Is America becoming a gerontocracy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#81

Post by littlexsparkee » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #78

lifestyleguru wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With birth rates in free fall for last twenty years, what did we expect? Millennials received kick in their teeth when entering adulthood and around the time when was the moment for a last (or the first, finally) child. Real estate market had never been cheap either. Exactly overlaps with falling birthrates over the last twenty years. Looking at other countries, "interestingly" Russian invasion of Ukraine basically…

> Millennials received kick in their teeth when entering adulthood and around the time when was the moment for a last (or the first, finally) child. X doubt. I partially agree but at the same time what I see with my eyes does not really align with this usual rhethoric/narrative. In my age group I see a lot of childless men and women that did manage to build their own stability (have a stable job, buy a house and what…

Not having kids likely allowed them that stability in the first place; now that they have it, why would they give it up? Times are precarious.

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#82

Post by microgpt » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

amunozo wrote: post #21

zdragnar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people being old is a relatively modern problem. One could even argue that it is a problem specific to cultures that favor low or negative birthrates.

Low birthrates are a constant in every industrialized country independently of culture.

You say independently of culture, but doesn't industrialization change the culture in a certain way that is similar everywhere?

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#83

Post by microgpt » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #24

jyounker wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're demonstrating the reluctance to admit that class conflict is a real thing. There has been a class war going on for at least four decades in the US, and the lower classes are on the loosing side. All you have to do is look at growing wage gaps in that period. We can come up with all sorts of just-so stories, but the simple answer is that the rich have captured the US government, and it is being governed…

If you look at the actual numbers, the trend over the last several decades is a steadily shrinking number of people in poverty in the US. If the only thing you look at are the wage gaps, you're ignoring the very real gains the lower end of the spectrum have made. If the choice were to be poor then or poor now, I'd much rather be poor now.

What is poverty?

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#84

Post by microgpt » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 2:38 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #29

nswango wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's exactly the grandparent's point. Those conflicts are all the pretexts - they believe that it's actually class war and the other labels are all used to avoid calling it by its name.

It isn't class warfare if the two (or more) sides aren't divided by class. What OP meant was the income and wealth gaps are they only things they care about, not the only things that are real.

Taxonomy is never perfect. What's the most obvious one that seems watertight? I'll tell you the holes in it.

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#85

Post by microgpt » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

littlexsparkee wrote: post #75

lifestyleguru wrote: post #7

Welcome to the honorable club with with Italy and Germany. What's very specific is that the old pull up the ladder. They don't pass the knowledge, nor experience, not a single cent trickles down, no power is delegated. Even the opposite, with help of immediate family they vacuum up the money and power even further. What's quite mindblowing for an outside observer is that the birth year of American president has been…

i see lower voting rates for young people as a nihilistic reaction to gerontocracy. i.e. if they are blocked from upward mobility, they see power protects assets and have no clear path to this, isn't it a natural reaction? let's say they all organized and had higher voter turnout - they'd still lose on the wealth front, which is what counts. the aged would defend their power vociferously and probably win through PACs…

I expect them to vote more and vote farther right, that is the other thing disaffected people do. Germany's far right holds 25% of the parliament.

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#86

Post by microgpt » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

littlexsparkee wrote: post #76

jmclnx wrote: post #64

You can write about these issues all you want, but the fact remains the young do not vote (period). When I was young, the voting age became 18, me and all my friends could not wait until we could vote and we kept it up as we aged. Many in my generation were that way. Then all of a sudden the young stopped voting. So if young people want to change things, get involved with politics get off your phones and make noise.…

When you've seen social movements fizzle out and understand that wealth outweighs turnout (the aged have both), how can you motivate people in that sort of environment? It feels rigged at that point

This has a name: learned helplessness

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#87

Post by solumunus » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

hyhatqtv wrote: post #51

Chu4eeno wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No cultures directly favor low or negative birthrates. But we've known since the 1800s that it follows from female education (and this seems independent of culture, it was first observed in France, but you can see the same trend in any African country, or even Iran), which is favored.

France went through a demographic transition 100+ years earlier than all other European countries and then had a population boom in the 50s and 60s. I doubt an average French women was less educated in 1960 than in the mid 1800s. I don’t think it’s that straightforward, material conditions in combination with massively lower mortality in all age groups and a shift in social values must be playing a significant part

It’s simply that for the first time in human history women have alternative options that don’t suck. That’s literally it. Birth rates will remain high only in socially conservative highly religious countries. Liberal democracies? No chance.

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#88

Post by lostmsu » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

littlexsparkee wrote: post #70

GrooveSAN wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would old people vote for other old _people_? I understand they’d want to get ideas favorable to them to be applied, but that may as well come from any _not old_ person.

They tend to because typically people in the same stage of life tend to have similar interests to defend but like you say, it could theoretically come from politicians of any age. Younger cohorts are much more diverse and less likely to espouse these ideas, seeing them as extractive. This is where the stereotype of getting more conservative with age comes from - it's defensive wealth preservation.

I think this is changed by the Internet in the same way as WWW forces globalization. In a generation or two when Internet-illiteral generation dies out we will have cross age homogenized.

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#89

Post by lifestyleguru » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #66

No, it is currently a temporary gerontocracy. The Boomers were such a big generation that everything bent to their will. When they were young, the government catered to what young people wanted. When they were in their 40s the world catered to what the 40-year-olds wanted. And now that they are old, the only industry that is doing well is the medical industry, keeping them alive.

> And now that they are old, the only industry that is doing well is the medical industry, keeping them alive.

It's not like healthcare is particularly cheap and available, even in European countries with stereotypically good public universal healthcare. There is significant number of elderly receiving miserable service.

So it's the rich boomers sucking up all resources?

Re: Is America becoming a gerontocracy?

#90

Post by lifestyleguru » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 3:02 PM UTC

microgpt wrote: post #85

littlexsparkee wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i see lower voting rates for young people as a nihilistic reaction to gerontocracy. i.e. if they are blocked from upward mobility, they see power protects assets and have no clear path to this, isn't it a natural reaction? let's say they all organized and had higher voter turnout - they'd still lose on the wealth front, which is what counts. the aged would defend their power vociferously and probably win through PACs…

I expect them to vote more and vote farther right, that is the other thing disaffected people do. Germany's far right holds 25% of the parliament.

They don't vote as a protest or from apathy. Unfortunately the reality is nobody cares about this protest and it even works against their interest. When they finally go voting it's for far right parties which give them a feeling that their vote counts.