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I don't get the age obsession , or why this is that miraculous or surprising. People living a long time these days. Good genes , modern healthcare, a 'purpose-driven life' all help. Buffett, Munger, Kissinger...lots of people who were/are fully productive in their 90s or even 100s just before death. Contrary to Richard Hanania, I want to see more old people in politics and positions of power, if only because that gives hope for the rest of us. Age cutoffs, or ageism overall, just means shooting yourself in the foot as you approach that cutoff. It's giving yourself fewer options. Reagan and Trump, despite advanced age ,took active ownership or control of their presidencies, similar to Clinton or Obama.
Also, it helps unleash more human capital. The notion that old people in power crowd out young people is similar to the 'lump of labor' argument that technology destroys jobs--yes it destroys some jobs but has a net-positive effect of more jobs. Unlocking more human capital, and prolonging the productive lifespan of humans, means more economic growth and jobs overall. There are some edge cases like tenure, in which unproductive staff stay too long. But this is endemic with the tenure system and can be fixed with a more meritocratic or results-focused system.
I think the issue is one of being so behind the times that they can’t really grasp the issues that will come with increasing technology. 80 years ago, computers were rare devices that most ordinary people wouldn’t be using. The internet itself was unknown to most until 35 years ago. I’m not really sure I want someone who would have trouble setting up a home router making internet policy or other technology policies because they don’t understand how this stuff works.
I am not certain the comparison is favorable to young people. Let's imagine your average 70-80 year old who started their corporate career in their twenties: born in 1954-1944, started their career in 1974-1964, retired at 65 in 2019-2009. During their career nearly all job that involved paperwork got electrified and then computerized: they have seen electro-mechanical typewriters, teleprinters, faxes, calculators, sevral generations of copying machines and printers, DOS, pagers, MS-DOS, email, web during the dot-com boom, dumb phones, remembered several phone numbers, and used all major popular versions of Windows and Office and Excel until Windows XP (possibly Windows Vista, 7, 8, even 10 depending if we are talking about average 60-70 years who retired in early or late 2010s). And that is a median office worker. During their free time, they have bought analog TVs, read magazines and newspapers that had be bought and distributed by mail, sent mail by themselves, visited library that had physical card catalogue system that got computerized several times over, switched their sound system from vinyls to cassettes to CDs to (maybe) MP3s, bought a car that didn't refuse to start because of a failed firmware update, and when driving that car, navigated with paper map instead of spoon-fed directions, and quite likely tried to set up VCR at least once.
Uncharitably, the average 20 year old is more used to touchscreens than keyboards, does not know what is "file path", possibly not even what is a "file"; is lost if the document they need is not listed in the Word "recently opened", or is asked to install software not in app store.
More importantly, I believe the 20 year olds are much more susceptible to "fish don't know about water" myopia than the grandpa who remembers who things used to be. Assuming the grandpa is not demented.
Granted, the optimal person probably is someone 50-60 year old (they probably actually set up that VCR most often).
ETA: The point about VCRs is that it was more complex thing than any router setup I have done in the past 5 years.
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That's the issue with someone who's 70. When we start hitting 80 it's a fear of cognitive decline. Same reason they have to take more regular driving tests, improved modern healthcare or no.
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The problem I have in the modern era is that the 65~ retirement age is being preserved for the boomers as a legacy of an age where you worked with your hands and died 5-10 years after retiring. Without generating anywhere near the amount of expense and medical drama that somebody in the last few years can and will these days.
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