Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ageism is becoming an issue for me

scripting.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 72 posts

Re: Ageism is becoming an issue for me

#21

Post by lacrossegm »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #20
lacrossegm wrote: post #19

Should we start looking into techniques for keeping the mind and body young? One measure would probably be how quickly you can learn new technologies and methods for getting work done. As I get older, I'm always trying to learn something new and coming up with ideas for solving problems. The last thing I want my employer to think is that I'm only good for maintaining the existing code. Another thing is how well you c…

This would tend to confirm the "ageism" that Weiner is talking about. If a young body and mind is a good thing, an old body and mind is not. I guess the "Ageist" position is that yes, human bodies and brains do decay, but experience and wisdom precisely mitigate this. It seems a little absurd.

There is a reality to aging, that's just something we can't escape. We can take measures to stay healthy and young in mind. Of course, experience and wisdom are good attributes to have too.

Re: Ageism is becoming an issue for me

#22

Post by bad_user »

grellas wrote: post #14

Ageism is a fact of life and, if you are too young to have felt it yet, wait until you turn 50 (as I did a few years back) - no matter what you do, people type you, they just don't see you in quite the same light as before. I think this is in part because, as people, we are associational. We inherently relate to what we know. Similis simili gaudet ("like in like rejoices") is the Latin maxim that captures this. And y…

> younger people tend to relate to that which is new and exciting to them

Although I'm still young (27) ... I'm becoming more and more dismissive of new technologies.

Why? Because my experience tells me when something new is just a rehash of some older concept that sucked. That's why I stayed away from SOAP ... learned about CORBA in college and hated it. That's why I stayed away from ASP.NET ... because I first had the pleasure of working with Rails and with PHP (with my own home-backed framework).

Of course ... I could instantly see the potential in IPhone ... all those portable devices that fit in your pocket, with a GPS, a photo-camera, an Internet connection and a single online store that sells apps ... all of which could lead to interesting stuff like augmented reality ... that's love at first sight.

I also think that it's a bad idea focusing on grokking technologies. Algorithms, data-structures, math ... these are things that will never be deprecated and where experience matters.

Re: Ageism is becoming an issue for me

#23

Post by roc »

middus wrote: post #10
bioweek wrote: post #2

Until I grew a beard I was getting reverse ageism at job interviews. Despite 10 years of programming experience, companies were telling me they wanted someone more "senior". Who knows, maybe that was just an excuse. But the beard seems to have helped.

Beards are cool anyway. What else could you twirl while thinking about a problem?

Evil black mustache?

Re: Ageism is becoming an issue for me

#24

Post by jerf »

jonknee wrote: post #17

I don't think it's the age, but Winer is out of touch on a lot of issues. His primary computing time is in a scripting language / environment that he built in the early 90s. Much like RMS, he has missed the train and while still has important ideas is frequently only able to implement them in a way that few others can experience. That and his new found mobile passion is just hilarious to witness. Confused about SMS a…

This isn't really new. He's always been a bit fuzzy on technologies; neither RSS nor XML-RPC really show a deep understanding of XML, the scripting environment which I became deeply familiar with in college was always a bit weird about some of the fundamentals, etc. On the other hand, his resume blows mine away; his list of truly independent inventions may not be very long but the list of technologies that he is basically the reason they are popular is. I have found it more educational to think about why that is than to be dismissive because he doesn't always have a precise understanding of everything. Who does, after all? He's got a lot of GetItDoneness, even if his technical skills aren't always the absolute best.

Re: Ageism is becoming an issue for me

#25

Post by VladimirGolovin »

cdr wrote: post #4
bioweek wrote: post #2

Until I grew a beard I was getting reverse ageism at job interviews. Despite 10 years of programming experience, companies were telling me they wanted someone more "senior". Who knows, maybe that was just an excuse. But the beard seems to have helped.

What types of companies were you interviewing at? I've really never seen anything but ageism in the favor of younger people.

This may happen when the interviewer is younger than you -- young inexperienced managers are often underconfident and they just don't feel comfortable interviewing people older and more experienced than themselves.

I started hiring people when I was 26 (now 37), and I can tell from my own experience than my first attempts of interviewing people older than myself were quite uncomfortable -- so it's not surprising that I tended to avoid such applicants.

Re: Ageism is becoming an issue for me

#26

Post by EricBurnett »

middus wrote: post #10
bioweek wrote: post #2

Until I grew a beard I was getting reverse ageism at job interviews. Despite 10 years of programming experience, companies were telling me they wanted someone more "senior". Who knows, maybe that was just an excuse. But the beard seems to have helped.

Beards are cool anyway. What else could you twirl while thinking about a problem?

A pen always worked for me.

Re: Ageism is becoming an issue for me

#27

Post by mrbgty »

grellas wrote: post #14

Ageism is a fact of life and, if you are too young to have felt it yet, wait until you turn 50 (as I did a few years back) - no matter what you do, people type you, they just don't see you in quite the same light as before. I think this is in part because, as people, we are associational. We inherently relate to what we know. Similis simili gaudet ("like in like rejoices") is the Latin maxim that captures this. And y…

Your post reads biased against younger people. I find that the young suffer as much if not more prejudice than those older who are generally more often in position of power.

The young are more likely to just accept it because their entire life, they have been influenced to accept it.

"Respect your elders"

Re: Ageism is becoming an issue for me

#28

Post by timwiseman »

grellas wrote: post #14

Ageism is a fact of life and, if you are too young to have felt it yet, wait until you turn 50 (as I did a few years back) - no matter what you do, people type you, they just don't see you in quite the same light as before. I think this is in part because, as people, we are associational. We inherently relate to what we know. Similis simili gaudet ("like in like rejoices") is the Latin maxim that captures this. And y…

Everything you have said is true and well articulated.

However it is worth noting that this is handled differently within different cultures and even within different fields within one culture. For instance, my step-mother is originally from Korea and she tells me that elder generations are treated with much more respect than they tend to be in America.

In my own observations in America, I have seen a distinct preference for younger employees in fields such as technology. On the other hand, from what I have seen in law, medicine, and intelligence analysis age seems to be less of a factor and the older practitioneers seem to have some advantage in the fact that they have had more time to build seniority.

Re: Ageism is becoming an issue for me

#30

Post by petercooper »

He makes a good point, but his neutral façade crumbles a bit when he says:

Not only that we have a lot more money than you and we know a lot more too.

I think of people as whatever age they act and I think Dave is a curmudgeon a lot of the time who believes his age gives him special rights to press his ideas on other people. I wouldn't discriminate or put down his abilities because of it (heck, in many ways he's a genius) but his behavior doesn't go far to help people in general treat him objectively.

Post reply on HN