The reason our leaders suck is not because they're old, but because democracy selects mostly for charisma, showmanship, and if we're even more cynically - a lack of morals/ethics. Political careers are most expedited by telling people what they want to hear, and by selling yourself out to the highest bidder so you can get funded by corporations and other moneyed interests. A great conman would likely make a great democratic politician. A typical definition of leadership is the four Cs - character, competence, commitment, and courage. The democratic political system doesn't select for that, at all. We want e.g. generals who rose on merit, instead we get lawyers.
As for age itself, there's also a pretty straight forward reason that we tend to pick older leaders. As people age they're generally going to find their younger selves less than desirable - naivete, gullibility, ignorance, and just generally a lack of wisdom. So I'd be terrified of having a leader in e.g. their 30s simply because I don't think they'd have anywhere near the life experience to have accumulated a reasonable base of wisdom. And I suspect as I continue to age, that 30 is going to get pushed higher and higher. Even back in Ancient Rome one could not run for Consul until you were at least 42 years old. And people likely 'grew up' much, much, faster in those times than we do now a days, simply because life was so much more testing.
Parent's typically aren't in charge of understanding and regulating technology they barely understand, let alone can operate. We need to strip the gerontocracy of their ability to enrich themselves while being incapable of understanding the world around them. The founding fathers were in their 30s.
As a parent a large part of my responsibility is making decisions and regulation about how they are allowed to interact with trends and technology I barely understand.
If you're a parent in 2026 you aren't dealing with the financial issues that are impacting other people who can't be parents because they can't make money, please kindly fuck right off, you're opinion doesn't matter. And you and your kids will be purged.
The term "Senate" comes from the Latin word "senex" meaning "old man", and obviously the US inherited the term "Senate" from ancient Rome. This is a basic structure of society.
The issue is that this particular group of people older than 65 at this particular time in world history (which you happen to be living in) are Boomers who are probably the most child-like, foolish, and ignorant generation of people in world history, due to the circumstances of their upbringing (post-WW2, high technology, opulence, drug use, sexual revolution, peace in the developed world).
This isn't ageism, since normally old people do tend to have more wisdom and knowledge than young people.
There is something that really went wrong with the Boomer generation. The goal of every society is basically to survive their Boomer generation which many are not really seeming to manage.
At some point absolutely, but if someone is capable of executing there's no reason for them not to continue.
My dad's at retirement age yet continues to work on bleeding edge harness engineering and cloud security work, yet there are plenty of 30 and 40-somethings on HN that don't know the difference between a CNI and kube-proxy.
And my granddad's still physically active as a farmer in the old country. And his parents were alive and active into their 90s (also as farmers).
Yes, in general people place a lot of value in the wisdom that comes with age so long as the person isn’t senile.
Obviously with autocrats this isn’t applicable but there’s nothing inherently nonsensical or inexplicable about why mostly old dudes rule much of the world.
>Yes, in general people place a lot of value in the wisdom
I don't think that holds as an explanation given that 1. there's not a lot of wisdom going around among the geriatric leaders of the world, 2. this is a pretty rapidly increasing trend, not some fact of history.
Historical leaders used to be younger, including after accounting for increased lifespans. Just look at the founding of the American Republic. It's much more a sign of two things. Increased decadence and civilizations that are themselves at the end of their rope, and in democracies in particular a geriatric population that keeps voting itself into power based on their own interests.
I haven’t done the math but I’m assuming if you look at the founding fathers and life expectancy for the general population in the 18th century they would have represented what people in their 60s represent today relative to the rest of the population.
Also you can’t really talk about a geriatric population ‘voting itself into power’ if it makes up such a small proportion of the population. Young people just abstain from voting in western democracies, which is a choice just as much as voting one way or the other is. Yes, a person votes in his own self interest - that’s how that works.
There's a reason why every American worker is paying 6% of their income to give checks to the richest cohort in society, and every politician is afraid to touch the program.
Can you expand on what you mean? I may be ignorant but my understanding of the system is you would technically get more back percentage wise as a low wage worker? Of course this is not just some cost benefit analysis, that money means more if you make less while you are still paying in. This is not a comment on the system at large, just more specifically I want to understand what you are implying.
In the Australian system, your employer has to pay 12% of your pay into a pension ("superannuation") fund of your choice. Taxpayers still pay for pensions for those whose individual pension accounts have run out – but, in coming decades, that taxpayer expenditure is projected to shrink. [0]
Maybe the US should look at copying it? Well, Trump has expressed interest in doing so. [1] But, Australia has had something like this since the 1990s, so even if the US adopted the Australian model tomorrow, it would take a few decades for it to really make an impact.
We have plenty of great savings and retirement options in America. The problem is the word "option". Many people do not take any option but they still get old.
Social security is fine, whatever, no one likes living off it so industrious people will work hard and save on top of it. I am more annoyed when people say America has no social safety net when it spends absolute gobsmacking amounts on social security, Medicare and Medicaid.
It's such a shame they were never able to invest the SS fund in something productive. The WSJ had an article a few weeks ago that put the lost earnings close to $1 trillion.
> That, and people who are old enough to collect social security are rich.
You claim that as a fact. Seriously? I can’t tell if you’re joking, obviously there are many poor old people.
What they do that young people tend not to do is vote. Young people go on social media and tell you to burn down a Wal-mart instead of voting in a rigged system… then they don’t burn down a Wal-mart and they don’t vote.
Baby Boomers are on average the richest generation, with ~$1.8 million [1]. Most of them could happily fund their own lifestlye without taking money from the poor. It's not like elderly people aren't able to apply for normal government programs if they need support. Elderly people can get on SNAP so they don't starve, but why can't a 20 y/o who can't make ends meet get free checks every month?
I am explaining GP's point. He said the cohort is rich. It is true. There is more total wealth in older generations. I do claim it as fact.
It is also true that oldsters vote more. We can speculate on why that is. I say it's because they don't have jobs or anything else to do besides bingo night.
It’s not a question, it’s an incredulous reaction to someone playing word games to fake having a point. “More boomers are wealthy than other groups” doesn’t imply that there isn’t a full distribution of net worths in the elderly, including in debt and penniless.
I wanted to follow the rules and try to be charitable, but you’re making it impossible to conclude that you’re worth talking to.
Every young person in America is paying 6% (3% directly, 3% by their employer) of every pay check into a wealth redistribution program. Who receives the money from that program? Baby Boomers, who have an average wealth of $1.8 million, only ~$400k of which is in that house they don't feel pressure to down-size out of. The remaining ~$1.4 million is spread across a number of liquid-able assets that they could use to fund their lifestyle if they choose to [1].
It's funny that most politicians promise taxes on the wealthy to support social programs without mentioning that the overwhelming majoring of said programs involve forcing young people who don't own homes and aren't having families to give UBI to millionaires.
Ten in ten children have parents who are older than them
Is it so strange to wish to be governed by peers? You don't think a gerontocracy is optimal, do you?
The reason our leaders suck is not because they're old, but because democracy selects mostly for charisma, showmanship, and if we're even more cynically - a lack of morals/ethics. Political careers are most expedited by telling people what they want to hear, and by selling yourself out to the highest bidder so you can get funded by corporations and other moneyed interests. A great conman would likely make a great democratic politician. A typical definition of leadership is the four Cs - character, competence, commitment, and courage. The democratic political system doesn't select for that, at all. We want e.g. generals who rose on merit, instead we get lawyers.
As for age itself, there's also a pretty straight forward reason that we tend to pick older leaders. As people age they're generally going to find their younger selves less than desirable - naivete, gullibility, ignorance, and just generally a lack of wisdom. So I'd be terrified of having a leader in e.g. their 30s simply because I don't think they'd have anywhere near the life experience to have accumulated a reasonable base of wisdom. And I suspect as I continue to age, that 30 is going to get pushed higher and higher. Even back in Ancient Rome one could not run for Consul until you were at least 42 years old. And people likely 'grew up' much, much, faster in those times than we do now a days, simply because life was so much more testing.
I don't think it matters one way or the other how old leaders are. If they are capable, put them in charge. If not, don't.
Are they capable then?
Parent's typically aren't in charge of understanding and regulating technology they barely understand, let alone can operate. We need to strip the gerontocracy of their ability to enrich themselves while being incapable of understanding the world around them. The founding fathers were in their 30s.
As a parent a large part of my responsibility is making decisions and regulation about how they are allowed to interact with trends and technology I barely understand.
If you're a parent in 2026 you aren't dealing with the financial issues that are impacting other people who can't be parents because they can't make money, please kindly fuck right off, you're opinion doesn't matter. And you and your kids will be purged.
This is actually a criticism of democracy, not gerontocracy. The masses, who don't understand X, vote for people to regulate X.
Even under regimes run by young people their advisors are old people.
Well, one in twenty people is a doctor and nine in ten go see one if they have a stomach ulcer.
9 out of 10 doctors say that smoking a Lucky is good for you. of course 87% of statistics are made up
1 in 2 Americans are over 39. 1 in 1 Americans have a governor over 39.
The term "Senate" comes from the Latin word "senex" meaning "old man", and obviously the US inherited the term "Senate" from ancient Rome. This is a basic structure of society.
The issue is that this particular group of people older than 65 at this particular time in world history (which you happen to be living in) are Boomers who are probably the most child-like, foolish, and ignorant generation of people in world history, due to the circumstances of their upbringing (post-WW2, high technology, opulence, drug use, sexual revolution, peace in the developed world).
This isn't ageism, since normally old people do tend to have more wisdom and knowledge than young people.
There is something that really went wrong with the Boomer generation. The goal of every society is basically to survive their Boomer generation which many are not really seeming to manage.
Numbers, but I couldn't find insights in the article. Is there anything worthy of take-away?
The world sucks becuase of old people and based on Hannah Ritchie's substack publications that the UK should cut pensions and its social safety net.
Which is ironic because I am younger than most HNers and Substackers who espouse this opinion and find it to be a weird form of ageism.
To me, a 45 year old and a 65 year old are equally out of touch or "old", so it feels like a pot calling a kettle black.
It's one thing to be older. It's another thing to be rational and of sound mind as an older person. At some point, it's time from grandpa to retire.
At some point absolutely, but if someone is capable of executing there's no reason for them not to continue.
My dad's at retirement age yet continues to work on bleeding edge harness engineering and cloud security work, yet there are plenty of 30 and 40-somethings on HN that don't know the difference between a CNI and kube-proxy.
And my granddad's still physically active as a farmer in the old country. And his parents were alive and active into their 90s (also as farmers).
Ageism.
Yes, in general people place a lot of value in the wisdom that comes with age so long as the person isn’t senile.
Obviously with autocrats this isn’t applicable but there’s nothing inherently nonsensical or inexplicable about why mostly old dudes rule much of the world.
>Yes, in general people place a lot of value in the wisdom
I don't think that holds as an explanation given that 1. there's not a lot of wisdom going around among the geriatric leaders of the world, 2. this is a pretty rapidly increasing trend, not some fact of history.
Historical leaders used to be younger, including after accounting for increased lifespans. Just look at the founding of the American Republic. It's much more a sign of two things. Increased decadence and civilizations that are themselves at the end of their rope, and in democracies in particular a geriatric population that keeps voting itself into power based on their own interests.
I haven’t done the math but I’m assuming if you look at the founding fathers and life expectancy for the general population in the 18th century they would have represented what people in their 60s represent today relative to the rest of the population.
Also you can’t really talk about a geriatric population ‘voting itself into power’ if it makes up such a small proportion of the population. Young people just abstain from voting in western democracies, which is a choice just as much as voting one way or the other is. Yes, a person votes in his own self interest - that’s how that works.
They were pretty much what we’d now call fraternity brothers recently out of William and Mary plus whomever else they could rope in.
You’re not really supposed to just vote in your self-interest. It’s a proxy for violence.
'Dudes' is more of a historical artifact than an implicit requirement. But I'll allow dudes in the general form of 'enlightened persons'.
There's a reason why every American worker is paying 6% of their income to give checks to the richest cohort in society, and every politician is afraid to touch the program.
Can you expand on what you mean? I may be ignorant but my understanding of the system is you would technically get more back percentage wise as a low wage worker? Of course this is not just some cost benefit analysis, that money means more if you make less while you are still paying in. This is not a comment on the system at large, just more specifically I want to understand what you are implying.
The dollars you pay into social security today go to a recipient tomorrow. They are not invested in some pension fund.
That, and people who are old enough to collect social security are rich.
Combine those two facts.
In the Australian system, your employer has to pay 12% of your pay into a pension ("superannuation") fund of your choice. Taxpayers still pay for pensions for those whose individual pension accounts have run out – but, in coming decades, that taxpayer expenditure is projected to shrink. [0]
Maybe the US should look at copying it? Well, Trump has expressed interest in doing so. [1] But, Australia has had something like this since the 1990s, so even if the US adopted the Australian model tomorrow, it would take a few decades for it to really make an impact.
[0] https://www.thesenior.com.au/story/9346972/age-pension-spend...
[1] https://www.ncpers.org/blog/what-trumps-interest-in-australi...
The hiccup has _always_ been figuring out how to pay for existing retirees. That's why it's PAYG instead of a savings plan.
But more fundamentally, SS is more of an age pension[1]. Super is the step above that, akin to forcing all americans to fund their 401k / IRA.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_security_in_Australia#A...
We have plenty of great savings and retirement options in America. The problem is the word "option". Many people do not take any option but they still get old.
Social security is fine, whatever, no one likes living off it so industrious people will work hard and save on top of it. I am more annoyed when people say America has no social safety net when it spends absolute gobsmacking amounts on social security, Medicare and Medicaid.
be very interesting to see if Post Trump, something like Australia's Superannuation gets proposed.
It's such a shame they were never able to invest the SS fund in something productive. The WSJ had an article a few weeks ago that put the lost earnings close to $1 trillion.
> That, and people who are old enough to collect social security are rich.
You claim that as a fact. Seriously? I can’t tell if you’re joking, obviously there are many poor old people.
What they do that young people tend not to do is vote. Young people go on social media and tell you to burn down a Wal-mart instead of voting in a rigged system… then they don’t burn down a Wal-mart and they don’t vote.
See I can talk in unfounded generalities too.
Baby Boomers are on average the richest generation, with ~$1.8 million [1]. Most of them could happily fund their own lifestlye without taking money from the poor. It's not like elderly people aren't able to apply for normal government programs if they need support. Elderly people can get on SNAP so they don't starve, but why can't a 20 y/o who can't make ends meet get free checks every month?
[1]: https://usafacts.org/articles/how-has-wealth-distribution-in...
Do you understand the difference between what you’re saying now and what was claimed before? Or do you really not understand what an average is?
I am explaining GP's point. He said the cohort is rich. It is true. There is more total wealth in older generations. I do claim it as fact.
It is also true that oldsters vote more. We can speculate on why that is. I say it's because they don't have jobs or anything else to do besides bingo night.
Next question.
It’s not a question, it’s an incredulous reaction to someone playing word games to fake having a point. “More boomers are wealthy than other groups” doesn’t imply that there isn’t a full distribution of net worths in the elderly, including in debt and penniless.
I wanted to follow the rules and try to be charitable, but you’re making it impossible to conclude that you’re worth talking to.
Every young person in America is paying 6% (3% directly, 3% by their employer) of every pay check into a wealth redistribution program. Who receives the money from that program? Baby Boomers, who have an average wealth of $1.8 million, only ~$400k of which is in that house they don't feel pressure to down-size out of. The remaining ~$1.4 million is spread across a number of liquid-able assets that they could use to fund their lifestyle if they choose to [1].
It's funny that most politicians promise taxes on the wealthy to support social programs without mentioning that the overwhelming majoring of said programs involve forcing young people who don't own homes and aren't having families to give UBI to millionaires.
[1]: https://usafacts.org/articles/how-has-wealth-distribution-in...
In 2026 scare quotes around the word "leader" should be obligatory in all cases.