7 ms·

The only age requirement that would affect "millennials" is the constitutionally-defined minimum age for the President, which is 35.

4ntonius8lock 7y ago
The fact that you are stating something so easily disprovable, and that I'm getting down voted speaks volumes on the state of social acceptance of age discrimination. I'll quote from the wikipedia: "In the United States, a person must be aged 35 or over to be President or Vice President. To be a Senator, a person must be aged 30 or over. To be a Representative, a person must be aged 25 or older. This is specified in the U.S. Constitution. Most states in the U.S. also have age requirements for the offices of Governor, State Senator, and State Representative" Also, let's be clear. Generally a Senator or Congressman has a long history of local public office before being a Senator or Congressman. Young people are locked out of those offices until AT LEAST 30. That means, they start running for some small office in their mid 30s, to end in higher office at a much older age. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_candidacy_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_candidacy_laws_in_the_U...
- RhysU 7y ago
  Imagine how you would feel towards a teenager who complained he or she couldn't run for president. Age doesn't necessitate wisdom, but wow are they positively correlated.
  - waterhouse 7y ago
    Sounds like a teenager wouldn't be a viable candidate for president, then, in which case why does there need to be a rule forbidding it?
    - RhysU 7y ago
      On the looong horizon, though small there's a nonzero probability that a teenager candidate may be viable. If you are one of the people drafting the Constitution, that you want to work forever, why risk it?
      - waterhouse 7y ago
        Which then raises the question: if a teenager has managed the extraordinary feat of becoming a viable candidate, then they're clearly an outlier, and whatever you think about teenagers in general may not apply to them. Alexander the Great was... 20 years old when he became king and 22 when he began his invasions. I searched for "teenage kings" and found https://www.history.com/news/6-child-monarchs-who-changed-history https://www.history.com/news/6-child-monarchs-who-changed-hi... . Ptolemy XIII, from age "11 or 12": seems to have screwed things up. Fulin / "Shunzhi Emperor", taking power at 12, seems to have done a decent job. Elagabalus, becoming Roman emperor in A.D. 218 at 15, screwed up horribly. Pharaoh Tutankhamen, starting at "9 or 10", seems to have done well. Mary, Queen of Scots... I don't see much about decisions she made during her reign; she seems to have been trampled by more powerful enemies without it being obviously her fault. Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, from age 15: seems he did well. Incidentally, all of the above died in their 20s or younger (except Mary, who was locked up for life in her 20s). So that's two screw-ups, three did-well, and one don't-know. The article says "who changed history", which means something significant happened, which might give us a biased selection—in many professions, the easiest way to do something very significant is to mess up something critical. I wonder if someone has made a more extensive and non-selected list. Regarding this particular set, I also might say we should compare Elagabalus with other Roman emperors in the 200s A.D.—I'd guess there are other stinkers on that list... Looking at the others in the Severan dynasty... Elagabalus was succeeded by Severus Alexander (age 14!), who apparently did whatever his mother recommended, and seems to have done ok-ish (though the army grew to hate him and eventually overthrew him). Before Elagabalus was Caracalla, who co-ruled with his father Septimus (who did very well) starting at age 10 (!) and became emperor at 23 (technically co-emperor with his brother, but he had his brother killed that year), and was awful. Hmm, interesting. Unfortunately the Severans after Septimus were all young, which makes it hard to tell between "the Severans being too young made them suck" or "the Severans after Septimus sucked". Let's look at another Roman dynasty... the ones after the Severan seem too short and interrupted by weirdness to judge... Let's try Flavian. Vespasian began the line, was a military officer before he was emperor, and did well; Titus, his son (age 40, also already a military commander), did well (until he died of a fever); Domitian, Titus's brother (age 30), seems to have been effective though possibly tyrannical. It seems a main lesson from the first bunch of Roman emperors was, if the emperor chooses a successor for reasons other than "family", things tend to go well; if there is automatic inheritance, it tends to go badly. But it also seems to go along somewhat with age: Caligula became emperor at 25, Nero at 17. It's possible that there's unexpected wisdom in the age-35 rule. Still... If someone had been tutored from a young age by great teachers (Alexander the Great was apparently tutored until 16 by Aristotle), then managed to gain a few years' experience running a large chunk of a mid-size company (perhaps by a parent bringing them along to meetings, having staff explain things, then having the kid do research and come up with his own proposals that he delivers in meetings, and ultimately grow into some CxO role) and, by all accounts, running it extremely well; and finally managed to rise to national prominence by, I don't know, identifying a national crisis and getting several companies to work together to fix it, and everyone who's interacted with him says he's great; and if he did this all by the age of 19, would you think he's a worse candidate than the last several presidents of the U.S.?
    - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
      Stop with you and your logic. That's like saying that if a woman could pass the same physical tests as a man they should be able to do the same things as a man! People who don't believe in discrimination are weird, they have all these concepts of equality.
  - isostatic 7y ago
    On average older people start losing their faculties - not just through dementia. A minimum age limit makes sense, but so does a maximum age limit.
    - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
      In general I'd agree. In practice, no. I've meet people in their late 90s who have more wits than people in their 70s. I've meet teenagers who were way wiser than adults. I'm not sure why people are so afraid of letting things run on merit. Can things go wrong that way? Yes. But it's not like the other way is perfect either. And let's be clear, what you are advocating for is discrimination. I've found most people who advocate for that don't do so with intellectual honesty, they like to call it a 'requirement'.
      - RhysU 7y ago
        Fair point, I am advocating that we discriminate against would-be presidential candidates below a Constitutional age limit. In your opinion, at what age should we let people vote? Smoke? Drive? Sign contracts? Drink? Have consentual sex? Get married? Require them to be off their parents' health insurance? Permit catch-up retirement contributions? Allow tax-free withdrawals from IRAs? Allow claiming Social security? Etc.
        4ntonius8lock 7y ago
        It would only be fair that people who are subject to adult taxes, regulations and jail should be allowed to participate in the processes that subject them to involuntary actions (such as taxes and jail) - This doesn't only mean voting but being eligible to be voted for - After all taxation without representation was literally the rallying cry of our nations freedom. Given what we have now, 18. Stupid 18 year olds you say? No problem they won't get elected. What if someone does? Well, then that person is clearly an extremely exceptional 18 year old and might be smarter than both you and I. Basically, meritocratic participation. I'm not sure how someone can argue against it. Now, if you want to put in a requirement to have some level of public service experience before being president, that is not discriminatory, though it opens up a whole other can of worms - Personally I'm against this, but at least such a requirement would actually make sense in a meritocratic way, instead of just being silly ageist discrimination, which hopefully one day will be seen for being similar to other vile views like racism, sexism and classism. The rest of your questions aren't really relevant to this point.
  - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
    You know there are a ton of correlations related to race and gender. I thought those were no longer valid to be applied to huge swaths of people as it is discriminatory. I mean, not everyone who is part of a race or gender will have that correlation applicable to themselves. Yes, some teenagers are dumb. Most. I was. But I've meet teenagers that are way smarter than I'll ever be. I'm afraid many people view discrimination from a situational ethics point of view; it's only discrimination if it is the type of discrimination they don't like. Otherwise, it isn't discrimination.

4ntonius8lock 7y ago

The fact that you are stating something so easily disprovable, and that I'm getting down voted speaks volumes on the state of social acceptance of age discrimination. I'll quote from the wikipedia: "In the United States, a person must be aged 35 or over to be President or Vice President. To be a Senator, a person must be aged 30 or over. To be a Representative, a person must be aged 25 or older. This is specified in the U.S. Constitution. Most states in the U.S. also have age requirements for the offices of Governor, State Senator, and State Representative" Also, let's be clear. Generally a Senator or Congressman has a long history of local public office before being a Senator or Congressman. Young people are locked out of those offices until AT LEAST 30. That means, they start running for some small office in their mid 30s, to end in higher office at a much older age. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_candidacy_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_candidacy_laws_in_the_U...

RhysU 7y ago
Imagine how you would feel towards a teenager who complained he or she couldn't run for president. Age doesn't necessitate wisdom, but wow are they positively correlated.
- waterhouse 7y ago
  Sounds like a teenager wouldn't be a viable candidate for president, then, in which case why does there need to be a rule forbidding it?
  - RhysU 7y ago
    On the looong horizon, though small there's a nonzero probability that a teenager candidate may be viable. If you are one of the people drafting the Constitution, that you want to work forever, why risk it?
    - waterhouse 7y ago
      Which then raises the question: if a teenager has managed the extraordinary feat of becoming a viable candidate, then they're clearly an outlier, and whatever you think about teenagers in general may not apply to them. Alexander the Great was... 20 years old when he became king and 22 when he began his invasions. I searched for "teenage kings" and found https://www.history.com/news/6-child-monarchs-who-changed-history https://www.history.com/news/6-child-monarchs-who-changed-hi... . Ptolemy XIII, from age "11 or 12": seems to have screwed things up. Fulin / "Shunzhi Emperor", taking power at 12, seems to have done a decent job. Elagabalus, becoming Roman emperor in A.D. 218 at 15, screwed up horribly. Pharaoh Tutankhamen, starting at "9 or 10", seems to have done well. Mary, Queen of Scots... I don't see much about decisions she made during her reign; she seems to have been trampled by more powerful enemies without it being obviously her fault. Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, from age 15: seems he did well. Incidentally, all of the above died in their 20s or younger (except Mary, who was locked up for life in her 20s). So that's two screw-ups, three did-well, and one don't-know. The article says "who changed history", which means something significant happened, which might give us a biased selection—in many professions, the easiest way to do something very significant is to mess up something critical. I wonder if someone has made a more extensive and non-selected list. Regarding this particular set, I also might say we should compare Elagabalus with other Roman emperors in the 200s A.D.—I'd guess there are other stinkers on that list... Looking at the others in the Severan dynasty... Elagabalus was succeeded by Severus Alexander (age 14!), who apparently did whatever his mother recommended, and seems to have done ok-ish (though the army grew to hate him and eventually overthrew him). Before Elagabalus was Caracalla, who co-ruled with his father Septimus (who did very well) starting at age 10 (!) and became emperor at 23 (technically co-emperor with his brother, but he had his brother killed that year), and was awful. Hmm, interesting. Unfortunately the Severans after Septimus were all young, which makes it hard to tell between "the Severans being too young made them suck" or "the Severans after Septimus sucked". Let's look at another Roman dynasty... the ones after the Severan seem too short and interrupted by weirdness to judge... Let's try Flavian. Vespasian began the line, was a military officer before he was emperor, and did well; Titus, his son (age 40, also already a military commander), did well (until he died of a fever); Domitian, Titus's brother (age 30), seems to have been effective though possibly tyrannical. It seems a main lesson from the first bunch of Roman emperors was, if the emperor chooses a successor for reasons other than "family", things tend to go well; if there is automatic inheritance, it tends to go badly. But it also seems to go along somewhat with age: Caligula became emperor at 25, Nero at 17. It's possible that there's unexpected wisdom in the age-35 rule. Still... If someone had been tutored from a young age by great teachers (Alexander the Great was apparently tutored until 16 by Aristotle), then managed to gain a few years' experience running a large chunk of a mid-size company (perhaps by a parent bringing them along to meetings, having staff explain things, then having the kid do research and come up with his own proposals that he delivers in meetings, and ultimately grow into some CxO role) and, by all accounts, running it extremely well; and finally managed to rise to national prominence by, I don't know, identifying a national crisis and getting several companies to work together to fix it, and everyone who's interacted with him says he's great; and if he did this all by the age of 19, would you think he's a worse candidate than the last several presidents of the U.S.?
  - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
    Stop with you and your logic. That's like saying that if a woman could pass the same physical tests as a man they should be able to do the same things as a man! People who don't believe in discrimination are weird, they have all these concepts of equality.
- isostatic 7y ago
  On average older people start losing their faculties - not just through dementia. A minimum age limit makes sense, but so does a maximum age limit.
  - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
    In general I'd agree. In practice, no. I've meet people in their late 90s who have more wits than people in their 70s. I've meet teenagers who were way wiser than adults. I'm not sure why people are so afraid of letting things run on merit. Can things go wrong that way? Yes. But it's not like the other way is perfect either. And let's be clear, what you are advocating for is discrimination. I've found most people who advocate for that don't do so with intellectual honesty, they like to call it a 'requirement'.
    - RhysU 7y ago
      Fair point, I am advocating that we discriminate against would-be presidential candidates below a Constitutional age limit. In your opinion, at what age should we let people vote? Smoke? Drive? Sign contracts? Drink? Have consentual sex? Get married? Require them to be off their parents' health insurance? Permit catch-up retirement contributions? Allow tax-free withdrawals from IRAs? Allow claiming Social security? Etc.
      - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
        It would only be fair that people who are subject to adult taxes, regulations and jail should be allowed to participate in the processes that subject them to involuntary actions (such as taxes and jail) - This doesn't only mean voting but being eligible to be voted for - After all taxation without representation was literally the rallying cry of our nations freedom. Given what we have now, 18. Stupid 18 year olds you say? No problem they won't get elected. What if someone does? Well, then that person is clearly an extremely exceptional 18 year old and might be smarter than both you and I. Basically, meritocratic participation. I'm not sure how someone can argue against it. Now, if you want to put in a requirement to have some level of public service experience before being president, that is not discriminatory, though it opens up a whole other can of worms - Personally I'm against this, but at least such a requirement would actually make sense in a meritocratic way, instead of just being silly ageist discrimination, which hopefully one day will be seen for being similar to other vile views like racism, sexism and classism. The rest of your questions aren't really relevant to this point.
- 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
  You know there are a ton of correlations related to race and gender. I thought those were no longer valid to be applied to huge swaths of people as it is discriminatory. I mean, not everyone who is part of a race or gender will have that correlation applicable to themselves. Yes, some teenagers are dumb. Most. I was. But I've meet teenagers that are way smarter than I'll ever be. I'm afraid many people view discrimination from a situational ethics point of view; it's only discrimination if it is the type of discrimination they don't like. Otherwise, it isn't discrimination.