You can distinguish the two. Older folks can learn from younger ones based on specific experience. Consider: Bob might be considering law school as a career change at 40 and learn from a 30-year-old who started the practice of law at 25 that it was not fun.
You can certainly imagine that age itself, or things that strongly correlate with age, could bring a different perspective. Another trivial sort of example: you decide at 50 that you want to buy a home where you’ll never have to move again, and you are considering a condo that’s on the 4th floor with no elevator. The wisdom of 80-year-olds might say that’s unwise.
The point, of course, is to investigate to find less obvious examples—if any.
For some young people, there might be some discomfort in admitting this as a relevant source of data about how to live life.
The example I’ve read about of whether to finish your Ph.D. could even be relevant here. If someone did a survey showing that 75% of old folks who dropped out of Ph.D. programs wished they’d finished them, would that be relevant? It certainly wouldn’t decide the issue, but I think it would be a factor. And you’d have to factor in or out various cognitive biases.
(I was in exactly that position myself, and decided to finish the Ph.D. It made sense in my case because I didn’t have a burning passion to get on the next thing in life (nor did I know what that would be). But I was correct that I would never directly need it.).
(Example changed because the piercing example equivocates possible mistakes by 16-year-olds and 25-year-olds in the 95% figure)
You meant “equates” instead of “equivocates”? Even with that change I’m not sure quite what you mean. Maybe not that important.
For some young people, there might be some discomfort in admitting this as a relevant source of data about how to live life.
I definitely endorse this. It just wasn’t a problem for me and I was generalizing from one example when I shouldn’t.
Example changed because the piercing example equivocates possible mistakes by 16-year-olds and 25-year-olds in the 95% figure)
You meant “equates” instead of “equivocates”? Even with that change I’m not sure quite what you mean. Maybe not that important.
In terms of how likely a decision is to be regretted, there’s an obvious difference between decisions by a 16 year old and decisions by a 25 year old. Learning that 95% of 60-year-olds regret body piercing doesn’t tell us about the difference we care about (decisions by the 25-year-old) because the majority of piercing decisions are made by those (teenagers) we expect would regret just about any major decision. The argument is weaker because the statistic doesn’t show what you assert it shows.
You can distinguish the two. Older folks can learn from younger ones based on specific experience. Consider: Bob might be considering law school as a career change at 40 and learn from a 30-year-old who started the practice of law at 25 that it was not fun.
You can certainly imagine that age itself, or things that strongly correlate with age, could bring a different perspective. Another trivial sort of example: you decide at 50 that you want to buy a home where you’ll never have to move again, and you are considering a condo that’s on the 4th floor with no elevator. The wisdom of 80-year-olds might say that’s unwise.
The point, of course, is to investigate to find less obvious examples—if any.
For some young people, there might be some discomfort in admitting this as a relevant source of data about how to live life.
The example I’ve read about of whether to finish your Ph.D. could even be relevant here. If someone did a survey showing that 75% of old folks who dropped out of Ph.D. programs wished they’d finished them, would that be relevant? It certainly wouldn’t decide the issue, but I think it would be a factor. And you’d have to factor in or out various cognitive biases.
(I was in exactly that position myself, and decided to finish the Ph.D. It made sense in my case because I didn’t have a burning passion to get on the next thing in life (nor did I know what that would be). But I was correct that I would never directly need it.).
You meant “equates” instead of “equivocates”? Even with that change I’m not sure quite what you mean. Maybe not that important.
The trouble with deciding whether to finish a Ph.D. is that the world changes. The value of a Ph.D. might be a good bit higher or lower in 50 years.
I definitely endorse this. It just wasn’t a problem for me and I was generalizing from one example when I shouldn’t.
In terms of how likely a decision is to be regretted, there’s an obvious difference between decisions by a 16 year old and decisions by a 25 year old. Learning that 95% of 60-year-olds regret body piercing doesn’t tell us about the difference we care about (decisions by the 25-year-old) because the majority of piercing decisions are made by those (teenagers) we expect would regret just about any major decision. The argument is weaker because the statistic doesn’t show what you assert it shows.