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The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

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Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#71

Post by lenerdenator »

WalterBright wrote: post #25
lenerdenator wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's happening in the US, too. I know of a senior couple where the husband recently retired after forty years of working in a professional field. They live in a house worth over $750k that is paid off. They have three new or late-model vehicles. Both the husband and wife could, if necessary, work for an income. They also collect Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance checks after enrolling for them. The common…

> Why the hell are they able to collect on that? People in the higher income brackets get far less back on SS than they paid in.

They shouldn't get any.

This is a fund for widows, orphans, and those who are simply unable to earn any sort of money to fund their survival. They're none of the above.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#72

Post by cosmotic »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #43
ungreased0675 wrote: post #4

Term limits would fix it

Term limits are perhaps the dumbest idea that ever plagued democracy. The idea of mandatory firing your most qualified, experienced employees in an incredibly difficult job that can only be learned with on-the-job experience is literally insane. If not for term limits, the US would have had Obama in the presidency this entire time instead of the absolute garbage scraps that were left over when they fired the only per…

Except in many cases the experience isn't benefiting the electorate.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#73

Post by xboxnolifes »

jmull wrote: post #61
throw-234 wrote: post #51

> Our gerontocracy is not the result of a malevolent plan, .. Boomers aren't distinctively evil.. The fact that they are so numerous and the fact that they are aging in era when life has been extended make the syndrome endemic. .. America faces a gerontocratic crisis of succession on the scale of society itself. The melodrama of succession—­waiting for the old to make way for the new—­defines not only our politics bu…

Sounds dramatic, but what are we talking about here? Are you planning to work through democratic processes or do you mean revolution?

by law, then by unrest, then by revolution.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#74

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

toast0 wrote: post #64
lenerdenator wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's happening in the US, too. I know of a senior couple where the husband recently retired after forty years of working in a professional field. They live in a house worth over $750k that is paid off. They have three new or late-model vehicles. Both the husband and wife could, if necessary, work for an income. They also collect Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance checks after enrolling for them. The common…

They paid for Old Age Insurance, and they reached old age, so they get to collect. Social Security as an insurance product is fiction, but playing into the fiction helps it survive to do the thing it was built for: keep the elderly out of the poor houses / off the street. Payout rates drop at higher income, and portions of the payout are taxable at higher income, so it's not like it's completely income/wealth blind.

They get much more out of it than they paid in. The younger cohorts get much less out of it than they paid in.

Thats not insurance, that’s generational fraud. It’s a ponzi scheme.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#75

Post by r14c »

WalterBright wrote: post #50
r14c wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're talking about different things then. Nobody is asking for equal result. Equity means sharing the rewards of productivity, instead of allowing a group of people who do nothing get rich off of other people's hard work. That's fair. Doing good work should be rewarded!

> Nobody is asking for equal result. Equity means sharing the rewards of productivity, instead of allowing a group of people who do nothing get rich off of other people's hard work. Your two sentences contradict each other.

Yeah I guess we're talking about different things. Thanks for clarifying.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#76

Post by thefz »

johngossman wrote: post #15

While I mostly agree... Venice was run by very old men. It was common for the Doge to be in their 80s. Meanwhile, many of their neighbors had kings who were very young, sometimes teenage boys. Venice was the longest lasting, most stable state in Europe.

Well at the times of Doges the world hardly revolutionized. Nowadays a person in their 80s has lived through the rise of at least three different medias (radio, TV, internet) and the world has never changed so fast.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#77

Post by johngossman »

Mistletoe wrote: post #24
johngossman wrote: post #15

While I mostly agree... Venice was run by very old men. It was common for the Doge to be in their 80s. Meanwhile, many of their neighbors had kings who were very young, sometimes teenage boys. Venice was the longest lasting, most stable state in Europe.

It may have been stable and dominant in spite of that, like America, currently being run by senile old men. The human mind is a biological computer and it isn’t pretty the older it gets. https://medium.com/psyc-406-2015/how-fast-does-iq-decline-ca...

Average is probably not what you need to worry about: I'd bet David Attenborough and Mel Brooks still have IQs considerably higher than the average 25-year old. And I'm not convinced IQ is as important as that elusive factor called character.

But you may be right. Maybe what the US really needs is a lagoon.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#78

Post by applfanboysbgon »

cosmotic wrote: post #72
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Term limits are perhaps the dumbest idea that ever plagued democracy. The idea of mandatory firing your most qualified, experienced employees in an incredibly difficult job that can only be learned with on-the-job experience is literally insane. If not for term limits, the US would have had Obama in the presidency this entire time instead of the absolute garbage scraps that were left over when they fired the only per…

Except in many cases the experience isn't benefiting the electorate.

At that point, the blame lies with the electorate for choosing to re-elect somebody who has a proven track record of harming them. You can't realistically prevent people from making bad choices in a democracy, at some point the voters have to have accountability for who they choose to vote for. Restricting who they are allowed to vote for is liable to backfire if you're arbitrarily removing the best candidates from the pool, especially out of a misguided belief that term limits prevent elderly politicians from taking power (yet Trump was elected for his first term at 70, his second term at 78, and Biden for his first term at 78... because, allegedly, disqualifying 55-year-old Obama in 2016 was somehow meant to help prevent geriatric politicians from being in power).

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#80

Post by johngossman »

floodfx wrote: post #27
johngossman wrote: post #15

While I mostly agree... Venice was run by very old men. It was common for the Doge to be in their 80s. Meanwhile, many of their neighbors had kings who were very young, sometimes teenage boys. Venice was the longest lasting, most stable state in Europe.

The Doge had no power.

Welcome to my rathole: Venetian history. To expand on your thesis, the Council of Ten was the executive power in Venice, but the Doge and minor council attended the Council of Ten meetings and the Doge often chaired those meetings. And even if he was powerless, the Council was made up of other old men. I don't want to push this whole argument, I'm not recommending we adopt the Venetian constitution. But I don't think you can blame current chaos on age.
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