Of course not, it would prove your point. :-) Stiil, I'm surprised you're willing to bait them at that level...looks like a prima-facie case of old-fartism to me.

The core belief of young adulthood for some is: having escaped from the clutches of childhood, one is finally free to act upon one's hard-won complete understanding of Life, the Universe and Everything. Since the lives of your elders are comprehensible at a glance, clearly nothing lies ahead that will deepen or sharpen your understanding of What's Important or How Things Work.

Any suggestion that there might be things yet to be learned must be a result of elitist oppression by the Grups. Furthermore, things are always "so different now" that there can be no important commonality of experience with previous generations.

And it was exactly that way thirty years ago, too. :-)

Though you're completely right, people of all ages respond best when they're treated as equals. Even if they aren't.

Well that's the thing... in the online world, like here, I don't really associate people with their physical age, I associate them with their mental age.

And that's the other thing... there's nothing that makes a particular age better or worse. People are people, and they all bring their different mix to the table.

It is too bad we cannot do this in the real world. So many things that we put an age limit on should not be done by many people of that age group, though others should be able to do it sooner. Driving is one example. I know many people who should not have gotten their license when they did, and other I am sure would have done just fine if they had gotten it earlier. Drinking is the same way, some people who are 40 should not be drinking, and some 17 year olds can be responsible when there drinking.
Of course, this is coming from someone who's 20 and feels he should able to go to the bars on a Friday night so you can draw your own conclusions.

Well, how much energy they've put into demonstrating that they aren't worthy of respect does influence how much effort I'm willing to put into humoring their delusion that they are. But that isn't really about age.

This kind of touches somehow on that psych study about how dumb people often are also dumb about how dumb they are. :-)

Isn't it kind of a perception though. Until you reach the point in your education where you just kind of step back and say, "Wow, there is so much more I can learn" you can't possibly realize how little you know. And the fact is those that are "dumb" most likely havn't reached that point so are going to consider themselves nearly equals of everyone.


edited for the sake of my sanity in three days :)

Let's give that one 3 days.

Now, now. We all have been told repeatedly that typos and misspellings are actually indicia of how important and busy the writer is, and that we should be grateful that they deign to grace us with their presence at all. :-)

Cam, just about *all* thought is rooted in perception. And let's distinguish between education, wisdom and intelligence.

And as much as I'm a believer in what Steve Vai calls "Love, peace and good happiness stuff", I still reach a point at which I no longer "suffer fools gladly". The fact that they'll probably be wiser later sometimes doesn't make up for their present obnoxiousness.

It ain't age. It's children. Having children turns you from a normal, rational person into a member of the societal hive mind. You start viewing everything through the perspective of "how will this potentially affect my children", and "right" and "wrong" become synomous with "good for my children" and "bad for my children". You additionally lose all sense of perspective; anything which could potentially affect your children in a negative way MUST BE DESTROYED.

I'm told the usual way OUT of this is more children -- eventually jadedness overcomes this attitude. However, I don't recommend it. Better to never start.

(Full disclosure: I'm 30, no children)

tell me youre joking.

~james

Easy there Russ, if I'm not mistaken we chart pretty close politically. Now get back to work my kids need you to be productive. ;)

That does happen in cases, but it's far from inevitable. Furthermore, there's lots of members of the societal hive mind that never had kids.

Having kids can teach you a lot about people...if you're paying attention. (Not everybody does.)

Even as a spawnless adult, I dont find anything wrong with a guiding concern for future generations. Seems a bit healtier perspective than concern only for oneself. Societal Hive? buzz buzz.

Oh course some people don't get over their immature attempt to start fights now matter how older and wiser they continually and endlessly claim to be.

I'm not going to yell at UT either - he's correct and I’m 17 till January ;)

People always IMHO in real life form a circle of friends in and around their socioeconomic bracket, and close friends around their intellectual bracket. This place bring together a vast range of people that otherwise wouldn't talk like and opens the way for some very interesting discussions, and allot more friction.