5 ms·

> Oh and by the way, you'll be in the most vulnerable group by then too so enjoy being forgotten about in the scramble This thought keeps me up at night someti

> Oh and by the way, you'll be in the most vulnerable group by then too so enjoy being forgotten about in the scramble This thought keeps me up at night sometimes. I’m nearly 40 with no kids, nieces/nephews, and even my cousins are mostly childless. Our eldercare models are already beginning to buckle under the strain of the retiring Boomers - and they still overwhelmingly have family/church/pensions as primary non-govt support structures. You can’t paper over this with immigration either. There will be absolutely no political will power to saddle millions of productive first/second gen immigrants with the sort of crippling tax burden the state would need to “replace” a total loss of the family/church/pension support triad. Expecting a huge push towards “medical assistance in dying” (MAID) seems to be a safe bet. Tl;dr: the current elder care system prioritizes “old maids” but the future system will undoubtedly be “the Olds get MAID”

wkat4242 4y ago
Is "church support" still a thing? It's not here in Europe. Perhaps in rural USA? However it's ok, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs due to automation anyway, leaving more people free for healthcare. It will not be easy but we'll cope. And we have to in order not to burn up this planet.
- trafficante 4y ago
  > Is "church support" still a thing? It's not here in Europe. Perhaps in rural USA? Not just rural or even conservative USA: my mom lives in a city that would be in the top 5 of everyone’s “Name the most liberal city in America” list. She had major surgery right before Covid and her church had people bringing her flowers and keeping her company nearly every day while she was an inpatient - and then had a coordinated rotating list of church members bringing home cooked dinners and visiting her every day for several weeks while she recuperated at home. I expect this sort of thing will largely die with the Boomers and we’ll join our Euro-brethren in the bubbling soup of cynicism and lowered expectations
throwaway4aday 4y ago
I'm holding out hope for a grassroots educational campaign to tell young people that if they want families they need to have them early. Oddly enough it isn't that the last few generations have wanted kids any less, that percentage of people has stayed relatively constant. What happened is a lot of people decided to delay having a family in favour of a career or just enjoying their 20s and then found out the hard way what no one bothered to tell them; how difficult it is to conceive after 30. That means a good percentage of people that wanted to have children simply can't. Even if we successfully turn the trend around there'll still be a generational gap that will cause a series of smaller generations going forward.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  I never wanted kids anyway. Especially not in my 20s. I'm 47 now and never had them. Life is for fun, not raising kids :P
- wkat4242 4y ago
  We shouldn't turn the trend around though. Most of our environmental problems including most likely this one, are caused by our overpopulation and increased welfare. We just need too many resources, this can't continue. So if people organically decide (or due to this sperm count thing are forced) to have fewer kids, this is really a brilliant thing for the planet.
  - Dig1t 4y ago
    Anti-human garbage take IMO. The planet is not more important than humanity. Vast swathes of this planet are uninhabited by humans, people have been predicting for generations that too many people would destroy civilization and the planet and none of it has come true (see the Population Bomb "predictions" section on Wikipedia for a laugh) This narrative has been popular, especially among wealthy, educated, people for a long long time. But most of it is hogwash. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb#Predictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb#Prediction... We can overcome problems like climate change without considering ourselves to be a virus that needs to be controlled like that.
- 4y ago

wkat4242 4y ago

Is "church support" still a thing? It's not here in Europe. Perhaps in rural USA? However it's ok, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs due to automation anyway, leaving more people free for healthcare. It will not be easy but we'll cope. And we have to in order not to burn up this planet.

trafficante 4y ago
> Is "church support" still a thing? It's not here in Europe. Perhaps in rural USA? Not just rural or even conservative USA: my mom lives in a city that would be in the top 5 of everyone’s “Name the most liberal city in America” list. She had major surgery right before Covid and her church had people bringing her flowers and keeping her company nearly every day while she was an inpatient - and then had a coordinated rotating list of church members bringing home cooked dinners and visiting her every day for several weeks while she recuperated at home. I expect this sort of thing will largely die with the Boomers and we’ll join our Euro-brethren in the bubbling soup of cynicism and lowered expectations

throwaway4aday 4y ago

I'm holding out hope for a grassroots educational campaign to tell young people that if they want families they need to have them early. Oddly enough it isn't that the last few generations have wanted kids any less, that percentage of people has stayed relatively constant. What happened is a lot of people decided to delay having a family in favour of a career or just enjoying their 20s and then found out the hard way what no one bothered to tell them; how difficult it is to conceive after 30. That means a good percentage of people that wanted to have children simply can't. Even if we successfully turn the trend around there'll still be a generational gap that will cause a series of smaller generations going forward.

wkat4242 4y ago
I never wanted kids anyway. Especially not in my 20s. I'm 47 now and never had them. Life is for fun, not raising kids :P
wkat4242 4y ago
We shouldn't turn the trend around though. Most of our environmental problems including most likely this one, are caused by our overpopulation and increased welfare. We just need too many resources, this can't continue. So if people organically decide (or due to this sperm count thing are forced) to have fewer kids, this is really a brilliant thing for the planet.
- Dig1t 4y ago
  Anti-human garbage take IMO. The planet is not more important than humanity. Vast swathes of this planet are uninhabited by humans, people have been predicting for generations that too many people would destroy civilization and the planet and none of it has come true (see the Population Bomb "predictions" section on Wikipedia for a laugh) This narrative has been popular, especially among wealthy, educated, people for a long long time. But most of it is hogwash. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb#Predictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb#Prediction... We can overcome problems like climate change without considering ourselves to be a virus that needs to be controlled like that.
4y ago