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Re:72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI by treve on Thursday December 29, 2022 @02:40AM (#34170446)
I'm late 30's and suspect you are also not 70, so I don't know if I'm correct about this, but I suspect that not wanting growth and change at 70 might also be natural and not just social pressure.

But regardless I'm very curious how the internet generation will be later in life. I hope I have less anxiety and pressure!

Re:72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI by dx034 on Thursday December 29, 2022 @02:45AM (#34170466)
It's fine to stop learning at some point. But that's for when you're retired. As long as you still opt to work (and a congressman definitely had the option to retire), you also have to keep up with the world.
Re:72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI by wolverine876 on Friday December 30, 2022 @07:54PM (#34192036)
What do you mean by "fine". Is it legal or your own choice? Yes. Is it healthy? I highly doubt it. Will it cause harm? I'm almost certain. I think I've read plenty of researchers advocating continued learning as essential, but I can't cite it..
Re:72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI by wolverine876 on Friday December 30, 2022 @07:53PM (#34192024)
Here's a preview, from one perspective:

We are emotional creatures: Emotion, much more than anything else, is our experience of the world, and it is a major input in our perception, decisions, and actions.

Many people reject their emotions or are ignorant of them. And life experiences often cause a lot of emotional injury, to the point where older people reach their limits (I suspect you have a good sense of that at your age) and shut down.

The effect of that shut down - well see the first paragraph; that all deteriorates significantly. It cripples experience and ability, including good judgment, and it causes people to avoid new experiences - the experiences might be traumatic, and the skill of learning and exploring atrophes. Also, shutting down doesn't actually do away with the emotions; they come out and people become angry and cruel.

Instead, we need to learn to be resiliant, to build our emotinonal capacity, and to experience life and use our well-honed emotional insincts as hard-earned wisdom. That includes exploring and learning new things.