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If someone is doing a good job why wouldn’t we want to keep them around? If a 30 year old is elected to congress I don’t see why they couldn’t serve for 40 year

If someone is doing a good job why wouldn’t we want to keep them around? If a 30 year old is elected to congress I don’t see why they couldn’t serve for 40 years if they are competent.

mrangle 2y ago
You would. Congressional politics is closer to a complex game than a cognitive exercise. A game that is only learned and won with experience.
- pdonis 2y ago
  > Congressional politics is closer to a complex game than a cognitive exercise. A game that is only learned and won with experience. None of that means the game actually accomplishes what government is supposed to accomplish. The actual result of the game is a huge bloated bureaucratic government that (a) does a poor job of what it is supposed to be doing, protecting everyone's basic rights, and (b) also does a poor job at all the other stuff that gets piled on top by legislators looking to make a mark and get re-elected and having to pander to special interests to do it. As the saying goes: if it isn't worth doing, it isn't worth doing well.
  - mrangle 2y ago
    Was this response supposed to be relevant to the age question under discussion? Because that was the context of my response. Second, my response both implies that the game and the government are indistinguishable and that what it is supposed to accomplish is as much a question that comes with experience as is the knowledge of how to play. The output of a system is always its purpose, which is an upscaled cognate to the maxim that there are no mistakes in politics. The key to overcoming cognitive dissonance is to understand that this may not align with your perception of that purpose nor your perceived interests. Such is Life.
roenxi 2y ago
The evidence is that the current crop aren't doing a good job though; and despite that they have shown remarkable staying power. The last 50 years of political leadership have led to ... vast amounts of capital being built in China, Trump leading in the polls [0] and while civil war looks unlikely it is an option that comes up from time to time in the discourse. Happily the US population has had lots of practice from a series of disastrous foreign expeditions that may have achieved nothing (or the achievements are too unpolitic to talk about, maybe). The US Congress has a lot of trouble pointing out the genuine wins they have presided over if their popularity polling is a guide. The 2-term limit on presidents seemed to do great things, more limits on the congress is probably a good idea. There are 333 million people in the US, even if the candidates are drawn from the top 10,000 instead of the top 1,000 the results would be good in practice. [0] Love him or hate him, symbolically the man isn't an endorsement of the status quo.
bilbo0s 2y ago
Part of the issue is that you haven't shown the 30 year old to be competent when s/he stood for the first election. (Now I think of it, you haven't shown a 70 year old to be incompetent, but that's another issue.) If you have rules that are not based in competency, but on a simple feeling you have that group of people X, are not competent to do job Y. That's just not going to go well for you. Age minimums as conceived by the founders, for instance, were based in competence. A desire for people to have experience. Even then, they were not draconian. As evidenced by the fact that someone 35 years old could be President of the US. If you were arguing in favor of competency testing, people might get behind you. But you're arguing in favor of a blanket ban. Which is another matter entirely.
ziofill 2y ago
Being a political representative is not a regular job. It should come with some finite term, no matter how good you are.
wtallis 2y ago
Are they really doing a good job of governing, or just a good job of getting (re-)elected?
creer 2y ago
Right. For that matter it would be nice if we had decent tools for gauging all of activity, competence, attendance record, record of inserting garbage into bills, sponsoring useful bills, defending bills against garbage, etc. As far as I know voting record is reasonably available BUT bills are mostly not single issue and are very convoluted so that for any given bill it can be hard to tell whether you would have voted for or against.
dcow 2y ago
The problem comes when that now 70 year old is supposed to foster an urgent and relevant response to problems of the current 30 year old generation. They may be a well respected leader with an impeccable service record, but how can they possibly be effective when they don’t know how to use a smartphone or think cookies refer to the things they in the jar in the kitchen, or think AI is that thing that calls you Dave?
- Jensson 2y ago
  Europe doesn't have term limits and have much younger leaders than USA, so term limits seem to increase the age not decrease it.
  - dcow 2y ago
    We’re talking about age limits.
pdonis 2y ago
> If someone is doing a good job why wouldn’t we want to keep them around? Because they won't keep doing a good job. The longer a politician stays in office, the more they are corrupted. The only solution is to keep them from staying in office too long.

If someone is doing a good job why wouldn’t we want to keep them around? If a 30 year old is elected to congress I don’t see why they couldn’t serve for 40 years if they are competent.

mrangle 2y ago

You would. Congressional politics is closer to a complex game than a cognitive exercise. A game that is only learned and won with experience.

pdonis 2y ago
> Congressional politics is closer to a complex game than a cognitive exercise. A game that is only learned and won with experience. None of that means the game actually accomplishes what government is supposed to accomplish. The actual result of the game is a huge bloated bureaucratic government that (a) does a poor job of what it is supposed to be doing, protecting everyone's basic rights, and (b) also does a poor job at all the other stuff that gets piled on top by legislators looking to make a mark and get re-elected and having to pander to special interests to do it. As the saying goes: if it isn't worth doing, it isn't worth doing well.
- mrangle 2y ago
  Was this response supposed to be relevant to the age question under discussion? Because that was the context of my response. Second, my response both implies that the game and the government are indistinguishable and that what it is supposed to accomplish is as much a question that comes with experience as is the knowledge of how to play. The output of a system is always its purpose, which is an upscaled cognate to the maxim that there are no mistakes in politics. The key to overcoming cognitive dissonance is to understand that this may not align with your perception of that purpose nor your perceived interests. Such is Life.

roenxi 2y ago

The evidence is that the current crop aren't doing a good job though; and despite that they have shown remarkable staying power. The last 50 years of political leadership have led to ... vast amounts of capital being built in China, Trump leading in the polls [0] and while civil war looks unlikely it is an option that comes up from time to time in the discourse. Happily the US population has had lots of practice from a series of disastrous foreign expeditions that may have achieved nothing (or the achievements are too unpolitic to talk about, maybe). The US Congress has a lot of trouble pointing out the genuine wins they have presided over if their popularity polling is a guide. The 2-term limit on presidents seemed to do great things, more limits on the congress is probably a good idea. There are 333 million people in the US, even if the candidates are drawn from the top 10,000 instead of the top 1,000 the results would be good in practice. [0] Love him or hate him, symbolically the man isn't an endorsement of the status quo.

bilbo0s 2y ago

Part of the issue is that you haven't shown the 30 year old to be competent when s/he stood for the first election. (Now I think of it, you haven't shown a 70 year old to be incompetent, but that's another issue.) If you have rules that are not based in competency, but on a simple feeling you have that group of people X, are not competent to do job Y. That's just not going to go well for you. Age minimums as conceived by the founders, for instance, were based in competence. A desire for people to have experience. Even then, they were not draconian. As evidenced by the fact that someone 35 years old could be President of the US. If you were arguing in favor of competency testing, people might get behind you. But you're arguing in favor of a blanket ban. Which is another matter entirely.

ziofill 2y ago

Being a political representative is not a regular job. It should come with some finite term, no matter how good you are.

wtallis 2y ago

Are they really doing a good job of governing, or just a good job of getting (re-)elected?

creer 2y ago

Right. For that matter it would be nice if we had decent tools for gauging all of activity, competence, attendance record, record of inserting garbage into bills, sponsoring useful bills, defending bills against garbage, etc. As far as I know voting record is reasonably available BUT bills are mostly not single issue and are very convoluted so that for any given bill it can be hard to tell whether you would have voted for or against.

dcow 2y ago

The problem comes when that now 70 year old is supposed to foster an urgent and relevant response to problems of the current 30 year old generation. They may be a well respected leader with an impeccable service record, but how can they possibly be effective when they don’t know how to use a smartphone or think cookies refer to the things they in the jar in the kitchen, or think AI is that thing that calls you Dave?

Jensson 2y ago
Europe doesn't have term limits and have much younger leaders than USA, so term limits seem to increase the age not decrease it.
- dcow 2y ago
  We’re talking about age limits.

pdonis 2y ago

> If someone is doing a good job why wouldn’t we want to keep them around? Because they won't keep doing a good job. The longer a politician stays in office, the more they are corrupted. The only solution is to keep them from staying in office too long.