Young people took care of old people because there was a larger social contract in place: old people's responsibility was to build an environment in which their

Young people took care of old people because there was a larger social contract in place: old people's responsibility was to build an environment in which their successors could thrive, so that later everyone could share in that thriving. >We've just made the system so efficient It's only efficient at robbing the young. One half of this social contract, the young-giving-to-old, was formalized (and forced) while the other half, old-building-for-young, was utterly abandoned. There's a great meme about this: "no take, only throw!"[0] Eating all the seed corn[1] will eventually lead to famine. [0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/no-take-only-throw https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/no-take-only-throw [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eat_one%27s_seed_corn#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eat_one%27s_seed_corn#English