91–100 of 113 posts
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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
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This has a name: learned helplessness
learned helplessness is ceasing to try when something is achievable - if change isn't possible, that's just lack of control
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> 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.
a number of reasons, including avoiding to feed the gerontocracy
> Times are precarious
yeah i get it but at the same time, times are always precarious.
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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.
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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.
Since social mobility has flatlined, this has more to do with about the decline in birthrates.
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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.
> now that they have it, why would they give it up? a number of reasons, including avoiding to feed the gerontocracy > Times are precarious yeah i get it but at the same time, times are always precarious.
Your kids will see them passing by in Porsche, or speaking how they casually bought an island on Adriatic.
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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?
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...
There's a link below the tables to a PDF that describes the definitions and methods used.
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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?
Biden, Trump, Schumer, Feinstein, McConnel say: "What's that, sonny? Ask me again after my afternoon nap." ---- Anyway, the article's author seems to be quite the hard-line capitalist: > "The only plausible way to keep public pensions solvent... is for retirement ages to rise as life expectancy does." So, even though society's productive capacity is incredibly high, having risen and risen over two centuries of indust…
> That is, people don't starve because there's not enough food, they aren't homeless because there are not enough houses and apartments, they are not left untreated for medical conditions for lack of doctors and nurses etc. People don't actually starve today, because food scarcity is now a problem humanity has almost-entirely solved (the exceptions are war-torn parts of sub-Saharan Africa, not anywhere in a developed…
Indeed, people rarely die of starvation outright (although some do: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/starvatio... ) but - starvation is very much a problem, and malnourishment and food insecurity are very serious problems in many countries. Here's a map:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/malnutrit...
and while it is a specific example, I must mention the situation in *Gaza*, where 2.3 Million people (now 2.2 Million or so after Israel's mass killing) are being subjected to a regime which moves between severe malnourishment and starvation, and have been in this situation for over two years. (Before that, the siege subjected them to 'non-severe' malnourishment). The main culprits are Israel, Egypt and the US. The reason I had to mention that is that I live in Haifa and this one is partially my responsibility as an Israeli citizen.
America may be become a gerontocracy but it’s far more likely to be a plutocracy first and that will cause more long term harm. Old people die eventually, but the ultra rich keep it in the family.