Salary and work-life balance expectations definitely play a huge role in this phenomena - I'm just pointing out that there might be other factors too - factors that people often reject up front because they feel uncomfortable with them.
I also didn't mean to sound like that :) I'm on the "decline" side and even though I'm not necessarily happy with that, I also understand that you can't cheat biology.
> Fluid intelligence or fluid reasoning is the capacity to reason and solve novel problems, independent of any knowledge from the past.
I'm not saying that isn't not important in the disciplines you just mentioned. I _think_ however, that it's more important when you work on something that is meant to be "disruptive". I don't think that for example carpentry necessarily belongs to the same job category.
I think one of the reasons is because fluid intelligence declines as people get older - it's maybe an unpopular and uncomfortable, but still, a scientific fact proven by many psychological studies. If I was an employer, I'd definitely prefer someone who's at the peak of their intellectual capabilities.
> led by those junior dictators in Poland and Hungary
sound civil and substantive?