[sillysaurus3]

On behalf of all old people: Fuck that, and fuck the idea that cognitive performance alone should determine whether someone in our industry can eat.

Because as much as we love to tout that every programmer is living with a house and a mortgage and a happy family, I happen to know for a fact that some are struggling to eat.

Eh. Not exactly an objective viewpoint, I know. But to maybe drain away some of the energy I just threw into that: Being old is our shared destination. It'll happen to you too. It'll happen to me. How is this a productive outlook?

I've known some amazingly productive old people. I learned from one of the best in the gamedev industry. He was my mentor, and basically a mini carmack. When I hear statements like this, I cannot fathom how people believe this myth that old people are inherently less able to kick your ass at programming.

I really hesitate to bring this up, but there's this dopey argument that HN trolls love to bring up, where they point to a certain area of science and say "Look! Black people are inherently dumber. The science says so." Yet the one black man that I was fortunate enough to work with in our industry -- one, out of six companies, there was only one -- was the most effective, cool coworker I was fortunate enough to know.

It's incredibly easy to point to some science and say "Oh, I'm objective." But I invite you to re-read http://www.paulgraham.com/bias.html carefully, and realize that if what you say is true, then our industry is populated with stellar outliers. That's the definition of bias, right? They have to be stellar to overcome it.

So why would you want argue that the stellar people that managed to get through the gauntlet of discrimination should be looked down upon?

[mcny]

> I've known some amazingly productive old people. I learned from one of the best in the gamedev industry. He was my mentor, and basically a mini carmack. When I hear statements like this, I cannot fathom how people believe this myth that old people are inherently less able to kick your ass at programming.

I'm increasingly old (and hope to live to be really old) but we should try to keep our personal self interests out of the conversation. We need a strong social net that works for everyone, not equal opportunity at work for old folks (or insert demographics here).

I'm not advocating we remove existing laws. I just want scientific findings to be free of chilling effects.

Personally, I'd expect older people to do better than younger people. I fear that we can't fix the human brain rotting(?) away if we deny it is happening.

[sillysaurus3]

We need a strong social net that works for everyone, not equal opportunity at work for old folks (or insert demographics here).

Disagree. The point of a social net is to catch those who fall, not those who dont.

I'd take this one step further though. Equal opportunity programs seem to be harmful in our industry. The moment we try to enforce a hiring quota, everyone else starts to feel resentful. That causes real difficulties in a team-based setting. I'm not sure whether those difficulties outweigh the good brought by the programs, but it's hard to argue that they're objectively good.

Rather than an equal opportunity program, it would be better to rid of our own mistaken idea that old people are less intelligent.

Personally, I'd expect older people to do better than younger people. I fear that we can't fix the human brain rotting(?) away if we deny it is happening.

I made no such argument. Again: The old people that populate our industry are the stellar outliers. They're the ones who are smart in spite of the brain rotting (such an endearing term we've chosen). Even if that's true in the general case, it doesn't matter that the average old person is less intelligent. Our industry isn't filled with average old people.

[jmull]

> We need a strong social net that works for everyone, not equal opportunity at work for old folks

Why set these two things at odds?

It’s hard to imagine a better way to avoid having large numbers of destitute old people to worry about than finding a way to enable them to take care of themeselves. That is, providing opportunities for employment. If that makes you uncomfortable, consider the alternatives before you reject it... e.g., higher taxes — perhaps much higher, depending on demographic trends — to pay for warehousing indigent old people Naturally, budget pressures will make it debatable whether these warehouses are actually humane, so you’ll have that to deal with as well. (You may think twice about exactly how hard your standard are once you realize you’ll be entering the same system.)

By the way, if you want to be scientific you won’t want to draw strong conclusions about employing old people from the fact that fluid intelligence begins to decline fairly early in adulthood. First, fluid intelligence is just one component of general intelligence in that model. The other component increases or is basically flat up to retirement age. Second, these measures of intelligence are not that great for predicting job performance in general much less for the small overall decline associated with aging. Here’s some reading if you’re inclined to dig into that a bit [1]. Also, keep in mind an employer isn’t choosing from a random selection of people, where the weak effects of age-related IQ differences might nudge you between two otherwise equivalent prospective hires. They are choosing between a group of carefully selected, screened, interviewed, tested candidates with a career of experience (however long that is for each individual). To make age itself a significant factor in a hiring decision is to believe you are profoundly incompetent at hiring since you must believe your other information gathering techniques are pretty much worthless.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557354/

[andai]

I must be missing the point, but isn't programming literally cognitive performance?

As you age, your speed and ability to learn new things gradually decline ("fluid intelligence"), but what you've already learned and mastered ("crystallized intelligence"), can remain very strong until the end :)

But have heart! Many people have demonstrated that complex skills (playing musical instruments, and even reading and writing) can be learned well past the age of retirement.

[sillysaurus3]

This isn't responsive to my comment. One helpful thing to do is to paste a quote you disagree with or want to ask about.

I think you're asking "Since programming is cognitive performance, is it reasonable to discriminate against those who can't do the work?"

My answer would be yes, if they can't do the work. But out of all the old people I've worked with, only one was a detriment to the team. How many of your coworkers were? How many were old?

The problem with discrimination is that it's easy to believe. People want to believe it. That's why it's easy to say something glib like "don't be afraid, you'll still be able to learn complex skills." That seems rather like saying don't worry, you'll still be able to be a person, since people learn complex skills.

Here's a riddle: How old do you think Satoshi was? He was writing oldschool C++ in 2008. That means he probably learned his trade in the 90's.

[bdcravens]

Read tMcGrath's sibling comment. "Gradually decline" refers to 3 IQ points over time. You probably have team members who are > 3 IQ points apart.