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Age is a red herring. The president is always going to serve the capitalist class, no matter their age. The problem is bourgeois democracy; it’s oligarchy.
i think youre right on part of the argument, but older presidents also have less of a reason to think of the future since, yknow, theyll soon kick the bucket and whatnot, so less worries of the long term effects of their actions
at least thats what i think
I gotta wonder if people that propose this kind of thing have only interacted with older people in nursing homes or something.
If you think that age is some kind of limit to long term thinking, you definitely have little or no contact with older people that aren’t impaired.
If anything, the older people I’ve been around, even the ones in nursing homes, are better at long term thinking and planning. Comparing that to coworkers, fellow students in college, you know, the 25 to 50 range of people, I’d say that increasing age gives more perspective on what long term thinking really means because they’ve already seen the consequences of previous choices.
You think age removes a vested interest in the future? Nah. Capitalism does, greed does, but age means you are more likely to have kids, and grandkids, and great grandkids. That’s the future older folks start worrying about.
You don’t have to be a narcissist just because you’re old. Why the fuck do you think that someone hitting an arbitrary age means they don’t have a concern for the future? That’s a serious question, not rhetorical. What kind of people are in your life that you think that way?
People talk shit about boomers, but I’ve sat with people of that generation, and the two before them. Sometimes on their death beds. Usually when they’re facing the specter of their mortality, even if it isn’t that close. You have no idea how rare it is for them to not worry about the world they’re leaving behind.
The whole idea of their kids having a better life was so damn central a thread of the literal boomers that it might as well be their motto. The bad, short term decision-making they did wasn’t in their sixties or seventies, it was in their twenties and thirties.
This whole concept of generation warfare, and ageist bullshit is nothing more than a smoke screen blinding us from working together in constructive ways.
Like, I get that you think this is some kind of great idea, but it shows exactly how little perspective you have. We need the experience and considered decision making that’s the hallmark of the typical “senior citizen”, just as much as we need the energy and out of the box of the young. And we need the direct, hands on per perspective of the ages in the middle that are finally seeing what their decisions have led to, and know how things are working currently to help implement the new ideas and guide the long term ideas into the future.
Seriously my homie, don’t buy into the bullshit that the politicians are actually good examples of their generations. They aren’t. They’re the power chasers, the ones that hold the system as a goal in and of itself. They’re gaining their power in a system that rewards narcissism and sociopathy with more power.
You want to change who can hold positions of power? You gotta break free of the idea that those positions are the positions we need. The more power that is vested in the people, the more checks we have on the bigger picture, the better. Just limiting the ages of the people in office only means we get younger power mongers and sociopaths tearing things apart.
Go look at the young right wing. You think they’re going to be better than the older right wing? I mean, c’mon. They aren’t any more forward thinking than their older counterparts at all. If anything they’re worse because they rush shit along and do shit so they can gain power faster.
This is just such bad thinking.
I’m sorry that I don’t have anything to add, but I just wanted to say that this is a fantastic post. Generational fighting has always greatly bothered me. The young people complain about the old people and the old people complain about the young people. Each generation feels superior to one another for bullshit reasons. Even some of my fellow millennial coworkers look down on gen z and whatever the one after it is (alpha?). I’m quite frankly sick of it.
Well said
That would require a constitutional amendment in the US.
I’m very slightly too old to be part of Gen Z and can tell you that teenage and early-20s me also thought that surely the future would be awesome because then people like me, people who see the world the way I do, would be in power and fix all problems I see with the world.
Now there are plenty of politicians and other public figures who are my age or younger, and I can tell that they are not all like me, they do not all see the world the way I do, in fact they are just as diverse as everyone before them and make the same mix of good and bad decisions as everyone before them.
at least they didn’t grow up with abundance, surplus salaries, post-war ideologies, and lead poisoning. so their terrible decisions are all of their own making.
Tons have said this for decades. Good luck.
People in your generation will still be corrupt and think that money/power is more important than anything else. They’re usually the people in those positions, why would they give up changes for power?
America isn’t going to change.
America as we know it might also not be around much longer.
Millenial here, I would do it this way:
There is zero chance anyone close to 18 would ever be elected to a federal position. Anyone over 25 knows how stupid they were at 18 and would apply that understanding to the 18 year old.
I love the idea of a Sergeant at Arms giving a field sobriety test to a senator. I would like to see them fined an amount equal to a month’s wages if they are drunk. The rest of what you said is also good.
With at least 10 years served in public office
That’d take a constitutional amendment, and I doubt that such a thing would succeed, particularly considering the average age of legislators is “old as fuck”
Fuck the age limit,
Just elect me as President for Life and I’ll fix everything, pinky promise 😉
(just trust me bro)
Our whole society is broken. We need a shift to collectivism. This rugged individualism bull shit idea our society has embraced is a recipe for weakness and collapse. It’s been happening since we moved away from the collectivist attitude popularized during world war 2. Humans are pack animals.
I think one of the major problems was best summed up by Douglas Adams:
Gen Z has those individuals in it. The narcissistic, charismatic power seeks who will tell you all the things you want to hear to get them elected, and then turn around and do whatever the fuck they want. And while our current system of Democracy isn’t doing a lot to fix that, it’s also better than a lot of the systems which have come before. The previous systems of “I have the biggest army, therefore I’m in charge” made for pretty terrible governments. Especially when supreme executive power was then vested in a baby because the previous guy in charge shot is load in the right woman and she popped out a boy nine months later. And that sort of system is always waiting in the wings to rear it’s ugly head again. Anytime someone talks about a “revolution”, bear in mind that they are talking about rolling the dice on that becoming the dominant system again. Moreover, the people talking about “revolution” are very often the same people who would implement said system. This is why people are watching Ahmed al-Sharaa in Syria closely. Maybe he’s going to be the guy who hands power to the people in some sort of democratic fashion. And maybe he’s just playing nice with Western media until he’s in a position to be the next Assad of Syria.
And while I think a complete fix is impossible, so long as humans are involved, it is good for each generation to keep trying to make things better. So ya, go for it, try to save the world. But, also keep in mind that your elders aren’t really the problem, you need to look deeper than that and try to root the terrible people out, regardless of their age. You’ll fail, as there will always be another terrible person seeking power. But, maybe you can fail a bit closer and make the systems more robust to corruption than they currently are.
The best way guarantee good rulers would be to forbid people from seeking to be a ruler. But how then do you get rulers?
Please outline your political/electoral strategy to accomplish this.
You would basically have to pass a constitutional ammendment if you wanted this to not just immediately be overturned by the next administration.
That means you need either:
2/3rds of the State Houses and Senates to call for a Constitutional Convention.
or
2/3rds of the Federal House and Senate to do the same.
… and then your new amendment(s) have to be approved by 3/4th of the State Houses and Senates.
https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-amend-the-constitution-3368310
Unless you have a plan to somehow get a supermajority of support from a supermajority of States, this is magical thinking and will never happen.
My generation, Millenials, tried but ultimately failed to overhaul first past the post voting to break the two party duopoly death grip, and rework the Presidential Electoral College into a popular vote.
Probably both of those are prerequisites for a durable Presidential max age.
At the end of the day, most of what people care about isn’t age, it’s cognitive function (though age itself is important; why care about the America of 2040 if you won’t live to see it).
Many of these people in power would fight age limits, but they are usually so sure of their abilities, that they may not fight cognitive tests with published results.
For example, if you give someone a Montreal cognitive assessment, and their reaction to it is:
And those last 5 questions are:
You might think that person shouldn’t be in charge of the country.
Oops.
Sounds a lot harder then working to pass electoral reform one state at a time.
Videos on alternative voting systems
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems we can try out.
STAR voting
Alternative vote
Ranked Choice voting
Range Voting
Single Transferable Vote
Mixed Member Proportional representation
I find it confusing how much pushback I’m seeing ITT. It’s a good idea. I think 65 is a reasonable cutoff.
It’s a good idea, but it will only ever be that with the way the US works. Getting 2/3 of Congress and the states to agree on anything is borderline impossible.
Oh I know. I think I’ve lost any remaining hope for the US today after reading that a bill to extend presidential term limits has been introduced. Honestly if you just make a list of solutions to the terrible problems we have and then take their opposites, that’s what’s getting done right now.
In my opinion best age for president and parliament members would be cca. 30-60 years old. People older than 60-65 and younger than 30 can still be active in politics and do some paperworks etc, but can’t be on actual important positions like president or parliament.
I know more 4 year olds that have better communication skills than some politicians. Plus, you can reward them with some ice cream every time they tell the truth.
Jokes aside, as long as a person is a legal adult and they can prove they are capable enough to hold a serious position, sure! Let them do it. Realistically, you are likely correct: The minimum age for my requirements is also likely in the 30s.
I think 40 - 60 makes more sense. 30 would be the age that someone would be too early in their career to rule a country. If that person has risen to a position that they would be considered for president by 30, the chance of them getting to that position without significant nepotism is too low.
Go ahead and give that a try.
Bold to assume leaders would ever suffer the consequences of their own policy.
But when gen z gets old they won’t be self interested like every other generation since forever /s.