9 ms·

You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s shoul

You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. People in this thread need to stop projecting their problems and worldviews as universal social issues.

mschuster91 4y ago
> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... German here. Yes we absolutely fucking did, especially as our parents pushed us from early on to obtain as much education as we could because unlike even in the 80s, manual labor would not be enough to sustain a family or to have a comfortable retirement.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  Retirement planning is a different thing from career pressure. I agree that's been increasing consistently - but even if your retirement was guaranteed - that wouldn't change anything about this problem - you aren't chassing a career so you can live well past 60s, and if you are, as a teen, you probably need to have counseling because you're setting yourself up for a depressing life.
Semaphor 4y ago
It’s a decently big issue that’s affecting you more the later you were born, we already heard about it when we were teenagers, but now it’s far more prominent in the media than it was back then.
Shared404 4y ago
Eh, as a 20 year old I've been told my whole life that I'll be paying for social security but never see the money. Same for most of my peers.
- pydry 4y ago
  This is part of the effort to kill it. If enough people believe it is a ponzi scheme, unsustainable, etc. then the political impetus to either privatize or get rid of it can be mustered. Social security is very popular among the working classes (especially retired ofc) and deeply unpopular among the upper classes who see it as a tax burden on them that makes their workers lazy.
  - Jcowell 4y ago
    I understand this but I think a big question needs to be asked and answered: Will someone born >= 1990 who lives until retirement see Social Security? It doesn’t matter how popular it is , will we actually see it ?
    - pydry 4y ago
      It does depend on how popular it is. It also depends if the younger generation is prepared to fight for it or not.
      - Shared404 4y ago
        To be honest, I see it as a failing system that needs to be cut away amd replaced with something better (or be "reformed" if politicking requires it to keep the same name) I was just providing my experience that my generation does think about it.
  - tekknik 4y ago
    It’s more-so to do with the fact that the account was emptied, and now it’s a bit of a pyramid scheme. Also the board themselves saying they’re out of money in 2034: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2021/ https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2021/ It’s a broken system.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- bsenftner 4y ago
  I'm 57 and I've been told that my entire life too. Born in Dec. of '64, I'm technically a boomer but have only seen the economic dregs and I identify 100% as a GenX. My political birth was the Sex Pistols.
alimov 4y ago
I don’t know if you were offended by that comment, but just because you may not have considered your future in your teens (don’t know if you did or didn’t, but that doesn’t matter) doesn’t mean that all others also did not. For example in my teens I was very much concerned with what I’d do when i was older and whether or not I’d be able to buy a house or afford to go to college.. these are not strictly adult concerns. Also kids see and hear their parent(s) worrying about money or student loans or mortgage or rent and it’s not unreasonable that they too become concerned about those things. > “People in this thread need to stop projecting their problems and worldviews as universal social issues.” But you are doing just the same thing by dismissing peoples perspectives and opinions as irrelevant….
- coldtea 4y ago
  >But you are doing just the same thing by dismissing peoples perspectives and opinions as irrelevant… Nope, he is not doing the same. He basically says "people shouldn't project their own (older age) concerns as universal". He doesn't say there are no universal social issues. So dismissing "peoples perspectives and opinions as irrelevant" is perfectly fine, if they are irrelevant to the group they're projected to.
  - alimov 4y ago
    Is that not a projection of the posters view of the hn crowd as being “older age”?
moooo99 4y ago
> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. This is happening, based on my own experience. I am 22, I have a safe job with an above average salary but I still cannot find an apartment with my partner. I can’t imagine affording my own place with the current prices, especially not at the age my parents were able to. And all of that concerns are completely ignoring the current price hikes which make everything even worse. For as long as I can remember teachers and my parents told me that the pension system won’t be able to support my generation. Everybody my age who can afford to does not expect any substantial pension payments and tries to support the own future by own investments (which is pretty hard when you pay +400€/mo into the mandatory public pension) The situation is even worse for people with lower incomes. This is not projection. Admittedly, this is my experience. But I know many many people who had similar experiences when they first entered the workforce.
- burntoutfire 4y ago
  > I have a safe job with an above average salary but I still cannot find an apartment with my partner. Do you have an above average salary for the region you're looking for the apartment in? If so, then who's getting those apartments, if the majority of people cannot afford them? Is this a special case like SF where there's just not enough apartments being built for the size of population?
  - Xelbair 4y ago
    Over here they are mostly bought up as an investment, usually before they are even officially sold.
  - moooo99 4y ago
    > Do you have an above average salary for the region you're looking for the apartment in? Yes, the salary seems to only be part of the issue. Some of the landlords seemed to be slightly offended that a young person makes so much money. Other landlords were searching for long term tenants and did not believe that a young couple was looking to settle down for long enough. > If so, then who's getting those apartments, if the majority of people cannot afford them? The supply is super limited. Judging by the rejections I received the landlords are primarily looking for well off young families which the seem to find without a problem. One landlord told me that she received 120 messages within 48h, she basically can choose whoever she wants. > Is this a special case like SF where there's just not enough apartments being built for the size of population? This is generally the case all over (west-) Germany. In more rural areas and small towns there is basically no rental market, but purchasing is still unaffordable for most. In my hometown (rural with average income) land prices more than doubled in the last 10 years. So many young people choose to move to the next city. In my target city, the cheapest apartments I could find for purchase were around 400k€ from 70s to 90s, new construction was usually well above 500k. Rental prices are equally absurd.
chii 4y ago
> If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. they should be. Perhaps not worry or be anxious about it, but definitely should know about the financial implications of having to retire one day, and how they could fund that retirement. May be even work on how one might fund an early retirement, etc. Not thinking about long term financial planning is a failing of the education system (or parents, as it falls onto them when the state fails on policy grounds).
maeln 4y ago
Idk but in France, when I was still a teenager, it was not that uncommon to talk/joke about the fact that we will never be able to retire. In high school, most of my classmate already started to have a political conscience and where thinking about this kind of stuff. Same with the environment. We already had social media at the time (mostly facebook) and yes, I won't deny that there was already something anxious about feeling pressured to always show yourself/self yourself to other. When I look at Instagram today, I feel like it got even worse. But, as someone still under their 30's, I think we shouldn't also deny what the original commenter said. In the case of Europe (and in my case France), we have seen the come back of extreme conservatism in politics, the slow decay of our public services, the inability for politician to make important decision for the environment, the idea that we will never retire/have a pension (which is not necessarily true but is definitely a strong belief), the imbalance in wealth creeping higher and higher every year, home ownership becoming harder and harder ... Whereas the generation of my parent (those from the 60's-70's) had, in general, a more positive/peaceful outlook on the future, I find that my generation and those younger that me tend to be more skeptical, if not negative. I really think that the current mental health issues are a combination of multiple factors and that social media is just one (but maybe a big one) of those factor.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  I can subscribe to the last sentence more than the rest. French are generally very interested in politics from youngish age, for better or worse (the amount of outright communism supporters there among young anywhere I spoke to is disheartening, especially for somebody like me who went through proper communism and saw first hand how it always fucks up individuals and nations for generations, and consistently fails to deliver on every single promise that looks nice on paper). I attribute this to their naivety, seeing wrong in the world and instinctively going for some direct quick solution, despite proofs that it never worked that way and side effects were nasty. French and some other southern states have really rich social support, even in decades it will be above-average for western world. So french complaining about it going south need to travel the world a bit and get a reality check. There is too much information readily available, and humans for some reason tend to focus much more on negative part, as do media. So if already pre-teens are watching gruesome combat footage, hardcore porn, reading about depressing future prospects re climate and environment, demographic curves, terrorism and so on and on... its hard even on grown ups, and not even kids that should be carelessly running outside without a worry in their head. It can be just few in the group/class, but they will easily 'spoil the rest of the basket'.
msrenee 4y ago
I was told repeatedly starting at probably 12 years old that I'd never see my social security benefits pay out. Probably before that too, but I distinctly remember it around middle school. It was very similar to what the comment you're replying to describes. Just because you're not planning your retirement doesn't mean you're not picking up on cues from people who are.
- ejb999 4y ago
  I was told that as well 40-45 years ago, and yet, here we are 40+ years later and lo-and-behold it is still paying benefits.
  - gmueckl 4y ago
    But back then the age pyramid wasn't yet inverted. Right now it actually is literally upside down in some countries, e.g. in Germany. In the next ~5 years the biggest age group within the German population will retire. That inversion will continue for a few decades.
    - ejb999 4y ago
      yes, and back then you could fully retire at a much younger age - in the US at least, the full retirement age keeps increasing, and neither party is going to vote for any policy that allows SS to collapse; just not going to happen. The fear-mongers have been alive and well for 40+ years, have no doubt they will continue to push the fear - its good for news clips and web clicks, if nothing else.
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      As the age structure 'moves upwards' it shrinks due to some people dying. What I'm guessing is that retirement ages will continue to increase to the point where that birth year group which is the biggest now won't be as large anymore due to attrition - that whatever band where the pyramid is still inverted will simply be defined as "working non-retirement age", even if that is decades older than now.
mellavora 4y ago
You missed the point. The teenagers are not thinking about their pension, they are thinking that - they must pay 20-30% of their income, over their entire life, for other people's pension, - they do not get a pension themself, - the people whose pension they must pay have screwed them on multiple "quality of life" issues
y4mi 4y ago
> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... A lot of them will be doing that, yes. They're teenagers until their 20th birthday, and a lot of people start to work between 16 and 20. In Germany, all of them will be paying a lot of their paycheck for the current pensioners. It's called a generational contract here, and it boils down to current workers paying the current pensions - so when theyre ready for theirs, it will be the responsibility of that workforce to shoulder that burden. This will fail within the next 20-30 years, realistically speaking and arguably already failed, as current pensioners are often extremely poor. The parent comment was spot on with their comment wrt Germany, which was the context they explicitly set
- moonchrome 4y ago
  I've started working in my teens - retirement was the last thing on my mind, my peers as well. If you're worried about that in your youth you're setting yourself up for a boring and depressing life. Youth should be about exploration, taking on challenges and risks, figuring out what you want to do in life - not thinking about what you're going to do past your productive years.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
hnfong 4y ago
Aside from what other people already mentioned that some teens actually do care, I think you're making a mistake conflating "worrying about the future" (which teens absolutely _should_ do to a reasonable extent), and having mental issues. It's a rather big jump from being concerned about one's future (and the society's future) to having mental issues just from that. It's also not very constructive to perpetuate the idea that being careless about the future right way to live one's teenage years.
cycomanic 4y ago
> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. I was actually just talking with a teacher friend about this very thing (he lives in Germany btw). He was essentially expressing his surprise that the high-school students (well Gymnasium technically), were at the age of ~17-19 already planning their whole live in terms of career, money etc.. That is definitely very different to how it was back when I was a teenager, where one essentially started studying what one was interested in, with career paths being somewhat secondary. So in short, anecdotal evidence is that yes teenagers are already thinking about their pensions now. > People in this thread need to stop projecting their problems and worldviews as universal social issues. While this is correct, we should also not project our memory of what it was to be a teenager > 10 years ago, onto todays teenagers.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  I agree with you - and I've noticed this trend with my teenage brother as well - it seems like prepping for career since kindergarten really peaked - but I wouldn't say this has much to do with retirement planning. I do think kids these days have a lot of pressure from early on to perform, at least from what I see anecdotally. Being expected to go to a good college, and that being seen as a gateway to decent standard of living is having an effect on kids for sure.
bambataa 4y ago
In the UK, recent tax rises to pay off some of the Covid debt were pretty openly designed to avoid asking older people to contribute. (Roughly, national insurance, paid by workers, went up rather than income tax. Only after opposition in Parliament did they extend it to include over 65s who still work). Young people are definitely extremely aware that they sacrificed a lot over the last two years to protect the elderly and now the elderly are not being asked to contribute back. This is before you consider climate change, about which young people are generally much more informed and concerned. Boomers don’t care because it won’t affect them. I know that sounds hyperbolic but I genuinely think it’s true. Those who are aware of the problems focus on helping their immediate descendants.

mschuster91 4y ago

> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... German here. Yes we absolutely fucking did, especially as our parents pushed us from early on to obtain as much education as we could because unlike even in the 80s, manual labor would not be enough to sustain a family or to have a comfortable retirement.

moonchrome 4y ago
Retirement planning is a different thing from career pressure. I agree that's been increasing consistently - but even if your retirement was guaranteed - that wouldn't change anything about this problem - you aren't chassing a career so you can live well past 60s, and if you are, as a teen, you probably need to have counseling because you're setting yourself up for a depressing life.

Semaphor 4y ago

It’s a decently big issue that’s affecting you more the later you were born, we already heard about it when we were teenagers, but now it’s far more prominent in the media than it was back then.

Shared404 4y ago

Eh, as a 20 year old I've been told my whole life that I'll be paying for social security but never see the money. Same for most of my peers.

pydry 4y ago
This is part of the effort to kill it. If enough people believe it is a ponzi scheme, unsustainable, etc. then the political impetus to either privatize or get rid of it can be mustered. Social security is very popular among the working classes (especially retired ofc) and deeply unpopular among the upper classes who see it as a tax burden on them that makes their workers lazy.
- Jcowell 4y ago
  I understand this but I think a big question needs to be asked and answered: Will someone born >= 1990 who lives until retirement see Social Security? It doesn’t matter how popular it is , will we actually see it ?
  - pydry 4y ago
    It does depend on how popular it is. It also depends if the younger generation is prepared to fight for it or not.
    - Shared404 4y ago
      To be honest, I see it as a failing system that needs to be cut away amd replaced with something better (or be "reformed" if politicking requires it to keep the same name) I was just providing my experience that my generation does think about it.
- tekknik 4y ago
  It’s more-so to do with the fact that the account was emptied, and now it’s a bit of a pyramid scheme. Also the board themselves saying they’re out of money in 2034: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2021/ https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2021/ It’s a broken system.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
bsenftner 4y ago
I'm 57 and I've been told that my entire life too. Born in Dec. of '64, I'm technically a boomer but have only seen the economic dregs and I identify 100% as a GenX. My political birth was the Sex Pistols.

alimov 4y ago

I don’t know if you were offended by that comment, but just because you may not have considered your future in your teens (don’t know if you did or didn’t, but that doesn’t matter) doesn’t mean that all others also did not. For example in my teens I was very much concerned with what I’d do when i was older and whether or not I’d be able to buy a house or afford to go to college.. these are not strictly adult concerns. Also kids see and hear their parent(s) worrying about money or student loans or mortgage or rent and it’s not unreasonable that they too become concerned about those things. > “People in this thread need to stop projecting their problems and worldviews as universal social issues.” But you are doing just the same thing by dismissing peoples perspectives and opinions as irrelevant….

coldtea 4y ago
>But you are doing just the same thing by dismissing peoples perspectives and opinions as irrelevant… Nope, he is not doing the same. He basically says "people shouldn't project their own (older age) concerns as universal". He doesn't say there are no universal social issues. So dismissing "peoples perspectives and opinions as irrelevant" is perfectly fine, if they are irrelevant to the group they're projected to.
- alimov 4y ago
  Is that not a projection of the posters view of the hn crowd as being “older age”?

moooo99 4y ago

> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. This is happening, based on my own experience. I am 22, I have a safe job with an above average salary but I still cannot find an apartment with my partner. I can’t imagine affording my own place with the current prices, especially not at the age my parents were able to. And all of that concerns are completely ignoring the current price hikes which make everything even worse. For as long as I can remember teachers and my parents told me that the pension system won’t be able to support my generation. Everybody my age who can afford to does not expect any substantial pension payments and tries to support the own future by own investments (which is pretty hard when you pay +400€/mo into the mandatory public pension) The situation is even worse for people with lower incomes. This is not projection. Admittedly, this is my experience. But I know many many people who had similar experiences when they first entered the workforce.

burntoutfire 4y ago
> I have a safe job with an above average salary but I still cannot find an apartment with my partner. Do you have an above average salary for the region you're looking for the apartment in? If so, then who's getting those apartments, if the majority of people cannot afford them? Is this a special case like SF where there's just not enough apartments being built for the size of population?
- Xelbair 4y ago
  Over here they are mostly bought up as an investment, usually before they are even officially sold.
- moooo99 4y ago
  > Do you have an above average salary for the region you're looking for the apartment in? Yes, the salary seems to only be part of the issue. Some of the landlords seemed to be slightly offended that a young person makes so much money. Other landlords were searching for long term tenants and did not believe that a young couple was looking to settle down for long enough. > If so, then who's getting those apartments, if the majority of people cannot afford them? The supply is super limited. Judging by the rejections I received the landlords are primarily looking for well off young families which the seem to find without a problem. One landlord told me that she received 120 messages within 48h, she basically can choose whoever she wants. > Is this a special case like SF where there's just not enough apartments being built for the size of population? This is generally the case all over (west-) Germany. In more rural areas and small towns there is basically no rental market, but purchasing is still unaffordable for most. In my hometown (rural with average income) land prices more than doubled in the last 10 years. So many young people choose to move to the next city. In my target city, the cheapest apartments I could find for purchase were around 400k€ from 70s to 90s, new construction was usually well above 500k. Rental prices are equally absurd.

chii 4y ago

> If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. they should be. Perhaps not worry or be anxious about it, but definitely should know about the financial implications of having to retire one day, and how they could fund that retirement. May be even work on how one might fund an early retirement, etc. Not thinking about long term financial planning is a failing of the education system (or parents, as it falls onto them when the state fails on policy grounds).

maeln 4y ago

Idk but in France, when I was still a teenager, it was not that uncommon to talk/joke about the fact that we will never be able to retire. In high school, most of my classmate already started to have a political conscience and where thinking about this kind of stuff. Same with the environment. We already had social media at the time (mostly facebook) and yes, I won't deny that there was already something anxious about feeling pressured to always show yourself/self yourself to other. When I look at Instagram today, I feel like it got even worse. But, as someone still under their 30's, I think we shouldn't also deny what the original commenter said. In the case of Europe (and in my case France), we have seen the come back of extreme conservatism in politics, the slow decay of our public services, the inability for politician to make important decision for the environment, the idea that we will never retire/have a pension (which is not necessarily true but is definitely a strong belief), the imbalance in wealth creeping higher and higher every year, home ownership becoming harder and harder ... Whereas the generation of my parent (those from the 60's-70's) had, in general, a more positive/peaceful outlook on the future, I find that my generation and those younger that me tend to be more skeptical, if not negative. I really think that the current mental health issues are a combination of multiple factors and that social media is just one (but maybe a big one) of those factor.

saiya-jin 4y ago
I can subscribe to the last sentence more than the rest. French are generally very interested in politics from youngish age, for better or worse (the amount of outright communism supporters there among young anywhere I spoke to is disheartening, especially for somebody like me who went through proper communism and saw first hand how it always fucks up individuals and nations for generations, and consistently fails to deliver on every single promise that looks nice on paper). I attribute this to their naivety, seeing wrong in the world and instinctively going for some direct quick solution, despite proofs that it never worked that way and side effects were nasty. French and some other southern states have really rich social support, even in decades it will be above-average for western world. So french complaining about it going south need to travel the world a bit and get a reality check. There is too much information readily available, and humans for some reason tend to focus much more on negative part, as do media. So if already pre-teens are watching gruesome combat footage, hardcore porn, reading about depressing future prospects re climate and environment, demographic curves, terrorism and so on and on... its hard even on grown ups, and not even kids that should be carelessly running outside without a worry in their head. It can be just few in the group/class, but they will easily 'spoil the rest of the basket'.

msrenee 4y ago

I was told repeatedly starting at probably 12 years old that I'd never see my social security benefits pay out. Probably before that too, but I distinctly remember it around middle school. It was very similar to what the comment you're replying to describes. Just because you're not planning your retirement doesn't mean you're not picking up on cues from people who are.

ejb999 4y ago
I was told that as well 40-45 years ago, and yet, here we are 40+ years later and lo-and-behold it is still paying benefits.
- gmueckl 4y ago
  But back then the age pyramid wasn't yet inverted. Right now it actually is literally upside down in some countries, e.g. in Germany. In the next ~5 years the biggest age group within the German population will retire. That inversion will continue for a few decades.
  - ejb999 4y ago
    yes, and back then you could fully retire at a much younger age - in the US at least, the full retirement age keeps increasing, and neither party is going to vote for any policy that allows SS to collapse; just not going to happen. The fear-mongers have been alive and well for 40+ years, have no doubt they will continue to push the fear - its good for news clips and web clicks, if nothing else.
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    As the age structure 'moves upwards' it shrinks due to some people dying. What I'm guessing is that retirement ages will continue to increase to the point where that birth year group which is the biggest now won't be as large anymore due to attrition - that whatever band where the pyramid is still inverted will simply be defined as "working non-retirement age", even if that is decades older than now.

mellavora 4y ago

You missed the point. The teenagers are not thinking about their pension, they are thinking that - they must pay 20-30% of their income, over their entire life, for other people's pension, - they do not get a pension themself, - the people whose pension they must pay have screwed them on multiple "quality of life" issues

y4mi 4y ago

> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... A lot of them will be doing that, yes. They're teenagers until their 20th birthday, and a lot of people start to work between 16 and 20. In Germany, all of them will be paying a lot of their paycheck for the current pensioners. It's called a generational contract here, and it boils down to current workers paying the current pensions - so when theyre ready for theirs, it will be the responsibility of that workforce to shoulder that burden. This will fail within the next 20-30 years, realistically speaking and arguably already failed, as current pensioners are often extremely poor. The parent comment was spot on with their comment wrt Germany, which was the context they explicitly set

moonchrome 4y ago
I've started working in my teens - retirement was the last thing on my mind, my peers as well. If you're worried about that in your youth you're setting yourself up for a boring and depressing life. Youth should be about exploration, taking on challenges and risks, figuring out what you want to do in life - not thinking about what you're going to do past your productive years.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

hnfong 4y ago

Aside from what other people already mentioned that some teens actually do care, I think you're making a mistake conflating "worrying about the future" (which teens absolutely _should_ do to a reasonable extent), and having mental issues. It's a rather big jump from being concerned about one's future (and the society's future) to having mental issues just from that. It's also not very constructive to perpetuate the idea that being careless about the future right way to live one's teenage years.

cycomanic 4y ago

> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. I was actually just talking with a teacher friend about this very thing (he lives in Germany btw). He was essentially expressing his surprise that the high-school students (well Gymnasium technically), were at the age of ~17-19 already planning their whole live in terms of career, money etc.. That is definitely very different to how it was back when I was a teenager, where one essentially started studying what one was interested in, with career paths being somewhat secondary. So in short, anecdotal evidence is that yes teenagers are already thinking about their pensions now. > People in this thread need to stop projecting their problems and worldviews as universal social issues. While this is correct, we should also not project our memory of what it was to be a teenager > 10 years ago, onto todays teenagers.

moonchrome 4y ago
I agree with you - and I've noticed this trend with my teenage brother as well - it seems like prepping for career since kindergarten really peaked - but I wouldn't say this has much to do with retirement planning. I do think kids these days have a lot of pressure from early on to perform, at least from what I see anecdotally. Being expected to go to a good college, and that being seen as a gateway to decent standard of living is having an effect on kids for sure.

bambataa 4y ago

In the UK, recent tax rises to pay off some of the Covid debt were pretty openly designed to avoid asking older people to contribute. (Roughly, national insurance, paid by workers, went up rather than income tax. Only after opposition in Parliament did they extend it to include over 65s who still work). Young people are definitely extremely aware that they sacrificed a lot over the last two years to protect the elderly and now the elderly are not being asked to contribute back. This is before you consider climate change, about which young people are generally much more informed and concerned. Boomers don’t care because it won’t affect them. I know that sounds hyperbolic but I genuinely think it’s true. Those who are aware of the problems focus on helping their immediate descendants.