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There's a short-term problem of society becoming "top-heavy", where there might not be enough young to pay for the continued care of the old. But in the long ru
by _bxg1 6y ago
There's a short-term problem of society becoming "top-heavy", where there might not be enough young to pay for the continued care of the old. But in the long run this seems like a win. I wonder what impact it might have on climate projections.
- cheez 6y agoWhy does it seem like a win?
- toomuchtodo 6y agoLess future humans in contention for limited planetary resources.
- cheez 6y agoAre they really limited (edit: with respect to the number of humans)? What makes you say that?
- arp242 6y agoThe planet is of finite size, so unlimited growth was clearly never an option. The question is, what is the best population size, and how do we get to that level?
- hubert1234 6y agothe universe is plenty infinite, we dont need to limit the population at all
- cheez 6y agoThere are natural growth levels I'm sure.
- young_unixer 6y agoA big part of that problem is that most nations have a pension system where the active work force pays for the pension of the elder instead of each person paying their own pension by saving/investing troughout their lives.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoSaving and investing is ineffective if everyone’s investment returns (assuming there’s any returns to be had with productivity slowing and economies stagflating, note the monetary policy in Japan and Europe) are chasing the same limited pool of healthcare and caregiver labor. The only solutions are technology or rationing care.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kmonsen 6y agoThe key is who saves/invests the most and they will have access. This is how it works with everything in capitalism and this is the only efficient way we know of distributing resources.
- epx 6y agoThe boomers will have to accept a haircut. This is a matter of time.
- paulcole 6y agoNobody wants to admit it but the only chance to “win” against climate change is to either drastically reduce the population or invent some magic technology that solves the problem for us. Advancements in existing technology just aren’t going to be enough at the timeline we’re looking at. Political change is another non-starter because it just won’t happen on a global scale. Then there’s the fact that for the vast majority of people alive today, the Earth’s condition in 50 or 100 years is rightly not even on their radar.
- efficax 6y agowhat does it mean to "pay for" the continued care of the old. Unless we have such a population implosion that we can no longer produce food or run our factories, then we don't need to "pay for" anything. We can simply decide to distribute the resources necessary for the care of the old. The real cost of everything is the labor required to produce it, not the dollar value it receives in a market place. I don't think anyone is talking about a complete collapse in the labor pool.
- mlyle 6y agoYes, but e.g. Japan faces a big problem where the labor pool will be a small part of the population, with a big noticeable slice involved in elder care. If current plans to automate large amounts of this work (and I worry that automating it could be horribly dystopian) do not succeed it will be a large problem. (Not to mention other types of resources that those not in the labor force consume besides direct care).
- _bxg1 6y agoPensions, social security, etc. The point is that the "active economy" will shrink beneath what was expected for those systems to function for the number of elderly they will end up having.
- Gibbon1 6y agoI'd like to see an accounting of the real resources (not money) that elderly require vs children and young to middle aged adults. I'm suspicious because it sounds much like the undue burden tripe you hear about disabled people.
- sk5t 6y agoAt least in the US, expenses in later life seem not too bad, until the last 3-5 years--at which point healthcare cost absolutely blows everything out of the water. Like, more healthcare cost in one week at 85 than an entire year at 50. Especially once a person is unable to safely walk to the bathroom or prepare a simple meal without falling. Meds, ambulance transport, non-emergency wheelchair transport, rental of various equipment, home health aides, physical therapy, speech therapy, rehab or nursing care, palliative care. The costs are just stupefying. Edit: I've replied mostly along the lines of the financial costs, but the human service component is by far the largest part of it, that's the main resource consumed.
- Gibbon1 6y agoI was thinking more along retired or semi-retired. But yes end of life is a thing. Even then people 'sounding the alarm' about the ratio of workers to retirees 'plummeting' are way overstating things. Over the next thirty years the percentage of people over 65 is going to double and then level off. The source of the panic is the 'exponential growth forever' dingbats being confronted by a reality they don't like.
- zanny 6y agoPretty much every western civilization on Earth is fully capable of providing a minimum standard of living to its entire population today, let alone just a larger chunk of the pie elder group in half a century. Its an active and intentional decision not to do so. Unless society collapses and the knowledge of how modern mass production works to produce so much plenty evaporates it will continue to take a tiny percentage of the whole population to provide the resources needed to survive to the rest. We should be expecting a technological singularity before 2100, not some dystopia where all wealth evaporates and the only people with money left are under 30s who get to work 80 hours a week farming rice for grandma.
- 0xy 6y agoWhen pension systems run dry or hyperinflation occurs to prop it up (a mathematical certainty), the result is massive depression and an unprecedented decline in progress. When times are tight, nobody is going to care if their power is green or not because they're focused on survival. Without the young, the house of cards collapses.