Hacker News Reader

Comment by kenjackson | Hacker News Reader

Curious. Why do we need much younger politicians?

To at least represent a bit better the modern world, not everybody makes the effort of keeping up to date with society when aging.

So those making the decisions will live as long or longer with them than their average constituent.

Because aging politicians do not adequately represent the majority of their constituents.

Given that the publicly accepted view of aging is that we are all living longer; the math does not support your view.

Math is generalized logic, not a theory of a specific systems parameters and behavior.

Humans memorize the information relative to them. If politicians memorize racism they’ll make racist policy.

I don’t want people who think in 100 year old social terms alone deciding my fate.

Society that never retires old ideas, demands speech stay on specific rails is hardly free. That type of governance is the basis of a police state.

"I don’t want people who think in 100 year old social terms alone deciding my fate."

Discriminating against someone on the basis of age is anti-social behavior.

The math is on my side. The average age of 117th Congress is 59, while the average US citizen is 38 (at the time of this being noted in 2021).

because people deteriorate mentally and physically with age.

But isn't this exactly the mindset that the original comment in this thread was criticizing?

It might be fair to say, as a sibling comment does, that one needs younger politicians so they can better represent one's constituents.

But to dismiss them just because they're old amounts to shutting off an economically productive segment of the population. More importantly, by discriminating against individuals because of their class membership rather than because of their abilities amounts to prejudice, no?

Sure, but you still need to consider the individual and not paint an entire demographic as “less than”. To do otherwise is prejudice. Ageism in this case.

It’s also factual that wealth greatly impacts education, but we wouldn’t want to suggest poor people are unfit for office due to this disadvantage right?

My parents are into their 70s and I have yet to detect even the slightest mental degradation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com