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" their scope of understanding of economics and past efforts in that field is relevant, and age is an extremely poor proxy for that. (It's exactly the same prob
by jbooth 13y ago
" their scope of understanding of economics and past efforts in that field is relevant, and age is an extremely poor proxy for that. (It's exactly the same problem as using age alone as a proxy for to measure programming skill would be.)"
That's exactly the spot where I disagree. Understanding political-economy properly requires a certain amount of cynicism that can only come from observing the world for a while. Very different from programming skill. In programming, "this time it's different" can be true sometimes, we've only got 60-odd years of programming. In political economy, after 3,000 years or so, it's almost never the case.
For what it's worth, I didn't feel that way when I was 22.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> That's exactly the spot where I disagree. Understanding political-economy properly requires a certain amount of cynicism, that can only come from observing the world for a while Cynicism hinders understanding, though it may be a product of understanding, and while cynicism may come from age, its a whole lot more related to particular experiences interacting with underlying personality. > For what it's worth, I didn't feel that way when I was 22. For what it's worth, I might have been more inclined to your simplistic paean to the magical powers of age and the value of cynicism when I was 22 -- or at least 17-18. At 40, not so much.
- jbooth 13y agoI was actually thinking about this comment, and I agree with you for all cases where we're not radically rethinking existing systems. Note that I wasn't really arguing from authority except when giving him investment advice. Also note that I could tell his age from his arguments.
- snitko 13y agoNo you couldn't, I'm 28, not 22.