No gimmicks, no gotchas, no tricks. Just one staightforward question, please: what age group are you a part of? I put this poll in "political opinions" because I'm trying to see if there is a correlation between the weight of each age group in this forum with the diversity of opinions that are expressed and the numbers of people who hold those opinions. Note: I'm not asking anyone to identify himself or herself as being a member of any particular age group, but only to show a sketch of how our ages are distributed. Thank you.
What are you expecting the various ages to be? Right now the results show mostly 19-29 year olds. I find that unlikely.
Look at the total number who voted. The more that vote, the more realistic the results will be. I'm 36 years old.
Yeah, the numbers where different when I posted originally. I assumed there are more oldys than youngys on this forum.
19-29 is quite a drastic range. I'd categorize 19-23 year olds together... Beyond that age, you are no longer under the spell of the collectivist mindset of universities and have likely had some experience in a career.
I've been a member of this forum for three years, and I would not be at all surprised to see that most of the people who post here are "twenty-somethings". Sunday is a pretty slow day for posts unless something really big has happened somewhere. Maybe more people will respond tomorrow. I don't know why anyone would avoid a question as simple and uncomplicated as this one is... "how old are you?"... in a completely anonymous forum.
Things have changed over the years. Today, the government thinks it's "normal" for a person who's 26 years old to still be counted as a dependent child, living with its parents....
I'm not surprised that many 20 somethings don't want to give out their age. There is a sort of unfairness in the way that a person's relative youth is used against them in discussions. We love hearing slogans like "let the children lead the way" and be reminded that often the younger generation has something they can teach us as well. But when it comes down to discussions and we're looking for any torque we can get on our opponents, a young age is the low hanging fruit we can use to invalidate our opponent's argument. "You're only 21. You haven't seen real life yet. You're susceptible to brainwashing. You just don't know." It's unfair. And the only defense younger people have is anonymity.
A better defense for younger people would be overt displays of intelligence. Jonelyn is a shining example.
Maybe at 36, I'm young enough to remember how much I hated having my age used to "put me in my place". The problem with what you're saying is that the brilliance of one's argument is irrelevent when somebody is using age as a weapon. People don't like to be lectured by somebody in their Osh Kosh B'Goshes (exaggeration) even if the argument is sound. I've seen older folks use age to turn their wrong, pig headed arguments into blissful wisdom. "I'm 56. I've been around, son. Maybe when you've experienced more, you'll see things the way I do." Taking age off the table via anonymity seems a wise move. It forces people to address one's argument instead of one's age.
