
Why Do Such Ancient People Run America? - Reedx
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/why-are-these-people-so-freaking-old/607492/
======
koheripbal
Every young person believes that they themselves will increase in wisdom as
they age.

...yet they judge older people with disdain simply because of their age.

It's a hypocritical and hubris ridden perspective.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
Some things simply won't matter as you age. Climate change will have zero
impact if you are going to die in a decade, which wouldn't be an unreasonable
estimate among the current presidential candidates. If you aren't personally
impacted, no matter how wise you may be, you can't have the same level of
empathy for the problem.

~~~
derision
That's implying none of those older people care about the lives of their
children and grandchildren which is not the case in my experience

~~~
magduf
Obviously you haven't been hanging around many career politicians or corporate
executives.

The problem isn't that older people don't care, it's that _the older people in
charge_ don't care.

~~~
blaser-waffle
They're not dictators or petty royalty -- they didn't get into that role
without having people elect them. They don't care because their electorate
doesn't care; old white people in the US vote in large numbers.

~~~
jacquesm
> They're not dictators or petty royalty

Some of them would like to be and want to be treated as dictators and royalty.

------
pmiller2
I think this is the key sentence, and everyone seems to be glossing over it:

> Americans 55 and older account for less than one-third of the population,
> but they own two-thirds of the nation’s wealth—the highest level of wealth
> concentration on record.

Running a national political campaign is a more than full time job for a
period of several months. The median American worker can’t just take a few
months off work to run for office.

~~~
xyzzyz
There are millions of Americans below age 55 with means to support themselves
for several months running the campaign. Suggesting that younger people do not
run for office because they risk starvation and eviction is just absurd.

~~~
pmiller2
The median net worth of people 45-54 is $124k. For ages 35-44, it's $59k. [0]
Keep in mind that includes things like home equity. It gets worse when you
look at younger age brackets. Not so absurd now, is it?

\---

[0]: [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-net-worth-
and-h...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-net-worth-and-how-do-
you-compare-to-others-2018-09-24)

~~~
smcphile
You wrote that the _median_ American worker can’t take time off to campaign.
That’s correct, they can’t.

The point is that lots of people, of all ages, both young and old, who’s net
worth is significantly _above_ the median, _can_ afford to take time off to
campaign.

So, yes, people with a higher net worth are at an advantage when running for
president, but this doesn’t really explain a bias against younger presidents,
since there are plenty of wealthy younger people, in terms of sheer numbers,
just not in terms of percentage of the population.

Also, you wrote that people over 55 represent 1/3 of the American population
but own 2/3 of the wealth. This can at least partly be explained by the fact
that most people’s net worth increases with age and not just linearly. Plus
older people often inherit some wealth from parents who die, increasing again
their net worth.

If the same pattern stays in place for future generations, if they also get
wealthier with age, I don’t personally see that as a big problem. Do you?

If on the other hand the pattern doesn’t continue, and younger people don’t
get wealthier with age, then, yes, I agree that’s a problem.

------
downerending
Because generally, older people have more experience than the young, which
translates into knowledge about the things that really matter.

When your life is falling apart or you have to make a life-altering decision,
you ask your parents or your grandparents, not some teenager. If have
something that absolutely, positively must be done, you give it to a senior,
not a green newbie.

That's reality. Ignore it at your peril.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Age often (but not always) translates into knowledge, and _sometimes_
translates into wisdom.

Look at those running for president this year. Biden, Sanders, Warren, and
Trump are all old. I'm pretty sure that almost everyone will say that at least
one of those candidates does not display wisdom. (Which one may vary, but
nobody thinks that they all are wise.)

~~~
downerending
I think any of those would do a good-enough job as President.

Wisdom is something different, and arguably no wise person would run for
office.

~~~
blaser-waffle
To paraphrase Bill Clinton: "the best candidates never run" with the implied
[for good reason because it's a shitty way to live]

------
JohnTHaller
The president has his emails printed out to read them. Like the CEO of the
fortune 500 that we laughed at back in the late 90s.

~~~
mhalle
So does Don Knuth. So does Don Hopkins, the former director of health programs
for the Carter Center and spent years leading the effort to eradicate Guinea
worm. So devoted to his task, he didn't even give his kids his cell phone
number when he traveled to Africa.

I can't speak for the current US President, but there are a lot of people who
are perfectly capable of reading email, but for whom the task would distract
them from more important uses of their time.

~~~
im3w1l
Don Knuth is 82 years old.

------
user_50123890
Because they've had 50 years to network and build wealth, compared to 5 years
of the average 20-something?

~~~
xyzzyz
You don't need wealth to run for the office. Bernie Sanders, while certainly
wealthier than average American, doesn't have any more liquid wealth than
typical 30-something software engineer, and doesn't seem to be spending any of
it on his campaign.

What you need to run is people who will vote for you, and that's a real
problem for young candidates.

~~~
pmiller2
Bernie Sanders has a job he’s not going to get fired from if he doesn’t show
up for months at a time because he’s on the campaign trail.

------
smcphile
> But old age runs deep in modern presidential politics.

Does it really though? Not according to Wikipedia, which puts the median age
of a president at 55 years and 3 months, and which describes the distribution
of ages as conforming to a bell curve:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_age)

~~~
pmiller2
Considering how the median age of the country at large is 38.2, you just
proved the opposite of your intended point. [0]

—-

[0]: [https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/06/median-age-
do...](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/06/median-age-does-not-
tell-the-whole-story.html)

~~~
smcphile
No, there’s no doubt in my mind that the median age of a president is greater
than the median age of the general population, but that in no way implies that
old age “runs deep” among presidents, which I take to mean that it’s a common
thing.

About half are less than 55 and half are more than 55. Most are somewhere near
55 (since the distribution conforms to a bell curve). 55, in my opinion, is
not “old age”, but your mileage may vary.

~~~
Izkata
Extra context: a 55-year-old who gets elected for president twice would finish
at 63, about 3-4 years short of retirement age (66-67 depending on birth
year).

------
topkai22
I don't have any real problem with older people, even 75+, being in positions
of power and responsibility, especially in elected government. However, there
is decent evidence that the degree to which late silent generation and early
baby boomers have dominated positions of power starting in the late 1980s is a
historical quirk. I didn't use to think so, but there was great article a
month back on HN
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204966))
that compiled some good data on how power seemed to consistently land on
individuals in the late silent generation or early baby boom.

I don't think there is any conspiracy, although there may be some degree of
self reinforcing bias toward people born around 1947 in society now. There are
other precedents though- in the small scale, the US Military Academy (West
Point) class of 1915 was known as the "class the stars fell on" because so
many members became generals (due to WWII), and post WWII those that were able
to serve in the military retained some advantages over those that weren't,
either by age or other status.

------
w3mmpp
Because young people are silly most of the time. They are clueless of their
ignorance and how fast and radically their own beliefs will change over time.

Every 10 years, you look at your own self and you realize how little you knew,
how silly and naive you were, and it keeps going.

Wisdom is when that cycle stops, either because you settled on a set of
beliefs or because you understand that it's all fleeting anyway, either way,
nobody should lead before reaching that stage imo.

------
_marlowe_
If you are 18-25, there is a HORRIBLE principal-agent problem here. Total
misalignment of interests.

Owing to the fact that, on average, young people will have more years of
exposure to a set of policies, they should have voting power to shape them.
One person, one vote leads to this misalignment.

Democracy with an inter-generational focus should allocate votes based on
duration of policy exposure. I.e. max(1, (Avg US Life Expectancy - age))
votes.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I admit the principle-agent problem. But let's give those with the least
experience and knowledge the most voting power? That seems like a very unwise
solution.

~~~
_marlowe_
Then raise the voting age to 25 or something. It's just an illustration.

------
thecolorblue
I was skeptical of the article until the very end:

> It’s unlikely that young people will notch many policy wins in a government
> whose median age is over 70.

Older people have different concerns, expenses, spend their time differently,
and have different problems than younger people. To ignore that younger people
are under-represented in the federal government is just as bad as ignoring the
under-representation of other groups.

------
aylee
Dementia incidence doubles every five years from 65 to 90. Having candidates
that will be older than 65 at inauguration just isn’t worth the risk.

------
Icathian
Fascinating topic, but in terms of real meat the explanation offered for the
phenomenon described is distressingly shallow. Common sense tells us as much
and more about why this is happening.

------
dariusj18
Go to DC and tell me that old people run America. What will surprise you is
how young everyone is on Capitol Hill.

------
amriksohata
Not often age, buy it's the experience and circle that comes with it

------
chriscatoya
I think across the board, Boomers generally haven’t handled the passing of the
reins well. This will be a big problem when there are emergency appointments
to leadership who haven’t been groomed. At a time when they should be retiring
making room for GenXers and Millennials taking up leadership positions,
they’re still working. It could be partly due to improved healthcare over the
generations. It could also be the work hard, “greed is good” mentality still
driving them forward. Either way, there is a disruption to the traditional
course of making way for the following generations by taking on roles of
mentoring rather than leading, ie emeritus positions.

------
kleer001
Coincidence... Nothing to see here folks.

------
senectus1
you cant ask that question without looking at the amount of money they're
spending.

the answer is : Money.

------
SpicyLemonZest
I'm not convinced about the underlying premise that age is an important factor
here. If people think Biden or Trump or McConnell or Pelosi are effective
leaders, why should it matter what age they are? I suspect that only the most
politically engaged people even consider the question.

~~~
ThinkBeat
Because when you are 70 years or older your cognitive abilities are not what
they used to be.

Would you want a 70 year old person to be trained as a fighter pilot? Would
you want him or her as a fireman, trying to carry people out of a fire?

A lot of great people are sharp and intelligent far into their old age, and a
lot more people are not. But their brain doesnt learn as fast, doesnt adapt as
well.

I want the person sitting on the nuclear button, who decides our climate
policy, that decides about health care, about using our military, to be in
their prime.

There are reasons for mandatory limits in certain professions, having one for
becoming president is a good idea.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
A lot of decision making is made by staffers. They rely on staffers to due the
heavy lifting, and then the elected public official goes through the motion of
reading statements written by staffers, introducing legislation, etc.
Parliamentarians are quite important to Congress' day-to-day functioning.
Also, as a public official, your party's platform already outlines what sides
of issues you are on.

------
linksnapzz
I don't know. Why does the Atlantic hire the vapidly callow to write for them?

------
jkingsbery
So many things factually wrong in this article....

> In January 2021, the three people most likely to be the next
> president—Biden, Sanders, and the incumbent, Donald Trump—would each be the
> oldest president to ever give an inaugural address in American history.

And until recently, we also had a serious candidate under the age of 40.

> If you extrapolate this trend, it might sound like America’s next
> breakthrough presidential candidate will be some 35-year-old YouTube
> influencer who just recently learned about the filibuster.

I thought the entire point of this article was that if you extrapolate the
trend, the candidates would all be in their 90's? Also, some of what goes on
in the private industry is transferrable to politics, and many of the names
mentioned had substantial careers (some will argue effective careers, some
won't) before they entered politics.

> In the past 40 years, the average age of Nobel Prize laureates has increased
> in almost every discipline,

My understanding is that the average age for starting a tenure track position
has also increased as a result of increased specialization and competition.
Wouldn't an increase in age for major career awards follow a similar
trajectory?

> Power concentrated in the hands of old people who are also rich will
> predictably lead to policies that benefit the old and the rich, at the
> expense of the less privileged.

How does this follow? Does the author mean to imply that government officials
are incapable of separating their own station from that of their constituents?
Why would these old rich people favor the "rich" (usually defined as those
with a high income) instead of the "old"?

> The federal government already guarantees universal health insurance and a
> universal basic income to seniors, even as Republicans cry socialism when
> young people request versions of the same policies

Maybe this is a useful fiction, but at least on paper we give these benefits
to seniors because they paid into social security and medicare during their
working years. Young people have not. Whether or not each one is wise, these
are two clearly different things. The author just shows his own lack of
understanding.

> At the end of the Cold War, a common criticism of the U.S.S.R. was that the
> country was crumbling in part because the Soviet politburo was too old and
> out of touch to keep up with a changing world.

Also, because it was a communist country that centrally planned everything, so
couldn't reallocate resources efficiently.

> Without encouraging voters or employers to be ageist...

Even though this is pretty much entirely what this article is doing

------
paulie_a
Personally I believe there should be an age cap for important positions. 70
years old and you are out. Alzheimer's is becoming an issue with elected
officials and will only worsen. We have age minimums. Why not a maximum?

~~~
me_me_me
There are 40yrs old people who are not fit to run their own lives and there
are 80+yrs old people who are razor sharp.

How do you propose we filter out people unfit for office?

~~~
bigmattystyles
Here's an idea - you let people decide - we could call it 'voting'.

