Not to mention, 60 is pretty damn young. You're cutting off people in the prime of their maturity, especially with longer lifespans. Teddy Roosevelt died at 60 and one of his greatest regrets was that he peaked too soon, and that was a century ago

Changing age limits is just a bandage on a bigger wound, which is that US society struggles to produce quality leadership. But that's what dominating the world for a generation will do, it makes you soft.

>Changing age limits is just a bandage on a bigger wound, which is that US society struggles to produce quality leadership. But that's what dominating the world for a generation will do, it makes you soft.

I agree with this, but I'd replace soft with relentlessly selfish. Instead of realizing the need to work together to make something better, they're in it for personal gain.

Please do not use the phrases "simple misreading" or "deliberate attempt to twist words" to describe anyone else

My portrait is pretty objective - please get deported to some other countries so you can find out what living conditions are and what "in it for personal gain" turns into in the rest of the world. Our system is really not that bad, even taking into account the malevolent actors

Is it a lack of quality leaders, or a lack of electing said leaders?

The more I look at the U.S. the more I think it has only a single political problem: the winner-takes-all voting system. With an ability to form coalition governments the two party system would die, and with it many of the decades-long incumbencies.

If your electorate isn't wise enough to kick a bad leader out after 12 years (remember, even today the average term is below 12 years), then maybe that's a problem less with the representative of the voter and more with the voter.

That's the big problem here. Political leadership is pretty miserable, but who is electing them? They're just a reflection of society. Kick them out and it is more of the same.

Proposition 140, an initiative narrowly passed by California voters in November 1990, imposed sharp limits on the terms of California legislators.1 These limits will have a dramatic impact on that legislature as an institution. Internal structures such as leadership, committees, parties, and staff will be weakened or made external. This weakening of legislative structures will force most external players, including interest groups, to expend substantially greater resources for a return diminished in effectiveness and predictability. Put simply, the cost of doing business will increase while the return will decline. This combination is likely to advantage groups with both resources and a stake in state government but to discourage participation, divert efforts elsewhere and encourage cheating by others.

Here's an abstract. This stuff is pretty easily Googleable if you are interested.

Also more newsy:

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/bill-whalen/article31032...

Seats aren’t contested enough because of the massive amount of party support or funding required to beat a sitting person. And we’ve seen how these two parties are corrupted and need to care less about the public opinion now. Less options means less choice for voters to do what you suggest.[1]

Of course I think the real solution to that is election reform with single transferable vote (STV).

[1] though we seem to be seeing some backlash in the past year against this such as with the Justice Dems movement.

Imagine you had a law that no programmer or engineer could work at your company for more than 6 years. You could keep them employed, but they'd have to transfer to a difficult department, like sales or legal. Also your product is over 20 years old. Does this policy sound helpful?

When they say “weakening” that seems like an emotionally overloaded choice picked for cultural resonance.

Is it really a weakening or just a new model to acclimate to and tweak as needed to ensure outcomes?

Why is giving any ground or change always coming along with “we won’t be strong in the same way!” rhetoric

Duh but that doesn’t negate the argument for change given other data over here

We’ve yet to discover a unified theory of reality

I highly doubt our system of social governance has found an equivalent

It has to change. It will change if history is any indicator

Better to have the conversations ourselves then leave it up to experts across the world

However, I do recognize that the looting probably occurs anyway without fear due to the high likelihood of incumbent re-election.

The problem with elected officials is not with age: most of the time their actions are motivated by self-interest (what benefits them or their cast at the end of the day). I would rather want to see complete transparency of their actions/lives/bank accounts and enforce some level of responsibility for everything they do.

You serve one term and then you go home.

(However, I do agree with you that there should still be a maximum age, how you would introduce it - especially to a political system where it would cause almost every elected official to lose out - is beyond me)

Perhaps a system in which a "House of Future", and "House of Past", compete for resources (votes) would help promote a government that was conscious of making investments that support not JUST the aging generation (house of past).

To counter this, these people's life experience is entirely of the 20th century. A world of linear growth and clearly defined national boundaries where information can be controlled. I think because of this that anyone's "experience" is now not only completely irrelevant, but a liability. We live in a whole new world which absolutely no one understands yet, and the only traits which should be desired in a leader are adaptability and the ability to innovate. Something which old people necessarily lack by definition.

You could have made that same statement with justification in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

The hard part of running a country, is not managing technology and ideas, but managing people. While technology may be fast changing, people are much, much slower to change. No matter what the technology landscape, a lifetime of experience in dealing with people will always be helpful.

I'm interested in where you've found the definition of "old people" to necessarily mean a lack of adaptability and innovation.

Where does that definition come from?

Er, no. An earlier spot on the same exponential curve, but there hasn't been a “world of linear growth” in the West since the Industrial Revolution. Maybe, more properly, the preceding Second Agricultural Revolution.

> and clearly defined national boundaries where information can be controlled.

Not really; the breakdown of that feature was recognized and commented on widely throughout the 20th Century, notably in the context of:

(1) the rise of international revolutionary communism,

(2) the rise and increasing dominance of multinational corporations,

(3) the rise of international Islamism

For reference: he's more than quadrupled his investors' money in the years since he turned 60.

It's interesting that the vast majority of Warren's wealth came after he turned 60.

Term limits is a much better solution.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/us/graying-of-america-is-...

But I think your point that old age doesn't make people think about the future is not correct. I don't see a difference in behavior between different generations regarding tax policy, deficits or environment.

I'll wait for actually evidence/data that says that someone who's 32 is incapable of performing job X or that Y% of people over age 60 show marked decline in ability to perform job X before we start endorsing ageist policy.

The electorate as a whole is older (The Boomer lump passing through the population charts), and likely more inclined to keep voting for people of their generation rather than someone their kid (or grandkid!)'s age. Or other reasons. Who knows.

This chart just shows correlation between the age of our Republic and the term length/age of our elected officials.