Age isn’t inherently a bad thing in politics. We’re a representative democracy, and older adults deserve representation reflected as equally as any other eligible voter demographic imo (which could include felons and other disenfranchised populations where possible, but that’s a whole other convo).
It’s disproportionately skewed due to lack of term limits, it’s often safer for parties to run an incumbent, and there’s benefits to having someone with the experience stay in, so idk. I don’t have a ton of solutions by any means, just want to push back on the ageism and add some nuance here. Bernie’s still out there doing a his job representing the demographic well
It’s disproportionately skewed due to lack of term limits
Term limits do nothing but empower civil servants and the parties’ bureaucracies. They haven’t achieved better governance anywhere they’ve been tried. The endless revolving door just makes it more important for careerists to seek patronage.
Age isn’t inherently a bad thing in politics. We’re a representative democracy,
I am not a workaholic. I want to retire from my profession some day, not continue working while in hospice care.
I want to be represented by someone who understands and shares my values, which includes a desire to enjoying life after retirement.
I want my representatives to value and promote the idea of recreation, hobbies, volunteer work, etc. Which means they will be retiring from professional work around 65, not 90.
Being of retirement age is an inherently bad thing in professional politics.
My point is that if the electorate wants to enjoy their retirement, they should be electing candidates who actually plan on enjoying their own retirement. They shouldn’t be electing candidates who think retirement is something for weak or lazy people.
Do you have research that demonstrates this conclusively? I’ve taken courses in psychology of aging, lifespan development, brain & behavior, etc. None of them discussed such a claim for everyone, but it’s possible I didn’t pay well enough attention.
I asked ChatGPT as well, and it’s disagreeing with you, for the record. There are changes and differences, but the brain is a muscle like any other that requires training. Learning new skills, solving puzzles, etc. is correlated to the maintenance and/or improvement of the organ over the lifespan.
Research has shown that concept formation, abstraction, and mental flexibility decline with age, especially after age 70
Many fluid cognitive abilities, especially psychomotor ability and processing speed, peak in the third decade of life and then decline at an estimated rate of −0.02 standard deviations per year.
However, what does appear clear is that several different types of results converge on the conclusion that age-related cognitive decline begins relatively early in adulthood, and certainly before age 60 in healthy educated adults.
All government employees should have mandatory retirement at the maximum social security benefit age.
Just kidding, that would only be a recipe for removing a maximum benefit age and just graduating it at a stupidly low rate to age 100+.
I hate this timeline.
Age isn’t inherently a bad thing in politics. We’re a representative democracy, and older adults deserve representation reflected as equally as any other eligible voter demographic imo (which could include felons and other disenfranchised populations where possible, but that’s a whole other convo).
It’s disproportionately skewed due to lack of term limits, it’s often safer for parties to run an incumbent, and there’s benefits to having someone with the experience stay in, so idk. I don’t have a ton of solutions by any means, just want to push back on the ageism and add some nuance here. Bernie’s still out there doing a his job representing the demographic well
Term limits do nothing but empower civil servants and the parties’ bureaucracies. They haven’t achieved better governance anywhere they’ve been tried. The endless revolving door just makes it more important for careerists to seek patronage.
I am not a workaholic. I want to retire from my profession some day, not continue working while in hospice care.
I want to be represented by someone who understands and shares my values, which includes a desire to enjoying life after retirement.
I want my representatives to value and promote the idea of recreation, hobbies, volunteer work, etc. Which means they will be retiring from professional work around 65, not 90.
Being of retirement age is an inherently bad thing in professional politics.
Just because it’s what you want doesn’t mean you speak for everyone. That’s the point of democracy.
My point is that if the electorate wants to enjoy their retirement, they should be electing candidates who actually plan on enjoying their own retirement. They shouldn’t be electing candidates who think retirement is something for weak or lazy people.
Age is a problem cognitive decline is real and no one escapes it. These 70 and 80 year old people aren’t mentally competent.
Cognitive decline is not inherent to old age. It is something to look out for.
Cognitive decline absolutely is inherent. You can delay it, but by 70 everyone has measurable decline.
Do you have research that demonstrates this conclusively? I’ve taken courses in psychology of aging, lifespan development, brain & behavior, etc. None of them discussed such a claim for everyone, but it’s possible I didn’t pay well enough attention.
I asked ChatGPT as well, and it’s disagreeing with you, for the record. There are changes and differences, but the brain is a muscle like any other that requires training. Learning new skills, solving puzzles, etc. is correlated to the maintenance and/or improvement of the organ over the lifespan.
Jesus, dude.
Next time, they should use a Ouija board, it’s less likely to lie to them.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4015335/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2683339/
That’s unmeasurable with any statistical tool with any degree of confidence. The error bars on that will completely wipe out the signal-noise ratio.
As a year over year measure, sure. The difference between 30 and 60 would be apparent though.