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PhilGoetz comments on Bad Concepts Repository - Less Wrong
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There is a cultural heuristic (especially in Eastern cultures) that we should respect older people by default. Now, this is not a useless heuristic, as the fact that older people have had more life experiences is definitely worth taking into account. But at least in my case (and I suspect in many other cases), the respect accorded was disproportionate to their actual expertise in many domains.
The heuristic can be very useful when respecting the older person is not really a matter of whether he/she is right or wrong, but more about appeasing power. It can be very useful to distinguish between the two situations.
But I think that in America today, we don't respect older people enough. Heck, we don't often even acknowledge their existence. Count what fraction of the people you pass on the street today are "old". Then count what fraction of people you see on TV or in the movies are old.
I think that our age cohorted Lord of the Flies educational system has much to do with "we" being age cohorted as well.
It is not surprising that there aren't a proportional number of old people in TV/movies right now. And I suspect there never were. TV/movie audience desire to view people who possess high-status markers. Two important markers are beauty and power. In reality, younger people typically have beauty but not much power. Older people have more power and less beauty. Since TV/movies don't have the constraints of reality, we can make young people who are beautiful also powerful. We can rarely make old people beautiful with some exceptions, which TV/movies often exploit. I don't think this has anything to do with respect.
This is a contradiction.
Sorry if it was confusing but you are taking it out of context. I actually meant: the fact that we don't have a proportional number of old people in TV/movies as in real life is not because we respect old people less in real life. It is simply a reflection of the freedoms available in TV/movies.