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Comment by idiotsecant | Hacker News Reader

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.

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

Dubitable.

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

  > 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-...

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.

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?

why do you think stereotypes are wrong?

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

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

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?

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