How little you know of life. Have you moved on from serious posting now to utter trolling? History is repleat with people who contributed more and probably had more fun doing it after 40 than before.

10023 knows better than science.

Why are the US and Britain doing poorly, with persistently high numbers? A big part of it is people like this guy. And our lack of leadership and education that lets the ignorant stay ignorant.

History is full of such people. The people we read about represent a tiny minority of humanity and always have. So sure, maybe one will become a successful entrepreneur in their 50s, or a celebrated author in their 60s, but it’s a tiny minority who do so (and even those would have usually been laying the groundwork for success much earlier).

Career success often comes later, but life enjoyment does not. I say this as someone who has and does know a great many senior partners in all sorts of professions.

I’ve had a lot of wine and I’m getting pensive, but old age does not appeal to me.

Alex, I will take Nihilism for a $1,000. Not sure how old you are but life doesn't end at 39 nor does 'youth'.

You say it as someone who has not yet personally experienced much at all.

I can tell you I have enjoyed life after my 40s much more than before. I was able to semi-retire at 47. Since then I've done what I wanted when I wanted; before that life was almost exclusively about work and the rare time I could manage to take time off from work.

I don't know your partners, obviously, and I don't know whether you are repeating what they tell you (which may or may not be honest in any way) or whether you think you can see into their psyches and reaching conclusions on your own. But I'm telling you you won't know what part of your life was the best until you've lived it all and the ultimate view of that may be very different under different circumstances.

Your post sounds like just a narcisistic person of little real experience pretending to be world-wise. I say someday you'll grow up and have a better basis to address such an issue.

Well, duh.....that’s because you don’t have children

Nobody owes you happiness at old age. We have evolved to reproduce, and once we do so, nature typically rewards us with a feeling of fulfillment that we would struggle to obtain from any other achievement

I don’t disagree that our media has way overblown how deadly Covid is, but wearing a mask is a very small sacrifice to curtail its spread.

If you can’t wear a mask, you’re really just a prick

No, Texas won't shut down again. It will just slow things down a bit. It already has done so in many ways, and it appears the number of positive test results is in decline. Hospitalization rates are getting a bit lower, but there has been quite a lot of death over the past 10 days. That should show a decline soon as well. Still, Texas will play whack a mole with the virus going into the fall and beyond. I think the "experts" are figuring out that they can handle increased hospitalization rates within reason, and as a result they are rather cynically going to try to control the flow of new cases without a full shut down. I am afraid that a similar scenario (mask or no masks) will play out around the country. I fully expect a big uptick in positive testing in the NE US in the next month or so. Increased hospitalization rates (and more death) will follow.

Many young think they will live forever and think elderly people are essentially worthless. I wonder if 10023 thinks the lives of his parents and grandparents are without value? I wonder if 10023 will remember his apparent ageism in his elder years? Life becomes more precious as you approach the end. The life experiences of older people have great value to society--I believed this to be true when I was young, and still do now that I am older. Besides, we still don't know the long term impacts of covid disease. It may cause long term harm later to those who are now young and asymptomatic. The lives of all people have value, young or old, black, brown, white, men or women, all. Certain diseases attack young people, e.g. many forms of leukemia and that saddens me even though I am over 60.

10023, maybe I misunderstand you. Maybe you are not ageist at all. If anything I said is not true or misstates your opinions, I apologize in advance. I haven't seen all your posts.

I just avoid places that require mask-wearing for any length of time. I’ll suck it up for leisure travel (though no one covers their nose on trains here), but I’m not travelling for work or commuting to the office as long as mask-wearing is obligatory. There is zero chance I will go to a movie or concert and sit there wearing a mask for hours.

Otherwise it’s basically for show. You put it on for like 14 seconds as you walk through the front door of a restaurant until you get to your table, where it comes back off. The whole thing is ridiculous.

I don’t have living grandparents, and my own parents are in their early 70s and already have highly compromised quality of life.

“Ageism” is not a thing. The “-isms” like racism and sexism reflect the false view that people have differential abilities based on superficial or unrelated traits. Not wanting to be very old and limited physically (and perhaps mentally) is not an “-ism”. It’s a fact that people decline in old age, to varying degrees of course, but inevitably so.

I am involved in the healthcare industry (on the business side). What I see is a need for a more mature approach to death. Medicine has become very good at keeping people alive, but we haven’t found a fountain of youth and so this results in more and more of society’s wealth and economic output being directed toward very expensive treatments to keep grandma around for a little while longer. Because resources are finite, things like investment in infrastructure or schools (which would benefit the future prospects of younger people) suffer as healthcare consumes an ever-growing proportion of the national income.

The elderly and those with chronic diseases consume an overwhelming proportion of these resources. People who have various chronic health issues (mostly as a result of obesity or other “lifestyle diseases”) might start costing lots of money in their 60s, a healthier person not until their late 70s or 80s. To the extent more money is spent on health, it should be very aggressively targeted at reducing obesity in order to keep people healthy longer, rather than alive longer in poor health.

Nonetheless, by the age of 80 one’s life is essentially “fully depreciated”. Any years beyond that are gravy, but for most people health is so compromised that the bad outweighs the good. Perhaps it makes sense to have a few grey hairs around for perspective, but it’s a rare person that has the life experience, the intellect and the gift for relaying their experience in this role. And an aged senior team has negative consequences for office culture as well.

Personally, I’ve got a living will in place and will go night-night at such point that I ever need to be under nursing care or dementia care. None of us live forever...

It’s not ridiculous at all. Universal mask-wearing works, when done correctly.

It’s probably why Asian countries right now have pretty much slowed COVID to a crawl.

I think some Westerners are just too arrogant for their own good. This false sense of superiority is costing lives, and, frankly, making many of you look silly.

Plus, these half ass efforts (wearing a mask that’s halfway off the face) are obviously not going to work and are making a mockery of the effort. It’s all very childish

Meanwhile, if you’re too much of a whiny bitch to wear a mask then serves you right that this pandemic is going to last longer. Keep it up.

I know this sounds mean, but how much of this has to do with the fact that they have you as a son?

Given your attitude as displayed here, it’s obvious that you likely have contributed to their “compromised quality of life”

It is true that the overall risk of COVID-19 for people age 20-40 or so is very low. However, social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand-washing isn't just to stop you from becoming infected, but to stop you from infecting other people. Indeed, a friend of my who works in epidemiology said masks are only about 15% effective at stopping you from getting COVID, but 75% effective at stopping other people from getting COVID from you. Which is why if mask wearing was universal it would quickly diminish to nothing - R0 value would be too low to keep spreading.

I think it's also true that the media hypes up the rare cases which are fatal and/or life threatening in younger people. But honestly given how selfish American culture is, there is some sense to this. People seem to approach this entirely from the lens of "I take the risk, I suffer the consequences." But your decision to go to a pub without a mask could result in a chain of infection which results in someone else dying a few months from now. Personally, I don't want that on my conscience.

Not exactly. And I have helped pay for both of their homes. My mother is in better shape but still isn’t as mobile as she’d like to be, my father is very obese and functionally housebound (i.e., doesn’t go anywhere except by car) as a result. It’s no way to live.

Many people’s lives improve in their 40s and 50s, because they find career success etc. There’s no doubt about that. But the ceiling gets lower beyond 30, just due to energy, physical resilience, and even cognitive ability. You might enjoy your 50s more than your 30s because you have money, but all else equal, you’re better off being younger.

There are lots of other reasons why East Asian societies, particularly the Japanese, did so well with Covid. Personal hygiene is also important (and I was a frequent hand washer before this, on the verge of OCD really).

Also, it’s worth pointing out that mask-wearing is quite a bit easier for East Asian men, because they sweat much less due to genetics (fewer apocrine sweat glands), and rarely have facial hair. And no, I’m not shaving off my beard so that I can wear a mask.

People with beards wear masks all the time. False point #10023 from 10023.

It is essentially impossible to get an N95 mask to "seal" properly with a beard. That's why the US Navy, which had begun permitting beards in the 1970s for the first time in many decades, banned them again.

But as most of us know, the current mask recommendations are for cloth or "surgical" facial coverings that are not necessarily good at protecting the wearer like an N95 but do prevent expulsion of virus-containing droplets when someone coughs or sneezes or just talks. These do not require a seal and therefore beards have little effect on their usefulness.

In case it isn't obvious, I am essentially agreeing with mhays but trying to clear up any confusion because you will hear talk about beards and the seal required for N95s but ONLY N95s.

Agreed, the point is to avoid most of the risk.