Wednesday, April 18, 2007

A curious ommission

From this article in the NYT on attitudes on the Iraq war by age group, specifically
Forty-eight percent of Americans 18 to 29 years old said the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, while 45 percent said the United States should have stayed out. That is in sharp contrast to the opinions of those 65 and older, who have lived through many other wars. Twenty eight percent of that age group said the United States did the right thing, while 67 percent said the United States should have stayed out.
...
"We've experienced more than the younger people. Older people are wiser. We've seen war and we know."
Anyway, it goes on like that. One thing that was not mentioned was the fact that the time horizons are quite different. Someone 65 is looking at an outer range of 30 years more of life, whereas someone age 25 is looking at 60 more years of life. It's quite plausible that younger people might be more favorable to risky experiments with possible longer term benefits, the same way they like investing in risky stocks and mutual funds - to wit, they have more time to play with, so they can take more risks.

I'm not saying this is the reason for the disparity, but it's odd it wasn't addressed.

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