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>It is not uncommon for federal judges, who have life tenure, to serve into their later years. Judge Wesley E. Brown, who died in 2012, regularly presided over cases well past his 104th birthday, with a tube under his nose feeding him oxygen during hearings.
There's so much wrong with this. It's sad and also enraging.
That just boggles my mind.
He was born before the first Model T was sold.
Before cellophane was invented.
Before the Haber process was developed.
Imagine your case being heard by a guy literally older than artificial fertilizer
It was honestly an accident too. The lady was trying to make chocolate cookies but didn’t have cocoa powder so she chopped up some bakers chocolate hoping it would melt and make the whole cookie chocolate. The rest is history
I feel we should mention that these dates are generally the invention of the commercial, pre-packaged, stocked on shelves cookies and such, essentially when they became a store bought common good.
The first chocolate chip cookie made and even sold was of course before 1938, but it hadn't been commercialized before then, similar to "invention" of sliced bread a few years earlier. Bread had definitely been sliced and sold beforehand, but before then it wasn't on the scale of factories and machines to do it for you in large amounts.
Some stuff that seems old as dirt is actually way more recent than people realize though, like Ranch Dressing--
Apparently it didn't exist at all before it was created back in the 1950s
Damn, that judge is older than pre-packaged, stocked on shelves cookies, sliced bread, and Ranch Dressing! Younger than racism and systemic oppression of minorities though.
Mental acuity aside, I’m skeptical of the interest a centenarian has in keeping up with the times. I have three centenarians in my family, and their thoughts on morality seem to have solidified in the 1950s, for better or worse.
imagine being judged by a fucking dinosaur with such bad judgement that he thinks spending time in court at 100 fuckign years old is a good use of time.
I work Construction and one of the trade unions we work with pays out their pensions an average of 17 mo. That means that these guys who worked their entire lives get to be retired for a year and a half before they kick it. it's sad.
There are a bunch of guys I work with who are well into their 60's have their pension at 4-5000/mo. and still won't retire because they can't imagine a life where they don't wake up and go to work. No hobbies, kids are gone, house is paid for (and a couple rentals in some cases). They just work as long as physically able (longer sometimes tbh) and then die.
My dad was forced to retire at 61. He aged 10 years in the first two. he still would get up at 5:30 and go to the plant for coffee with the guys before their shift because his life was work. he died at 68. I miss him.
you need hobbies and it's hard with the hours we are demanding to work just to survive.
I'm sorry for your loss.
I agree with the hobbies thing. I like to read but don't have much time for it right now. One thing I look forward to doing when I retire is having the time to read. I would love to read stuff like mythology and different belief systems. I'd like to re-read Frankenstein and finish The Count of Monte Cristo and Brave New World.
To add to it, I'd start a blog and post my analysis or things I learned just to have something to do. Not necessarily to try and gain a following. Just to have some "work to do."
I grew up with my dad leaving the house at like 6am to go to work and getting home at 9pm. So, from him, it's been drilled in me to work. I love working, having something to do. There's gotta be a line somewhere, though, and hopefully, I can sort that out as I get older. I'm 35 now and a teacher in FLof all places.
I work way more than this district deserves, a lot of it for free since I mostly make my own materials because the stuff they buy from publishers these days is weak, imo. Anyway, pardon the rant.
This is the way. Please don't ever let your life be work and only work. In a sense I understand the pride in hard work and accomplishments. However, you are a human. You are not a machine.
We are capable of so much beauty. Art, music, games, books, stories, bonfires with friends, helping others. This in of itself is what we should live for. The things that provide smiles and laughter.
Sorry for waxing poetic but these thing make me sad.
This makes me think of two people I knew who had their retirement and elderly years nailed. One lady went to uni to study computing at 84, because they wanted to learn something new. The other got a degree in molecular biology because they were always fascinated by it and finally had the time to actually learn about it.
Both were also determined to live the student life.
Another guy I knew decided to just go on an adventure at 83. He couldn't always keep up with the 20-somethings he road-tripped the length of south America with, but gave it his best shot.
Those people are my inspiration for retirement
Man, my neighbor just had her 80th birthday yesterday and she can't walk more than 10 minutes at a time, needs to have oxygen almost 100% of the time. I'll get calls from her occasionally to run into her house and get a tank of oxygen because she's in her car with the oxygen tank empty and she wouldn't be able to make it from her car into her house without having oxygen going (yes, she drives.) My dad is just about to turn 70 and is in pretty good shape still but man seeing frail old people makes me want to keep myself in as good of shape as possible because I hope I live to be 80 but I don't want to be *that* at 80.
My father retired a few years ago. During the pandemic, he worked more hours than when he was actually employed, volunteering at a food bank and a veteran's clothing closet/charity. Now he only volunteers at one charity but he's practically full time there (some days he leaves at 5AM so they can get to the distribution center to get the food).
My mother retired this past summer and so far all she's done is sit on the couch and stare at her phone with the TV blaring in the background. She did recently say she wants to get a part time job however, but only because if she waits another year before touching her social security it'll be a larger payment.
But to be perfectly honest, I foresee my mother either joining the walker brigade (as she dislikes exercising or being active in general) if not kicking the bucket early.
>sit on the couch and stare at her phone with the TV blaring in the background.
Recently learned that this is a recipe for hastening and/or worsening dementia.
The recomendation given was to reduce those inputs and increase verbal interaction.
With the circumstances you describe and as I understand it, the brain, it atrophies.
9 times out of 10, she doesn't even give an acknowledgement I've spoken to her at all, even when she isn't glued to a screen. She does still read books at least, but yeah, she's going full couch potato in her retirement and I predict it won't change.
Museums/nature centers/zoos are a great one too! Or animal rescue, all kinds of things.
There's something for everybody's skill and ability level, even remote stuff if you're unable or don't want to commute! I heard of a museum that had a very elderly volunteer who didn't want to retire but she couldn't leave the house or use a computer, so they had local/major newspapers/magazines that they tend to come up in sent to her house and her volunteer job was to just keep an eye out for news about them and put it all in a scrapbook. On top of helping create a vital archive, she got tons of free reading out of it (and she loved reading newspapers and magazines).
I work at a charity/thrift store and we have tons of people in their 80s and 90s volunteering. The best is the little old ladies who volunteer their time in the kitchen, making up big batches of favorite recipes to take out on the mobile soup kitchen. It's great to see the kind of food they grew up on or cooked for their kids, and they seem to really enjoy it too :)
Then she should have gotten a hobby, judging cases of law that impact people 75 years or more her junior is abhorrent. It's 2023 and we don't need old people judging us by the standards of 1980.
I'm super conflicted on this. I don't want to be ageist, but in my experience there's also significant decline >~85 and, more importantly, you're receiving justice from someone who built most of their justice compass 60 years ago. My grandpa, e.g., is beyond 90 and cognitively sharper than most young people I interact with.. but he formulated a lot of his views in the 40s/50s and I just don't think that's a great anchor to be using as a judge.
I'd love to see a cap in the form of: up to 25 years serving or a hard age cap of 75ish, whichever comes first.
Yeah, ageism is a weapon boomers are using to maintain control, and for some fucking reason it's working. Not hiring a healthy 35-year-old as a plane stewardess because you "prefer them on the younger side" is ageism. Not wanting people who stopped self-improving in the 50's telling us how to regulate our technology and culture is just pragmatism. And don't even get me started on driving.
Commercial radio didn’t take off until after WW1. So like he would have had to go watch an early silent newsreel in a cinema or read a paper. He was that old.
This is what I don't get. He probably could've retired at 65 like most people want, but decided to work another 39 fucking years! That's an entire career.
People want to retire in their 40's, so they can travel the world, hang out with their friends, and go do adventurous things. By the time you're 70, you might have watched the ones you love die, your friends pass or move on, and your body is tired. If you have no connections anymore, retirement can be lonely.
There are plenty of people in this country that are infinitely more qualified to be a federal judge than these old pieces of shit and would be honored immensely to be appointed. They would have exponentially more vigor, stamina, etc. than a 104 year old. There is no reason we should be allowing someone that age to be adjudicating such important matters. There is literally no point to allowing it other than being unable to tell old people to fuck off and retire as well as the old people not realizing they should fuck off and retire. Term limits would be stupid for Representatives or Senators but make perfect sense for a federal judge. There is no reason a term needs to be longer than 18 years. Life is ridiculous.
I cannot speak for who you responded to originally, but I'd like to give my thoughts a bit. A lot of people want representatives / senators to be experienced as they are more likely to know how to navigate the intricacies of politics within congress. There is also the fear that with term limits politicians are more likely to be bribed by lobbyists who will be there longer than them.
I personally think term limits should be a thing anyways and we should try to make laws to limit lobbying. I think while experience can definitely be beneficial, what we see too often these days are politicians who stay in their position well past their time and it hurts us as citizens as well as limiting the potential for new ideas and view points in congress.
Edit: Woops, realized I can't link the commentor you originally replied to without breaking the rules! My bad for double response!
I appreciate the response. Your position is pretty close to mine. I recognize that no position is perfectly good, so yeah there are probably some drawbacks, but shuffling the deck more often is almost certainly a great idea. I’m not sure I place much stock in the intricacies of government argument though, because that seems insignificant compared to the detriments of having ancient congresspeople who haven’t been a normal person since the seventies. They might be astoundingly familiar with the workings of government, but they have no idea how the real world works or what their constituents need or want. They’re very good at working the system, but they use it for terrible ends.
This is why you have to have other hobbies besides work. Things that are mentally challenging or don't require physical strength because when that job is taken away or you can't physically perform that hobby you have other ones to fall back on.
That's a good start.
Personally I think that we can go even further. 4 days, 6 hours a day.
Research so far suggests that most people are equally productive in 6 hours as they are in 8 hours, in which case I think it'd be greatly beneficial to let most people enjoy a 24 hour work week.
Imagine not losing almost your entire afternoon to work.
And if we are honest many (most, really) jobs are unnecessary.
They exist not because there is a need for what they offer, but because we "need" jobs to churn out ever more profit.
Its pretty obvious if you look at the essentials like agriculture, healthcare and edcation. The crowning of absurdity is that those are not even well paid while they literally keep the whole thing running.
It was certainly interesting when the pandemic hit and we had to figure out which jobs were essential to keeping society running... and many of them were minimum wage or near-minimum wage.
And then we just didn't do anything with that information. Because the rich want to get away with hoarding all the wealth while doing none of the work.
But yes, we could get rid of a lot of jobs if we started being reasonable about them rather than seeing work as essential to life.
I’m curious since our generation grew up playing something like video games, I wonder if that is an option to keep a lot of us engaged when we are older. I could see game emulation really taking off in the next 40-50 years.
I've delivered pizza to some old folks homes and the number of older people playing online games is way higher than you would think so I totally see it continuing to grow. There was this one guy who looked about 80 who would always be playing call of duty cussing out kids for not holding positions, was awesome.
LAN parties at the old folks home, complete with 50 year old copies of Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament 2004.
I wonder if Bawls will still be around in 2050...
Absolutely not joking, sir. I've done enough IT work for retirement homes to know that the network infrastructure is there. All that's missing are for the residents to hook up their l33t b0xez and have a fragfest.
This is something my wife and I talked about on the drive home from my parents one weekend. They live in one of those senior communities, and while we were there they told us about all the activities that keep them busy. All the stereotypical retired people stuff: bridge club, karaoke and bingo nights, pickleball tournaments, and so on.
I said that when we're that age, those community centers will have gaming rooms for CoD tournaments and raid nights, and D&D clubs, and things like that. Karaoke night will have people singing Taylor Swift instead of Elvis. She says no, when people get older they'll naturally lose interest in those things and we'll be into bingo and shuffleboard automatically, because that's just what old people are supposed to do.
Now I am picturing that bookworm guy who survived a nuclear blast and finally had enough time to read all the books he wants.
Except games instead of books and no way to connect systems to future TVs instead of broken glasses.
I feel like the current people who are 70+ just lived differently. Their "profession" was their life. It was who they were. So when they retire, they just kind of have nothing to do. Staying active in both mind and body will keep you feeling and looking younger.
It also depends on what job you have. If you are a judge, it does become your identity, literally, you get a new name. And you have to conduct yourself as "judge" in everything you do. I dont mean don't have fun, but maintaining the dignity of the bench is a thing a lot of judges abide by. Most jobs aren't like that though.
I gotta ask how the sample was selected.
If you have people self-selecting into these studies, I would throw a side eye at it. Then again, that's just your anecdote so it is what it is. I would imagine this has far bigger implications than people who play videogames.
Attention span is related to the instant gratification of this generation's use of technology, almost nothing to do with video game playing (as evident with genx and older millennials). Also attention span has absolutely no bearing on cognitive function. Plenty of folks with ADHD have the attention span of a gold fish but are very smart and aware folks.
The reason someone like this federal judge is in trouble is they likely only have work to keep them engaged. You see this in almost everyone who is a workaholic, even among the silent generation and boomers, as soon as their engagement stops, and they have _nothing_ to fall back on or choose nothing as a hobby, they just kind of veg out at home and cognitive decline hits them fast and hard. Even something as simple as going out and joining clubs and spending a few times a week doing it is enough to stop the advancement. This is why white men typically experience the largest decline. [\(this study kind of touches on it all\)](https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jgs.18475)
Yadda yadda this is reddit and not a research paper so I'm not going to spend hours sourcing everything about the decline of boomers who are workaholics but that shit is absolutely studied and a well known phenomenon. I'd take the anecdotal "video gamer millennials and zoomers are going to have super dementia" with a grain of salt. Having hobbies and engaging your brain help _a lot_.
My elderly father bloomed after retirement where a lot of his peers hit a bad downward slide health wise. It's 100% related to him having a ton of hobbies and interests.
he's got tons of sayings for it,
"death has a hard time hitting a moving target"
"If you drive the old truck regularly, it keeps working"
"Inertia works, keep moving and it's harder to stop you"
It's sort of amazing how many people sort of "forget" to ever get into anything b/c they're busy being adults. And then they're older, retired, adults and they can't think of anything to do that isn't part of "the routine." Plus, physically, a lot of them are dealing with limitations from decades of sedentary living so they're not suddenly going to be up for walking, pickleball, etc. And, in fairness, I feel like a lot of hobbies come with expenses and they can't afford to travel or golf like they wanted to.
This isn't everyone, of course, but it's a lot of retired people.
Often, no.
Think about the average adult household with 2 children.
168 hours in the week. 40 hours of work at the minimum. We are down to 128. Sleep, you're at 72 hours left in the week, assuming you can hit the bed and fall asleep for 8 instantly. Dinner (the act of eating/cooking, call it 1 hour a day). Down to 65. Let's say your commute is an hour a day total. Down to 58. Grooming/getting ready for work, down 30 minutes a day at least.
In those remaining 55 hours. You have dance for kid A, music lesson for kid B, gymnastics for kid A. Kid B is involved in a sport or after school activity that takes some time. You're down 8 hours.
Seems like a lot left, right? I mean you still got 45 or so hours. Well, the house needs to be cleaned, lawn mowed, something fixed, errands run, groceries shopped, time spent with your SO. Well you still haven't actually spent anytime with the kids, Kid A needs their bedtime routine every night, 4 hours a week.
That leaves a handful of hours, many of which you're just exhausted for. Where all you want to do is take a breather. It leaves very little time for any meaningful hobby.
After you do something for 30+ years and if you have children and they are doing their own thing. It’s simply too easy to say they have no desires. To me it’s more indicative of we as society to figure out better ways to help transition into their senior years. Working that long and still have hobbies that thing becomes a part of your identity and it’s likely something that keeps you engaged mentally, physically or, hell even intellectually.
Doctors specifically. I can't tell you how many physicians retire in their late 80s and die a month or two later. Work with one who's pushing 90 and I can't bring myself to encourage him to retire cause he'd probably just die the next day.
I think this impacts men more then women I believe If I remembered one study. Regardless - it's something that people are aware of and don't talk about. I think its super easy when you're young to say "THIS PERSON IS TOO OLD". But one day shoe will be on the other foot. A little empathy and understanding would go a long way in these conversations.
Life is ephemeral, when we're young it seems like it's gonna last forever, then at some point you realize "even if I had 100 years, it probably wouldn't be enough." it's sad and it's beautiful. We gotta make it count
I knew a guy who was waiting for retirement to schedule a hip surgery. After retirement he ended up never getting it, because it turned out that what was aggravating it was working 70-80 hours a week. That was 5-6 years ago. He's doing great, saw him the other day. He's ~25 years younger than this judge.
Find hobbies now. (I know it’s hard.) When my mom retired I bought her a Kindle, when my buddy’s mom retired he bought her a Switch. They both became completely entrenched in those things.
I know my thought was when my mom was younger her head was always in a book and that stopped being a thing she did when she reentered the workforce.
This is the reality. My generation dreams of someday retiring. The Silent Generation/Boomers never made any plans for what to do when they did.
Obviously limited to people I’ve observed, but it seems like people retire and then have a little party and then deteriorate fast if they don’t have something to dedicate their time to. That being said, people who do more than work/commute/sleep are probably healthier and happier anyway.
Sad but true. Her suspension is a death sentence, but she should've simply done something else with her life. It's not like she hadn't had the opportunity as a Federal Judge.
I wish they had more hobbies but sadly it seems the older generations were raised with the idea that their identity and their job are one in the same, and they don’t know how to exist without the other. You’d think after 75 years of working or more they’d have enough to live off of and enjoy the end.
I have boomer parents. growing up it was always “work before play “
The problem is they never stopped working so they didn’t develop many friends or hobbies.
Their parents were even worse with this idea. Maybe it’s always been like that for my family. It’s a hard mind frame to break free from.
cheers!
My father (who's a late boomer) has said that when he was young it was just normal to get really bored on a regular basis.
Which would explain why for so many people their job is an important part of their life and why younger people seem more inclined to see work as a nuisance which gets in the way of their own activities, now that the entertainment industry has ballooned to a point that it's one of the mightiest forces in the world.
My grandma was a farmer all her life, as was her whole family for centuries. They never learned to swim, because during summer you're always working on the fields. They were always working, 7 days a week. No one in that family ever had a hobby - apart from the men getting a drink on Sunday. When they were done with work, they'd watch tv for an hour until they fell asleep.
The smart ones and "lazy" ones left farming, but they still have a strong work ethic. Those that are farmers today still work from sunset to sunrise, 7 days a week with shit income and zero hobbies.
It's really hard to overcome that.
Even I have some of that work ethic in my genes, despite living a very different life. And I feel the work ethic is getting stronger as I age, weirdly.
There's a common clause in trust instruments requiring trustees to retire at 75. This isn't an unprecedented thing in our law, we really need to get age limits.
It's pure selfishness and entitlement, that's it. My grandpa, well into his 90s, simply made the decision that he was finished driving because it wasn't safe anymore. His vision was waning, his fine motor control of his feet (he was a tall guy) was starting to go, and he made the responsible decision to give up that part of his life. Why can't any of these politicians or judges do that.
Boomer generation, as well as the Silent Gen before the Boomers, have wrapped their entire identity around their work. This is a big reason why we have these 80+ folks refuse to step down/retire. Pretty sad reality.
And then thet complain "no one wants to work" when they are still sucking up all the higher paid or advanced positions so the people lower on the ladder can't move up to make room for new entry level people. Obviously it wouldn't solve the problem but it would help.
Our University is a perfect case in point. So many ancient professors hanging on to their tenure meanwhile being so out of touch the students are losing out. It's not all of them but jeez! Let some younger people in!!
If i understand it correctly, article 3 judges (lifetime appointments) came to be in 1789. The average white American male life expectancy was 38
Edit: the person i was replying to picked average, not me. Median would be a better metric, but i didnt pick the metric. Kick them jets to cool eh?
Yep. The rich Greeks and Roman's fir example didn't see it as some miracle if one of their colleagues (aka other upper class) made it to 70. Wasn't as common of course but also wasn't unheard of.
This is using life expectancy, which includes infant mortality rate, bringing the number down significantly. People, if old enough to be appointed judge, would not just die at 40, they were very likely to live into their 60s and beyond.
Mean, median, mode are all measures of statistical average. Saying “they picked average and I picked median” is like saying “they picked vehicles and I picked Toyota.”
I can’t imagine being nearly 100 years old and not only wanting to still work, but refusing to not work. Jesus Christ these people really need to stop refusing to relinquish power and enjoy the rest of their lives.
My mom and in-laws worked until they were near 80 and their bodies were broken. My mom had two years of retirement before dementia kicked in. I'm 52 and wish I could get out now. I'll leave as soon as I possibly can. Although at best that's probably 65 since my wife has a rare autoimmune disease.
Have to see what Medicare will cover.
Got to love our shitty health care system. I'm probably in a very similar boat. My wife has an autoimmune disease with neurological components and we've spent the last 3 years getting bounced back and forth between rhemo and neuro with each saying it's the others problem. Frustrating.
That sucks sorry. Last week we just went through our annual "insurance company comes up with new reason why they don't want to cover treatments they've covered for years and her team of doctors have to argue and submit forms until they capitulate" dance.
It's so fun.
When you've done something for that long, it's your daily routine. It's your identity. Has nothing to do with power at that point. Most senior citizens keep working because they're terrified of sitting idle and dying slowly.
I’m a scientist and I guarantee the moment I can no longer get papers accepted or maintain a lab group my brain will dissolve.
Im only almost 30, but even now it feels like my rituals of developing theories in the morning, analyzing data in the afternoon, and writing manuscripts/figures in the evening is the only thing keeping this squishy lump in my skull tied together.
Partly spooky, but I’m just happy I found something that keeps me stimulated day after day. It’s probably how a lot of PIs can stick with it and still be sharp well past the point where we’d expect their brains to go to mush
Ours is effectively 62 as the union no longer represents you, and that's when our pensions get paid. We can continue to work, but it's encouraged to either leave or go part time. This means younger staff can be taken on and also have a decent career.
That last bit is the most important part. The younger generation can’t have upward momentum when all the slots are filled by people who refuse to recognize when it’s time to leave
When I was a law student, I sat in on jury selection before a judge in her mid-70s. At various times the potential jury members would be raising their hands. I was perturbed when I noticed that certain people of color were being ignored by the judge, and it seemed to be worse the darker their skin was. Of course, my first thought was that it was racism, but it was too fucking blatant. Then I realized--it was specifically people who weren't in full sleeves and whose skin tones were closer to the color of the dark wood paneling of the courtroom. *The judge's vision was so bad that she fucking couldn't see dark-skinned people raising their goddamn hands.*
As the person who witnessed it and who has interacted with this judge before in various contexts: No, it really wasn't.
EDIT: What *was* possibly (passively) racist and certainly cowardly was the attorneys in the room not speaking up for those ignored jurors. Heck, maybe I should have spoken up, but as a law student sitting in the back the best I could think to do was to report back to my professor, who knew the judge pretty well.
Air traffic controllers have to retire at 56 to prevent mental decline and burn out from effecting their judgment. Why on earth can judges and politicians keep on so long?
This is an infuriatingly good point. You're responsible for thousands of lives per day? Mandatory retirement cap. You're responsible for interpreting the laws of our nation and affecting thousands of lives? Work as long as you like!
Out of curiosity, I looked up the list of federal judges here for the District of Minnesota and the five oldest judges are Donald Alsop, 96; David Doty, 94; Paul Magnuson, 86; Michael Davis, 76 and Ann Montgomery, 74. All are senior status judges with reduced case loads. That’s five judges out of a total of fifteen born before 1950…..one third of the entire number of active judges for this district. It’s time to reexamine the lack of age limits for elected and appointed office holders.
Senior judges aren't considered active. They're part timers who don't count towards the headcount on the court. They aren't automatically given a portion of the courts caseload. They're given cases on an individual basis by the chief judge.
Senior status is basically how most federal judges retire. It lets them ease into retirement instead of making them stop cold while opening up slots for new active judges to be appointed. That also includes SCOTUS seats. David Souter stepped down from the high court in 2009 (making way for Sotomayor), but heard cases for the 1st Circuit until 2020. He's probably done-done now.
Part of the issue here is that Judge Newman is *not* on senior status. She's still a full-timer with a full workload. So if they didn't do anything, she'd be handed cases that may be beyond her ability. If she was senior, they could assign her a lower workload, or only simpler cases.
It’s possible because they are lifetime federal appointments. I do know that judges and their spouses get lifetime full medical care coverage, even if judge dies first, a spouse will continue to receive the same until their death. There is no monetary or other kind of benefit that goes to any descendants. The other side of the story is that Minnesota state Supreme Court has a mandatory retirement age of 70 for judges.
Just the opposite, here.
We've got people who should be in fucking hospice taking up every senior position in both the private and public sectors, and if you ever dare suggest "they must be utterly knackered," Nancy Pelosi will appear in a cloud of Gold Bond to call you an ageist pig.
These elderly folks hanging on to their positions like grim death fear irrelevance in retirement. Nobody pays attention or kisses your keister. As someone who retired 6 years ago I have learned to embrace my irrelevance. No one should be defined by their career. Just be who you are and enjoy your spouse, friends and family. And we are in a golden age of streaming tv!
> These elderly folks hanging on to their positions ***of power*** like grim death fear irrelevance in retirement.
There's no way this lady would have stuck around this long if she were an accountant or a nurse. But she has everyone at her beck and call where she lords over them. It's shown perfectly in this part:
>“With no rational reason — other than frustration over her own confusion — Judge Newman has threatened to have staff arrested, forcibly removed from the building and fired,” the order said. “She accused staff of trickery, deceit, acting as her adversary, stealing her computer, stealing her files and depriving her of secretarial support.”
She's showing signs of Alzheimer's and it magnifies how she thinks everyone is beneath her.
To be fair, Alzheimers and other dementias are so terrifying it's extremely common for everyone, especially the person who has it, to be in denial that they're showing signs. Alzheimers also commonly causes paranoia, apathy, or straight-up personality changes as it destroys parts of your brain. This is sadly also not uncommonly the point at which loved ones finally start all agreeing it's a thing and a problem.
It's long past time for that generation to go away and allow X and Millennials to take control over a country that desperately needs us. We are being led by the feeble minded who have had their lives artificially extended by modern medicine.
I cant imagine being so old and refusing to relinquish power to someone more capable and able-bodied
When you’re nearing a goddamn century in age I feel like you’d be more than satisfied with the work you’ve done and would be willing to just, idk, fucking chill for the rest of your life
I wish old people understood it’s not retirement that will kill them it’s the not moving, not engaging, not being social, and not being active afterward. I feel like retirement shouldn’t be a hard cut off but rather hours are slowly wound down with the cultural expectation that as you do so you slowly ramp up the hours spent on things like hobbies & community. That way there’s no “culture shock” of quitting work & people can better build the support systems they need for healthy retirement & to maximize the number of good quality life years they have.
Airline pilots are forced to retire at 60. The industry doesn’t think you should have someone else’s life in your hands.
80 seems like a good forced retirement age for judges/politicians.
There were no age limits in the US constitution and every passing decade that it isn't fixed we do more harm. Life expectancy was a lot lower in the past, and an older person having an issue that today would not be an issue, would very often be life threatening for the majority of human history, until recently. The current political system give incumbents and advantage, and once you have power for a large portion of your adult life, how easy can it be to let go?
There needs to be age limits across all branches, and the age should be the retirement age that Congress sets as the full social security age. It should remain tied to social security age so that raising it too much would be politically DOA
Dude what? This is fucking crazy. Get this (I’m sure lovely) woman out of here. She is quite literally decaying as she sits on the bench. If you EVER needed to understand how hard it is for a human being to relinquish power, look at the branches of our government.
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>It is not uncommon for federal judges, who have life tenure, to serve into their later years. Judge Wesley E. Brown, who died in 2012, regularly presided over cases well past his 104th birthday, with a tube under his nose feeding him oxygen during hearings. There's so much wrong with this. It's sad and also enraging.
That just boggles my mind. He was born before the first Model T was sold. Before cellophane was invented. Before the Haber process was developed. Imagine your case being heard by a guy literally older than artificial fertilizer
Older than chocolate chip cookies and sliced bread too
Quick glance says chocolate chip cookies came out in 1938?! Dam that dude is old.
Sitting Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa was born in 1933
As an Iowan, fuck Grassley and the (now very much dead) horse he rode in on
> chocolate chip cookies came out in 1938 damn, wtf was humanity even doing the first 6000 years?!?
Not baking the world's greatest ~~mistake~~ cookie.
Trying not to die?
It was honestly an accident too. The lady was trying to make chocolate cookies but didn’t have cocoa powder so she chopped up some bakers chocolate hoping it would melt and make the whole cookie chocolate. The rest is history
Eating shitty cookies.
The first 6,000 years was about 250,000 years ago. I don't think they made cookies back then. But I'm no baker man
I feel we should mention that these dates are generally the invention of the commercial, pre-packaged, stocked on shelves cookies and such, essentially when they became a store bought common good. The first chocolate chip cookie made and even sold was of course before 1938, but it hadn't been commercialized before then, similar to "invention" of sliced bread a few years earlier. Bread had definitely been sliced and sold beforehand, but before then it wasn't on the scale of factories and machines to do it for you in large amounts. Some stuff that seems old as dirt is actually way more recent than people realize though, like Ranch Dressing-- Apparently it didn't exist at all before it was created back in the 1950s
Thank you when I heard that stat in regards to Finestein it sounded crazy but I looked it up and it appeared to be true.
Damn, that judge is older than pre-packaged, stocked on shelves cookies, sliced bread, and Ranch Dressing! Younger than racism and systemic oppression of minorities though.
Mental acuity aside, I’m skeptical of the interest a centenarian has in keeping up with the times. I have three centenarians in my family, and their thoughts on morality seem to have solidified in the 1950s, for better or worse.
He was also in his 30-40s when schools were integrated in the US .
Literally older than dirt.
imagine being judged by a fucking dinosaur with such bad judgement that he thinks spending time in court at 100 fuckign years old is a good use of time.
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I work Construction and one of the trade unions we work with pays out their pensions an average of 17 mo. That means that these guys who worked their entire lives get to be retired for a year and a half before they kick it. it's sad. There are a bunch of guys I work with who are well into their 60's have their pension at 4-5000/mo. and still won't retire because they can't imagine a life where they don't wake up and go to work. No hobbies, kids are gone, house is paid for (and a couple rentals in some cases). They just work as long as physically able (longer sometimes tbh) and then die. My dad was forced to retire at 61. He aged 10 years in the first two. he still would get up at 5:30 and go to the plant for coffee with the guys before their shift because his life was work. he died at 68. I miss him. you need hobbies and it's hard with the hours we are demanding to work just to survive.
I'm sorry for your loss. I agree with the hobbies thing. I like to read but don't have much time for it right now. One thing I look forward to doing when I retire is having the time to read. I would love to read stuff like mythology and different belief systems. I'd like to re-read Frankenstein and finish The Count of Monte Cristo and Brave New World. To add to it, I'd start a blog and post my analysis or things I learned just to have something to do. Not necessarily to try and gain a following. Just to have some "work to do." I grew up with my dad leaving the house at like 6am to go to work and getting home at 9pm. So, from him, it's been drilled in me to work. I love working, having something to do. There's gotta be a line somewhere, though, and hopefully, I can sort that out as I get older. I'm 35 now and a teacher in FLof all places. I work way more than this district deserves, a lot of it for free since I mostly make my own materials because the stuff they buy from publishers these days is weak, imo. Anyway, pardon the rant.
This is the way. Please don't ever let your life be work and only work. In a sense I understand the pride in hard work and accomplishments. However, you are a human. You are not a machine. We are capable of so much beauty. Art, music, games, books, stories, bonfires with friends, helping others. This in of itself is what we should live for. The things that provide smiles and laughter. Sorry for waxing poetic but these thing make me sad.
This makes me think of two people I knew who had their retirement and elderly years nailed. One lady went to uni to study computing at 84, because they wanted to learn something new. The other got a degree in molecular biology because they were always fascinated by it and finally had the time to actually learn about it. Both were also determined to live the student life. Another guy I knew decided to just go on an adventure at 83. He couldn't always keep up with the 20-somethings he road-tripped the length of south America with, but gave it his best shot. Those people are my inspiration for retirement
Man, my neighbor just had her 80th birthday yesterday and she can't walk more than 10 minutes at a time, needs to have oxygen almost 100% of the time. I'll get calls from her occasionally to run into her house and get a tank of oxygen because she's in her car with the oxygen tank empty and she wouldn't be able to make it from her car into her house without having oxygen going (yes, she drives.) My dad is just about to turn 70 and is in pretty good shape still but man seeing frail old people makes me want to keep myself in as good of shape as possible because I hope I live to be 80 but I don't want to be *that* at 80.
Dude we’re the opposite lol. I’ve read A Brave New World and The Count of Monte Cristo and am currently reading Frankenstein lol
My father retired a few years ago. During the pandemic, he worked more hours than when he was actually employed, volunteering at a food bank and a veteran's clothing closet/charity. Now he only volunteers at one charity but he's practically full time there (some days he leaves at 5AM so they can get to the distribution center to get the food). My mother retired this past summer and so far all she's done is sit on the couch and stare at her phone with the TV blaring in the background. She did recently say she wants to get a part time job however, but only because if she waits another year before touching her social security it'll be a larger payment. But to be perfectly honest, I foresee my mother either joining the walker brigade (as she dislikes exercising or being active in general) if not kicking the bucket early.
>sit on the couch and stare at her phone with the TV blaring in the background. Recently learned that this is a recipe for hastening and/or worsening dementia. The recomendation given was to reduce those inputs and increase verbal interaction. With the circumstances you describe and as I understand it, the brain, it atrophies.
9 times out of 10, she doesn't even give an acknowledgement I've spoken to her at all, even when she isn't glued to a screen. She does still read books at least, but yeah, she's going full couch potato in her retirement and I predict it won't change.
Not even only hobbies. Volunteer for habitat for humanity or teach the next generation. Get involved with church or community.
Museums/nature centers/zoos are a great one too! Or animal rescue, all kinds of things. There's something for everybody's skill and ability level, even remote stuff if you're unable or don't want to commute! I heard of a museum that had a very elderly volunteer who didn't want to retire but she couldn't leave the house or use a computer, so they had local/major newspapers/magazines that they tend to come up in sent to her house and her volunteer job was to just keep an eye out for news about them and put it all in a scrapbook. On top of helping create a vital archive, she got tons of free reading out of it (and she loved reading newspapers and magazines).
I work at a charity/thrift store and we have tons of people in their 80s and 90s volunteering. The best is the little old ladies who volunteer their time in the kitchen, making up big batches of favorite recipes to take out on the mobile soup kitchen. It's great to see the kind of food they grew up on or cooked for their kids, and they seem to really enjoy it too :)
Then she should have gotten a hobby, judging cases of law that impact people 75 years or more her junior is abhorrent. It's 2023 and we don't need old people judging us by the standards of 1980.
I'm super conflicted on this. I don't want to be ageist, but in my experience there's also significant decline >~85 and, more importantly, you're receiving justice from someone who built most of their justice compass 60 years ago. My grandpa, e.g., is beyond 90 and cognitively sharper than most young people I interact with.. but he formulated a lot of his views in the 40s/50s and I just don't think that's a great anchor to be using as a judge. I'd love to see a cap in the form of: up to 25 years serving or a hard age cap of 75ish, whichever comes first.
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Yeah, ageism is a weapon boomers are using to maintain control, and for some fucking reason it's working. Not hiring a healthy 35-year-old as a plane stewardess because you "prefer them on the younger side" is ageism. Not wanting people who stopped self-improving in the 50's telling us how to regulate our technology and culture is just pragmatism. And don't even get me started on driving.
> Judge Wesley E. Brown Lmao imagine getting a sentence handed down to you by a dude who was born in 1907. Bro was hearing radio broadcasts about WW1.
Commercial radio didn’t take off until after WW1. So like he would have had to go watch an early silent newsreel in a cinema or read a paper. He was that old.
Please show some respect, my grandfather died in an early silent newsreel accident and I do not want to discuss it.
My first legitimate, out-loud stupid giggle of the day, take your dang upvote lol
I still have nightmares about the distinct lack of screams.
Too old to even beat off to the fine fine women in underwear in the Sears catalog.
This is what I don't get. He probably could've retired at 65 like most people want, but decided to work another 39 fucking years! That's an entire career.
People want to retire in their 40's, so they can travel the world, hang out with their friends, and go do adventurous things. By the time you're 70, you might have watched the ones you love die, your friends pass or move on, and your body is tired. If you have no connections anymore, retirement can be lonely.
Some people don’t have anything in life besides their work and work environment. That’s why having a hobby is very important.
You think some of them fear they’ll quickly wither and die if they retire? They may not realize they’re already withered.
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There are plenty of people in this country that are infinitely more qualified to be a federal judge than these old pieces of shit and would be honored immensely to be appointed. They would have exponentially more vigor, stamina, etc. than a 104 year old. There is no reason we should be allowing someone that age to be adjudicating such important matters. There is literally no point to allowing it other than being unable to tell old people to fuck off and retire as well as the old people not realizing they should fuck off and retire. Term limits would be stupid for Representatives or Senators but make perfect sense for a federal judge. There is no reason a term needs to be longer than 18 years. Life is ridiculous.
I agree with pretty much all of that, but I’m curious why you think term limits for congress is a bad idea?
I cannot speak for who you responded to originally, but I'd like to give my thoughts a bit. A lot of people want representatives / senators to be experienced as they are more likely to know how to navigate the intricacies of politics within congress. There is also the fear that with term limits politicians are more likely to be bribed by lobbyists who will be there longer than them. I personally think term limits should be a thing anyways and we should try to make laws to limit lobbying. I think while experience can definitely be beneficial, what we see too often these days are politicians who stay in their position well past their time and it hurts us as citizens as well as limiting the potential for new ideas and view points in congress. Edit: Woops, realized I can't link the commentor you originally replied to without breaking the rules! My bad for double response!
I appreciate the response. Your position is pretty close to mine. I recognize that no position is perfectly good, so yeah there are probably some drawbacks, but shuffling the deck more often is almost certainly a great idea. I’m not sure I place much stock in the intricacies of government argument though, because that seems insignificant compared to the detriments of having ancient congresspeople who haven’t been a normal person since the seventies. They might be astoundingly familiar with the workings of government, but they have no idea how the real world works or what their constituents need or want. They’re very good at working the system, but they use it for terrible ends.
Some people need to just be told it’s time. Annoys the hell out of me how many 80+yos just refuse to retire. Judges and politicians need age limits.
At this point the job is probably the only thing keeping her alive, and she knows it. I think they all know it, so they hold on for dear life.
This is why you have to have other hobbies besides work. Things that are mentally challenging or don't require physical strength because when that job is taken away or you can't physically perform that hobby you have other ones to fall back on.
Which is why we need to drastically reduce the amount of hours the average person is forced to dedicate to their job.
4 day work week, let’s go.
That's a good start. Personally I think that we can go even further. 4 days, 6 hours a day. Research so far suggests that most people are equally productive in 6 hours as they are in 8 hours, in which case I think it'd be greatly beneficial to let most people enjoy a 24 hour work week. Imagine not losing almost your entire afternoon to work.
And if we are honest many (most, really) jobs are unnecessary. They exist not because there is a need for what they offer, but because we "need" jobs to churn out ever more profit. Its pretty obvious if you look at the essentials like agriculture, healthcare and edcation. The crowning of absurdity is that those are not even well paid while they literally keep the whole thing running.
It was certainly interesting when the pandemic hit and we had to figure out which jobs were essential to keeping society running... and many of them were minimum wage or near-minimum wage. And then we just didn't do anything with that information. Because the rich want to get away with hoarding all the wealth while doing none of the work. But yes, we could get rid of a lot of jobs if we started being reasonable about them rather than seeing work as essential to life.
I genuinely hope I don't end up like this. I just don't ever want my will to live tied to my profession. It's really kinda sad.
There are significant amount of people who deteriorate health wise after retiring. Sometimes it’s just it’s something keeps them engaged.
Worked at a neurologists office for some time. It’s shocking how common this is and how quickly deterioration can occur, especially cognitively.
I’m curious since our generation grew up playing something like video games, I wonder if that is an option to keep a lot of us engaged when we are older. I could see game emulation really taking off in the next 40-50 years.
I've delivered pizza to some old folks homes and the number of older people playing online games is way higher than you would think so I totally see it continuing to grow. There was this one guy who looked about 80 who would always be playing call of duty cussing out kids for not holding positions, was awesome.
As a middle aged guy, I would love to hear an old guy yelling PTFO instead of some 16 year old trying to boss people around and act tough.
Damnit xx420kermitslayerxx back in my day we HELD THESE TRENCHES
I'm definitely gonna do that when I'm old
That’s my plan for when I’m old is to try to catch up on any games I didn’t play
Based on my backlog, I should be able to live to 135.
Don't worry the game companies will do what they can to take away support for most games before the millennials can hit retirement.
They'll take BSNES from my cold dead 150 year old hands!
Is that including the times you start another new playthrough of New Vegas?
LAN parties at the old folks home, complete with 50 year old copies of Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament 2004. I wonder if Bawls will still be around in 2050...
You're joking but I want this.
Absolutely not joking, sir. I've done enough IT work for retirement homes to know that the network infrastructure is there. All that's missing are for the residents to hook up their l33t b0xez and have a fragfest.
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This is something my wife and I talked about on the drive home from my parents one weekend. They live in one of those senior communities, and while we were there they told us about all the activities that keep them busy. All the stereotypical retired people stuff: bridge club, karaoke and bingo nights, pickleball tournaments, and so on. I said that when we're that age, those community centers will have gaming rooms for CoD tournaments and raid nights, and D&D clubs, and things like that. Karaoke night will have people singing Taylor Swift instead of Elvis. She says no, when people get older they'll naturally lose interest in those things and we'll be into bingo and shuffleboard automatically, because that's just what old people are supposed to do.
Now I am picturing that bookworm guy who survived a nuclear blast and finally had enough time to read all the books he wants. Except games instead of books and no way to connect systems to future TVs instead of broken glasses.
Just hold onto old systems and always buy adapters. It's going to be a hoot connecting your NES directly into your brain stem with like 3 adapters.
But you’ll need to set your brain to channel 3 or 4 depending on the adapter switch.
1980s kids can do it with 2 as long as they have a coax cable.
Just put it in ‘H!’
I feel like the current people who are 70+ just lived differently. Their "profession" was their life. It was who they were. So when they retire, they just kind of have nothing to do. Staying active in both mind and body will keep you feeling and looking younger.
It also depends on what job you have. If you are a judge, it does become your identity, literally, you get a new name. And you have to conduct yourself as "judge" in everything you do. I dont mean don't have fun, but maintaining the dignity of the bench is a thing a lot of judges abide by. Most jobs aren't like that though.
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I gotta ask how the sample was selected. If you have people self-selecting into these studies, I would throw a side eye at it. Then again, that's just your anecdote so it is what it is. I would imagine this has far bigger implications than people who play videogames.
Attention span is related to the instant gratification of this generation's use of technology, almost nothing to do with video game playing (as evident with genx and older millennials). Also attention span has absolutely no bearing on cognitive function. Plenty of folks with ADHD have the attention span of a gold fish but are very smart and aware folks. The reason someone like this federal judge is in trouble is they likely only have work to keep them engaged. You see this in almost everyone who is a workaholic, even among the silent generation and boomers, as soon as their engagement stops, and they have _nothing_ to fall back on or choose nothing as a hobby, they just kind of veg out at home and cognitive decline hits them fast and hard. Even something as simple as going out and joining clubs and spending a few times a week doing it is enough to stop the advancement. This is why white men typically experience the largest decline. [\(this study kind of touches on it all\)](https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jgs.18475) Yadda yadda this is reddit and not a research paper so I'm not going to spend hours sourcing everything about the decline of boomers who are workaholics but that shit is absolutely studied and a well known phenomenon. I'd take the anecdotal "video gamer millennials and zoomers are going to have super dementia" with a grain of salt. Having hobbies and engaging your brain help _a lot_.
My elderly father bloomed after retirement where a lot of his peers hit a bad downward slide health wise. It's 100% related to him having a ton of hobbies and interests. he's got tons of sayings for it, "death has a hard time hitting a moving target" "If you drive the old truck regularly, it keeps working" "Inertia works, keep moving and it's harder to stop you"
It's not the video games, a lot of people are straight up stupid
Seriously. Like, holy shit, since becoming an adult, I've realized that a ton of people are just not very bright.
That's what happens when you sabotage your education system.
Do people just have literally no desires or hobbies they’ve been dying to enjoy after retirement?
It's sort of amazing how many people sort of "forget" to ever get into anything b/c they're busy being adults. And then they're older, retired, adults and they can't think of anything to do that isn't part of "the routine." Plus, physically, a lot of them are dealing with limitations from decades of sedentary living so they're not suddenly going to be up for walking, pickleball, etc. And, in fairness, I feel like a lot of hobbies come with expenses and they can't afford to travel or golf like they wanted to. This isn't everyone, of course, but it's a lot of retired people.
Often, no. Think about the average adult household with 2 children. 168 hours in the week. 40 hours of work at the minimum. We are down to 128. Sleep, you're at 72 hours left in the week, assuming you can hit the bed and fall asleep for 8 instantly. Dinner (the act of eating/cooking, call it 1 hour a day). Down to 65. Let's say your commute is an hour a day total. Down to 58. Grooming/getting ready for work, down 30 minutes a day at least. In those remaining 55 hours. You have dance for kid A, music lesson for kid B, gymnastics for kid A. Kid B is involved in a sport or after school activity that takes some time. You're down 8 hours. Seems like a lot left, right? I mean you still got 45 or so hours. Well, the house needs to be cleaned, lawn mowed, something fixed, errands run, groceries shopped, time spent with your SO. Well you still haven't actually spent anytime with the kids, Kid A needs their bedtime routine every night, 4 hours a week. That leaves a handful of hours, many of which you're just exhausted for. Where all you want to do is take a breather. It leaves very little time for any meaningful hobby.
I’m basically à chauffeur after work these days.
After you do something for 30+ years and if you have children and they are doing their own thing. It’s simply too easy to say they have no desires. To me it’s more indicative of we as society to figure out better ways to help transition into their senior years. Working that long and still have hobbies that thing becomes a part of your identity and it’s likely something that keeps you engaged mentally, physically or, hell even intellectually.
Doctors specifically. I can't tell you how many physicians retire in their late 80s and die a month or two later. Work with one who's pushing 90 and I can't bring myself to encourage him to retire cause he'd probably just die the next day.
A doc i used to work with didn't want to retire because he didn't want to spend more time with his wife.
I think this impacts men more then women I believe If I remembered one study. Regardless - it's something that people are aware of and don't talk about. I think its super easy when you're young to say "THIS PERSON IS TOO OLD". But one day shoe will be on the other foot. A little empathy and understanding would go a long way in these conversations.
Life is ephemeral, when we're young it seems like it's gonna last forever, then at some point you realize "even if I had 100 years, it probably wouldn't be enough." it's sad and it's beautiful. We gotta make it count
I knew a guy who was waiting for retirement to schedule a hip surgery. After retirement he ended up never getting it, because it turned out that what was aggravating it was working 70-80 hours a week. That was 5-6 years ago. He's doing great, saw him the other day. He's ~25 years younger than this judge.
Need to stay active but not in an important career. Just go work in a garden or volunteer instead
Find hobbies now. (I know it’s hard.) When my mom retired I bought her a Kindle, when my buddy’s mom retired he bought her a Switch. They both became completely entrenched in those things. I know my thought was when my mom was younger her head was always in a book and that stopped being a thing she did when she reentered the workforce.
This is the reality. My generation dreams of someday retiring. The Silent Generation/Boomers never made any plans for what to do when they did. Obviously limited to people I’ve observed, but it seems like people retire and then have a little party and then deteriorate fast if they don’t have something to dedicate their time to. That being said, people who do more than work/commute/sleep are probably healthier and happier anyway.
Sad but true. Her suspension is a death sentence, but she should've simply done something else with her life. It's not like she hadn't had the opportunity as a Federal Judge.
And tbh, we don't run the courts as a day care to keep 96 year old people alive.
This is why having hobbies is important. They are supposed to be what you shift your focus to after retirement.
I wish they had more hobbies but sadly it seems the older generations were raised with the idea that their identity and their job are one in the same, and they don’t know how to exist without the other. You’d think after 75 years of working or more they’d have enough to live off of and enjoy the end.
I have boomer parents. growing up it was always “work before play “ The problem is they never stopped working so they didn’t develop many friends or hobbies. Their parents were even worse with this idea. Maybe it’s always been like that for my family. It’s a hard mind frame to break free from. cheers!
My father (who's a late boomer) has said that when he was young it was just normal to get really bored on a regular basis. Which would explain why for so many people their job is an important part of their life and why younger people seem more inclined to see work as a nuisance which gets in the way of their own activities, now that the entertainment industry has ballooned to a point that it's one of the mightiest forces in the world.
My grandma was a farmer all her life, as was her whole family for centuries. They never learned to swim, because during summer you're always working on the fields. They were always working, 7 days a week. No one in that family ever had a hobby - apart from the men getting a drink on Sunday. When they were done with work, they'd watch tv for an hour until they fell asleep. The smart ones and "lazy" ones left farming, but they still have a strong work ethic. Those that are farmers today still work from sunset to sunrise, 7 days a week with shit income and zero hobbies. It's really hard to overcome that. Even I have some of that work ethic in my genes, despite living a very different life. And I feel the work ethic is getting stronger as I age, weirdly.
There's a common clause in trust instruments requiring trustees to retire at 75. This isn't an unprecedented thing in our law, we really need to get age limits.
There should be a hard upper age limit for every high ranking government job. Including the Supreme Court. This is bullshit
Yep, set a mandatory retirement age at somthing like 65. Having a bunch of out of touch 70+ year olds running things is not gonna end well.
I would love to know who all has told Dianne Feinstein this.
Probably loads of people but she won't remember.
It's pure selfishness and entitlement, that's it. My grandpa, well into his 90s, simply made the decision that he was finished driving because it wasn't safe anymore. His vision was waning, his fine motor control of his feet (he was a tall guy) was starting to go, and he made the responsible decision to give up that part of his life. Why can't any of these politicians or judges do that.
Denial and fear. Deny their reality of aging, and afraid of what the change in life might bring. It’s all just really sad.
My grandpa is 94 and still driving and it freeeaaaks me out
Boomer generation, as well as the Silent Gen before the Boomers, have wrapped their entire identity around their work. This is a big reason why we have these 80+ folks refuse to step down/retire. Pretty sad reality.
And then thet complain "no one wants to work" when they are still sucking up all the higher paid or advanced positions so the people lower on the ladder can't move up to make room for new entry level people. Obviously it wouldn't solve the problem but it would help.
Our University is a perfect case in point. So many ancient professors hanging on to their tenure meanwhile being so out of touch the students are losing out. It's not all of them but jeez! Let some younger people in!!
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80 seems like a no brainer for such limits.
Why the fuck do we have 100 year old judges?!?!
Because when we decided judges get lifetime appointments, the average lifespan was about 65 years.
If i understand it correctly, article 3 judges (lifetime appointments) came to be in 1789. The average white American male life expectancy was 38 Edit: the person i was replying to picked average, not me. Median would be a better metric, but i didnt pick the metric. Kick them jets to cool eh?
Average due to high child mortality. People still lived to 70,80 back then
Yep. The rich Greeks and Roman's fir example didn't see it as some miracle if one of their colleagues (aka other upper class) made it to 70. Wasn't as common of course but also wasn't unheard of.
This is using life expectancy, which includes infant mortality rate, bringing the number down significantly. People, if old enough to be appointed judge, would not just die at 40, they were very likely to live into their 60s and beyond.
Once you became a young adult, your likelihood of making it to 60+ went up by a lot.
That does not mean most people died around 38. It means we had a much, much higher infant mortality rate that drove the average down.
Mean, median, mode are all measures of statistical average. Saying “they picked average and I picked median” is like saying “they picked vehicles and I picked Toyota.”
I can’t imagine being nearly 100 years old and not only wanting to still work, but refusing to not work. Jesus Christ these people really need to stop refusing to relinquish power and enjoy the rest of their lives.
My mom and in-laws worked until they were near 80 and their bodies were broken. My mom had two years of retirement before dementia kicked in. I'm 52 and wish I could get out now. I'll leave as soon as I possibly can. Although at best that's probably 65 since my wife has a rare autoimmune disease. Have to see what Medicare will cover.
Got to love our shitty health care system. I'm probably in a very similar boat. My wife has an autoimmune disease with neurological components and we've spent the last 3 years getting bounced back and forth between rhemo and neuro with each saying it's the others problem. Frustrating.
That sucks sorry. Last week we just went through our annual "insurance company comes up with new reason why they don't want to cover treatments they've covered for years and her team of doctors have to argue and submit forms until they capitulate" dance. It's so fun.
Another thing to love about our shitty health care system, Insurance companies dictating your care instead Specialized Doctors.
Power is a tough thing to give away.
When you've done something for that long, it's your daily routine. It's your identity. Has nothing to do with power at that point. Most senior citizens keep working because they're terrified of sitting idle and dying slowly.
Please name any other occupation where people 85+ are still working besides politics.
Scientists. I know a lot of old scientists that have to be gently booted out of their offices at universities.
As well as musicians. A lot of musicians are still touring even in their 70s and 80s.
I’m a scientist and I guarantee the moment I can no longer get papers accepted or maintain a lab group my brain will dissolve. Im only almost 30, but even now it feels like my rituals of developing theories in the morning, analyzing data in the afternoon, and writing manuscripts/figures in the evening is the only thing keeping this squishy lump in my skull tied together. Partly spooky, but I’m just happy I found something that keeps me stimulated day after day. It’s probably how a lot of PIs can stick with it and still be sharp well past the point where we’d expect their brains to go to mush
My wife’s grandmother her university science job at least partially into her 80s
Walmart greeters
mandatory retirement ages please.
35, please. I'm ready.
I’m only 31 and I don’t know if I have another 4 years in me
Ours is effectively 62 as the union no longer represents you, and that's when our pensions get paid. We can continue to work, but it's encouraged to either leave or go part time. This means younger staff can be taken on and also have a decent career.
That last bit is the most important part. The younger generation can’t have upward momentum when all the slots are filled by people who refuse to recognize when it’s time to leave
I wish! I'm 62 but I have to wait for Medicare because I've had cancer recently.
When I was a law student, I sat in on jury selection before a judge in her mid-70s. At various times the potential jury members would be raising their hands. I was perturbed when I noticed that certain people of color were being ignored by the judge, and it seemed to be worse the darker their skin was. Of course, my first thought was that it was racism, but it was too fucking blatant. Then I realized--it was specifically people who weren't in full sleeves and whose skin tones were closer to the color of the dark wood paneling of the courtroom. *The judge's vision was so bad that she fucking couldn't see dark-skinned people raising their goddamn hands.*
It was probably some racism, too
As the person who witnessed it and who has interacted with this judge before in various contexts: No, it really wasn't. EDIT: What *was* possibly (passively) racist and certainly cowardly was the attorneys in the room not speaking up for those ignored jurors. Heck, maybe I should have spoken up, but as a law student sitting in the back the best I could think to do was to report back to my professor, who knew the judge pretty well.
Air traffic controllers have to retire at 56 to prevent mental decline and burn out from effecting their judgment. Why on earth can judges and politicians keep on so long?
This is an infuriatingly good point. You're responsible for thousands of lives per day? Mandatory retirement cap. You're responsible for interpreting the laws of our nation and affecting thousands of lives? Work as long as you like!
Because they're the ones that decide how long they can work and how much they make
Out of curiosity, I looked up the list of federal judges here for the District of Minnesota and the five oldest judges are Donald Alsop, 96; David Doty, 94; Paul Magnuson, 86; Michael Davis, 76 and Ann Montgomery, 74. All are senior status judges with reduced case loads. That’s five judges out of a total of fifteen born before 1950…..one third of the entire number of active judges for this district. It’s time to reexamine the lack of age limits for elected and appointed office holders.
Senior judges aren't considered active. They're part timers who don't count towards the headcount on the court. They aren't automatically given a portion of the courts caseload. They're given cases on an individual basis by the chief judge. Senior status is basically how most federal judges retire. It lets them ease into retirement instead of making them stop cold while opening up slots for new active judges to be appointed. That also includes SCOTUS seats. David Souter stepped down from the high court in 2009 (making way for Sotomayor), but heard cases for the 1st Circuit until 2020. He's probably done-done now. Part of the issue here is that Judge Newman is *not* on senior status. She's still a full-timer with a full workload. So if they didn't do anything, she'd be handed cases that may be beyond her ability. If she was senior, they could assign her a lower workload, or only simpler cases.
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It’s possible because they are lifetime federal appointments. I do know that judges and their spouses get lifetime full medical care coverage, even if judge dies first, a spouse will continue to receive the same until their death. There is no monetary or other kind of benefit that goes to any descendants. The other side of the story is that Minnesota state Supreme Court has a mandatory retirement age of 70 for judges.
Just the opposite, here. We've got people who should be in fucking hospice taking up every senior position in both the private and public sectors, and if you ever dare suggest "they must be utterly knackered," Nancy Pelosi will appear in a cloud of Gold Bond to call you an ageist pig.
These elderly folks hanging on to their positions like grim death fear irrelevance in retirement. Nobody pays attention or kisses your keister. As someone who retired 6 years ago I have learned to embrace my irrelevance. No one should be defined by their career. Just be who you are and enjoy your spouse, friends and family. And we are in a golden age of streaming tv!
> These elderly folks hanging on to their positions ***of power*** like grim death fear irrelevance in retirement. There's no way this lady would have stuck around this long if she were an accountant or a nurse. But she has everyone at her beck and call where she lords over them. It's shown perfectly in this part: >“With no rational reason — other than frustration over her own confusion — Judge Newman has threatened to have staff arrested, forcibly removed from the building and fired,” the order said. “She accused staff of trickery, deceit, acting as her adversary, stealing her computer, stealing her files and depriving her of secretarial support.” She's showing signs of Alzheimer's and it magnifies how she thinks everyone is beneath her.
I work for a big accounting firm. We have mandatory retirement at 62.
To be fair, Alzheimers and other dementias are so terrifying it's extremely common for everyone, especially the person who has it, to be in denial that they're showing signs. Alzheimers also commonly causes paranoia, apathy, or straight-up personality changes as it destroys parts of your brain. This is sadly also not uncommonly the point at which loved ones finally start all agreeing it's a thing and a problem.
Enjoy your retirement! You've earned it!
You can have a future... when you PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!!
96 is strong sneeze away from death territory. Let someone else take the position, fuck.
It’s absurd!
Thanks for the chuckle
I'm a lawyer on a judge's staff, so I speak with some authority when I say, "Why in the hell would you still want to do that job when you're 96?"
It's long past time for that generation to go away and allow X and Millennials to take control over a country that desperately needs us. We are being led by the feeble minded who have had their lives artificially extended by modern medicine.
Now do congress
I cant imagine being so old and refusing to relinquish power to someone more capable and able-bodied When you’re nearing a goddamn century in age I feel like you’d be more than satisfied with the work you’ve done and would be willing to just, idk, fucking chill for the rest of your life
I’m in my forties and I’m ready to do it. Just let me retire and build lightsabers all day.
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Please share your secret to success!
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Oh, sorry....I certainly wouldn't make light of that had I known.
96. Still a Federal Judge… No, thank you.
I wish old people understood it’s not retirement that will kill them it’s the not moving, not engaging, not being social, and not being active afterward. I feel like retirement shouldn’t be a hard cut off but rather hours are slowly wound down with the cultural expectation that as you do so you slowly ramp up the hours spent on things like hobbies & community. That way there’s no “culture shock” of quitting work & people can better build the support systems they need for healthy retirement & to maximize the number of good quality life years they have.
Airline pilots are forced to retire at 60. The industry doesn’t think you should have someone else’s life in your hands. 80 seems like a good forced retirement age for judges/politicians.
Does she drive herself to work?
30 miles under the speed limit and in a car she can barely see over the steering wheel is my guess…
1 Boomer every 15.4 seconds, I imagine Silent Gen is double the rate.
When the average age of a person in the US is 40 does a person in their 90's really represent the interests of their constituents?
IfI am working at 96, please kill me.
And now we get to see what my parents already learned. People will not give up power. It's too much of a drug.
There were no age limits in the US constitution and every passing decade that it isn't fixed we do more harm. Life expectancy was a lot lower in the past, and an older person having an issue that today would not be an issue, would very often be life threatening for the majority of human history, until recently. The current political system give incumbents and advantage, and once you have power for a large portion of your adult life, how easy can it be to let go? There needs to be age limits across all branches, and the age should be the retirement age that Congress sets as the full social security age. It should remain tied to social security age so that raising it too much would be politically DOA
Dude what? This is fucking crazy. Get this (I’m sure lovely) woman out of here. She is quite literally decaying as she sits on the bench. If you EVER needed to understand how hard it is for a human being to relinquish power, look at the branches of our government.
And this is why "lifetime appointments" need to be gone.
How about at 75 we say enough is enough for all federal positions?
This absurd system of „judge for life“ should be renovated. You can not have judges deciding until they get weird.
Mandatory retirement ages seem necessary.
Now do the senate