Liveblog:
On ageism
Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 4:53 PM by Dave Winer ☮.
Interesting
piece, well worth a read.
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1. Fear of aging. When a young person looks at an older person they're confronted with their own mortality. When you're young, you try to live in a bubble of immortality. You try not to be confronted with ageing. And to a great extent, you can do it. But if you have older people around, every day, it's impossible not to see it. And there goes the bubble! ;-)
2. A desire for independence. The older person is a symbol of their parents. And many people, maybe most, want to escape dependence on parents. Maybe in that way the author is right. But it's very specific. When I had older people around in my first company they were always cast in parental roles. And because I had power to form the relationships (it was my company), I was able to make things work in ways I was unable to influence my actual parents.
What he says about people coming into their own as they age is very true. There is so much I can contribute to my art, software development, that I would not have been able to contribute earlier.
My solution is to do it anyway, whether or not I have the approval or support of younger people. I am not nearly as effective as I would be if they would work with me, but you also learn, as you get older, to accept other people's power. I can't make them do anything they don't want to do. So I don't try.
However, I hope when they attain the maturity that I have, they will find my work and will find it useful. And in that way, we'll work together. Not in the most optimal way.
That's one of the reasons I'm so interested in having
future-safe archives. :-)