ViperMan

Fair enough. I just think these are separate arguments. My point is that we're wringing our hands over this being a safety issue, when really it's about something else. Fine to make an argument that it's not fair for them to be parked at the top of the list for that long. Just make that argument. And regardless of the status quo being what it was, there is precedent for having recently changed it without having provided such data. Which I acknowledge. It just seemed to me like you were making two arguments and tossing in any justification you could come up with. You eventually threw one of them out when your core argument appeared. I understand there is the justification you have that is backed up by safety concerns - I don't think the data is there. I also understand there's your other separate argument that really amounts to "it's always been this way so I think it's fair." Those are separate. Congress doesn't give a shit if it's always been this way. Congress does give a shit about "safety" - which is why the substrata of this discussion is what it is and why any argument that's going to have legs must enlist "safety." All the other arguments are interesting but academic.

Wait, who put who at risk? The cops are always going to escalate. That's what they're paid for. All three of those guys have killed people. They didn't run because they thought they were getting busted for a minor drug charge. Don't be so naive.

You don't believe this. If you believed this, you wouldn't have spent all that time and effort referring to safety, known "facts" about cognitive decline, how it'd be too complicated to test for it, that group-based metrics are an effective measure, how it's a can of worms no one wants to open, etc. Or, if you do believe it, you were arguing disingenuously the whole time. I, for one, always enlist irrelevant facts having nothing to do with the core of my argument 🤔. If your argument is that you don't have a "right" to work in an industry, so therefore you get to be subject to whatever arbitrary regulation that other people put on you, that's a pretty lack-luster argument, and I don't think many other people would be convinced by it. That said, you're welcome to make it. I knew what we disagreed on at the outset. It's that age discrimination is wrong and you think it's right. Again, that's a fair opinion to have. The main component here, though, is self-interest wearing the mask of safety. The safety refrain is a Mott and Bailey. That's all I was trying to flesh out.

You are conflating a general argument that old people slow down (which nobody disputes) and using it to generalize to a something specific: namely that people over age 65 are unsafe to fly. There is no data that shows that, so please don't misrepresent what I argued here. If people over age 65 are unsafe to fly, there should be data that backs up that specific claim. No one has presented that or produced it. So far it's all anecdote and narrative-weaving. "This one time, at band camp..." This is a circular argument. Innumerable laws throughout history have been unjust / immoral. I know you know that because we've agreed on what some of them are. I don't think age-based discrimination is proper, ethical, or moral, so pointing to the fact that it's happens to be legal in some circumstances begs the question. Questions about when you can drink or smoke have more to do with consent and not being an adult yet. You're so close to connecting the last dot here. In all the relevant ways, the checkride system already does screen for this. If a dude doesn't have the cognitive ability to fly, how's he gonna have the cognitive ability to pass a sim check? Or a line check? See, you're pointing at a problem you see with the checkride system - not a problem with older pilots, who you scapegoated to justify having a crappy checkride system. Instead of fixing the problem you identified (or alternatively adding a different check - which everyone seems to be clutching their pearls over), you retreat to an arbitrary age cut-off as a proxy (which also happens to serve the personal interests of a lot of people). Not to mention, you literally justified having an easier checkride for dudes because there's no old guys around??? What??? Why would the checkride have to become more robust if 65+ were around? I guess it's because you'd need a harder checkride to prove that the old guys don't have the cognitive ability to pass the easier checkride the younger guys do because they clearly have the mental capacity which they obviously posses because they're young, but which you don't need to screen for because they clearly already have it since they're young and not old and they're smarter than old people and therefore we don't have to test them for that because they're younger than 65 and not older than 65 amirite??? Your fade-away about it being more complicated is pure chaff / ECM. The airlines give reaction-time, focus, coordination, and mental tests to their applicants. Ask me how I know. Do you remember the one you had to take? It doesn't matter how complicated something is if it's the right thing to do. Airlines already screen for cognitive ability as part of the hiring process. The FAA could do the same thing. Your retort on this point, alone, underscores the disingenuous nature of your argument. The bottom line is this: the appeal to safety makes for nice syllogisms on paper and it sounds good, but it's also totally unsubstantiated. Further, there are other ways we could actually just test to see if someone has the cognitive ability to continue flying commercially. Why it's anathema that an alternative means to determine if an aged pilot can continue in his career is clear: naked self interest.

I have no illusion that there is self-interest on both sides of this thing. None. I'm just trying to pull-back and say what I think is actually fair from an objective standpoint. Strip away the concern about getting yours (on both sides) and I think it becomes pretty clear what the right answer is.

What channel?

The fundamental premise though is that it is cognitive decline and "safety" to push this through. Which is motherhood and longhouse BS. There just isn't any data. Plenty of anecdote and logic twisting / justification, but no fact, reason, or real logic. It's fine if you're ok with age discrimination. Just own it. It doesn't have anything to do with cognitive decline, because we could effectively test for that. It doesn't have anything to do with "well you knew the rules at the get go, so tough" - a past discrimination doesn't make a present right. And I think you need to re-write your sentence about banning blacks and just sub-in "65+". The distinction falls apart. These things are one and the same even though they don't have the same level of social "ick". The appeal to it being ok because "it could work" being a "group-based" average is a unique idea too. Do we take group-based tests for literally anything else? A group-based vision test for 10 pilots at once? No. Group-based hearing test? No. Group-based PT test? No. How about a group-based SAT for blacks? Ok, but it's somehow cool to peanut-butter spread WRT age? Anytime you have a unique, one-off carve-out which completely stands apart from everything else we're doing in society, I think you need to look at it pretty closely. Framing this as a god-given right is totally backwards. An external entity has no god-given right to have you summarily fired if you are part of a certain class. An external entity has no right to stop you from becoming employed in a certain industry. That's the appropriate framing. The government has an interest in regulating industries appropriately, but also lawfully. As I think about it and my thoughts become more clear, the only "cognitive" test you need is being able to pass a check ride. If you're good there, and you can pass the FAA's health check, then you're good to go...i.e. the current system works. Note: I'm not an old guy. I just think fairness is the most fundamental part of a healthy society. And I think self-interested groups and individuals who use "safety" (or any other justification) to take an extra scoop for themselves is one of the main ills we have in this country. Apparently it's everywhere.

Precisely this. Which is also exactly why the age limit isn't really about the age limit. It's about getting people out of seats. If it was about cognitive ability, plenty would be shown the door early. Of course most people know that...which is also why most people don't want it...easier to just draw an arbitrary line and get rid of them.

Certainly with all of our knowledge and technology we could devise a test to see if someone has declined, no? I just don't understand how people can be so itchy to discriminate based on just throwing down a blanket "no one is capable of flying after the age of 65" when it's clearly age discrimination. Which is exactly what it is. All it is in actuality is a mask to kick people out of your "seat." Which is BS.

Technically speaking @BashiChuni is correct on point one. It's not possible to re-blunt something that is already as blunt as it can be. They (Russia) are more than two years into this mess after having had 8 years of pre-combat battlefield shaping operations. Two years! For an operation that would have taken us a long weekend. Russia is most certainly blunt.

Neither. Intelligence requires consciousness. It's nonsensical to call an abacus conscious.

@Danger41 is spot on. There is a lot of hype and misunderstanding about what AI is and about what it can do. The discussion about artificial general intelligence (AGI) is more theoretical. IMO AGI is not possible, because no matter how sophisticated the output seems, a computer is still just a really really fast abacus. In order to admit a computer into the realm of the "intelligent" you simultaneously need to admit an abacus into the same category. I don't think many people would be comfortable with that leap. Really the whole discipline suffers from having ever been associated with the word "intelligence" in the first place as it begets consciousness, which a computer can never be. What AI is going to do is make a lot of previously seemingly intractable problems solvable, but all it really is at rock bottom is advanced math (statistics) being applied to lots of high-dimensional data. Computers are good at solving things like that. People not so much. Once you understand that, the magic disappears.

I know plenty of guys in the guard who were passed over (not sure about twice, or if there are implications there) and have gone on to become Lt Cols in the guard. It ain't necessarily over, and this could wind up working in your favor. I'm not saying don't prep for a civilian career, but if you want a future in the military, all doors are not necessarily closed to you.

Well said. It's a sad thing, but our modern concept of urban warfare and being able to solve these problems without massive human casualties is a pipe dream - and honestly, Hamas' strategy takes direct advantage of the fact that it's a pipe dream. Someone else said it best, which was that Hamas gave Israel two bad choices. Israel is making the less bad choice. People who honestly think there's a good way out of this are deluding themselves. The entire population of Gaza is will likely need to be displaced in order to solve this conflict. That's a sad thing to confront, but it is what it is, and it's not Israel's fault.

The episode of that podcast. I guess I can just check myself.