• CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    Why do you have to draw the line somewhere?

    I feel like a broken record here, but the huge uptick in ageism I see in relation to politics seems like it’s not going to, ahem, age well given the amount of things I keep seeing about slowing down/reversing aging…

    I mean, yeah, it sounds kind of silly until it doesn’t. I remember reading about/thinking about things like AI (even if it’s not AGI - things like LLMs are here and disrupting the shit out of things). Same with self-driving cars. And yeah, neither of these things are perfect, but they are having an effect on society - people I know mostly got very smug and dismissive about these notions just 20 years ago. They are rather quiet about them now. I think the same thing is true about aging. Even if the breakthroughs are extremely mild and stay that way for decades, maybe even forever, suppose average healthspan is increased even 5 years. That will make (upper) age limits look very myopic and dated.

    • WagyuSneakers@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Because mentally incompetent people shouldn’t be in charge of steering the government. Mental competency drops fast at higher ages.

      Because I only want people who have a bested interest in the future to be the ones crafting it.

      You shouldn’t be allowed to vote or drive after a specific age because you become a danger to people around you.

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      It’s not about how long you live so much as getting stuck in your ways. Old people don’t learn new things and adapt the way young people do. Humans solidify the way they do things in their 20s, make some fine tuning in their 30s/40s, and then pretty much stick to those habits for the rest of their life. With the way technology is progressing we can’t have stagnant people leading an evolving society.

      There are exceptions to every rule but that doesn’t mean statistics aren’t valuable information to base decisions on. Do you want people stuck in the past making laws about the future?

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        14 minutes ago

        I just don’t understand this line of thinking at all. I don’t want people to have their moral fiber evolve. Bernie has been right for decades now, as a for instance. I wouldn’t want him cut out of politics based on some stupid and myopic ageist rule.

        Also, this line of thinking is what I’m pointing out is what is stuck in the past, by the way - I’m saying if we put into place some arbitrary age limits based on looking backwards, just as technology upends all this, that would be the fixed mode of thinking about humans, their capabilities as they age, and proper stewardship of the country.

        If people start having longer healthspans, I most definitely want people with the broader view to be running things, and that would mean people far older than they are right now, even. In that scenario, the older the better, in my view. In some cases, you have “old souls” among very young people who have the intelligence to talk to people that are older than them, or glean lessons from the past in other ways. This is often quite rare, unfortunately.

        Now, I would be in favor of having tests for capabilities, much like we have for older drivers in at least some states.

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      14 hours ago

      So you’d be fine with a child holding the role? After all why draw a line. Age relates to capability on both ends.

      • formulaBonk@lemm.ee
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        4 hours ago

        I hate that’d you’re downvoted and no response because this is the right take. We have age limits already but old people don’t want those to apply to them because … no reason they just want to continue holding power

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          10 minutes ago

          I’d be for tests of capabilities past some age. This would be the correct course of action, especially as technology may very well upend all these fixed and static notions about aging. Setting arbitrary upper age limits is kind of stupid even without that. We all have known people that have stayed quite sharp into very, very high ages, well beyond retirement age.

          The notion of a child holding the role is of course silly.