| Warning -- this article (while it has some valid points) should trigger your "bullshit radar." Why? It's very heavy on the "this guy is old so he couldn't possibly know what we need." And the problem is, that's a message that strongly appeals to the biases we on this site are likely to have. Readers of this site tend to be young, smart, and highly motivated. Anything that smells like "I don't need lessons from the previous generation; I already have the right instincts because of my youth" will automatically appeal to us because it would be very exciting if it were true. That alone doesn't make it false. But it means your internal "I better check myself for objectivity" flag should get triggered. Beyond that, though, look at how much of the article's content is devoted to this theme. Probably half or more of the sentences are spent on this idea. When you're writing for public consumption, you have to learn to be terse and efficient. All those words spent on "geez, just look how old this guy is" are expensive. But the author deemed that the most effective use of words, because he is intentionally trying to play on your biases. When someone is intentionally playing on your biases, look out. You might be having smoke blown up your ass (which the Surgeon General does not recommend). |