I wonder if what we're seeing is a quantitative change leading to a qualitative change.
It's undeniable that old people have always held power in society, from hunting-gathering societies (various elders/shamans/wisepeople) through early civilization (Senator comes from the Latin "senex" for "old". Senatus = "chamber of old men"), though to today.
At the same time, their numbers (and effectiveness) were probably limited, either by a more pyramidal population distribution and/or by lower life expectancy (including duller minds in older age).
I think what we're seeing for the first time in history is a huge swath of healthy, long-lived older people, throwing the relative balance way off and leading to various situations we see across many different societies.
I like to sum it up as Boomers eating the young and I don't think things will change until the numbers/demographics do, ie, Millenials will experience a lost generation and things won't start to look good until we're well into middle-age.
> we're seeing for the first time in history is a huge swath of healthy, long-lived older people...
Exactly, and they cast a disproportionately long shadow over society and politics.
EDIT: just look at the recent Irish referendum on same-sex marriage. A vast majority of the "no" votes came from the >60 cohort. I'll wager the age breakdown of last weeks election would reveal a similar dynamic: the young want change and meaningful progress while the old continue to vote for the past, keeping our culture and politics firmly rooted in the early/mid 20th century.
Not on the topic of SS marriage but just on the "young want change vs old vote to continue the past" point.
As I've gotten older, one thing that I've consistently found is that the young want change. Always. Regardless of whether it's beneficial, been tried before and negative consequences were seen, would only benefit certain people or negative outcomes long term are clearly visible: they want change for sake of change.
Older people have a lot more experience in observing human nature. There is a very big reason that the slogans around "Wisdom comes with age" and "Young know it alls" have existed for so long. They've been observably accurate.
It's a lot easier to get people fired up about things that they don't understand, because any contentious subject has two sides and the fire generally shows that you only understand one of them.
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” - Mark Twain
But we shouldn't dismiss this. On the topics of racism, same sex marriage, sexism... really any injustice of the past out there, the old tend to want to hold on what was in the past regardless if it was good or bad.
To think that the old have a better grasp on things ignores all the times they do not.
>There is a very big reason that the slogans around "Wisdom comes with age" and "Young know it alls" have existed for so long. They've been observably accurate.
It works 100% of the time when it works. The old have wisdom only if you consider the cases they were wise. If you look at issues like racism or homophobia, the young are the wise ones. Society advanced one funeral at a time because the we lose their 'wisdom'.
If the young want change just for the sake of change, then the old want stability just for the sake of stability.
> If you look at issues like racism or homophobia, the young are the wise ones.
Maybe I'm getting older myself (30's), but the way that racism, homophobia, etc. is being handled by the young is troubling at best, facist at worst.
A large majority of millenials support restrictions on freedom of speech when it's considered hateful. What ever happened to 'sticks and stones...'?
Honestly, on this issue, I see millenials about as bat-shit crazy as the other extremes - everyone's favorite uncle or old neighbor from the deep South, stuck in the 1960's.
>Maybe I'm getting older myself (30's), but the way that racism, homophobia, etc. is being handled by the young is troubling at best, facist at worst.
What I see is the way that free speech is being handled when it involves something offensive. But this is not something unique among young individuals; all that is changed is the topics. Which generation was around when obscenity was allowed as an exception to the First Amendment?
I'd say that it is for the good that the young are allowed to change things, but only after they are not very young anymore.
The problem is that we are both biologically making that enabling age older and older, and at the same time we are making the world more and more dynamic. And I'll risk a guess that this is a problem that will get solved, whether we come out with a good solution to it, or we only have bad ones.
I like to think of it as a filter. The truly worthwhile things will continue to be fought for and will eventually get through. If nothing else, the struggle should provide people with opportunities to see how they can make a difference outside of legislation.
When a problem is caused by legislation, it could also serve as a warning to the problems that come from trying to solve problems that way.
But that struggle being lengthened also means the continued systematic oppression of certain groups for decades, perhaps even generations longer. I'm unsure if that's really acceptable to say "eventually worthwhile things will get through" when groups of people right now are dealing with systemic social issues.
If a homosexual person is fired for being homosexual (legal in many states), is it really acceptable to approach that with "well if its truly worthwhile to fight for, sexuality will eventually become a protected class"?
I'd generally look at issues like that from an entirely different perspective (personally). If it's possible for legislation to oppress people, it seems like the goal should be to make that less feasible. What consequences come to businesses in general by classifying certain groups of people as protected classes while others aren't? Does it discourage businesses from hiring those groups in the first place simply from a risk management perspective?
Experience will definitely show that as you approach a certain age, you'll have a harder time finding a job and a big part of that is the risk a business takes on if they have to fire you for underperforming.
Understanding that there are always consequences to legislation, no matter how noble the intentions, will lead to looking at solutions from different angles.
The legislative solution is "Make THEM do this!" while the non-legislative solution is "Campaign to help people be more understanding, tolerant and welcoming to homosexuals." The latter improves society as a whole while they former may help in the short term but create risk-management tendencies among businesses along with resentment from non-protected classes.
Is this true? From my personal vantage point, young folks in the west don't seem to want change at all. They tend to support establishment politics. Even pop culture is full of artists promoting the establishment.
For example, consider John Stewart - he's somehow made a shtick of mocking the establishment while somehow calling for them to have more power and deligitimizing anyone who is outside the mainstream.
Insofar as young people want "change", it seems merely to be going back to mythical glorious past era when a single person could support a family, have "health care" and engage in real estate speculation via the proceeds of unskilled manual labor. They believe this "change" will happen mainly by funneling more money into existing programs and bringing back a few policies from the recent past.
(Admittedly, the tech world is an exception to this. And my vantage point might be skewed due to spending my US life in NY.)
I'm 23. Here's a few things I'd like to see progress on:
Affordable education and access to high quality teachers.
Bringing our healthcare cost/efficacy profile into line with other advanced economies.
Repairing and rebuilding crumbling public infrastructure.
Environmental reform, especially wrt carbon emissions & how we treat the oceans.
Revisiting social security to ensure its long-term viability.
Reducing the government's ability to invade privacy.
Ending the "war on drugs" and regulating/taxing it like the alcohol or tobacco industry.
I'm happy to pay more taxes on my relatively small income if they go towards reforms in these areas. As ex-fed president Kocherlakota notes [1], exceedingly low interest rates and cheap labor are creating a great environment for gov investment. Unfortunately, fiscal policy is stuck in a quagmire due to deep-seated ideological divisions in Washington D.C.
Only the last two items on your list (protecting privacy, ending the war on drug users) remotely qualify as change. Everything else qualifies as "funneling more money into existing programs".
Consider the most establishment presidential candidate in the race right now. Would Hillary Clinton even use different words to describe her policy proposals?
I could imagine policy details that might count as change, but you don't seem to be advocating those. E.g., if you wanted to provide affordable education by replacing teachers with Khan Academy, or cut infrastructure costs down to everywhere-else-in-the-world levels [1] by breaking the back of public employee unions or other such reforms. Are you advocating big change like this?
[1] Delhi Metro Phase 2, 77 miles of track and 85 stations cost Delhi $2.9B and 3 years. Hudson Yards, 1 mile of track and 1 station, cost NYC $2.5B and 9 years.
> Unfortunately, fiscal policy is stuck in a quagmire due to deep-seated ideological divisions in Washington D.C.
I'm hoping Donald Trump helps to solve this (or rather, helps the GOP implode.). The Republican party has been an ideological mess for the better part of a decade, and that anti-intellectualism is coming back around to bite them in the ass. When men of substance spend all their time tearing each other down, why is it a surprise that a clown is the only one able to rise above the fray?
We've needed to hit the reset button on the Republican party since the mid-90s. We're finally getting a chance now that the GOP's corporate backers have so obviously lost control, so hopefully we'll be able to get back to normal within a decade or so.
From my vantage point in the US, it does seem like a significant number of young people do want change. I'm basing this on the contrast between Bernie Sanders supporters, largely young people, and Hillary Clinton supporters, who have a lot less young people than Bernie supporters. As for what change young people want today, I'd say it's what Bernie is campaigning for, which does include health care but also free college for all, among other things that primarily concern young people.
Sanders explicitly says that his "single payer" plan is "Medicare for all". Medicare is an existing program. It hasn't been a single-payer system for quite a long time, though; it has been -- longer than the ACA has been around -- a lot like a federalized, rather than state-based, version of the ACA with subsidized private plans but with a public default option.
Good points, but I would contend that "Older people have a lot more experience in observing human nature" is not necessarily always true. Or at least it may not be the reason for their conservativism.
It may also vary by location and culture, so I can only speak to my own experience with the place where I came from, where the elder population have acted as custodians for utterly retrograde policies and actively resist any attempt to move forward.
I'd question the wisdom of any generation who (broadly) thought the Magdalene Asylums were a good thing.
> "Older people have a lot more experience in observing human nature" is not necessarily always true. Or at least it may not be the reason for their conservativism.
Older people have a lot more experience observing politics and government, and as such have seen the consequences of historical campaign promises and highly-touted government agendas. If these consequences are negative and they have been given reason to believe that the government and its politicians are either liars or just not competent to deliver, that may explain their conservatism.
nice theory, but if you look at reality, biggest crooks in many places are kept in place by old folks voting for them again and again, just because they figured out and "tick their box", whatever insignificant thing it might be. random out of too many - Berlusconi anybody?
>Good points, but I would contend that "Older people have a lot more experience in observing human nature" is not necessarily always true.
While for particular older people it might not hold (e.g. some guy might be stuck in his house/bubble for all his life and have less life experience than a guy half his age) in general this is obviously true.
This is all true, but it goes both ways - older people tend to be more set in their ways, more obstinate and opposed to change for the sake of opposing it. On the whole, humans are feckless, short-sighted, narrow-minded creatures. We look to protect our own interests first and foremost above and beyond others, and for many people this only gets worse with age, when there is something to protect and guard against losing. I continue to be more underwhelmed by the older generation as I grow older.
I agree with the sentiment. Experience of elders has much more added value in stable, non-evolving society.
What we see these days is opposite - rapid changes of all aspects fo our life.
Many elders are simply lost in so many topics, and then tend to cling first familiar sign, however bad it is from overall perspective.
This is dangerous since populist politicians easily use this and base their activities around these clear and easy targets. I think we all can see this happening all over the place
I'll take some proof with that. In the meantime, here in Denmark, as of 2014, only 9% of voters for the main populist, anti-immigration, anti-muslim party (and currently second biggest party) were under 30, with 43% over 60. If that's what wisdom looks like, it's scary.
Older people also don't want change simply because they're more stuck in their ways, and because they're afraid of change, afraid that it may risk whatever they have managed to build up during their life.
Science progresses one funeral at a time, that sort of thing.
I read a study that I am now searching for that showed MRI scans of people trying to change their mind about a subject. It consumed huge amounts of energy. People's brains are built to build an accurate, complete view of the survival landscape and forgo any wasted energy beyond that. Tolerence can be socialized in at a young age but changing your mind consumes huge amounts of resources better spent perpetuating survival. People obtain the same life milestones now, only on a protracted timeline. My thesis is that progress will be slower than before, for exactly as long as old/tired humans stick around.
Wrong. It's only "disproportionate" because that cohort actually votes. The only reason that group has more power than any other group is that 20-29 year olds don't vote. People in their 60's do.
Voting is only a small part of the power equation. Money and influence is a much larger one.
Captains of business, finance, and education make a lot of important decisions and use money to influence the political process through lobbying and litigation. As corporations grow in power, gaining more rights and representation, so does this channel of political influence, which is controlled almost exclusively by an older cohort.
The article calls this out in detail: casino interests played a huge role in destroying Sydney's nightlife in order to funnel drinkers to the casino bars that were exempt from shutdown laws.
Notable exceptions would be Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Evan Spiegel. But they are just that: exceptions. And I wouldn't exactly consider any of them role models or champions for a younger generation.
Dont forget the power of the media! Newspapers, internet websites, public TV and radio stations. The they tell the "truth". The truth of the baby boomers.
I'm not sure the problem with the media is an age thing as much as a wealth thing. Wages for journalists are at rock bottom at the moment, and media publications are losing a fairly large amount of money due to the increased use of adblockers and competition from free internet sites. So the only people who can afford to become part of the established 'media' are the already well off types.
So the people who'd argue for change can't afford to live on the wages provided, leaving only the people with a decent amount of money in the bank (and who usually trend towards having more conservative or authoritarian views). It might also be why journalism isn't particularly diverse in terms of who works in the field (despite what some of them like arguing about), because non minority candidates tend to have the support networks to fall back on to continue working in the field.
If there's a predominance of older people at the higher levels in the media world on the other hand, I suspect it's because getting rich in this industry was a lot easier before the internet was a big thing. Most of these people started when anyone wanting visibility had to go through the old media gatekeepers...
I haven't checked on this, but I would wager that a rather disproportionate number of 20-29 year olds would find it much more difficult to vote than people in their 60s. Sure, it's probably possible to register in advance and get a mail-in ballot, but that is rarely done and I expect there's some hoops to jump through there. As far as actually going to the polls, young folk tend to work jobs that make that very difficult, if not quite impossible. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, and your job doesn't afford you paid days off, and you're scheduled to work that day, then you're just going to work and not vote. Anything else would set you back in a way that would be more immediately damaging than not getting your vote. And even if you could afford to take an unpaid day off, in spite of it being illegal to prevent someone from taking time off to vote, I expect it would put most people in the bad graces of their employers to exercise that right. And it's hard to prove that your rights have been violated when you get fired for being 'unreliable' or just get scheduled for fewer hours the next several weeks because 'that's just how the schedule worked out'. These employers aren't trying to disenfranchise the young, they're just acting in their own best interests by maintaining control and keeping people working, and the current job market gives them far too much leverage. And that's not even getting into people with kids.
Compare this to 60+, who are probably often retired or semi-retired, or working a job at a higher level where they've earned some form of paid time off, or are financially stable enough to just take the day off without pay, etc. They have no kids at home to take care of. They can much more easily just head over to the polls that day, without having to make extensive arrangements in advance.
*And no, this isn't universal, just general trends. Yes, some young folk have professional positions with paid time off, some don't work. Likewise, some older folk are stuck working crappy low end jobs to make ends meet. But when we're talking percentages, I'm rather confident that the older generation is more likely to be able to go out and vote on one particular day in November.
Where I live the election booths open before retail trading hours begin, from memory, a full two hours before the bulk of retailers open. And voting takes like ~15 minutes at the worst of times, so even these have the opportunity to vote on the day.
Oregon's mail ballots are great and completely solve this issue. I was going to say that I wasn't sure they made a huge difference, and I really don't know but the data should be out there somewhere, but looking for some data I noticed that Washington state and Colorado are the two other states that currently do vote by mail. And those three states do have something else in common that suggest you could possibly be on to something...
"If voting mattered, they wouldn't let you do it".
Honestly, voting gets more credit than it deserves. I don't think it's 100% corrupt at the booths, but the candidates that are allowed to compete are vetted by the elites.
Interestingly enough, both Sanders and Trump have snubbed the major political systems, but neither of them are really that much of a threat to the establishment.
Those that are truly feared (e.g. MLK Jr, Malcolm X, perhaps JFK) are not 'allowed' to take part in the game.
>Wrong. It's only "disproportionate" because that cohort actually votes. The only reason that group has more power than any other group is that 20-29 year olds don't vote. People in their 60's do.
Wrong too, I'm afraid. In lots of Western countries the average age of the population has rose as high as 40 year old (in contrast with older values of even less than 30). So it's not always that 'young people don't vote', it's also there are less of them too.
It's still not disproportionate. Old people don't get more votes. They actually vote.
Just because there happen to be more old people, and they tend to vote more conservatively, does not mean that it's "disproportionate" when they actually vote and influence policy. If all the baby boomers died tomorrow nobody would bemoan the disproportionate influence of 40-year olds in the next election.
>It's still not disproportionate. Old people don't get more votes.
I'm afraid you have misread disproportionate to mean some kind of unfair representation.
It just means "they are more, and thus get more votes", i.e. that their influence (because of their numbers) is higher. Nobody implied they get more than 1 vote per person...
disproportionate: "too large or too small in comparison with something else"
Nope, it also means that they have much more votes in comparison to young voters.
It's not about cheating or "proportional representation". It could mean that too, if we were discussing voting systems, but we are not.
We're discussing the fair share of the vote each group gets -- and how the total of young votes vs old votes are out of proportion, that is imbalanced.
disproportionate: "too large or too small in comparison with something else" (dictionary)
But their representation is not too large. It's exactly the size it should be - one vote for one person.
"Too" means excessively. Boomer representation is only "too large" if you happen to disagree with their policy choices (which I usually do) - but it's not an unfair level of representation or influence, which is what disproportionate does mean in this context.
>But their representation is not too large. It's exactly the size it should be - one vote for one person.
Consider a country with 10,100 people, where 100 baby boomers voted and only 1 younger person bothered to vote but the general demographics are the inverse ratio (10,000 young people, 100 baby boomers).
The exact word to use for the baby boomers voting influence there would be "disproportionate".
That's literally what the word means -- it's not tied to the voting system, or stealing votes.
It's disproportionate not because they got more votes than it's fair to according to the voting system, or because they don't deserve those votes, but because they got more votes than what would be the ideal proportional representation of the two demographic groups.
(E.g. where young/old is as close to votes_of_young/votes_of_old as a ratio).
The two groups have the same capacity/opportunity to get proportional representation (in the voting system), but they don't have actual proportional representation (in the voting results).
and that is a reason to blame "old" people for what exactly? Because young are lazy to vote ? Only if you go by extension that I intentionally raised my kids to not to vote as a part of my evil plan for dominance over young. sheesh
>and that is a reason to blame "old" people for what exactly? Because young are lazy to vote ?
Who said that that, in itself, is reason to blame anybody?
It's just an empirical, quantifiable, observation.
That said, there are many OTHER, valid, reasons to blame "old" people, or the baby boomer generation, and lots of them have been laid out in the comment section.
>Only if you go by extension that I intentionally raised my kids to not to vote as a part of my evil plan for dominance over young. sheesh
Well, I don't think anybody brought this conspiracy shit up, or even implied it. Just that:
a) older people are over-representent at elections,
b) thus they exert the most political influence
c) most politicians elected are crap
d) that these get elected is predominantly the fault of older people
One might argue that younger people are also to blame for not participating as much in elections, but that's probably not as bad as actively voting for and supporting crap.
Curiously I read a Bernie piece that condemns Baby Boomers for wanting a Balanced Budget. Apparently that is a swear word now? So which is it - drowning in debt, or starved by a balanced budget.
We notice the same thing in Belgium however, where voting is mandatory. Younger generations tend to vote for far more progressive parties, while the older generations stick with conservative parties.
how is disproportional in a voting system where each adult has a vote? I would say it is proportional it is just that you don't like a proportion right now because people live longer so there is more older adults voting
I am pretty sure that currently taxes paid by baby boomers (51+ age) outweigh taxes paid by millennials. And taxes are contributing to a majority (all?) of public services. Things look even worse for a millennials if you add my generation (gen X). That would include population 40+ which arguably is at a peek of earnings.
I am not sure which contribution you are measure so I used a simple money based one. I would "love" to have vote proportional to taxes I pay (kidding ..)
Don't fall for the same tricks that the establishment uses. Yes of course the wealthy pay more in absolute taxes than the rest of us plebs. That's because they HAVE so much more. My parents lived at a time where their savings earned 10% at the local bank. The stock market did better. Houses were 3x one earner's median wage. University could be paid for via a summer job.
So of course they're paying a lot more in taxes as most younger people have negative wealth. But the older are paying 15%-25% on capital gains and dividends, while the young are paying 30% on income.
The old are living off of huge pensions and medical insurance being paid for RIGHT NOW by income from the young. They did not save it. That is why most localities are pretty much kicking the debt can down the road: increasing things like property taxes, fines (e.g. speeding tickets), toll roads, etc. all the while providing less services.
The vast majority of the federal budget is not Planned Parenthood, the EPA, or road costs. It is the military, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the vast majority of which benefit the old. Even the military is more about keeping the US system propped up instead of ensuring our 'safety'. Two large oceans have always been more than enough.
This narrative doesn't ring true for me. The young are unemployed and poor. They are simultaneously paying for the old. With what?
Our economy is becoming more automated and efficient with every invention. Its that economy that supports us all. Not on the backs of the (unemployable) young.
We used to dream about a future where robots did all the work. The closer we get to that, the more folks lash out in confusion.
Surely things are not equitable. That needs to be addressed. But old solutions of tax and make-work are all misdirected. This is a different world.
for a start world is a bigger than old USofA so there are countries which use a tax dollars for a different purpose.
30% of young people income is still way less than 15-25% on capital gains and for sure you don't think that majority of people 40+ are living of dividends. Majority still works and is paying more taxes than that young person. The way you explaining just does not add up
then you will have same conversation with my generation (X) and after another 10 some other generation will have same conversation with millennials :-)
This isn't the first time I've read this idea of only allowing taxpayers to vote be floated by someone on the left.
There's been a weird number of things like this that I've seen bubbling up, like extreme anti-union rhetoric in regards the police. It's usually in reaction to a specific issue, but it's still weird to see.
You don't get to dismiss a valid idea by denoucing it as "leftist". IMO, the protections against the majority oppressing the minority is just as important for democracy as everybody having exactly one vote.
Obviously, 51% of the population voting to enslave the "other" 49% would be completely unfair and IMO un-democratic (even if it was enacted by democratic means). We could argue about how much each subsection of the society should contribute (or get) for the world to be "fair", but honestly, I'm not even that concerned about that; what I'm concerned is the trend (of older people increasing in numbers (power to enact benefits for themselves by taxing others) but decreasing in productivity (contributions)). If that trend continues making the benefits/contributions disproportionate, at some point it's bound to become unsustainable and the system will collapse.
to add another data point I am currently paying a bills for a two millennials so you should understand my skepticism about contributions of millennials :-)
I'm not sure why you're singling out millenials... There are other sections of the population (between 30 and 50) that are probably very productive but slowly loosing the power compared to 50+.
I really don't see me losing anything to any generation (older or younger) but I also don't have feeling of entitlement. It is "normal" to blame everything else for one's perceived misfortune/lack of opportunity but in most cases it is yourself. I don't prevent young people to vote for any type of change they want but if voting doesn't go your way it is not really fair to complain about it.
I don't care much about "fairness" and complaining, I'm more interested (and concerned) about incentives. If people see there's no way for them to succeed, they won't even try. They'll check out of the society and stop being productive ("herbivore men" (Japan) or "the beautiful ones" (mouse experiment)). The problem is systematic, of course, but if disproportionately affects the young, which in average have much less capital and thus rely much more on their (present and future) work income.
> IMO, this is one of the reasons that people are into at least talking about Bernie Sanders style socialism.
Yeah but that doesn't make it right. Look at the lashback from the right against Immigration and the rise of Donald Trump. It has been hard for everyone, and human nature is to find individuals or groups to blame.
I am an advocate of sanity on both ends. The left loves to talk about 'revolution' (as if right wing doesn't love to do that, except it calls it 'secession' and 'nullification') but the harsh truth is, we are about a million miles away from a revolution/secession/nullification.
A revolution against the 'injustice' won't move 2 blocks from Times Square before it goes so violent that it would be an effective stalemate.
There are far too many private guns in America for there to be a successful revolution. Civil War is more likely (lets not forget this is what really happened in China and Russia).
Similarly a secession/nullification isn't happening irrespective of how many illegal immigrants arrive in this country (again thanks 2nd amendment for that).
The principles true for the rest of the world just aren't that easily possible for America. There is no extreme right wing or left wing party winning election (Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are hardly the American Golden Dawn, UKIP or Hollande of America). American citizenry is heavily armed and hate speech is legal. Neo-nazis can freely march in America (that surprisingly neuters the power these groups have).
There's only so many demographics that you can alienate.
It's a golden age on the coasts, but many areas of the country have been spiraling downward for decades. If you're a working stiff with negative wage growth essentially working as servants for boomers with fat pensions and reverse mortgages, you're going to get more and more resentful. That's why a demogague like Trump is successful.
Trump says all the things his supporters want to hear.
"The problem is Muslims and Mexicans. We should deport them and build walls. We should obliterate their countries and take their oil. Torture is fine. We should kill the families of terrorists. Shooting Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs blood is a good way to teach them a lesson. The president should be able to directly punish CEOs who aren't protectionist enough. The freedom of the press should be curtailed. It's ok to use violence to punish non-supporters at your rallies."
If that's not extreme right wing, I'm not sure what is.
Wait, there is some sort of confusion here. Trump is leading an very right wing movement, just like Sanders is leading a very left wing movement(by American standards). I don't know why you said in the earlier post "If you don't think Trump is extreme right wing", because I never said any such thing.
I'm sorry to say that but there is no real injustices in western countries. Everybody has food, education, a minimal healthcare and even luxury products like smartphone or TV.
It's very different in Africa where life expectancy is near 45:
A lot of problems in western countries comes from the society itself (how the society is organized and how it works) and most of them can't be solved with laws.
Sounds like "Uncomfortable with privilege". I think that was the point of the comment - to make first world folks aware that their problems are first-world problems.
In the big picture, maybe it doesn't matter exactly how comfortable 5% of the world is. Maybe the real issue is how bad things are in Africa. If people really all matter?
> The boomers are behaving disgustingly by ramping land prices in hock with the banks. It has sent living standards into free-fall for the young.
It's not them. You would do the same if you had properties and kids.
Realestate is a market. It's inside the money.
Some regimes tried to change that by force but it doesn't work. Even if you kill all the richs, they are replaced by another group (lawyers or bureaucrats):
No I wouldn't because I'm not a scumbag. I understand the system, I have funds to participate yet I do not. I will also vote for a brighter tomorrow by trying to support land value tax. Boomers want "me me me" in the main.
If you think that, you might become a victim of "bad" people. Most people are not bad and do what they can. Even the wealthy do their best. Most of them have a family or friends to take care.
Vote is useless. Big changes happens even during economic crisis or after wars.
I guess its the free market that 'disgusting'? Confused. Economic systems work a certain way. Demonizing a group that participates like everybody else is a curious notion. And probably not a route to a solution.
I always find it a curious approach, taken by so many activists, to start by disaffecting the group that they claim is in power. How can it help to piss of and blame the actual people than are in a position to help?
Housing is a free market? The mortgage interest deduction alone is the third largest tax break overall, costing $100 billion per year. Similarly, zoning regulations are rampant, preventing new housing from being built and therefore keeping house values higher for existing homeowners.
Calling the US housing market "free" is a sad joke.
Huh. They're building a lot of housing around here, like a carpet spreading over the land. Nobody who wants a house has to go without.
Maybe we're talking apples and oranges. City centers and highly urbanized areas will work very differently. But is it a civil right to have cheap housing downtown?
We have a system that ensures all our surplus labour after essentials will be taken up by rent.
The banks provide credit as required. It costs nothing to make. As productivity increases (or as we work longer) more credit is created to absorb the surplus via interest.
Maybe it doesnt matter how mysoginistic the US is, maybe the real issue is how bad things are in the middle east.
Does that sound like something you agree with? we should cease all effort to improve conditions for women in the US because all of that effort should instead be expended on improving conditions for women in the middle east?
That's not the fallacy of relative privation. The F.R.P. addresses arguments that appeal to unrelated problems elsewhere in the world. It's a fallacy because it's illogical: it doesn't matter that kids are starving in Japan, because nothing you do with your raisin bran is going to change that. But it does not follow that local problems are more, or even equally, deserving of attention that foreign ones.
Maybe you have a solidly different understanding of that fallacy, but that lines up 100% from where i'm sitting.
I'll even reword it into the right semantic order:
"The US may have some minor societal issues, but its not as bad as africa, therefore those issues can be dismissed"
What exactly is logical about claiming every problem in the US is able to be dismissed on the basis that its worse elsewhere - especially given that we are in a discussion about internal US demographics? How exactly is africa related to the growing proportion of elderly voters in the united states and the effects that has on youth populations?
There is a difference between an argument that you disagree with and an argument that is fallacious. If a problem exists in a minor form in the US and in a gigantic form elsewhere, it may indeed be worthwhile to direct attention to the gigantic problem rather than the minor one. As well, it may not be. The argument is colorable. You can't dispel it by invoking some element of a list of fallacies.
Your argument is a pretty good illustration of the problem I have with these catalogues of fallacies. You've discovered the fallacy of relative privation, as others have discovered, say, ad hominem, and concluded that relative privation is a fallacy. No, that's not the point! As with ad hominem, it can be used fallaciously, but it is not inherently so.
>A logical fallacy is an error in the logic of an argument that prevents it from being logically valid but does not prevent it from swaying people's minds
Can you show me the logic of the argument in a manner that makes sense?
heres what i see:
1. elderly population is becoming ever larger part of electorate
2. this is causing an imbalance, as in the past new generations began influencing the political sphere earlier, as the older generations were much thinner
3. this imbalance is evidenced by political support for a youth focused populist candidate
(heres where maybe im missing something)
4. this imbalance doesnt exist because its not as bad as africa.
To me, its a straight up non sequitur let alone a FRP - on its face fallacious in more ways than one.
On one hand we have a discussion about internal demographics in the US, and then here we have a counter argument proposing that the problems are not real based on the fact that someone has it worse.
This isnt an argument i disagree with - I am not somehow implying that the US has it worse than africa. I am purely saying that bringing africa into a discussion about internal demographics and specifically age demographics of voters, is fallacious (i mean the commentor literally responded to political unrest of a population segment with 'at least there is no one starving'). Hopefully you can present the argument in a way that clarifys what i may be missing.
The context of this thread is the idea that support for Bernie Sanders stems in part from the fact that if the injustices he talks about aren't addressed, there might be an armed revolution in the US.
You are free to believe that's the case, but you cannot invoke the fallacy of relative privation to transform it into an open-and-shut argument.
I'm not doing anything to improve this thread at this point, so I'm bowing out now.
>The context of this thread is the idea that support for Bernie Sanders stems in part from the fact that if the injustices he talks about aren't addressed, there might be an armed revolution in the US.
Ok, then is this an argument for or against that idea?
>I'm sorry to say that but there is no real injustices in western countries. Everybody has food, education, a minimal healthcare and even luxury products like smartphone or TV.
It sounds to me like they are:
>dismissing a complaint due to the existence of more important problems in the world, regardless of whether those problems bear relevance to the original argument.
But sure, maybe its a real argument. Maybe campaign finance reform in the US doesnt exist as an issue, because when i go home i know theres still food in the cupboard.
Maybe because i can go to an emergency room if i get shot and they'll care for me before knowing if i have insurance, that means that black people getting murdered by police officers isn't an injustice.
Maybe given that i have a smartphone, ever rising costs of engaging in a legal battle dont favor the wealthy, and that doesnt represent a legal system based on economics rather than justice
Maybe since my country has a public education system and i was able to learn to read and write, that means that my country doesnt criminalize the mentally ill.
And since someone in africa doesnt have those advantages, any injustice they face is real.
I honestly cant see a way to read these comments that dont fit the exact definition of relative privation. Are you saying that the other commentor was saying that campaign finance reform is not an issue because campaign finance reform is needed even more greatly in africa? Or as you saying they meant an armed revolution is not possible in the US given that countries worse off are not engaged in armed revolution currently? Those are the most generous reads of the comment i've been able to come up with. I appreciate the discussion, have a good one
Step 4 is made up whole cloth - not actually present in any of the above text. That argument form has got to be in that list too, right?
The innocent tangent was "maybe this all seems a little overblown to people that have it worse". Which is undeniably true, as at least some of them actually said that.
I would say, it is hypocritical to worry about one's own cell phone bill to the exclusion of being concerned about other's real privation. I just caution: don't take yourself too seriously.
The real issues to those living in the first-world, are and should be those which affect their everyday lives and the societies that will determine their future.
I'm sorry to say that Africa doesn't really factor into all that. Peace, love and understanding for the entire planet sounds great but I have work to do and bills to pay.
These sort of "reduce everything into rubble by equalizing" arguments provide nothing to the discussion but wishful thinking and meaningless utopianism.
> The real issues to those living in the first-world, are and should be those which affect their everyday lives and the societies that will determine their future.
They can't change that. They had no writing. History of Africa begins with XIVth century.
Our culture comes from the Greeks, Roman Empire and India. Even in the Middle Ages, the western technology was superior.
It was to say that we can't really solve the problems with politics. What we can expect from political movements is something already done or tried. It's about taxes or laws.
People have the right to complain but they don't understand where the problems come from. They are often manipulate by parties to win the elections and nothing changes.
Most of the defects we can see in westerns countries come from the way we are organized (with hierarchy, money and laws).
African societies are more horizontal and people share more (the food for example). There is no homeless in most african cities (some in big ones).
> institutional racism, police killings, homelessness, drug addiction, political oligarchy, rapidly rising secondary education costs, etc.
There is no effective solution to any of these problems. Nothing works.
They are consequences of the money. We use money because we do not understand each other. Money is far more than a commodity. It has its own live and rules.
What is possible is to do small tunings with taxes and laws. That's all.
If you take big revolutionnary measures, you will destabilize the money system and everything will be broken like in 1929.
Another approach is real anarchist communism but it doesn't scale. It works only locally. That's why some libertarians are for feodalism.
"Verbal, dramatic, and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. The ironic form of simile, used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes can emphasize one's meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth, denies the contrary of the truth, or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection."
You're right that old people have always held power. The difference now is that 'old' people are not the 45 year olds of previous generations. Instead, wealth is disproportionately concentrated in the hands of much older - 60's through 80's, thanks to modern medicine.
This tends to push back the timeline of wealth acquisition: the boomers being such a big demographic along with the economic crisis in 2008, and what I see in my highly progressive US city is a massive failure for late Gen X and older millenials to form households: children, mortgages, and the typical consumption patterns this usually breeds.
There are advertisements for IVF treatments on our metro. I'd say 30-40% of educated women are unable or unwilling to have children due to the inability to find a stable partner (who's also educated). I make well over 6 figures and my girlfriend also does pretty well. Together, we'd still need to pay half our joint salary to afford a mortgage on a typical home in a area close to our jobs. There is no way a couple with the median income could do the same without leveraging a huge amount of debt relative to income.
Whether I'm able to do so or not, I'm defintely not willing. Jobs are not certain - I'm always waiting for the next crisis or recession and lay off. No way in hell would I want to be in so much debt in this system. Same for children (along with family court, but I digress).
I'm guessing our politicians see this and understand that the whole pyramid will come crashing down, hence the elite's push for more and more immigration.
Maybe the solution would be, instead of subsidizing foreigners, to create massive tax breaks for locals to procreate - housing, child care, etc. But that wouldn't do anything to push down wages, so it's obviously a no-go in today's political debate.
"Millenials will experience a lost generation and things won't start to look good until we're well into middle-age."
Reading between the lines you're a millenial (if so, sorry) and "they" are trying to manipulate you by claiming if you wait a decade or two, things will be better, just warning you they pulled that trick on us X-ers. I would not be pacified by the same old line. At least make them tell you a new lie.
The strange thing is in other [especially European] countries, these post-war "baby boomers" are falling apart at the seams and it's largely their parents' fault. All because of food.
Parents of baby-boomers lived through war. Food was rationed. Luxury food was seriously rationed. Many grew up without processed fats like butter, or even sugar.
The end rationing was a celebration and these parents wanted their children to have everything they couldn't. Sugar. Fats. The new-fangled convenience foods that came over with Americans post-WWII (operating bases, etc). As time went on this junk food just became even more affordable.
The result is a demographic that has just awesome levels of T2 diabetes, obesity and coronary issues, as well as all the problems that have been associated with these conditions (a fair amount of dementia).
In many cases, the parents who lived through the war are now caring for and outliving their children.
Same result can be found all over the world, albeit the path to it might be different (or not). I don't think we are in worse state than many other westernized places.
At the end, we do our own choices where to spend money - is it cheap and somewhat tasty junk food, or something better (which might not be more expensive, or even cheaper if prepared ourselves). Blaming others for issues that people cause themselves when they have other options is cheap...
That's not what I'm seeing. My impression is rather that the war generation taught their values of not wasting food to their children, and every generation, the lesson gets dilluted because the war is increasingly distant. My baby-boomer taught me to not waste food, and I try to teach my kids, but I also notice that my wife does not share this value. Maybe because her parents grew up on a farm where food was less scarce? Or maybe it's simply different families, different cultures.
In any case, I don't see high levels of obesity and diabetes in baby-boomers. And I think it's more my generation and possibly later generations that eat too much junk food.
Boomers' children are slightly better. They haven't really known rationing so aren't in the position where they really want to push "luxury" crap on their kids. It's been a slow realisation but I think we're only just getting to a point where as a population we understand that feeding children crap means we get fat children.
Food waste is something slightly different but I agree, there's a very consumerist approach to food these days. Most are disconnected from production so don't care where it comes from, how much effort goes into it, how many welfare sacrifices are make to get its cost down.
Fixing both of these issues is done by getting people making and eating real food.
Re my original comments, OT is a geriatrician in England. She's seeing people in their 60s and 70s who have had to move back in with their parents to be cared for. You shouldn't be having geriatric issues until you hit your 80s. She obviously doesn't have the direct experience of other generations but her colleagues tell me this is a relatively recent thing, with this generation.
It'd be interesting to munge through a ton of medical data on this.
I'm a Gen Y living in Sydney - I've been planning to leave for a while because of the adverse conditions for young people here. Rent is very high, everything is expensive, you get fines all the time for silly stuff like parking your car facing the 'wrong' way, staying in a parking spot for 10 minutes too long or not waiting for a full '3 seconds' at a stop sign, etc... Also, in some parks, you can get fined for having a picnic without a permit. I had to pay a $300 traffic fine for driving in a 'bus-only lane' once. It's a police state.
Also, the tax system is complicated and favours people who own houses (In Australia, you get tax deductions if you lose money on a rental property which you own). There are actually a lot of (older) people in Australia who own like 10+ houses (with 10 mortgages) and rent them out to young people and get huge tax deductions (and capital growth).
Older people own everything. To make it worse, the older generation in Australia doesn't really want to invest in technology - They prefer just investing their money into real estate (which has been growing an an impressive rate year-over-year for the past 20 years or so).
The idea of 'investing in yourself' is mostly a foreign concept in Australia - The only thing worthwhile investing in is a block of land with bricks and concrete on top.
There are many people who dropped out of school, became construction workers and bought a house on a mortgage and are now wealthier than most university-educated students thanks to the insane real-estate growth and labour shortage (due in part to tough immigration laws).
Some recent changes in laws suggest that conditions might be improving but it's too late for me.
I'm looking forward to living in San Francisco - Yes the rent will also be high; but at least it seems that everything else is cheaper, taxes are lower and it's generally a good place to build a career in technology.
>I had to pay a $300 traffic fine for driving in a 'bus-only lane' once
I wouldn't say that's evidence of a police state - plenty of other countries have bus lanes, and you'll be fined for driving in them - would you expect otherwise?
The problem is that one man's "shrug it off" is another man's "we can't afford to eat this month." And while you want to deter people, it's unfair to punish someone severely for an innocent mistake that doesn't hurt anybody.
There was a lot of reporting on this sort of thing in the St. Louis area following recent events in Ferguson. Poor people get ticketed for some minor violation. They can't afford the fine when it comes due. The fine snowballs with late fees and court costs, and soon they're facing jail time because they committed some minor infraction, like failing to signal a turn, that half the people on the road commit every day.
I think the proper answer is to adjust fines according to the person's income. It's ridiculous to me that a person making $200,000/year will pay the same fine for speeding as someone working minimum wage. Or, really, that the person working minimum wage will likely pay more, because the fees compound if you can't pay right away.
In the US you get fines for that too. (I learned this after I moved from places without curbs, where everyone parks on the verge rather than the street, to a town with curbs and therefore on-street parking.)
> staying in a parking spot for 10 minutes too long
Also in the US.
> I'm looking forward to living in San Francisco
Do you think the parking will be easier and driving will incur fewer fines?
Bus lanes are pretty well marked where I live. It's especially evident when the street is marked as 'one way', but there's clearly a single lane marked otherwise:
On the parkway, I've seen people use the exit specifically designated for buses that leads to a busway. I've seen two pull in as I went by once! If they charged $300 each time (and posted it), that would stop pretty fast. They are usually pretty nice cars, so I imagine that those are douche bag executives that don't give a damn.
- Great job opportunities, even if you only speak English (less jobs than if you speak German, but with EU orgs, international companies, etc its possible)
- Rent is not cheap in the more attractive cities with good jobs (Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich), but it's not that expensive either compared to say Paris or London
- No out-of-control housing market, as Germans don't have the same lust for owning property and property speculation that you see in much of the English speaking world
- Cost of living (food, drink) compared to wages is really good, compared to much of Europe
- Amazing cheap beer, great festival culture. The food here is seriously underrated, Schweinbraten, etc is amazing. Yes it's not pretentious like e.g. some French food, but it's no-nonsense and delicious, especially in Bavaria. Even the weather compared to the British Isles is decent.
- Low cost university
- A culture of paying for things upfront (e.g. Energiewiende and pensions for old population), hence high taxes but not kicking the can down the road is obviously the best thing in the long run (although it's not much comfort to young workers)
- Soaks up talent from the rest of Europe, you can move with no visa from other EU countries
Regarding taxes, t's possible to get a contracting job, where you are paid as a freelancer and certain social contributions are waived for a period of time. I also know that's it's possible to earn as a contractor, trading as a company from another EU country (earn German wages, pay Greek/Maltese/Irish corp taxes). You need a good tax advisor, but I've seen first hand that it's possible.
I see lots of baby boomers trying to unload the business they've worked hard at the past 30yrs, hoping someone can pay cash at 3x what they make from it. Who can buy something that costs 250K if they've never had steady work let alone the burden of student debt? Eventually even that market will "correct" down to 2x or less.
They've spent decades building something - they're probably the people least capable of objectively valuing the business. There's too much emotion tied into it, especially if they're at a point where they could sell but are just as happy to keep working, meaning the price needed to get them to leave goes up.
It's not unique to business owners, either. One of the real estate websites have a "Make Me Move" option, which is basically the homeowner saying what number they'd need to pack up their shit and leave. It is consistently 180-200% the actual market value. To the point where you want to ask the homeowners what exactly they're smoking that they think their house is worth even close to that much money.
But that's not how much their house is worth to the market—it's how much their house is worth to them. “Make Me Move” doesn't reflect the cost of the property when you're ready to move, it reflects the value of the home to you when you're not really ready to move. It seems completely reasonable that that value would be significantly higher than the value of a piece of land that you need to or are looking to get out of anyway.
Same is true of a person who owns their own business but isn't ready to stop running it. You're not reflecting the market value of your business, you're reflecting the market plus emotional/‘satisfactional’ value of it.
"Make me move" is basically saying "This is the price for which I will uproot my life!"
I actually know someone who was in this situation. A company wanted a sliver of the guy's land for an access road. Eminent domain wasn't an option for the company. The company offered $100k for the 10x30 piece of land. Sensing blood in the water and figuring that redoing all of the project would cost at least $2M + lots of time, he demanded $750k for his property and got $700k. It was worth about $250k total.
> It is consistently 180-200% the actual market value.
Market value is what it would take to have a buy/sell transaction on the house. If there are no houses for sale in the neighborhood, everyones make me move number IS the market value for the house/neighborhood.
I see a lot more of them continuing to work well into their 60s and 70s, sometimes because they haven't planned for retirement, but more often because it keeps them busy, active, and young. Retiring to the golf course at 55 has gone out of fashion for economic and health (increased longevity) reasons.
I try my absolute best to minimize the incoming damage from this line of work. Every 20-30 minutes, I grab my laptop and move to a high desk. There are accompanying chairs for them, but they are the perfect height for working while standing. Every hour or so, I find a stopping point, take the stairs down a level (sometimes two), walk the length of the building, and return back via another flight of stairs.
It's not perfect, but I'm hoping that these position changes and bouts of walking are working for the better. It shouldn't be harmful at the very least.
This is such a good article. Its exactly the same in Germany.
Boomers are running the business. Young pp are worthless garbage. I heard about some middle school teachers saying "young germans should be expelled from all social security...".
Like weow...wait until these pp are old. Then its time for retaliations on the great nazis-kid bastard generation.
No need for retaliation. The "old" are digging their own graves (no pun intended), by not allowing the "young" to flourish - the younger generations either migrate to countries offering better oportunities, or not work at all because of excessive taxes. Eventually, who's going to take care of the old, of their property, and pay their pensions?
It's amazing. However, I don't think the problem is Robotics, I think the problem is AI. Will robots be helping us in 20 years? Possibly. Will they still need people directing them, supervising them, and doing the more complicated tasks? I'm inclined to answer "definitely". But I'd love to be proven wrong! :)
Japan has a bit of a head start on this, recognizing early that it will soon have a lot of old people and not enough young people to both take care of them and keep the economy running. Honda's ASIMO is explicitly a mobility assistance robot. Osaka U. Actroids mimic human appearance. Mitsubishi's Wakamaru approaches the function of a receptionist.
So far, no robot seems even close to taking on the everyday tasks performed by low-wage nursing home employees in the US. But take a look at "Babyloid" and "Pepper". They are robots designed to socially engage with people, so they don't get lonely and depressed.
Japan's elderly may soon be conversing with chatbots more often than living people. Baby Boomers in the US had better take note.
> Japan's elderly may soon be conversing with chatbots more often than living people.
I'm not sure that makes sense - don't TV and Skype solve that problem just fine? I mean, why would old people talk to robots instead of other old people - unless they want to, that is, but then I'd guess this trend wouldn't (isn't) be limited to just old people...
Would you consider an exoskeleton suit to be a robot aid? It neatly circumvents the AI issues. And I imagine most people would prefer to have their youthful mobility instead of a robo-butler.
(I am dodging the other half of the question regarding who pays for it.)
That's an interesting idea, although I would still think it's quite far away (although would be much more viable if we invent better bateries/energy sources). However, this only solves part of the problem - the elderly won't need someone else to take care of them (because they'll be able to take care of themselves with their exosuits), but they still won't be able to retire (because they'll have to work - in their exosuits - to put food on the table).
I dont think robots will kind of "save" the boomers. They have already secured their path to hell.
Wait until they start "getting the savings out of the stock market" (eg to pay for robots or medicine). This wont be a "pleasent" day at all. Guess what, the stock market will collaps! There is no one buying all those stocks!(its the same with insurance. where is the insurance "invested"?)...their savings will evaporate, they dont have children or the children will be gone (to foreign nations).
Its looking grim for those ruthless, egoistic baby boomers. They just dont understand this yet.
I really cannot fathom why we have these ridiculous last call laws. I'm living in California, where it's illegal to sell drinks after 2AM. It's incredibly frustrating. More than once I've been up late at night, and felt like cooking something with wine, only to quickly realize: Oh, right, I can't go buy a bottle of wine until 6AM... Because think of the children, or something like that.
>More than once I've been up late at night, and felt like cooking something with wine
If this is habitual maybe you should, I don't know, have a couple of bottles of wine on-hand for such occasions?
There is evidence that later hours of alcohol sale are related to increased violence, injury and incidence of drunk-driving. Correlation is not causation and all that, but I'm sure people living in the vicinity of bars, or in college towns, aren't swayed by your minor inconvenience.
In NC I can't buy it before noon.. so if I finish groceries at 11:50am I just have to hang around the store for a while until I can buy my wine/beer, because OMG those pesky kids might not go to church otherwise
Hey in Indiana I can't buy any booze on Sunday... if my weekly costco trip is on Sunday and I am getting low on beer? NOPE NO BEER ON SUNDAYS MIGHT NOT GO TO CHURCH
Everything besides the new laws about bars applies to London and the southeast of England, UK. Remarkable how similar the situation is in these two countries.
Could culture have something to do with this if they can avoid this cost of living crisis in continental Europe and most of the US? Or may be they're suffering there too. Only way to solve a lot of these issues is to be able to work remotely and not have to live or buy in commuter areas.
I think many of these problems could be minimized, mitigated or some completely eliminated if millennials would actually vote. But they don't. And I don't foresee that ever changing. It was the same problem with my generation, gen-x (born in 1980 so I'm not quite a gen-x, not quite a millennial). We just didn't vote. I don't believe the <30 crowd has ever been a big voting bloc, at any point in U.S history.
Though, I noticed many of my facebook friends started voting once they hit their early 30s. I think that's when people start to settle down in life and either have the time to study/figure out politics, or get more interested in it. It might be the time where their youthful naive idealism vanishes and they realize that true change is a slow process. They become more pragmatic and more realistic. Much of their concerns tend to be more local/regional where their votes actually hold some power. It's less about voting in a president who can wave a magic wand and create their ideal utopia overnight and more about voting in a local city councilman or state senator who will best represent their interests. People they have actually met in real life and shook their hands.
I vote in every election I'm around for, including the municipal ones and the Super Tuesday primary tomorrow. That doesn't mean those elections are actually contested, or actually involve anyone I really want to vote for. As in, my last municipal election involved five candidates running for four city council seats. I had to pick which one not to vote for!
I'm entitled to be a little resentful when the term "Massachusetts liberal" exists as an insult, a perennial way of kicking my state in the shins and telling us our voice will always be overridden.
No, what happened was they became the lesser partner in a coalition, and delivered a lot from that position (the policies during that period were much, much better than they would have otherwise been). The idea that somehow they should have delivered on all of their policies from that position is laughable. Would they have been better served not being able to influence government at all? (This all goes to show how broken FPTP is, of course.)
Then, because of thinking like that in your post, people gave up on voting for them, despite being the best possible representation.
Turning up to vote is compulsory in Australia (for which I am incredibly thankful). That said, voting gives you a democratic voice, but it doesn't give you power.
I think it is that when you get older you start noticing all the things the system is providing, and realizing how you're tied to it and how it is tied to that process.
We have the same problems in the US. Real estate prices in major urban/semi-urban areas are insane. Among my peers (mostly Gen-X, born late-70s), there is a general consensus that the Boomers have ruined the country for future generations - they borrowed and consumed and never invested in infrastructure. We are saddled with massive student loan debt that the Boomers never needed because colleges were once largely affordable.
Every generation thinks the generation before broke everything and the generation after is callow morons. This whole article is the most boring call-to-complain in HN history.
'Work remotely' really only works for some professional services. Most work doesn't have that opportunity - whether it's construction, hospitality, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, transport, emergency services, sanitation, mining, childcare... the list goes on and on.
And it's because of an unhealthy collision between two major trends in society. Namely:
1. Most more developed countries have an aging population, so the percentage of baby boomers is much higher than it probably should be. This is due to better conditions, better healthcare, etc, which leads to people living longer and the population demographics skewing older. Either way, politicians tend to support them, because they make up more of the population.
2. Older people vote more (perhaps due to younger generations seemingly losing all interest in politics or trying to change their situation in any reasonable way), so politicians target them more. Combine with the aging population mentioned above...
It's a pretty bad problem to have, and a perfect illustration of why a population shouldn't be skewed too much towards any one demographic. And even more problems are going to arise when more of this demographic start retiring and the numbers of people working isn't enough to support it...
I have no idea how to solve this issue. Maybe mandatory voting would be a good start, to try and encourage people to vote rather than mere discuss politics/sign internet petitions? But it's still problematic, since you need both political parties that fight for younger people's political views and enough people to support said parties that the issues can't simply be ignored.
King's Cross is super dodgy, especially at night. It attracted drunks, deros, druggies, prostitutes and other unsavory types. It was not a nice place to visit and it had a reputation for violence.
The lockout laws have stopped the violence. They have also caused collateral damage in the form of these closures.
So there you have it. Would you rather be safe out or cry over the closure of a few late night businesses? Having experienced all sides of King's Cross, I know which I'd choose.
There was a general decline across the greater metropolitan area but, iirc, King's Cross was a notable hotspot. The figures for violent non-domestic assaults before and after the laws show a very sharp decline.
Here is one police comparison (there might be more recent data but it's hard to search on a tablet):
Since I actually read the article, rather than parroting preconceived cowardice about "unsavoury types", I don't have to make this false choice:
> Bravely, his government had first tried to tamp down the issue with cold facts: statistics showed drunken violence was actually decreasing, by almost 40% according to some estimates, and the culture of small bars was starting to sap violent drinking away from the city.
2. In the 10+ years I've known Sydney I did not notice much change in the late night character of King's Cross; certainly not enough to make believe the culture of drugs, drunks, prostitution and violence is going away all by itself. The fact that the laws were introduced in the first place is testament to that.
It praised the state’s “lockout” laws, which Baird’s
predecessor, Barry O’Farrell, had introduced in early
2014 in the wake of high-profile “one-punch” deaths.
Huh?
Googling around, a "one-punch" assault seems to be some Britishism for an assault on an unsuspecting person, where they're knocked out after a single hit, and occasionally die. Most the results are for the new mandatory minimum sentencing laws, but I can't seem to actually find the text of the law anywhere.
EDIT:
The result feels like a final victory in the battle
between Australia’s version of the cavaliers and the
roundheads, the larrikins and the wowsers.
I've never lived anywhere that allowed purchasing alcohol all night long. I read the article and thought to myself "Who the heck drinks after 3am anyways?" Even through my teens and twenties, an all-night party was the exception.
Here in Brazil we have no such laws. You can drink anywhere and anytime. I remember drinking till 5am when I was a teenager and bars would stay open until the last customer was out. Today there is still no restriction, but mostly because of labour laws and the costs of maintaining service it's very hard to find open bars after 3am.
* edit: of course I'm talking about my experience living on a medium-sized city (Maceió). I guess bigger cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro you can find a good number of late open venues.
I spent about three weeks in Brazil (Salvador and then São Paulo), and in SP in particular we regularly found bars open around 5 or 5:30 am, but this was circa 2004/2005 so it may have changed since then.
There are many places around the world that are open late. In many places (I speak from experience in Spain, Peru, and El Salvador) , the night doesn't really get started until after midnight anyways.
The article also mentioned other things, like all liquor must be served with a mixer after midnight. That means drinking a whisky neat is now illegal, which is quite ridiculous, and will definitely drive people away from going to bars.
On a slight tangent, 9-5 first shift work is also kind of a boomer thing that's going away. I'm an old X-er and I've never, in my entire life, had a 9-5 job. Always "as needed" type stuff aka overtime or weird flex time. I've never had a job where I can roll into the office at 9 and left at 5. By my own choice I do four tens now, and as long as the market permits I'll never work five eights ever again. 9-5 means "real job" and since only boomers get the real jobs, do the math there.
I started out in financial services and per our change management if the building wasn't on fire I wasn't allowed to touch anything until 5pm on trading days, so I wouldn't even show up at the office until at least 4pm and if things went bad overnight I could certainly use a drink around 3am... I suspect this kind of work-life balance is not unusual here on HN.
Over here in the UK, 24 hour pubs and bars was a new introduction about a decade or so ago. And shops selling alcohol are often open til fairly late into the night, especially the corner shop types.
It's variable though, so some pubs still close around 11pm, and some don't.
The jury is out about whether this decision was a good thing. On the one hand, there are some articles and studies saying the amount of alcohol drunk has gone down because of it, and on the other hand, others saying that people are drinking more because of it.
In France you have convenience store (referred to as "Chez l'arabe" as their owners are immigrants most of the time) open until very late at nigth.
They sell all sort of non-perishable food and, well, convenience stuff, but most of their profit comes from selling alcohol at night. And man, be it for alcohol or convenience, they are soooo useful !
It varies by town. When I was younger bars were open until 4-5am on the weekends. Then the 2am rule was put in place for every night. Strip clubs stay open until 4am now, but you have to BYOB.
What this had done is turn the strip clubs into normalish clubs after 2 am since everywhere else is closed.
Last time I was out at bars in NYC it was 4am and I believe this is still the case. DC is 3am, as is Hawaii, West Virginia, Indiana, and some places in Illinois.
Parts of Alaska are apparently 5am and Louisiana has no official last call from what I've read.
I'm sure there are some other cities or states with late last call requirements but I'm only familiar with these ones. Occasionally in my city, there are special exceptions like New Year's Eve where bars can stay open and serve all night if they feel like it.
Louisiana is like the wild west of alcohol control. I'm pretty sure you can go to a bar, get a drink to go at 5 am, and take it to another bar (while drinking it on the street).
That is correct, New York is 4am. And I even remember many years of my life when 4am used to seem impossibly early and oppressive. I don't remember them all that well mind you.
I realize it varies, but most of the US has some sort of last-call. I think Vegas and New Orleans are the only cities I've visited (in the US) without one.
I wonder if the idea of those in power (in this case a large voting block and those directly in power) having more to loose plays out in changes in the traditional balance between privacy vs safety/security?
Foreign investment is not a huge factor in Sydney housing prices, and even then it mainly just affects new stock.
Our tax laws create a huge incentive for large scale negatively geared local investment in housing, which means there's a lot of people "losing money" in rental income in order to reduce their income tax. It's an awful unintended consequence that no one has had the cojones to fix.
Lisbon, Porto and south of Portugal has seen a boom on foreign investment on properties. There are locations that if you email the agency, the first thing they mention is all the tax advantages of buying here for non foreigners. There is a whole upscale market for non-residents to park their money in real estate here.
When in Portugal I was really surprised to see most of the billboards in the Lisbon airport to be in... Chinese, advertising properties and apartments for sale. After some looking up I discovered that in Portugal one can acquire residency only by buying a property expensive enough.
Yep, they are called Golden Visas. If you buy a property more expensive than 500.000 Euros you may apply for it. There were a few nags and some corruption charges a while ago so not sure what the current status is.
There is also some tax break that if you had no income in Portugal in the last 10 years, you are eligible for a very reduced personal tax rate if you move to Portugal for X years so that also brings up rental and property prices.
Is there a difference (assuming the vacation residence isn't rented out daily/weekly)? Either way, prime real-estate is being tied up and made inaccessible to residents.
Related thought... I wonder how much AirBnB plays into this? I'm vacationing in Florence later this year and was surprised at the large number of available flats in the historic center. Not just rooms, or random apartments, but in some cases significant portions of buildings.
Vacation residents are made for that, they dont deprive the locals from housing. In contrast, rich people speculatively buying expensive real estate are just that, speculators.
It is a real issue, I was amazed to find places such as Milton Keynes were seeing foreign investment on new build - friend is renting there and his new build place is owned by a family based in the UAE
You should be concerned about the total evaporation of nightlife in your countries largest city. Your condescending comment and not understanding why this is an issue shows your huge bias and highlights the points made in the article even more.
I don't agree with the parent, but I also don't think you're being entirely fair here. It's hard to avoid 'party districts' if you live or work there, or have to travel through them.
It's undeniable that old people have always held power in society, from hunting-gathering societies (various elders/shamans/wisepeople) through early civilization (Senator comes from the Latin "senex" for "old". Senatus = "chamber of old men"), though to today.
At the same time, their numbers (and effectiveness) were probably limited, either by a more pyramidal population distribution and/or by lower life expectancy (including duller minds in older age).
I think what we're seeing for the first time in history is a huge swath of healthy, long-lived older people, throwing the relative balance way off and leading to various situations we see across many different societies.
I like to sum it up as Boomers eating the young and I don't think things will change until the numbers/demographics do, ie, Millenials will experience a lost generation and things won't start to look good until we're well into middle-age.