Hacker News Reader

Comment by dokein | Hacker News Reader

It turns out that regulations are made largely by old lawyers, who are more connected and charismatic than smart and practical, and haven't operated in the real-world for decades.

View on HN

Absolutely. This was on full-wide display at Mark Zuckerberg's senate testimony back in April, when a large proportion of senators had no idea what they were talking about when it came to technical aspects of Cambridge Analytica issue -- no wonder given the median age in that hearing was 62. [0]

[0] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/10/17222062/m...

I was wondering recently how government would look if in addition to a minimum age for various posts (at least in the US) there was a maximum age as well. The argument of needing a certain age to have the correct knowledge and perspective on the current issues facing society applies equally well to an age ceiling as well as an age floor. There are doubtlessly exceptions of older politicians who are quite capable, but there are probably the same exceptions in quite capable younger would-be politicians who are currently excluded. It would certainly be interesting to see how that would effect the handling of emerging technologies.

"It turns out that regulations are made largely by old lawyers, who are more connected and charismatic than smart and practical, and haven't operated in the real-world for decades."

Maybe that's the career path for aging programmers. Get a law degree.

This is a fantastic idea. Perhaps HN community could start an initiative to support this. Ageism in tech is a huge problem that is widely discussed here as is the disconnect between technology and law makers. It is in fact the perfect intersection which will result in the maximum value add impact for ageing technologists.

I have created a post to discuss this further: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17455017

This is why lawyers should not run anything especially not countries and unions (like the EU).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com