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The idea that climate change and financial inequality concerns are generational divided is ludicrous. To me this framing reeks as just another divisional front

The idea that climate change and financial inequality concerns are generational divided is ludicrous. To me this framing reeks as just another divisional front the promoters of identity politics, who btw are also not generational divided, would like to inflict on us all. P.S. I'm not Gen Z by a long shot and deeply concerned about climate change and financial inequality.

Despegar 7y ago
The real war, as always, is class war. There are plenty of poor boomers and there are plenty of rich millennials. But in general I'd say that "Ok Boomer" works.
overthemoon 7y ago
Generations are ideologically divided. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-partisan-and-ideological-gap-between-younger-older-generations/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-par... https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-in-american-politics/ https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-i... https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politics-of-american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politic...
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  No they are not. They have statistically differently skewed preferences, but that is a completely different thing. Divided would mean that e.g. Millennials with few exceptions vote Democrat while Boomers with few exceptions vote Republican. You know their age, you know their vote with few exceptions. The reality is that if you would 'accuse' a Boomer of having voted Republican you would be wrong 56% of the time, and if you would 'accuse' a Millennial of having voted Democrat you would be wrong 46% of the time. This means that if you would start guessing DEM/REP voting purely based on cohort, you would on average be wrong 51% of the time! Yet somehow, this is spun as a generational divide? Do you think this warrants supporting a generational 'war' narrative?
  - overthemoon 7y ago
    You're just redefining "divide" to mean something more substantial than I am. Do you think this is so insignificant that it doesn't even warrant a conversation?
    - PeterStuer 7y ago
      Then how should I interpret your 'Generations are ideologically divided'? If it is merely the expression of slight shifts in political leanings correlated with age, we'd have to look whether this is a new thing or something that has always been the case [1]. The reason I point out in my response to you that the presumptions which you will find even in this tread, that there is a conflict between the generations that expresses itself as a principle component in voting behavior and justifies division and vilification of the 'opposite' age cohort, is blatantly false and a manufactured framework intent on dividing people and gaining economically and politically from that conflict rather than uniting and looking for solutions. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/
WhompingWindows 7y ago
Look at politics today, though. The party that is speaking out vociferously against climate change and inequality is the Democratic party, whose voters are statistically much younger, more educated, more urban, less white, less religious, more female. Now look at the GOP, which handed out huge tax breaks to the rich/corporations, and who denies climate science...GOP voters (and the politicians themselves)_are older, whiter, more rural, more male, and much less likely to believe in climate change. It's just simple demographic facts that Boomers are politically much, much more likely to not care about climate change and financial inequality. Yes, it sucks that older folks who do care are being painted with a broad brush, but that's the nature of quick and dirty articles.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  That is not the nature of 'quick and dirty articles'. That is precisely the nature of identity politics, which treats everyone not as an individual with a personal identity and personal believes and responsibilities, but as a generic instanced clone of some immutable class assigned by birth, all members of which need to prostrate to a perpetual divisive ideological war.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    Identity politics is just a useful way to refer to groups of people. You can't really have (useful) politics without identity politics. For example, how do you talk about helping homeless people, without using their shared identity (the fact that they are homeless)? Obviously it's not always a useful thing, and grouping people by shared identities can be messy. I don't understand how it can be avoided though, unless you just want the world to stay exactly the same it is.
    - PeterStuer 7y ago
      'Homeless people' are in the context of homelessness policy are not a 'shared identity' but an accurate identification of the (mutable) attribute the policy should target. It is the exact opposite of the (immutable) identity politics approach.
notacoward 7y ago
> The idea that ... financial inequality concerns are generational divided is ludicrous. Are facts "ludicrous" to you? Older people naturally tend to be wealthier through decades of debt retirement, salary increases, compounded investment returns, and so on. There was already a visible divide between the Me Generation (what "Baby Boomers" were once called and IMO still should be) and my own GenX. It seems the divide between us and Millennials/GenZ has gotten even larger. Student debt loads tend to be much larger as a percentage of income than mine were because inflation of college costs has significantly outpaced inflation generally (plus artificially increased demand). Changes in real estate and job markets have only exacerbated those differences. Maybe age-based inequality isn't as big an issue as race-based, but it's still an issue worthy of consideration.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  I was talking about being concerned about financial inequality not being generational divided. And financial inequality does transcend generations, kids from poorer parents on average stay poorer themselves, while kids from rich parents tend on average to to turn out richer, rather than divide them. What is even worse is that the rising of economic inequality in the US, will also reflect itself in an even further decline of economic mobility as those two have been shown to be correlated [1]. Don't get caught up in these divisional doctrines. Some stand to benefit from fueling these narratives, and it is not going to be any of the people being pushed into the fires of identity wars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve
  - notacoward 7y ago
    > kids from poorer parents on average stay poorer themselves It's possible for that to be true and for there to be differences between generations. They're not mutually exclusive. > Some stand to benefit from fueling these narratives ...and some stand to benefit from suppressing them. Attribution of motive - to unspecified people, even - is a non argument.

Despegar 7y ago

The real war, as always, is class war. There are plenty of poor boomers and there are plenty of rich millennials. But in general I'd say that "Ok Boomer" works.

overthemoon 7y ago

Generations are ideologically divided. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-partisan-and-ideological-gap-between-younger-older-generations/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-par... https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-in-american-politics/ https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-i... https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politics-of-american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politic...

PeterStuer 7y ago
No they are not. They have statistically differently skewed preferences, but that is a completely different thing. Divided would mean that e.g. Millennials with few exceptions vote Democrat while Boomers with few exceptions vote Republican. You know their age, you know their vote with few exceptions. The reality is that if you would 'accuse' a Boomer of having voted Republican you would be wrong 56% of the time, and if you would 'accuse' a Millennial of having voted Democrat you would be wrong 46% of the time. This means that if you would start guessing DEM/REP voting purely based on cohort, you would on average be wrong 51% of the time! Yet somehow, this is spun as a generational divide? Do you think this warrants supporting a generational 'war' narrative?
- overthemoon 7y ago
  You're just redefining "divide" to mean something more substantial than I am. Do you think this is so insignificant that it doesn't even warrant a conversation?
  - PeterStuer 7y ago
    Then how should I interpret your 'Generations are ideologically divided'? If it is merely the expression of slight shifts in political leanings correlated with age, we'd have to look whether this is a new thing or something that has always been the case [1]. The reason I point out in my response to you that the presumptions which you will find even in this tread, that there is a conflict between the generations that expresses itself as a principle component in voting behavior and justifies division and vilification of the 'opposite' age cohort, is blatantly false and a manufactured framework intent on dividing people and gaining economically and politically from that conflict rather than uniting and looking for solutions. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/

WhompingWindows 7y ago

Look at politics today, though. The party that is speaking out vociferously against climate change and inequality is the Democratic party, whose voters are statistically much younger, more educated, more urban, less white, less religious, more female. Now look at the GOP, which handed out huge tax breaks to the rich/corporations, and who denies climate science...GOP voters (and the politicians themselves)_are older, whiter, more rural, more male, and much less likely to believe in climate change. It's just simple demographic facts that Boomers are politically much, much more likely to not care about climate change and financial inequality. Yes, it sucks that older folks who do care are being painted with a broad brush, but that's the nature of quick and dirty articles.

PeterStuer 7y ago
That is not the nature of 'quick and dirty articles'. That is precisely the nature of identity politics, which treats everyone not as an individual with a personal identity and personal believes and responsibilities, but as a generic instanced clone of some immutable class assigned by birth, all members of which need to prostrate to a perpetual divisive ideological war.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  Identity politics is just a useful way to refer to groups of people. You can't really have (useful) politics without identity politics. For example, how do you talk about helping homeless people, without using their shared identity (the fact that they are homeless)? Obviously it's not always a useful thing, and grouping people by shared identities can be messy. I don't understand how it can be avoided though, unless you just want the world to stay exactly the same it is.
  - PeterStuer 7y ago
    'Homeless people' are in the context of homelessness policy are not a 'shared identity' but an accurate identification of the (mutable) attribute the policy should target. It is the exact opposite of the (immutable) identity politics approach.

notacoward 7y ago

> The idea that ... financial inequality concerns are generational divided is ludicrous. Are facts "ludicrous" to you? Older people naturally tend to be wealthier through decades of debt retirement, salary increases, compounded investment returns, and so on. There was already a visible divide between the Me Generation (what "Baby Boomers" were once called and IMO still should be) and my own GenX. It seems the divide between us and Millennials/GenZ has gotten even larger. Student debt loads tend to be much larger as a percentage of income than mine were because inflation of college costs has significantly outpaced inflation generally (plus artificially increased demand). Changes in real estate and job markets have only exacerbated those differences. Maybe age-based inequality isn't as big an issue as race-based, but it's still an issue worthy of consideration.

PeterStuer 7y ago
I was talking about being concerned about financial inequality not being generational divided. And financial inequality does transcend generations, kids from poorer parents on average stay poorer themselves, while kids from rich parents tend on average to to turn out richer, rather than divide them. What is even worse is that the rising of economic inequality in the US, will also reflect itself in an even further decline of economic mobility as those two have been shown to be correlated [1]. Don't get caught up in these divisional doctrines. Some stand to benefit from fueling these narratives, and it is not going to be any of the people being pushed into the fires of identity wars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve
- notacoward 7y ago
  > kids from poorer parents on average stay poorer themselves It's possible for that to be true and for there to be differences between generations. They're not mutually exclusive. > Some stand to benefit from fueling these narratives ...and some stand to benefit from suppressing them. Attribution of motive - to unspecified people, even - is a non argument.