Ages

 

What A Piece of Work Is Man 

What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason
How infinite in faculties
In form and moving
How express and admirable
In action how like an angel
In apprehension how like a god
The beauty of the world
The paragon of animals

But man is STILL an animal, NOT a God.

The lyrics above are from the musical Hair, but they are also a speech in Hamlet. The Riddle of the Sphinx in Oedipus postulates that there are 3 ages of man as defined by how many legs are used: all fours as an Infant; two legs as an Adult; and three legs, 2 legs plus a cane, in Old Age. Game Theory would suggest that there are five ages of man, if he is trying to act as he perceives the absolute, God. For the first 1/6 of life, you are a ward of the state. This corresponds to the legal voting age in the US of 18 years. The next 1/6 of your life, e.g., from 18 to 36 years old you have become an adult,  a voter. In the next two 1/6s,  from 36 to 72, you can be not only a voter but a leader. In the next 1/6 of your life, from 72 to 90, you can be an advisor to, but not yourself, a leader.. In the last 1/6 of your life you have returned to be being a ward, say from 90 to 108 years old. (You might make a contribution, but you are not expected to do so, and you might be senile anyway.)

The US Constitution does set a minimum age for President as 35 years old, even though the minimum age for Senator is 30 years and the minimum age for being a member of the House is 25 years old. Leadership positions in the Congress are by seniority so they have only a de facto lower age limit. There are no lower age limits for judges but is rare for anyone to be nominated without a history which implies a de facto lower age limit. But leadership roles in the Congress do NOT recognize the upper or lower age limits. Nor are upper age limits in place for judges. Retirement age is normally 65 and at most 70 years old for Social Security. The age of Minimum Required Distributions for IRAs is currently 73.

So the age limits are roughly consistent with common practices. Maybe it would be appropriate to consider upper age limits? Why were upper age limits not set by the Founding Fathers in the US Constitution? In the late 1700s, at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, the age of life expectancy was so low, nature enforced its own upper age limits, so any Constitutional upper age limits seemed unnecessary. Now that medical science has advanced, maybe it is time to start thinking about the upper age limits, in addition to term limits. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2024/09/ceilings-ii.html