change is often very beneficial. It's often opposed by those who have ownership before the change. Maybe we should take into consideration how change adversely affects people and help them through it - like the course teaching Cobol programmers Java so that they're still skilled for modern systems. Yes, they're not so happy with the training, but it keeps them relevant rather than simply letting them become skill-less as Cobol programs get retired.

gruseom 18y ago
Good post. Increasing investment in the status quo is a nice way to look at this. A long time ago someone made the point, which stuck in my mind, that all of this is an argument in favor of death. If people didn't die, stuff wouldn't change. I think the habit-forming nature of human consciousness goes far deeper than we've yet admitted. That might also explain why people change less as they age - they've been around longer so habits have had longer to form. Gene Clark had a great line, "The longer you're in one place, the harder it gets to leave."
- qqq 18y ago
  If people knew they would live for millions of years, I'm confident some of them would get around to changing their policies a bit to allow for some gradual changes.
  - gruseom 18y ago
    I think you're underestimating the force of habit. Also, when you do the same thing for a long time, time itself changes. A million years relative to our psychology would not be anything like a million years relative to million-year-beings'.
    - qqq 18y ago
      We only need 0.01% of the population to make changes, and not very fast, and they will eventually transform the world to the point it's hard for others to ignore.
      - gruseom 18y ago
        We're working with very different models, I must say!
- cliffy 18y ago
  I recall a quote: 'Progress is made one death at a time.' but I can't remember who said it.
  - gruseom 18y ago
    There's also a famous line from Max Born (or was it Planck) who said: New ideas are accepted in science not because anyone changes his mind, but because old scientists die. (I'm paraphrasing.)

by mdasen 18y ago

gruseom 18y ago

Good post. Increasing investment in the status quo is a nice way to look at this. A long time ago someone made the point, which stuck in my mind, that all of this is an argument in favor of death. If people didn't die, stuff wouldn't change. I think the habit-forming nature of human consciousness goes far deeper than we've yet admitted. That might also explain why people change less as they age - they've been around longer so habits have had longer to form. Gene Clark had a great line, "The longer you're in one place, the harder it gets to leave."

qqq 18y ago
If people knew they would live for millions of years, I'm confident some of them would get around to changing their policies a bit to allow for some gradual changes.
- gruseom 18y ago
  I think you're underestimating the force of habit. Also, when you do the same thing for a long time, time itself changes. A million years relative to our psychology would not be anything like a million years relative to million-year-beings'.
  - qqq 18y ago
    We only need 0.01% of the population to make changes, and not very fast, and they will eventually transform the world to the point it's hard for others to ignore.
    - gruseom 18y ago
      We're working with very different models, I must say!
cliffy 18y ago
I recall a quote: 'Progress is made one death at a time.' but I can't remember who said it.
- gruseom 18y ago
  There's also a famous line from Max Born (or was it Planck) who said: New ideas are accepted in science not because anyone changes his mind, but because old scientists die. (I'm paraphrasing.)