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Comment by CWuestefeld | Hacker News Reader

Isn't using age as a proxy for technical literacy rather fraught? It seems to me just as much an abuse of stereotypes as other sexist or racist comments.

I agree that the demographics are probably correct, but we're not supposed to assume that all individuals conform to group stereotypes. And that ought to be doubly true when we're not selecting those individuals at random, but we're (putatively) selecting them for their wisdom and other skills.

While it's certainly a minority of America's Congress, there are lots of people there that clearly have strong skills in technology or the sciences: Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL), Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA), all of whom are over 50 years old, just to name a few.

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No, it's not particularly fraught. There are plenty of old people who love technology and stay current. They are also a tiny minority. It's pretty reasonable to expect that an octogenarian is not going to be technically literate, on average. The reverse is not true, of course. You can't assume that because someone is 30 years old they are technically literate.

USA has age limits for the executive and that isn't considered an issue. We should have age limits at the top end as well. It isn't only technology. I don't think 80+ year olds should be driving a car or even operating a McDonalds much less making sweeping long term decisions across dozens of disciplines with little to no research.

> don't think 80+ year olds should be driving a car or even operating a McDonalds

Warren Buffett is 96 years old. Knowledge and wisdom tend to increase with age.

  > Knowledge and wisdom tend to increase with age.

So does the prevalence of dementia.

True, but that prevalence is not a constant. In fact, across the broader landscape of human history, that appears to be a relatively recent development, and almost certainly environmental/toxins related. For example: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2479344-dementia-cases-...

Knowledge and wisdom *of recent technology* (or even current events) tends to increase with age?!

Dubitable.

Cherry-picking one unrepresentative billionaire is not a very convincing argument.

Your second sentence is a nonsequitur. At 96, Warren Buffett should be neither driving a car nor operating a McDonalds!

> nor operating a McDonalds

That was a quote of the parent.

Until last year (when he was 95), he was operating the world's largest holding company by assets and revenue.

It was also the first non-tech company to reach $1T market cap.

And, its class A stock was by far the most expensive stock in the world at $740,000 per share, more than 100x more expensive than any other US stock.

So, yeah, I think he'd be qualified to operate maybe even two McDonalds. Maybe he could even be driven to them.(Coincidentally, he is a HUGE McDonalds and Coke fan and has eaten there almost every morning for over 50 years.)

Disrespecting older people seems to be a hobby as old as Father Time.

So then surely your grandma will never, ever need help operating a computer or a phone. That knowledge just magically appears with age, right?

Can you articulate a clear rule that allows me to use age-focused stereotypes, but prevents me from using race- or sex- or gender- focused stereotypes? Why is one OK but not the other? Is it just that you perceive that the age ones are true in a greater proportion of cases, and if so, how do we determine where to draw that line?

Yes, let me clarify this for you. Old people are often not comfortable with new technology. Tell me that this is false.

why do you think stereotypes are wrong?

stereotypes are sticky because they are correct more times than they are wrong

These old people started their career when computer use became a job requirement for any office work. A few years more and homes got saturated as well. A 52 yo was 20 thirty years ago, in 1996. Have you heard about Napster, MS Office, Netscape, Windows 95 / NT, Hotmail, AOL, Messenger, ICQ, Doom, C&C, .... hundreds more. And everything else since. They had to live through those every day, keyboard+screen instead of pen+paper.

...aren't you confusing them with the generation above 80?

You're right, and as someone north of that age, and who self-assess as mildly competent with technology, I didn't mean to imply a linear correlated.

I'm aware our (AU) representatives & senate average age is relatively low compared to US / UK, and I think that figure (52 ish) is probably relatively healthy in terms of a spread of younger + experienced minds.

But OTOH, our government has form on this front (of doing as our friends over the pond instruct, and of not really understanding the technology around which they are formulating laws) and I should probably have pointed at that aspect, but it's harder to succinctly convey that track record.

50+ year olds seen and used and made more than 30 years worth of constantly evolving technology, their life was saturated with it for 3 decades. Was this what the poster wanted to say perhaps? ; )

  > boomers are bad at tech
  > not all boomers! these couple ones are pretty good!

both statements are correct, tone policing is incorrect

What's (probably) incorrect is drawing conclusions based on A without considering the Bs in the population.

Consider: the leading cause of death for young black men is being killed by other black men. Not all young black men! Lots of them are pretty good! Both of those statements are true. What's incorrect is to use it to draw conclusions like "so police should stop and frisk young black men" or "we should avoid endangering the rest of our employees by hiring young black men".

The top-level comment was using age stereotypes to "prove" that an older legislative body is going to misunderstand technology, and therefore produce bad regulation. Showing that the argument was wrong because stereotypes aren't universal, and because in this case there's reason to believe that the samples are selected in a way that would tend to avoid the stereotype, isn't "tone policing". It's directly attacking the argument itself of that parent comment.

no, you did not prove anything. Boomers are indeed bad in tech in general, and the presence of few tech literate does not change the general population

Nope, both statements are completely wrong because 52 years old, and thereabouts, is GenX not Boomer.

And yes it makes a difference. They would have grown up with the first home computers like the 8 bit C64 or ZX Spectrum, and later the 16 bit Amiga A500 or Atari ST.

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