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Work peak and professional decline (2019)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#141

Post by lupire »

cortesoft wrote: post #71
lettergram wrote: post #5

One of the most productive engineers I knew (who I’m guessing will read this) was in his 60s when I met him. He’s since “retired” and helped a company obtain a $1B valuation. Similarly, my 85 year old grandfather still doesn’t own a wheelbarrow and will move stone, dirt, etc every summer. His motto is “keep moving”, I don’t think there’s really anything else to it. Yes you will slow down, but stay engaged and motivat…

I mean, the United States President is 78... he still seems pretty relevant.

And he was elected to be a placeholder, winning on the strength of his popularity from 13+ years ago.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#142

Post by lupire »

sinenomine wrote: post #77

This is an article written by a journalist. If we want to get to the bottom of things, we can open Google Scholar and search for related peer-reviewed publications, finding [1][2] in the process. What do we see in [1] and [2]? A very prominent downward trend ( https://i.imgur.com/avKUvTd.png ) on all but a single cognitive test, which is verbal knowledge. All the important cognitive abilities related to thinking and…

Anothe solution is to return to the millennia old practice of caring for elders.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#143

Post by [deleted] »

cubano wrote: post #74
disabled wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a trashy article. A lot of elderly Americans, including in the upper middle class, never retire due to Medicare being inadequate. You can quite literally save millions for retirement as an individual, and have coverage for drugs and treatment under Medicare, and still run out of money due to having to pay extortionate prices for covered drugs. This line in the article is quite revealing and strange, contextually…

> You can quite literally save millions for retirement as an individual, and have coverage for drugs and treatment under Medicare, and still run out of money due to having to pay extortionate prices for covered drugs. This is a totally ridiculous statement. Medicare-assisted drug costs are absolutely NOT going to bankrupt someone who has very wisely saved "millions" for retirement. I have watched both my parents now…

[deleted]

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#144

Post by kbutler »

tomc1985 wrote: post #65
etrautmann wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I share your antipathy for low-efficiency vehicles, why is traveling around the national parks of the west a sad way to spend your retirement years?

Personally, RVs kind of miss the point of tooling around nature if one can wimp out and retreat to a house-on-wheels

Nice to have a hard-sided sleeping unit for bear country.

Nice to have a reasonable bed after an exhausting day canyoneering.

Nice to have a heater for that sudden snowstorm in June.

It isn't going on the backpacking trip (but could be a great mobile base for punctuated backpacking!) but it can facilitate a lot of great experiences (and can broaden the experience of people who wouldn't go on that backpacking trip...)

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#145

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

mortenjorck wrote: post #27
lettergram wrote: post #5

One of the most productive engineers I knew (who I’m guessing will read this) was in his 60s when I met him. He’s since “retired” and helped a company obtain a $1B valuation. Similarly, my 85 year old grandfather still doesn’t own a wheelbarrow and will move stone, dirt, etc every summer. His motto is “keep moving”, I don’t think there’s really anything else to it. Yes you will slow down, but stay engaged and motivat…

Ultimately, the data for things like this boils down to anecdotes over a wide distribution. Some people flourish with age; some don't. Each individual's situation arises from a confluence of factors, some within their control (lifestyle, attitude, attention to professional development) and some outside their control (industry changes, ageism, health). To contribute an anecdote from my own experience: I once worked at…

It's worked for the japanese

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#146

Post by peatmoss »

iancmceachern wrote: post #40
rootusrootus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> low-efficiency vehicles Tangent: Are these actually low efficiency? Sure, 10 mpg (this is a more typical average, BTW, not 8 mpg) is terrible gas mileage ... for an average car. But a portable house that can drive down the interstate isn't just a car. Per pound, it doesn't seem that bad.

And when compared to air travel and hotel stays (which come with large water and heat costs associated with daily laundry) it's actually less of a carbon footprint.

Now I’m dreaming of a recreational dirigible. Imagine drifting from town to town at low altitudes, relative quiet, and with a comparably low fuel consumption. This sounds like heaven.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#147

Post by fomine3 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #63
caeril wrote: post #10

Related: The notion of "retirement" is a relatively recent invention. Traditionally, when you were too old to work the farm or prove the theorem (sorry, cognitive decline is a well-documented thing, and tends to coincide with physical decline[1]), you would "retire" to a productive life in less-demanding pursuits: caretaking of the grandkids, woodworking, food preservation, writing, etc. It's important to maintain ho…

It’s too bad electric RVs aren’t much of a thing. They have a lot of roof space for solar panels, often have unfurling extensions that could also have solar, plus RV hookups are essentially 12kW Level 2 chargers which is plenty for a full charge after staying there for a day (although there’d need to be >250kW charging stations on the road) even with a massive battery. And because of the high fuel consumption of RVs,…

You should compare ICE RV vs ICE commuter emissions on a year. ICE RV makes sense if it's emission is at least x2 because it needs huge amount of batteries. I expect x0.5 due to it's rarely used.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#148

Post by Robotbeat »

fomine3 wrote: post #147
Robotbeat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s too bad electric RVs aren’t much of a thing. They have a lot of roof space for solar panels, often have unfurling extensions that could also have solar, plus RV hookups are essentially 12kW Level 2 chargers which is plenty for a full charge after staying there for a day (although there’d need to be >250kW charging stations on the road) even with a massive battery. And because of the high fuel consumption of RVs,…

You should compare ICE RV vs ICE commuter emissions on a year. ICE RV makes sense if it's emission is at least x2 because it needs huge amount of batteries. I expect x0.5 due to it's rarely used.

In this context, the RV would be used a lot. Also, I normally think vehicle-to-grid is silly, but because electric RVs may not be on the road too much AND may have lots of built-in solar, it may actually make sense to do V2G with an RV.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#149

Post by dredmorbius »

aidenn0 wrote: post #90
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hasn't EV tech hit the RV world? How many batteries could one of those Greyhound bus size RV's, or smaller ones, hold? Maybe it has and I'm ignorant. I get that corporate shipping industries would benefit but a lot of delivery vans are the same platform as an RV. I think a Ford F350 is the size of those 25 ft uhaul rentals - about same size as a decent sized RV. RV's typically park somewhere for days, campgrounds…

Interior space requirements plus maximum exterior width requirements mean that RVs will be approximately box-shaped. Box-shaped vehicles are just going to have massive energy demands above 45MPH or so due to physics. On top of this, the engine just doesn't mass that much more (in absolute terms) than a car engine, so the mass savings for an electric motor are not increased that much. All this means an electric RV wit…

Weight too.

Many RVs are already making compromises with furnishings, water (fresh, grey, black), electrical (non-motive, but often much of lighting, electronics, heat, cooking, hot water, cooling), and gear.

Add 100s or 1,000s of kilos of batteries, and further compromises are necessary.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#150

Post by spullara »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #31
caeril wrote: post #10

Related: The notion of "retirement" is a relatively recent invention. Traditionally, when you were too old to work the farm or prove the theorem (sorry, cognitive decline is a well-documented thing, and tends to coincide with physical decline[1]), you would "retire" to a productive life in less-demanding pursuits: caretaking of the grandkids, woodworking, food preservation, writing, etc. It's important to maintain ho…

> Related: The notion of "retirement" is a relatively recent invention. Not really. The idea of old people who could no longer work effectively but still had many years of their life ahead of them is not a recent invention. The notion of an old age pension -- whether paid by a company or a government -- that "everyone" got is relatively new. But that doesn't mean "retirement" is new. It was just paid for by individua…

A woman working at home is not retired by any stretch of the imagination.
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