The Economist opens this year with a major story about generational divide: "Why people over the age of 55 are the new problem generation"
I've thought about "generational conflict" now and again, trying to reason my way to some form of sane, balanced position.
It's tricky.
Old people don't do anything; they sit around, enjoy life, complain a bunch—all while seeing their stock portfolios and houses, acquired on the cheap, rise in (nominal! #737272) value faster than the 20s and 30s can (or could) ever work. Some of that wealth is well-earned; most isn't (hashtag benefit-of-moneyprinter).
Obviously it'd be self-serving of me to favor some "let's expropriate the fuckers"-type of policy. Also, it's not universalizable: Once we get old and bitcoin has done its thing, young people can sit in my chair and be annoyed at the endless wealth of early Bitcoiners, proposing this or that elaborate scheme for restitution/redistribution/expropriation.
...and on and on the endless circle of resent and inequity goes.
Now, this angle I didn't see coming. The youth sitting around and wasting their brains on addictive and anxiety-maximizing screens, while the mid-lifers are, um, having fun:
“Today, older adults are more likely to participate in the hookup culture of casual encounters and condomless sex, which might be further encouraged by the availability of drugs for sexual dysfunction, the commonality of living in retirement communities, and the increased use of dating apps for seniors,” noted Janie Steckenrider in a paper in the Lancet.
"When youthful excess is rising, it is often seen as a symbol of social decline. Fewer people worry about their ageing parents being wreckheads than the other way round."
This is pretty astonishing a development too, hardly repeatable for those age cohorts coming up after them:
For a start, those retiring today are far richer than in the past. In 1993 just over half of people over the age of 65 in Britain owned their homes outright. Now three-quarters do. Second, they now have fewer responsibilities. From the 1970s onwards, as female participation in the labour market increased, grandparents took on more child care. But in the past decade birth rates have plunged, meaning more older people have no children or grandchildren at all. And those who do may be expected to do less now than in the past. Paid-for child care has expanded and in some countries the government provides subsidised nursery places. In the Netherlands, for example, just 2% of grandparents report having to do “intensive” child care. That leaves more time for boozing.
There's an intra-generational divide, too, that many people have missed: generations aren't singular units with combined agency and experience. They contain individuals that have a variety of life outcomes:
Although baby-boomers are doing financially well in aggregate—they own half of the wealth in America, according to the Federal Reserve—many are feeling a pinch. People over 60 in America account for more than a quarter of foreclosures, up from just one in ten 20 years ago, and there has been a similar rise in bankruptcies, data from the New York Fed show.
(lol at the blunt Economist commentary: "All of those divorces are expensive.")
Yeah, I don't know what to think about these generational-type conflicts. We all have advantages and disadvantages: bitcoin and globalization and internet are obviously in the pro columns for us on the younger side; housing chaos and broken asset markets and indebted nations in the con. What gives?
non-paywalled here: https://archive.md/uDEEY
