I've likewise mostly been ignoring this thread as it has gotten out of control.
At a few jobs ago, I was nearly daily involved with interviewing candidates. Initially, I was point on "culture fit". i.e. how would the potential employee react to having a phone thrown at them (it happened - I worked at a trading shop). Best response to that was "I'd firstly duck, then pick it up and throw it back" - I gave that candidate a go. But, back to the point, when I was doing technical interviews, regardless of the technology/language, I had a single goal: to get the candidate to admit they did not know the answer. The reasoning is simple. I don't want the candidate that thinks they know everything. I want the candidate that knows what they don't know. In the interview, there were tons of bonus points for speculation & what the candidate would do to resolve the question (this is what I was looking for) - a flat I don't know didn't suffice. On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 7:52 PM, Deborah Swanson <pyt...@deborahswanson.net> wrote: > > Rupee via Python-list <python-list@python.org> writes: > > > > > I don't think stupid black people or senile old people should be > > > allowable because those are not choosable *behaviors*. But is > > > unable-to-learn old people a choosable behavior? You said that's ok. > > I've mostly been ignoring this thread and its predecessors, and I > probably won't read all the recent posts to it. > > But this bit caught my eye because I hold the opposite opinion about old > people's ability to learn. > > It is a choice. Your noggin doesn't just conk out at a certain age, or > stage in the aging process. There are plenty of examples of scholars and > authors (and many others) who've kept their wits sharp and their minds > fully functional. Some till the day they died, others didn't quite last > the whole way. > > There's two paths to keeping the mind forever alive ("forever" meaning > at least till death, we don't know what comes after that). Both are > almost purely physical. > > One is to use the mind all one's life, and the principle is identical to > "use it or lose it", more commonly heard in athletic circles. But the > mind is like muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets. And vice > versa. And I'm living proof that if you use your mind hard all your life > (since I was about 3, in my case), you can let it coast for at least a > decade and it will still be there, and it can still learn. Of course > there's a lengthy stage of bringing it out of mothballs, but it can be > done. > > The other path I'm living proof of is the food you eat. The brain > responds badly to chemicals that enter the body, and particularly ones > you ingest in food. And the brain is blood thirsty. It particularly > craves grassfed and pastured red meat, the rarer the better, and organ > meats. I eat all forms of it, but the prize goes to wild red meats - > antelope, venison & wild boar. I'll spare you all the reasons why and > the evidence, but they are very good reasons. > > I've also had university math and science professors who swore by heavy > daily exercise regimes, but I haven't done it and neither have aged > scholars who still had their good minds very late in life, so rigorous > exercise is not a requirement. I have no idea whether it's sufficient to > sustain and grow the mind either, but no doubt it helps. > > So, it is a choice of how you live your life, and how important it is to > you to have a mind worth keeping. I see no reason to accord those people > who didn't care all their lives any special status. > > Oh, and I think it's also a choice whether you are stupid or not, > barring physical abnormalities of the brain. Regardless of age, gender > or race. > > -- > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list