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72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI

washingtonpost.com

11–20 of 142 posts

Re: 72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI

#11

Is there a good book about techniques for learning in maturity?

There are thousands of different techniques from thousands of different developmental philosophies.

For example from a Jungian-oriented perspective on "the afternoon of life," you could say that the tension between opposites is reduced, so you can finally start to look at combining opposites that you had previously thought were required to work separately. Putting the weapons down and putting ideals back in the front seat.

One might explore becoming a Windows + Linux person for example.

Or becoming more aware of intertwining logical and emotional perspectives on a given topic...maybe one "just likes" using Photoshop even though it is the only thing keeping them on their old Mac. Still, logically it doesn't make sense in some ways, so they pick up a Chromebook for the day-to-day web stuff.

This can be related back to everything in one's life, from learning about relationships to programming language dynamics to new fitness skills. The old opposites want to make war. But how can they work together to create a new, improved, third point of progress?

And that's just one of thousands of different techniques relevant to aging...for this reason it can help to look at broader surveys on aging, be they books, Youtube videos, blogs, etc., and kind of mentally check off techniques that can apply to learning as you come across them. The best techniques for a given individual are generally found spread across many sources, and sometimes those sources are surprisingly not at all "about" learning.

IMO it's a great idea to keep a log of one's aging process, as well.

Re: 72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI

#12
post #8

A major problem in our society is that '72-year-old' is in the headline. If you are not growing, you are declining or dead. Not only does the world change under your feet, you need that stimulation just to stay healthy. We ruin the talent, economic value, and freedom and opportunity of a very large portion of the population by dimissing the growth of anyone in late middle-age or later. 72 years old shouldn't be remar…

nope. we need much younger politicians. And we need 70+ old guys learn new things just like this politician does.

> we need 70+ old guys learn new things just like this politician does.

? Does my comment read otherwise?

Re: 72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI

#14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope. we need much younger politicians. And we need 70+ old guys learn new things just like this politician does.

Curious. Why do we need much younger politicians?

because people deteriorate mentally and physically with age.

Re: 72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI

#16
Master’s in CS with a concentration in AI is a better description. Cool to see a representative actually learning about the tech instead of just having legal education which is sadly far too common (same focus as my MS in CS though that was 10+ years ago and things have changed just a little on the AI side)

Re: 72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI

#17

A major problem in our society is that '72-year-old' is in the headline. If you are not growing, you are declining or dead. Not only does the world change under your feet, you need that stimulation just to stay healthy. We ruin the talent, economic value, and freedom and opportunity of a very large portion of the population by dimissing the growth of anyone in late middle-age or later. 72 years old shouldn't be remar…

I would think that the Elected Representative not doing that job and absconding to study would be the more significant detail.

Re: 72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI

#18
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope. we need much younger politicians. And we need 70+ old guys learn new things just like this politician does.

Curious. Why do we need much younger politicians?

Because aging politicians do not adequately represent the majority of their constituents.

Re: 72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI

#19
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope. we need much younger politicians. And we need 70+ old guys learn new things just like this politician does.

Curious. Why do we need much younger politicians?

To at least represent a bit better the modern world, not everybody makes the effort of keeping up to date with society when aging.

Re: 72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI

#20

This is so refreshing to read, but so very rare. I thought the "I don't know, but I'll find out" crowd died out in politics.

These aspects will start to come back into vogue as broader societal progress stabilizes at its new levels, and institutional forces internalize conflict.

There will be a new norm of politician who is less of a laughingstock and more of a quality leader who looks into things in a qualitative way. It'll still be a politician who will need to know the game though.

In a post-Trump world you can generally expect the return of subjective quality in government. This will be good in a lot of ways, but it will also generally lead to some other unwanted factors coming back into style.

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