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The evidence of younger code being better than old one doesn’t pass the smell test, and it’s hard to prove in a nascent field of technology where the oldest piece of software in continuous use has barely reached middle age.

You just cannot compare software robustness to human lifespan. Does software need 3 years at the bare minimum to be self-sufficient? Does it become argumentative and crashes a lot after 13-14 years?

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If you look at the output of mathematicians and their biggest discoveries it suggests that it is similarly limited for mental tasks.
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Probably this category of mental tasks. For politicians it's the other way around. Prolly you need to have some 'elder statesman' skills as well as wisdom to achieve greatness. Deng Xiaoping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping) started changing China at the venerable age of 70+ moving forward until his death almost two decades later.

Do not underestimate wisdom as a cognitive skill, even if in today's world we tend to discredit it because of agism.

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To bring up politicians, in a discussion about mental peak performances ... yeah, no, it's funny.
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It's as wrong to anthroporphize Emacs as it is Larry Ellison.
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