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Comment by nikanj | Hacker News Reader

I'm saddened to see Intel has taken a good gulp of the "Young people are smarter"-Kool Aid

*cheaper

This. You're a bean counter and you are tasked with making up as much money as possible via layoff, while losing as few people as possible. You possibly don't even know the age of the people on your spreadsheet beyond what you can assume from titles and roles. You go down the list and cut the big numbers in teams with more people than average (likely more juniors that are mentored by the seniors with big numbers next to their name). End result: you "discriminated" against older people. Though really you just discriminated against higher salaries. It will hurt the company but all layoffs do.

It's actually established science that your fluid intelligence drops after hitting 30's, and the skills for certain tasks even earlier. It's sad, but it's dumb to deny biological reality.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SBJ2KTl2f3c/VjPN9JeWLiI/AAAAAAAAVd...

https://study.com/cimages/multimages/16/adultintelligence.jp...

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-496a52a13eaee1e99f39e3...

That's why everyone prefers the 25 year old doctor, said no one ever.

Straw man argument. Being a doctor is not only about fluid intelligence.

I would say any job requires more than just raw intelligence.

Being an anything is not only about fluid intelligence. Intelligence, while helpful, is not a good indicator of any metric of success or competence. High childhood intelligence levels are in fact associated with below average adult outcomes - turns out intelligence is paid for with tenacity. Tenacity trumps intelligence as a predictor of adult success.

I don't usually cry for a source in casual conversation, but if you are going to suggest that discriminating against the majority of people,people in their 30s+, then you are going to have to back that up with more than pretty graphs

I said nothing about discriminating against anybody. Please don't make shit up.

>It's actually established science that your fluid intelligence drops after hitting 30's, and the skills for certain tasks even earlier. It's sad, but it's dumb to deny biological reality.

Maybe you did not mean it but using the phrase "biological reality" when discussing a demographic of people is a common refrain of people who want to discriminate those groups. If I misread your message, I apologise

You misread my message.

Even if some group of people is objectively dumber, we shouldn't treat them horribly. But it still means that they will likely perform certain tasks worse (and certain other tasks better).

The issue is whether greater fluid intelligence is better or not for a particular job and whether crystallized intelligence plays any role. Who is better as a linux kernel developer: Linus Torvalds who is 48 but has 28 years of active involvement in the Linux kernel or a 22 year old who has 2 years involvement in writing code for the Linux kernel?

Perhaps a 50 year old wouldn't be your first choice for a startup who is looking at a blank slate for their codebase. But there just aren't that many companies who are starting the platform completely from scratch.

That's an unfair comparison though. Take an average 22 year old and an average 50 year old, and the choice might be factually clear.

It illustrates the point, however, that your typical 50 year old tech worker has several decades involvement in tech. Some of the knowledge accumulated over those years is no longer directly applicable because things have moved on, but some is still very applicable and will lead to them making better informed decisions.

I'll take wisdom and experience over dubious claims of "fluid intelligence" for most roles.

It's somewhat taboo to mention that though. Reminds me of a Charles Murray's The Bell Curve, which merely pointed out that various races have differing average intelligence. Despite clarifying that the standard deviation was much wider than any of the differences (so you cannot judge an individual based on the results), the author was shamed, blacklisted, and threatened for his work.

Some people just like to live in a fairy tale where how everyone should be treated is the same as how everyone actually is.

The reason for age discrimination is almost never capability. The majority of older engineers, especially in more established professions like Civil, Mechanical and Electronic Engineering are obviously and demonstrably better engineers than younger ones. This comes from simple experience and time spent on a subject. In less established professions where techniques and processes are more in flux, not enough time is spent on any topic to produce true masters - in software, there are only apprentices and journeymen. Principal level Civil Engineers can expect to make about 120% more than juniors - so firing one principal saves a lot of money on the books this quarter. These companies wither and die as they bleed away core competencies and corporate memory.

Has anyone ever referenced that work and not been a complete racist piece of crap?

Charles Murray?

your magic fluid intelligence does not account for many, many aspects of systems.. not the least of which is, where does this lead?

Biological reality is that under 30's need every iota of evolutionary advantage they can get to at least try and compete against the experience and survival skills of The Vetted. This and the sometimes unfortunate tendency of not eating our young is all that gives <30 younglings an inkling of a chance.

It is a combination of cost and populism, where younger people are attracted to companies that pander to them and they are willing to accept less pay for more work. It's a fascinating phenomenon and to see identity politics enter this situation is equally fascinating.

> where younger people are attracted to companies that pander to them

because older people don't wnat companies that offer better benefits, easier leave for family issues, less hours, etc...?

> they are willing to accept less pay for more work

in an effort to get ahead and make more for the last 30 working years of their lives, so that when they do have a family at home they can afford it.

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