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I've actually come up with a way that someone outside a state can directly influence the election. Say, the candidate did something that would disqualify them for the post they are seeking, but this was not public knowledge. If someone from another state dug into this and exposed it to the proper people, what they did would "matter", even using kat's extremely limited definition of "matter".
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: Using uncommon words to call me a child does not refute the fact that older equals wiser is not a law, merely a decree from those who have attained power and do not wish to be challenged. How many proffesionals outside pollitics have peaked after the age of sixty? waited until they were classified as senior citizen to start a wildly successful company, or published thier first book to positive reviews and high sales after the age of seventy?
An accomplished man of 94 is simply going to do what he did when he was 74, despite what tools are at his disposal and the change of what his methods can do.
Age does not mean intelligent by default, and old age is the enemy of a healthy brain. Ignore that fact if you will, because I am just a mere brat whose fingers type away while my simple mind thinks about how pretty marbles are.
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Asimov died at the age of seventy-two, and aside from any short-stories his success was found between the ages of thirty and thirty-eight.
Tolkien had already written The Hobbit before the age of thirty-two, and the LOTR trilogy had been fully published when he was fifty-three. Neither example counters my statement.
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Goethe completed Faust (generally considered to be the greatest play written in the German language) when he was in his 80s.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Its been rare in human history for people to live into their nineties and rare for people to make any contribution that is remembered long after their death so it is not in the least surprising that their are few great works around from nonagenarians. There are however many noted people who continued to make great scholarly and creative contributions until their deaths.
J.S. Bach, for example, dictated his final Choral while on his death bed at the age of 65.
Albert Einstein continued to publish original scientific studies well into his 70s.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote: Tolkien had already written The Hobbit before the age of thirty-two, and the LOTR trilogy had been fully published when he was fifty-three. Neither example counters my statement.
Sure, AchillesHeel, go ahead and cherry-pick your rebuttals like this while ignoring the many other statements and examples that highlight the mistaken claims you're making.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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"Albert Einstein continued to publish original scientific studies well into his 70s. "
This is somewhat misleading. The bulk of Einstein's original work of importance was done before he turned 35.
Physics is definitely a field dominated by young people, as even where you can find important work done by people past the age of 40, it is usually a continuation of work that they started in their 20's.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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AC, your points don't need refuting. They are [poorly thought out opinions of a young man, not facts, not truth.
Truth as you see it doesn't equal actual truth, you know, not always.
I love how your bridle at any mention or comment about your age being a factor whenever you make a comment, yet feel it is fine for you to rant about older people.
Not all young people are boneheads, and not all old people are ridged and inflexible. Considering the AVERAGE life span of a person was considerably lower than it is today it is not unusual that most of a person's work of note was done before age 60. However, not only is life expectancy higher now, but more and more of those people are in better health as they age than ever before.
But don't allow actual facts to sway you. I am sure that your WEALTH of experience is more valid. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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My argument is not about people older than myself, my argument is that choices made by the American govt should not be left to the elderly such as a ninety-four year old man or anyone else whose inherant health risks endanger thier ability to think clearly or to respond effectivly under pressure. Being above the age of seventy-five makes that a point of worry for me. As to the idea that longer life-spans will increase the regularity of proffesionals finding thier greatest success later in life I ask a question, if you were a proffessional making more than 100,000 dollars a year regularly as early as thirty-five when would you want to retire? very few people with the will and the way to retire young would pass it up, and they certainly wouldnt practice all the way into thier eighties just for fun.
And yes, I do happen to agitate slightly when a persons counter point is a one sentence remark attempting to befuddle me and under-developed brain. And notice that while some of my iterations havent exactly been copy and pasted from a scientific journal that I have not resorted to sarcasm as my solitary rebuttal.
My concern is matters of great urgency and importance being left in the hands of people who do not have proper connection to our current state of affairs to handle them properly due to either health or simply the inability to access information competently. Sen. McCain cannot use the internet, therefore if information is not relayed to him through personal contact, a phone or printed document he must rely on an intermediary to access potentially volatile and and important information dealing with our govt. In this information age this man who deals with what happens to our country cannot regularly form his own opinions without an aide navigating the internet for him, or more foolish yet a United States senator simply does not utilize the greatest tool for knowledge that humanity has ever created at all. Instead he just votes according to what he is told and what he feels like without investigating subjects himself.
In no field aside from political office is being above sixty-five an absolute positive, and I cant understand why. By that age most other proffesionals have retired after so many years of difficult and lucritive work, or been surpassed by younger generations with a greater education in processes that the elder themselves may have observed come into common practice.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote: In no field aside from political office is being above sixty-five an absolute positive, and I cant understand why. By that age most other proffesionals have retired after so many years of difficult and lucritive work, or been surpassed by younger generations with a greater education in processes that the elder themselves may have observed come into common practice.
You really can't understand why? Politics is, in part, about building networks of personal power. It takes time to do so. Connections matter, for better or worse. It's really quite simple. It's not a product of some sinister plan to discriminate against the young by uplifting the old and feeble, it's just the nature of the business.
As for McCain and the Internet, really, how much real research do you imagine politicians do of their own at that level, AchillesHeel? They've all got people to do that for them. Evaluating the trustworthiness and cleverness of the people who report to them is more valuable than having the latest Firefox plugins.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I understand they couldn't decide if they wanted a cross or an eternal flame as Byrd's tombstone.. so they combined the two.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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