You obviously started from a much higher cognitive baseline than Biden, and have more marbles to lose. Judging from his academic record and Senate performance, he probably started with an IQ of around 115.
Second, you are still self-aware enough to recognize your limitations.
> "I have learned a fair number of computer games over my lifetime, but none in recent years — learning a new one feels like too much work."
In fairness, computer games have gotten significantly more complicated over the years, at least from the standpoint of how much information you need to remain aware of. The running joke with many strategy games is that you need to play them with a wiki open on a second monitor. Even action games have multiple systems crammed into them. For example Shadow of Mordor is nominally a game about killing lots of orcs, but it has a might bar, wrath bar, XP levels, secondary effects from equipment, upgradeable gems, multiple skills to equip, etc. etc.
I'm not yet 40 years old but I already find it usually more enjoyable to replay older video games than cracking open a new one. If only from the fact that I have limited time and don't want to risk wasting time on something that ends up being not my jam.
Computer games have gotten incredibly diverse. So there's both simpler and more complicated games around.
But the increasing burden of learning new games, instead of jumping in like I used to, strikes close to home, and I'm only about half the age of our gracious host.
I'm unsure how much the genres I like have changed, becoming more work to learn, and how much I have changed. My most recent two or three purchases have been disappointments; I never got to the point where they were comfortably relaxing to play.
FWIW, I'm a 4X strategy player by preference, and don't play anything "real time," as such games aggravate the RSI problems I developed spending my whole career working in the software industry.
None of this would be a problem if the United States adopted the practice in many countries of an age limit for various occupations such as for your Supreme Court Justices, Congress and the President (and of course VP).
You have the embarrassing scene of a Member of Congress being wheeled in a wheelchair into the Senate (?) seemingly void of thought and the Assistant guiding the hand of the Senator to press the voting button. Many of your Congress are so old that they would be better employed in Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum (Nancy Pelosi would be one - at least she finally stumbled her way into retirement after I concede an admirable political career but about 2 elections overdue).
It is not about some being capable of continuing and bringing great wisdom to the discussion at hand. It is what to do when the ones who should retire, but will not. Dianne Feinstein is an example.
The average age of the current House is slightly younger at 57.9 years but the Senate is aged more at 65.3 years.
One of the complaints of younger voters is that many of their representatives were born before Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon. Their complaints are somewhat valid that how can these people appreciate 'their' problems.
The age of 75 years would be an appropriate limit of an age of retirement for all Federal positions such as for the Supreme Court. For instance, in Australia, a High Court Justice (equivalent to the US Supreme Court) must retire no later than 70 years of age.
It should be a disqualification for the candidacy for President (and VP) if a candidate would turn 75 years anytime during their term.
Article 2 of the Constitution requires that to be a candidate for President, a candidate must be at least 35 years of age at the time of taking Office. So why not set an upper age limit?
That would have eliminated only Ronald Reagan for his 2nd Term and Donald Trump and Joe Biden for their Presidencies.
The United States has been well served by younger Presidents (some better of course than others). The median age at inauguration is 55 years.
Remember that should Joe Biden be re-elected (or Donald Trump for that matter) the distinct possibility of him dying in Office is high particularly since he is already showing signs of dementia and age weakness.
The choice of VP is therefore particularly important in his case as Kamala Harris has been an embarrassment as VP evidenced by her gaffes when travelling on Official Tours. Do you really want her as your President?
By the way, I am criticizing her only as a person not as a colored person or as a woman. I have worked co-operatively as a Project Engineer on a number of projects with many brilliant women (often far more qualified as Engineers than me) with some being Asian and former migrants.
The World is entering a politically volatile period.
You're not addressing the fact that Biden is not just old. It's quite possible that he has actual dementia. Or at least many people think so. I've read several different sources recently making a case for a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/a-neurosurgeon-diagnoses-joe-biden (just one) It's a good theory anyway.
I am not either right-wing or left-wing and do not like either of our choices as they seem to be right now, but as for what Trump will do if he's elected, it's a real mistake to believe the left-wing media about what that would be.
Dementia might explain why his debate performance was worse than mine, but I was limiting myself to the implications of my observation of myself and I don't seem to have dementia yet. I go to a good deal of trouble to avoid Alzheimer's, although I am going on the advice of a single researcher whose views have not, I gather, been widely accepted (Bredesen). Nobody else seems to have a good solution, and I am informed by someone I trust that Bredesen is a respectable researcher, although not necessarily correct.
Interesting. I never heard of Bredesen, but did a little browsing. Most of his advice seems sound, except maybe his stress on eating lots of vegetables. I heard a theory recently that since vegetables contain toxins meant to discourage animals from eating them, and fruits contain none of those, we can dispense with the vegetables and just eat fruits (following a meal of meat). https://www.paulsaladinomd.co/ab-guide
It's sort of a relief to me to see that you are also rereading (as am I) more often these days. I chalk that up to the fact that many of my favorite authors have stopped writing and I want to keep enjoying them. So, I wait a year or two and then start over, and for the most part, I've forgotten enough that I enjoy them as much as I did the first time. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I seem to still have some sort of a memory, because I've now read one of my authors' books four times through and I know them too well. I'm going to have to wait ten years before the next time.
I didn't mention it, and it isn't relevant to the point of the essay, but one advantage of failing memory is that you get to enjoy a book you like again.
I have not found failing memory to be necessary for that. Indeed I have shelves full of books I want to be able to reread, after scarcity of room to install more shelves encouraged me to thin out anything I was confident of not wanting to read again.
Trump also has a bad track record of getting the things he wants done, well, done. Biden is a part of the establishment, so a civil service running on autopilot is more likely to align with whatever is on his agenda.
(I hope people can agree with this, no matter which man they think is the lesser evil.)
An important part of Trump's record for me is his choice of judges, especially Supreme Court justices. I certainly don't like all of the Court's decisions, but it seems to me their quality has greatly improved from what it was twenty years ago. I would much prefer upcoming appointments to be made by Trump rather than by Biden.
When Trump isn’t interested in something, he appears to hand off the decision-making to someone else. I think this is what happened with the Federalist Society. I suspect that in the future, he would be paying more attention to the subject, so whether he continues to follow that advice is not something to depend on.
Certainly he has had striking evidence of the dangers presented by a court system controlled by your enemies, but most of that is state courts, which he doesn't get a role in appointing judges for.
Justice Kagan was a decent appointment. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson are bad jokes. The rest are of at least niddling quality compared to previous Justices, but Roberts appears to restrain himself for odd reasons, in both directions.
Finally Justice Thomas will one day, I believe, be seen to belong in the top rank with a very few, perhaps 5, best Justices ever.
Totally agree with you about Thomas. I always want to know what he has to say. As for Roberts, I think that the way to understand him is that he is a right leaning pragmatist, who tries to do what he thinks is best for the Court, given that most decisions are not historically critical, and what is best for the country in the few decisions which are. My personal jury is out on Jackson.
Your cooking problems can be resolved with a countdown kitchen timer. A simple three button one that can be placed permanently near the stove and never moved will mean you never burn anything again.
A friend bought me one of these years ago to time my crosswords with, but it's turned out to be useful for all sorts of other things over the years and I currently own two, both of which live by the stove.
The reason I have two is because I often end up taking one away for other uses, but they're so essential to cooking that I want there to always be at least one there.
I can't find my exact model on line but this looks like the sort of thing:
My stove has a timer. That doesn't work for bringing something to a boil since I don't know how long it will take. It works for timed baking or simmering, but if I am not close to the stove when it goes off one of my kids hears it, tells me, and complains that I should do it on my phone so as not to bother them.
Doing it on my phone works if I remember to, but I often don't.
It has to be trivially easy to use. As in two minutes must be three presses "+" "+" "go".
Phones are definitely non-trivial, lots of presses to set the timer and there are modes to navigate. I guess if it annoys the kids that's not a trivial thing so you need to find a similar solution that doesn't interrupt children who are trying to read. (pocket the timer?)
Boiling's easy. Make a wild guess at how long the thing will take to boil. Say ten minutes. Halve it. +++++go. Now you've got five minutes to dick about on the internet. A beep will go off. Go back. Does it look about half-boiled? ++++go. Another four minutes of internet joy.
Next beep will summon you back about a minute before everything goes to hell, now you can watch the process finish.
One you start doing it it becomes very easy.
I just made black puddings on toast. Toast under grill, puddings in frying pan, fires lit. I know toast takes about 2 minutes per side to not quite be done, I have no idea about black pudding. ++go. ..... beep. turn toast. puddings look a little underdone, turn them anyway ++go. ..... beep. Come back to stove and everything is about ready, now spend a minute actively finishing everything off and getting it all the right colour before eating.
We have the technology to make it even simpler than that. Rather than pressing buttons on your phone, activate it by voice, and say "start the timer for potatoes", which you pre-defined the first time you made potatoes with "start a new timer, called 'potatoes', that lasts four minutes".
I've lost count of the number of times I've discovered our kitchen is running low on something, found I was too busy chopping or stirring or cleaning to work the phone (even though my voice was unoccupied), and then later discovered that thing has now run out and I forgot to add it to our grocery list. A voice-activated application would solve that too. (I've looked for one, with no luck so far.)
1. Half our stove, my half, is induction — my wife doesn't like gadgets, does like her old set of saucepans which don't work with induction. At the maximum setting a saucepan of water boils fast, probably one to four minutes.
2. My children are not children, they are in their thirties. One way of getting satisfactory housemates is to produce them.
3. I have two timers that take only a few second. One is the one on the stove, problem already mentioned. The other is my smart watch, but only for its preset delays.
4. I have been impressed by how good voice recognition has gotten, use it for messaging since my phone does not have an adequate keyboard. My kids seem to have learned to type fast on theirs, but you can't teach an old dog ... . I have not yet incorporated knowledge of that improvement into my problem solving set. Rebecca (below) is probably right that I should
That’s why I use my Apple Watch than my phone to set timers. The timer app on my watch is on my primary watch face, so it’s two taps to use any of the preset timers. 90% of the time, preset is all I need.
I timed a full pot of cool water to boil (17 minutes on high). I guestimate the volume in the pot I am cooking, and set the timer accordingly. It's close enough.
I just tell Siri to set a timer for me. It's in my phone and in my pocket. That way, when I wander off beyond where I will hear the kitchen time, I still get alerted. And inevitably, I really have totally forgotten about whatever is going on in the kitchen. I also use it for the laundry.
I use the timers on my Apple Watch. There are several presets – 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes - with the ability to set specific timers. For a lot of my cooking, I follow what I would call a “check in“ procedure. Say I’m cooking something that should be done in 15 or 20 minutes. I set a timer for 10 minutes, check and see what the situation is, and set another timer for 5 or 10 minutes depending on when I think I’ll need to check again.
I have a slightly different view on paying attention as I age.
I grew up in a rural area -- no sidewalk, septic tank, oil heating, but a town water system. I climbed every tree I could, every fence. As I got older, I stopped climbing every new oak tree; I'd climbed enough of them, they were boring. Same for pine trees, fences, brick walls. Climbing things itself became passé. Girls, cars, computers, history, lots of things took their place. Computers became a hobby, then a job. Every new computer was exciting, with new instruction sets, new optimizations. Then computer languages, learning every new one I heard of, and that faded. Now, computers are tools, and why should I bother learning a new language which has marginal new features? I have things I want to do, that's the challenge, not the tools. My current annoyance is having to fight Wordpress. Well, I'll learn what I need, sod the bells and whistles I don't need.
If it's aging, then it's been going on since I learned to walk.
I'm about four months younger than Joe Biden. Judging by the way he walks, my physical condition seems to be no better than his--except that I don't stumble on stairs or fall down, so perhaps my coordination is better. Judging by the way he speaks, my cognitive condition is much better than his. I don't require preapproved questions, preparation, or a teleprompter to answer questions; and I don't pause for seconds looking confused, slur my speech, ramble, speak incoherently, or end my sentences with irrelevancies. So his mental problem is probably due to dementia rather than age. However, my memory is much worse than it used to be. When I was young, I could watch a two-hour movie and later describe it in detail to a friend, leaving out nothing of importance. But more recently I've watched several movies released within the last few years and realized only near the end that I'd seen the movie before. Also, I have trouble staying awake, so I spend a lot of time sleeping nowadays. That's something I seem to have in common with Sleepy Joe.
As a sample of one some six years older than you David, I concur concerning many of your points and readily agree as to a few of your conclusions. As to areas of disagreement, I make allowances for your youth. -grin-
I saw BTW that your wrote this essay, Effects of Aging Report from a sample size of 1, before; Report from a Sample Size of One, An Enlarged Prostate.
Aging Politicians (Actually any politician.) , enlarged prostate which is worse? Hard call. ;-)
I am significantly younger than all three of you, but I can report similar changes, except that my physical abilities have notably degraded.
Every possible regular bill I have is on auto-pay, and I make extensive use of calendar reminders, because otherwise things get missed. This is not entirely new, but it's gotten worse.
Various once-routine tasks need to be done at a "good time", or failing that as a crisis response.
I can still do anything mental that I used to be capable of, but not all the time, and not for as long a time. And I no longer remember who I've told what story, and thus repeat myself.
I'm pretty sure I'm semi-consciously budgeting my now more limited attentional resources, masking what might otherwise become problems. And I delegate to others more of what I could do myself, because I have less staying power - doing X is more likely to mean I'll have to postpone doing Y.
I'm most frustrated with my memory. I have to make active efforts to memorize things I would once have simply absorbed from perhaps repeated exposure.
All in all, it's better than the alternative. And some of my mental issues may be lingering results of chemotherapy, or caused by medications, or maybe even some kind of post-viral syndrome. (Some things have gotten better as chemo has become less recent.)
I gather that about a third of people 85 and older have Alzheimer's, but that doesn't mean that your odds are that high when you reach 85, which is what I first thought you meant. The chance increases with age, so at 85 your odds are less, probably substantially less, than that — the figure is averaging over everything 85 and above.
They also increase steeply with the APOE4 genetic variant. Two copies and I think the odds are up around .5. I have one copy, which means two or three times the risk of someone with none but still not all that high.
The axe I have been grinding is the one of preventing the lying psychopath and putschist from returning to office. That hasn't prevented me from complaining about Biden's cognitive decline for several years already. I'm a lot younger and already struggling with my own decline. It's not only cognitive rigidity that prevents Biden from recognizing his limitations but also narcissism, a lifelong condition. The man is a mess, and so is his progressive entourage. But he hires mostly competent people to perform the business of government and he's not a psychopath. Unfortunately, that probably won't suffice for winning in November.
Do we have any good examples of an incompetent, possibly senile, president or equivalent who did a good job because he was surrounded by good advisors? It seems possible but tricky to pull off, because the advisers will have differences, creating conflict among them.
I vaguely remember a president having a stroke or similar. His family concealed the extent of his incapacity, and his wife relayed orders/decisions "from him" that he was not in fact capable of communicating - to her or anyone else. She modeled his pre-stroke behaviour closely enough that this situation was not obvious. (Or for all we know, she'd been making "his" decisions all along ;-))
It's difficult and not something anyone wants. However, the first Trump term had all kinds of competent conservatives, who had been intent on doing their patriotic duty and serve, walk out in disgust and declare that it was impossible to work with the "moron". That's the alternative to propping up Biden and replacing him when he becomes unable to continue, leaving aside Trump's criminality and authoritarianism for the moment.
Going beyond presidents to rulers more generally, one fairly common historic pattern is that the ruler who is incompetent or just not interested in the hard work of ruling gets the job done by a competent aid, vizier, or the equivalent — who eventually replaces him. Charles Martel, Charlemagne's grandfather, was Mayor of the Palace to the last Merovingian king.
Was FDR justified in belittling and marginalizing Truman? How does it compare to the belittling of Kamala Harris? Perhaps both are mistakes made in a situation where it is felt that the leader on his last leg is safer in trying to avert a disaster, whether it's WW2 and the atom bomb or the election of Trump...
Most everyone else does. I don't think Biden holds her in low esteem as FDR did Truman. I suspect he agrees with the great majority of people, who think she can't beat Trump.
"That brings me to a more concerning problem. I have learned a fair number of computer games over my lifetime, but none in recent years — learning a new one feels like too much work. I occasionally read a new book but fewer than in the past, am more inclined to reread instead. The drive to learn new things is not entirely gone, but it is substantially weakened."
May I have this kind of more concerning problem at your age. And I would definitely vote for you for president if you were running. A
At 77 I find myself in some similar situations. My driving skills are still very good, although I more and more have less desire to drive. My health is excellent, but a 5-vertebra lumbar fusion 5 years ago took care of my back pain but "opened up" some damaged nerves, and now severe pain in both quadriceps makes it impossible to walk (with a cane or crutches) more than about 100 feet, or to stand for more than a minute or so. I am using an opioid patch, but I'm not sure it is helping much.
OTOH, my mind seems as clear and sharp as ever, really, although I do have those momentary glitches where a familiar word totally escapes me. Neurological exams seem to confirm my self-diagnosis.
I haven't had a desire to learn a new computer game since Starcaft, although I loved that for its strategic side. I got to playing and trying to win when using only one type of "weapon". Difficult, but possible.
I play killer bridge when I have the opportunity, although I don't play often enough to be up on bidding conventions. Play of the hand hasn't changed, really, and I can still pull off interesting squeezes.
Between taking Lupron and the pain patches I tend to feel physically tired, not sleepy, much of the time, and I now sleep a solid 8 hours a day as opposed to my previous 5-6 hours.
All in all, except for the reduced physical ability I find old age mostly a bit slower and not much else is different at this stage.
I definitely have the pattern of not being able to remember a word that I know perfectly well. Generally it comes back to me after a while.
One thing that helps with that is Google. Since I know everything about the word but the word itself, I can put in a few relevant key words and with luck get it back. Also, my wife's office is next to mine so I can ask her, and she can often guess what word I am thinking of.
His statement about Trump advising people to inject themselves with bleach was a falsehood, probably a lie. I don't remember any others, but I didn't check everything Biden said.
He has a history of making up facts, the most extreme example being:
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’"
I don't know if he is sufficiently aware of the facts being invented for them to classify as lies. A weak connection with either truth or reality is one thing he has in common with Trump.
Back when Clinton was lying under oath, I concluded that at least for moral purposes, a lie is not a deliberate misstatement of fact, but rather, an untruth told to someone who has the right to know the truth. By this definition, I think that Biden no longer knows when he’s not telling the truth, so he’s not actually lying. I think that Trump knows it, but doesn’t care because he doesn’t think the truth is important.
Two more differences between you and Biden:
You obviously started from a much higher cognitive baseline than Biden, and have more marbles to lose. Judging from his academic record and Senate performance, he probably started with an IQ of around 115.
Second, you are still self-aware enough to recognize your limitations.
> "I have learned a fair number of computer games over my lifetime, but none in recent years — learning a new one feels like too much work."
In fairness, computer games have gotten significantly more complicated over the years, at least from the standpoint of how much information you need to remain aware of. The running joke with many strategy games is that you need to play them with a wiki open on a second monitor. Even action games have multiple systems crammed into them. For example Shadow of Mordor is nominally a game about killing lots of orcs, but it has a might bar, wrath bar, XP levels, secondary effects from equipment, upgradeable gems, multiple skills to equip, etc. etc.
I'm not yet 40 years old but I already find it usually more enjoyable to replay older video games than cracking open a new one. If only from the fact that I have limited time and don't want to risk wasting time on something that ends up being not my jam.
Computer games have gotten incredibly diverse. So there's both simpler and more complicated games around.
But the increasing burden of learning new games, instead of jumping in like I used to, strikes close to home, and I'm only about half the age of our gracious host.
I'm unsure how much the genres I like have changed, becoming more work to learn, and how much I have changed. My most recent two or three purchases have been disappointments; I never got to the point where they were comfortably relaxing to play.
FWIW, I'm a 4X strategy player by preference, and don't play anything "real time," as such games aggravate the RSI problems I developed spending my whole career working in the software industry.
None of this would be a problem if the United States adopted the practice in many countries of an age limit for various occupations such as for your Supreme Court Justices, Congress and the President (and of course VP).
You have the embarrassing scene of a Member of Congress being wheeled in a wheelchair into the Senate (?) seemingly void of thought and the Assistant guiding the hand of the Senator to press the voting button. Many of your Congress are so old that they would be better employed in Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum (Nancy Pelosi would be one - at least she finally stumbled her way into retirement after I concede an admirable political career but about 2 elections overdue).
It is not about some being capable of continuing and bringing great wisdom to the discussion at hand. It is what to do when the ones who should retire, but will not. Dianne Feinstein is an example.
The average age of the current House is slightly younger at 57.9 years but the Senate is aged more at 65.3 years.
One of the complaints of younger voters is that many of their representatives were born before Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon. Their complaints are somewhat valid that how can these people appreciate 'their' problems.
The age of 75 years would be an appropriate limit of an age of retirement for all Federal positions such as for the Supreme Court. For instance, in Australia, a High Court Justice (equivalent to the US Supreme Court) must retire no later than 70 years of age.
It should be a disqualification for the candidacy for President (and VP) if a candidate would turn 75 years anytime during their term.
Article 2 of the Constitution requires that to be a candidate for President, a candidate must be at least 35 years of age at the time of taking Office. So why not set an upper age limit?
That would have eliminated only Ronald Reagan for his 2nd Term and Donald Trump and Joe Biden for their Presidencies.
The United States has been well served by younger Presidents (some better of course than others). The median age at inauguration is 55 years.
Remember that should Joe Biden be re-elected (or Donald Trump for that matter) the distinct possibility of him dying in Office is high particularly since he is already showing signs of dementia and age weakness.
The choice of VP is therefore particularly important in his case as Kamala Harris has been an embarrassment as VP evidenced by her gaffes when travelling on Official Tours. Do you really want her as your President?
By the way, I am criticizing her only as a person not as a colored person or as a woman. I have worked co-operatively as a Project Engineer on a number of projects with many brilliant women (often far more qualified as Engineers than me) with some being Asian and former migrants.
The World is entering a politically volatile period.
Neither candidate seems adequate for the job.
You're not addressing the fact that Biden is not just old. It's quite possible that he has actual dementia. Or at least many people think so. I've read several different sources recently making a case for a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/a-neurosurgeon-diagnoses-joe-biden (just one) It's a good theory anyway.
I am not either right-wing or left-wing and do not like either of our choices as they seem to be right now, but as for what Trump will do if he's elected, it's a real mistake to believe the left-wing media about what that would be.
Dementia might explain why his debate performance was worse than mine, but I was limiting myself to the implications of my observation of myself and I don't seem to have dementia yet. I go to a good deal of trouble to avoid Alzheimer's, although I am going on the advice of a single researcher whose views have not, I gather, been widely accepted (Bredesen). Nobody else seems to have a good solution, and I am informed by someone I trust that Bredesen is a respectable researcher, although not necessarily correct.
Interesting. I never heard of Bredesen, but did a little browsing. Most of his advice seems sound, except maybe his stress on eating lots of vegetables. I heard a theory recently that since vegetables contain toxins meant to discourage animals from eating them, and fruits contain none of those, we can dispense with the vegetables and just eat fruits (following a meal of meat). https://www.paulsaladinomd.co/ab-guide
It's sort of a relief to me to see that you are also rereading (as am I) more often these days. I chalk that up to the fact that many of my favorite authors have stopped writing and I want to keep enjoying them. So, I wait a year or two and then start over, and for the most part, I've forgotten enough that I enjoy them as much as I did the first time. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I seem to still have some sort of a memory, because I've now read one of my authors' books four times through and I know them too well. I'm going to have to wait ten years before the next time.
I didn't mention it, and it isn't relevant to the point of the essay, but one advantage of failing memory is that you get to enjoy a book you like again.
I have not found failing memory to be necessary for that. Indeed I have shelves full of books I want to be able to reread, after scarcity of room to install more shelves encouraged me to thin out anything I was confident of not wanting to read again.
But now I can reread the book sooner.
At the risk of becoming political:
Trump also has a bad track record of getting the things he wants done, well, done. Biden is a part of the establishment, so a civil service running on autopilot is more likely to align with whatever is on his agenda.
(I hope people can agree with this, no matter which man they think is the lesser evil.)
Trump failing to get things done may be a blessing.
An important part of Trump's record for me is his choice of judges, especially Supreme Court justices. I certainly don't like all of the Court's decisions, but it seems to me their quality has greatly improved from what it was twenty years ago. I would much prefer upcoming appointments to be made by Trump rather than by Biden.
Because they are being made by the Federalist Society, at least so far. I agree.
When Trump isn’t interested in something, he appears to hand off the decision-making to someone else. I think this is what happened with the Federalist Society. I suspect that in the future, he would be paying more attention to the subject, so whether he continues to follow that advice is not something to depend on.
Certainly he has had striking evidence of the dangers presented by a court system controlled by your enemies, but most of that is state courts, which he doesn't get a role in appointing judges for.
From Trump’s point of view, that would be a meaningless distinction, assuming he grasps the distinction.
Justice Kagan was a decent appointment. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson are bad jokes. The rest are of at least niddling quality compared to previous Justices, but Roberts appears to restrain himself for odd reasons, in both directions.
Finally Justice Thomas will one day, I believe, be seen to belong in the top rank with a very few, perhaps 5, best Justices ever.
Totally agree with you about Thomas. I always want to know what he has to say. As for Roberts, I think that the way to understand him is that he is a right leaning pragmatist, who tries to do what he thinks is best for the Court, given that most decisions are not historically critical, and what is best for the country in the few decisions which are. My personal jury is out on Jackson.
This is very funny! Well written.
Your cooking problems can be resolved with a countdown kitchen timer. A simple three button one that can be placed permanently near the stove and never moved will mean you never burn anything again.
A friend bought me one of these years ago to time my crosswords with, but it's turned out to be useful for all sorts of other things over the years and I currently own two, both of which live by the stove.
The reason I have two is because I often end up taking one away for other uses, but they're so essential to cooking that I want there to always be at least one there.
I can't find my exact model on line but this looks like the sort of thing:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/INRIGOROUS-Magnetic-Countdown-Stopwatch-Classroom/dp/B088TJVXNK
My stove has a timer. That doesn't work for bringing something to a boil since I don't know how long it will take. It works for timed baking or simmering, but if I am not close to the stove when it goes off one of my kids hears it, tells me, and complains that I should do it on my phone so as not to bother them.
Doing it on my phone works if I remember to, but I often don't.
It has to be trivially easy to use. As in two minutes must be three presses "+" "+" "go".
Phones are definitely non-trivial, lots of presses to set the timer and there are modes to navigate. I guess if it annoys the kids that's not a trivial thing so you need to find a similar solution that doesn't interrupt children who are trying to read. (pocket the timer?)
Boiling's easy. Make a wild guess at how long the thing will take to boil. Say ten minutes. Halve it. +++++go. Now you've got five minutes to dick about on the internet. A beep will go off. Go back. Does it look about half-boiled? ++++go. Another four minutes of internet joy.
Next beep will summon you back about a minute before everything goes to hell, now you can watch the process finish.
One you start doing it it becomes very easy.
I just made black puddings on toast. Toast under grill, puddings in frying pan, fires lit. I know toast takes about 2 minutes per side to not quite be done, I have no idea about black pudding. ++go. ..... beep. turn toast. puddings look a little underdone, turn them anyway ++go. ..... beep. Come back to stove and everything is about ready, now spend a minute actively finishing everything off and getting it all the right colour before eating.
We have the technology to make it even simpler than that. Rather than pressing buttons on your phone, activate it by voice, and say "start the timer for potatoes", which you pre-defined the first time you made potatoes with "start a new timer, called 'potatoes', that lasts four minutes".
I've lost count of the number of times I've discovered our kitchen is running low on something, found I was too busy chopping or stirring or cleaning to work the phone (even though my voice was unoccupied), and then later discovered that thing has now run out and I forgot to add it to our grocery list. A voice-activated application would solve that too. (I've looked for one, with no luck so far.)
1. Half our stove, my half, is induction — my wife doesn't like gadgets, does like her old set of saucepans which don't work with induction. At the maximum setting a saucepan of water boils fast, probably one to four minutes.
2. My children are not children, they are in their thirties. One way of getting satisfactory housemates is to produce them.
3. I have two timers that take only a few second. One is the one on the stove, problem already mentioned. The other is my smart watch, but only for its preset delays.
4. I have been impressed by how good voice recognition has gotten, use it for messaging since my phone does not have an adequate keyboard. My kids seem to have learned to type fast on theirs, but you can't teach an old dog ... . I have not yet incorporated knowledge of that improvement into my problem solving set. Rebecca (below) is probably right that I should
That’s why I use my Apple Watch than my phone to set timers. The timer app on my watch is on my primary watch face, so it’s two taps to use any of the preset timers. 90% of the time, preset is all I need.
I timed a full pot of cool water to boil (17 minutes on high). I guestimate the volume in the pot I am cooking, and set the timer accordingly. It's close enough.
I just tell Siri to set a timer for me. It's in my phone and in my pocket. That way, when I wander off beyond where I will hear the kitchen time, I still get alerted. And inevitably, I really have totally forgotten about whatever is going on in the kitchen. I also use it for the laundry.
I use the timers on my Apple Watch. There are several presets – 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes - with the ability to set specific timers. For a lot of my cooking, I follow what I would call a “check in“ procedure. Say I’m cooking something that should be done in 15 or 20 minutes. I set a timer for 10 minutes, check and see what the situation is, and set another timer for 5 or 10 minutes depending on when I think I’ll need to check again.
I have a slightly different view on paying attention as I age.
I grew up in a rural area -- no sidewalk, septic tank, oil heating, but a town water system. I climbed every tree I could, every fence. As I got older, I stopped climbing every new oak tree; I'd climbed enough of them, they were boring. Same for pine trees, fences, brick walls. Climbing things itself became passé. Girls, cars, computers, history, lots of things took their place. Computers became a hobby, then a job. Every new computer was exciting, with new instruction sets, new optimizations. Then computer languages, learning every new one I heard of, and that faded. Now, computers are tools, and why should I bother learning a new language which has marginal new features? I have things I want to do, that's the challenge, not the tools. My current annoyance is having to fight Wordpress. Well, I'll learn what I need, sod the bells and whistles I don't need.
If it's aging, then it's been going on since I learned to walk.
Your candid self-assessment is admirable. If only Biden would be (or his inner circle)!
I'm about four months younger than Joe Biden. Judging by the way he walks, my physical condition seems to be no better than his--except that I don't stumble on stairs or fall down, so perhaps my coordination is better. Judging by the way he speaks, my cognitive condition is much better than his. I don't require preapproved questions, preparation, or a teleprompter to answer questions; and I don't pause for seconds looking confused, slur my speech, ramble, speak incoherently, or end my sentences with irrelevancies. So his mental problem is probably due to dementia rather than age. However, my memory is much worse than it used to be. When I was young, I could watch a two-hour movie and later describe it in detail to a friend, leaving out nothing of importance. But more recently I've watched several movies released within the last few years and realized only near the end that I'd seen the movie before. Also, I have trouble staying awake, so I spend a lot of time sleeping nowadays. That's something I seem to have in common with Sleepy Joe.
I am a few years younger than you are, and I have a good memory. But it’s short.
As a sample of one some six years older than you David, I concur concerning many of your points and readily agree as to a few of your conclusions. As to areas of disagreement, I make allowances for your youth. -grin-
I saw BTW that your wrote this essay, Effects of Aging Report from a sample size of 1, before; Report from a Sample Size of One, An Enlarged Prostate.
Aging Politicians (Actually any politician.) , enlarged prostate which is worse? Hard call. ;-)
Two different reports on different issues, both from a sample size of one.
I am significantly younger than all three of you, but I can report similar changes, except that my physical abilities have notably degraded.
Every possible regular bill I have is on auto-pay, and I make extensive use of calendar reminders, because otherwise things get missed. This is not entirely new, but it's gotten worse.
Various once-routine tasks need to be done at a "good time", or failing that as a crisis response.
I can still do anything mental that I used to be capable of, but not all the time, and not for as long a time. And I no longer remember who I've told what story, and thus repeat myself.
I'm pretty sure I'm semi-consciously budgeting my now more limited attentional resources, masking what might otherwise become problems. And I delegate to others more of what I could do myself, because I have less staying power - doing X is more likely to mean I'll have to postpone doing Y.
I'm most frustrated with my memory. I have to make active efforts to memorize things I would once have simply absorbed from perhaps repeated exposure.
All in all, it's better than the alternative. And some of my mental issues may be lingering results of chemotherapy, or caused by medications, or maybe even some kind of post-viral syndrome. (Some things have gotten better as chemo has become less recent.)
I tell my grandkids that my memory is so good that I can remember things that didn’t even happen.
There’s apparently some age-related decline in cognitive ability.
But Alzheimer’s is not normal. The classic sign is forgetting recent events. The brain loses the ability to store new memories.
But plenty of people don’t get Alzheimer’s, although the odds increase steeply with age, being about 30% at 85 and above.
I gather that about a third of people 85 and older have Alzheimer's, but that doesn't mean that your odds are that high when you reach 85, which is what I first thought you meant. The chance increases with age, so at 85 your odds are less, probably substantially less, than that — the figure is averaging over everything 85 and above.
Yes, that figure would include people over 85. I couldn’t find more granular statistics.
They also increase steeply with the APOE4 genetic variant. Two copies and I think the odds are up around .5. I have one copy, which means two or three times the risk of someone with none but still not all that high.
Yep APOE4 is definitely a risk factor.
The axe I have been grinding is the one of preventing the lying psychopath and putschist from returning to office. That hasn't prevented me from complaining about Biden's cognitive decline for several years already. I'm a lot younger and already struggling with my own decline. It's not only cognitive rigidity that prevents Biden from recognizing his limitations but also narcissism, a lifelong condition. The man is a mess, and so is his progressive entourage. But he hires mostly competent people to perform the business of government and he's not a psychopath. Unfortunately, that probably won't suffice for winning in November.
Do we have any good examples of an incompetent, possibly senile, president or equivalent who did a good job because he was surrounded by good advisors? It seems possible but tricky to pull off, because the advisers will have differences, creating conflict among them.
I vaguely remember a president having a stroke or similar. His family concealed the extent of his incapacity, and his wife relayed orders/decisions "from him" that he was not in fact capable of communicating - to her or anyone else. She modeled his pre-stroke behaviour closely enough that this situation was not obvious. (Or for all we know, she'd been making "his" decisions all along ;-))
Woodrow Wilson?
Checking the wikipedia article on him, you are correct.
It's difficult and not something anyone wants. However, the first Trump term had all kinds of competent conservatives, who had been intent on doing their patriotic duty and serve, walk out in disgust and declare that it was impossible to work with the "moron". That's the alternative to propping up Biden and replacing him when he becomes unable to continue, leaving aside Trump's criminality and authoritarianism for the moment.
Going beyond presidents to rulers more generally, one fairly common historic pattern is that the ruler who is incompetent or just not interested in the hard work of ruling gets the job done by a competent aid, vizier, or the equivalent — who eventually replaces him. Charles Martel, Charlemagne's grandfather, was Mayor of the Palace to the last Merovingian king.
Was FDR justified in belittling and marginalizing Truman? How does it compare to the belittling of Kamala Harris? Perhaps both are mistakes made in a situation where it is felt that the leader on his last leg is safer in trying to avert a disaster, whether it's WW2 and the atom bomb or the election of Trump...
Are you saying that Biden belittles Harris? I wouldn't have said so.
Most everyone else does. I don't think Biden holds her in low esteem as FDR did Truman. I suspect he agrees with the great majority of people, who think she can't beat Trump.
"That brings me to a more concerning problem. I have learned a fair number of computer games over my lifetime, but none in recent years — learning a new one feels like too much work. I occasionally read a new book but fewer than in the past, am more inclined to reread instead. The drive to learn new things is not entirely gone, but it is substantially weakened."
May I have this kind of more concerning problem at your age. And I would definitely vote for you for president if you were running. A
At 77 I find myself in some similar situations. My driving skills are still very good, although I more and more have less desire to drive. My health is excellent, but a 5-vertebra lumbar fusion 5 years ago took care of my back pain but "opened up" some damaged nerves, and now severe pain in both quadriceps makes it impossible to walk (with a cane or crutches) more than about 100 feet, or to stand for more than a minute or so. I am using an opioid patch, but I'm not sure it is helping much.
OTOH, my mind seems as clear and sharp as ever, really, although I do have those momentary glitches where a familiar word totally escapes me. Neurological exams seem to confirm my self-diagnosis.
I haven't had a desire to learn a new computer game since Starcaft, although I loved that for its strategic side. I got to playing and trying to win when using only one type of "weapon". Difficult, but possible.
I play killer bridge when I have the opportunity, although I don't play often enough to be up on bidding conventions. Play of the hand hasn't changed, really, and I can still pull off interesting squeezes.
Between taking Lupron and the pain patches I tend to feel physically tired, not sleepy, much of the time, and I now sleep a solid 8 hours a day as opposed to my previous 5-6 hours.
All in all, except for the reduced physical ability I find old age mostly a bit slower and not much else is different at this stage.
I definitely have the pattern of not being able to remember a word that I know perfectly well. Generally it comes back to me after a while.
One thing that helps with that is Google. Since I know everything about the word but the word itself, I can put in a few relevant key words and with luck get it back. Also, my wife's office is next to mine so I can ask her, and she can often guess what word I am thinking of.
Getting old is no fun! Agree there.
Better than the alternative, at least so far. I hope that they will find a cure for aging in time for me, but don't think it likely.
Old age is very definitely a YMMV situation.
Do you classify any of Biden's statements as lies?
His statement about Trump advising people to inject themselves with bleach was a falsehood, probably a lie. I don't remember any others, but I didn't check everything Biden said.
He has a history of making up facts, the most extreme example being:
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’"
I don't know if he is sufficiently aware of the facts being invented for them to classify as lies. A weak connection with either truth or reality is one thing he has in common with Trump.
Back when Clinton was lying under oath, I concluded that at least for moral purposes, a lie is not a deliberate misstatement of fact, but rather, an untruth told to someone who has the right to know the truth. By this definition, I think that Biden no longer knows when he’s not telling the truth, so he’s not actually lying. I think that Trump knows it, but doesn’t care because he doesn’t think the truth is important.