Experts from a world that no longer exists • Hacker News Board

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#241

Post by PeterisP » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 1:20 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #96

msla wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Youth who think they're forging new territory usually aren't But that's part of the point of the article: The territory actively changes, so even if it's the same location in some sense, it's still new territory, ripe for exploration. Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago.

I don't see how doubling down on the ageism brings anything to the discussion. Old people aren't "only...willing to see what was there decades ago."

At least in science there's the Planck's principle which is essentially "Science progresses one funeral at a time" - that adoption of major new mental models is driven mostly not by people changing their minds, but by them "dying out" and being replaced with new people who have adopted the new model since the beginning.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#242

Post by ghaff » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

lostcolony wrote: post #180

sokoloff wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does paying a handsome lump sum to leavers help make them less underfunded? If the handsome amount is less than the value of the pension, rational people would leave it in there. If it’s more than the current value of the pension, rational people would take it out and the pension fund is thereby left worse off, right?

Just guessing, but, lump sum may be more than the current amount that the person has contributed, but less than what the pension guarantees but may not be able to attain. That is, person may have put in 100k; and a payout is 150k. That seems like a loss, except the pension may also be built around assumptions of 7% growth in that 100k per year; in reality it may be seeing only 3% growth. Better to get it off the book…

Defined benefit were typically paid in by the company. That's the thing that makes them attractive. As an employee you do nothing and, when you retire, you potentially get a nice check every month. I've known people I worked with in a past life who had even totally forgotten about the benefit.

But you're probably basically correct. It's a lump sum that's likely a significant payout but less than the computed actuarial value that would have to be paid out.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#243

Post by IncRnd » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #106

It's weird reading this as someone who identifies strongly as Gen X, witnessing how we can't seem to address existential threats like global climate change until the Boomers retire. Or a thousand other problems. I've spent the last 20+ years under a near-constant form of gaslighting where everybody told me my ideas would never work. Having to watch time and again as a different version of me wins the internet lottery…

> My dad (a Boomer and self-proclaimed radical in the 1960/70s environmental spirit) reminded my just yesterday though that not all Boomers are alike, and that stereotypes hurt.

> I wish we had a different term for people who self-ossify, glorify ignorance, and take it upon themselves to dictate to others why they're wrong.

Your Dad is correct about your stereotyping.

Mitch McConnell is too old to be a Boomer but is part of the Post War generation. Milton Friedman was part of the Pre War generation.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#244

Post by toss1 » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

msla wrote: post #169

toss1 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you are not seeing insults you did make (however un-/sub-consciously / unintentionally)

Old people can see with fresh eyes. I don't know why that's controversial.

>>Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago.

The controversy arises from the structure of the sentence. It implies that 'looking with fresh eyes' is the rare thing, and the common thing is that older people are "only being willing to see what was there decades ago."

Sure, you technically acknowledged that it was possible, but the sentence structure guides the reader to conclude that your view is that old people only see the old stuff, thereby treating them as a monolithic unit, and thus ageist.

I've often had this sort of issue myself. I've found the only thing that helps is merciless self-editing, and keeping in mind two things.

First is a passing comment from a professional writer friend who was weighing how our choice of allocating more words or fewer gave different weight to each concept we were trying to get across in a short piece we were writing, saying something like "using that many words here gives it too much weight".

The second thing I've found often useful is to put the key concept and a key word at the end of the sentence and paragraph, where it is actually most punchy and emphatic. The beginning is second best, and the middle just buries it.

I notice that you sentence buried the 'fresh eyes' concept in the middle, and used a much longer ending phrase ending in 'decades ago', so compared to your intent stated here, the emphasis was kind of backwards.

Perhaps better would have been "Old people can see that, and although everyone's tendency to see just what they already know, they'll see the new opportunities just as well as anyone else when they make the effort to see with fresh eyes.".

I hope this helps.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#245

Post by corpMaverick » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

jbay808 wrote: post #229

Kye wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI Really. Just give people money. It generates more benefit than it costs. Look how well billionaires did when unemployment benefits were buffed up. Now imagine if they were taxed reasonably to capture some of that toward covering the cost. People still looked for work, but they could afford to hold out for better jobs.

I agree, and when governments are worried about deflation, UBI / helicopter money, which goes to people who need it and will rapidly spend it, seems much better than lowering interest rates, which mainly inflates asset prices and benefits the top 1%. I'm not sure why it's not more commonly employed. Of course, we're in an inflation scenario right now, but part of the reason for that appears to be that central banks a…

My only worry is that a lot of that money goes to housing. Rents go up immediately and also house prices. So we need policies to increase housing supply/density in most cities to counter this effect.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#246

Post by dehrmann » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

nly wrote: post #238

dehrmann wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead What do you think those funds invest(ed) in? If stocks and bonds don't perform well, how do those funds continue to make their payments? The shift to individual plans shifted responsibility, hurt some efficiencies pensions could get because they can plan for the mean, not the p95, and decoupled retirement from employers, improving the labor market. All in…

Employer run schemes are/were supported by the business. The theory went that yes, they invested the pension funds in the market, but the business itself would always be there to contribute to cover the shortfall. What fucked these schemes is falling bond yields

> the business itself would always be there to contribute to cover the shortfall

This is problematic because companies aren't eternal, and stock performance is somewhat liked to economic conditions, so if stocks are struggling, the company might be struggling, making the pension obligations a double-whammy, actually putting the health of the company at risk.

These days, in the US, there seem to be a lot of romantic notions of pensions, and I'm not against them per se, but having them managed and tied to employers was a really bad idea.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#247

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

jprd wrote: post #196

aembleton wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock market. You get a private pension.

Yep. If you pay very close attention, research, move things when necessary, etc. That's either a cool hobby or a second job. Here's the thing, most humans find it less than scintillating to devolve ALL their activities to some sort of spreadsheet or algo optimization. World of Warcraft is fun for most until the end-game where discovery and imagination is ripped away and all that is left is actuarial tables and dice r…

[deleted]

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#248

Post by jdlshore » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

jprd wrote: post #196

aembleton wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock market. You get a private pension.

Yep. If you pay very close attention, research, move things when necessary, etc. That's either a cool hobby or a second job. Here's the thing, most humans find it less than scintillating to devolve ALL their activities to some sort of spreadsheet or algo optimization. World of Warcraft is fun for most until the end-game where discovery and imagination is ripped away and all that is left is actuarial tables and dice r…

You’re overstating the difficulty of investing for retirement. A simple Vanguard target date fund is all you need. Set up a monthly automatic contribution and that’s it. More control is possible but not necessary for decent returns.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#249

Post by niknoble » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

chaxor wrote: post #81

notreallyserio wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but wonder how much better our governments would operate if the median age of their workers were somewhat lower (IIRC that's around 45).

This doesn't make any sense. Aging is certainly a problem that needs to be solved, but the idea that you expressed here seems to be that younger people are better at their jobs - which is very wrong. This line of thinking is akin to "If less of the postmen had diabetes, I would get more of my mail faster!" Don't fall for these ageist logical inconsistencies

"If my chess team of 45-year-olds were 10 years younger, I would win more games." Is this also an ageist logical inconsistency? At some point claims like this are testable.

On a separate note, of course 20-year-olds are better at their jobs than 100-year-olds. So the phenomenon of younger people being better at their jobs is true at an extreme. You can argue that it doesn't extend much further than this extreme, but saying it doesn't exist at all is silly.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#250

Post by niknoble » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #96

msla wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Youth who think they're forging new territory usually aren't But that's part of the point of the article: The territory actively changes, so even if it's the same location in some sense, it's still new territory, ripe for exploration. Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago.

I don't see how doubling down on the ageism brings anything to the discussion. Old people aren't "only...willing to see what was there decades ago."

Not disputing the claims of you or msla, but how is this sentence ageist -

> Old people can see that, but it requires looking with fresh eyes, as opposed to only being willing to see what was there decades ago.

while this one is not -

> Youth who think they're forging new territory usually aren't, but there are plenty who think they are and have an arrogance about it that is insufferable.