3 ms·

The fact is that my parents generation (currently retiring) made a bet on the younger generations supporting them through the retirement [insert socialism joke

by atoav 2y ago

The fact is that my parents generation (currently retiring) made a bet on the younger generations supporting them through the retirement [insert socialism joke if you're from the US]. I never signed up to this tho, I have been born into it. Now I agree that the whole thing is in principle a good idea, but all fairness goes out of the window as soon as a your demographics are such that the biggest voting block is at the same time not working. So a class of old politicians constantly keeps putting off needed changes in the way retirement works, a price for which younger generations have to pay. The same happens in infrastructure, climate change etc. At some point my generation will have to question the validity of that social contract.

iteratethis 2y ago
What do you suggest regarding the social contract? I'm asking because whatever policy you'd like to see applied to the current elderly, is to be applied with twice the intensity to yourself, as the generation behind you is even smaller.
- atoav 2y ago
  I think of this as a generic problem that happens when the (in this case) age structure of the representatives differs from the working population. So any fix would involve changing the age structure of representation. The particulars of the fix would depend on the specifics of a particular system, but one idea that could fix things would be absolute limits to the time you can be in office. So for example a rule that states any person may serve only X years in parliament over the course of their life. Those limits might have other benefits. Maybe even an absolute age limit would make sense, e.g. retirement age + X years. Of course old people should get political representation, but maybe putting a cap on it would work to make it more a government of working people. Another idea would be a voting multiplier, that gives proportionally more power to representatives that are from age brackets that are underrepresented in the governing body. All of these might have unanticipated side effects and there are probably even better ideas, but the point is: whatever it is, it has to be something that gives true concessions to the young people, otherwise there can be no true political negotiation between the retired many and the working few.

by atoav 2y ago

iteratethis 2y ago

What do you suggest regarding the social contract? I'm asking because whatever policy you'd like to see applied to the current elderly, is to be applied with twice the intensity to yourself, as the generation behind you is even smaller.

atoav 2y ago
I think of this as a generic problem that happens when the (in this case) age structure of the representatives differs from the working population. So any fix would involve changing the age structure of representation. The particulars of the fix would depend on the specifics of a particular system, but one idea that could fix things would be absolute limits to the time you can be in office. So for example a rule that states any person may serve only X years in parliament over the course of their life. Those limits might have other benefits. Maybe even an absolute age limit would make sense, e.g. retirement age + X years. Of course old people should get political representation, but maybe putting a cap on it would work to make it more a government of working people. Another idea would be a voting multiplier, that gives proportionally more power to representatives that are from age brackets that are underrepresented in the governing body. All of these might have unanticipated side effects and there are probably even better ideas, but the point is: whatever it is, it has to be something that gives true concessions to the young people, otherwise there can be no true political negotiation between the retired many and the working few.