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The current issue is that there is an unprecedented percentage of elderly individuals in positions of power, and they are often reluctant to relinquish their au

The current issue is that there is an unprecedented percentage of elderly individuals in positions of power, and they are often reluctant to relinquish their authority. This presents a significant dilemma because many of these older decision-makers struggle to comprehend the reality faced by younger generations, including their own children and grandchildren. They frequently cling to outdated notions, such as the belief that a starter apartment costs only $400 or that well-paying jobs are readily available to anyone who simply shows up. This generational disconnect makes it challenging to address the evolving needs of society as a whole. In Germany, there is a proposal that suggests individuals nearing retirement should work in a social service job for a year, similar to the requirement for young people who wish to avoid military conscription. This idea could potentially bridge the generational gap by reacquainting older individuals with the current societal challenges. However, it appears that the older generations, who previously favored reinstating the draft, are now hesitant to support this notion. It's important to note that this proposal is currently hypothetical and would only be considered if mandatory military service were to be reintroduced

jajko 2y ago
The disconnect was always there in 20th century too, if you actually cared to look hard enough at your / peers previous generation. The more you steered from some basic life path the more friction there was, and not even going into various social minorities who can now actually live a decent life. The idea that now young have it much tougher is simply not a reality in my surroundings, I had 1% of the options my children had and ie path to just freedom was where you risked your actual life. Some young just have little patience and want it all immediately, or otherwise they are failing in life and some form of communism needs to be installed promptly. Cant comprehend that social networks arent showing a reality, just few marketaeble slices of it. But this is largely failure of parents failing to explain to kids how world runs, what to expect and how to get what you want out of it.
- rafaelmn 2y ago
  Problem is world isn't fair, some people do get it all for free, absurd/perverse scenarios happen all the time. I think what's different in this generation is that it's becoming much more visible to everyone, so even if these are the outliers everything is judged accordingly. Also it's kind of making extremes more acceptable slowly because they are always in the attention sphere. Just look at the political spectrum - Trump really changed the game even here in Europe, politicians lost so much shame - stuff that would previously cause you to resign - now they just do some stupid spin, double down and get even more support from the tribe. I'm mid 30s and I feel things have changed considerably in last 10 years, loss of shame in particular - once you get stuff chewed up by social media as the latest shock fad - everyone gets used to it so fast and it becomes almost normalized (not shocking at least).
- gizmo 2y ago
  Previous generations lived through world wars, famines, and other devastation. Those born in the wrong place also face unimaginable hardship today, but most of us have not been that unlucky. Still, youth unemployment in the south of Europe has been 20%-40% for the past two decades. You can’t blame people for feeling their prospects are grim when they see all their friends struggling in young adulthood, even when objectively speaking previous generations had to deal with far worse problems. The paradox is that when everybody has a lot of opportunity then competition becomes proportionally more fierce. That gives rise to the impression that things are getting worse when people should conclude the opposite: more people getting more opportunities means more competition. You can’t have upward mobility without commensurate downward mobility.
- piva00 2y ago
  They don't have it much tougher in life comforts, for sure, but it's not because of that they should be grateful and accepting of all the issues and injustices that plague societies. People have always wanted a better world, and the young have a very different lens than you to judge that, it's absolutely common to become more conservative when you grow older because you lived through how the world was before, that world is gone and the before of the youth's future is right now, they will strive to make it better just like you might have had in your past. An old man sitting down and pointing fingers at how the youth is corrupted compared to their golden days is a tale as old as time, you're just playing your part of this endless cycle... Aristotle ~400 BC: > “[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances. > They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” Horace ~20-50 BC: > Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt. > The beardless youth… does not foresee what is useful, squandering his money. You'll find many, many many many more examples of the same rhetoric across all human writing. Old man yells at cloud, let the youth carry the fire of bettering societies, you already got comfortable and scared.
- danaris 2y ago
  What are you talking about? This is the first time in modern history where the younger generations are materially worse off than their parents were at the same time on a massive scale—as in, not just in localized areas due to specific circumstances, but in most of the western world.
unyttigfjelltol 2y ago
Heuristics of a lost world. Older people have much lower "give a darn" so we do still need younger clueless people to show us the way we were when we were young, and that whatever that thingy was-- it was important.
jmnicolas 2y ago
> there is a proposal that suggests individuals nearing retirement should work in a social service job for a year And what about letting people live their lives without constantly micro managing their fate. What happened to freedom? As long as I pay my taxes, don't infringe on the basic universal sane laws (you know, don't kill, steal etc) leave me the fuck alone. I don't know for Germany but France, my country, starts to ask too much in exchange for what they're offering. Can't do this, can't do that, pot holes everywhere, prices and taxes skyrocketing, impossible to find a doctor that will receive you the same day and now they want to send us to die in Ukraine?
- BoredPositron 2y ago
  >> What happened to freedom? I was part of the few generations that got drafted so I guess it improved? For the new proposal? It seems only fair that the whole corpus of the population has to cover the burden and not only the young.
  - fxj 2y ago
    When you are 65 then you already have done a lot for the economy of the country. The probelm at hand is that 30% of the workforce will retire in 2030 because of the baby boom in 60s. In the 2030s there will be many open jobs for young people to show their talent and AI will help them to be even more productive. There is no need to bother old frail people into social service. Very often people in their 60s are burnt out and will not be very helpful for the society anymore. just my 2 ct
    - hkpack 2y ago
      > and AI will help them to be even more productive I admire your optimism. But from the datapoints we have, it is not the direction we're heading.
      - throwAGIway 2y ago
        Could you provide a link to these datasets? People always talk about data but never show it. I wanted to make an opinion but couldn't find the data at all - not counting obviously opportunistic inconclusive studies designed to support a predetermined political opinion.
hl6 2y ago
The main issue is the health care system is pretty good at fixing physical hardware and quiet inept at upgrading mental software. There is another German propsal to stop funding hardware fixes if software upgrades can't be done. I personally think this is the right path.
- AstralStorm 2y ago
  The other issue is accumulated toxic damage we cannot fix at all. When did we phase out leaded petrol? (We haven't fully, but you get the idea...) When did people mostly stop smoking carcinogens and heavy metals? When did we start, or stop, using toxic azo dyes for clothing? Or particular fireproofing or plasticizing chemicals that are endocrine poisons? Or the latest plague, which hit a lot of people in the brain? While any of those things is not predictive enough at individual level due to genetic variance, statistics of big numbers show delayed correlations that heavily imply causation, while high dose studies show obvious toxicity of this kind. And when such chronic damage happened 20-30 years ago there's not that much our medicine can do yet. We cannot even reactivate a thymus (major gland of the immune system) well yet en masse. Or fix or reliably help livers.
- bruce343434 2y ago
  Are these euphemisms for physical and mental health, what are you trying to say??
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
    I interpreted the post as an indication that hospitals have got good enough at keeping mentally absent old people alive until they die. It rings true. Certainly, not all of them are 'not there', it does not seem like a small chunk of the population either.
constantcrying 2y ago
I think you are completely ignoring the single most important factor here, ge reason why more older people are in power. The demographics in the West are heavily skewed towards older generations who had a lot more kids than their kids, who are now having less kids than their parents. The power discrepancy directly follows from that and in my opinion so does the disconnect between the generations. The "retiree draft" is just an absurd proposal which will do exactly one thing: increase resentment and further disconnect.
- BoredPositron 2y ago
  Demographics play a part still having 70% of our government officials over the retirement age (*Germany) of normal people is a clinging to power problem.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    Being a government official is also a terrible job, especially for a young ambitious person. Low numbers of young people also make it hard to push out people who still are in power. It's a direct consequence of demographics.
    - BoredPositron 2y ago
      It's only a terrible job if you want it to be we have more than enough government officials in the back ranks that miss 80% of sessions and get payed really well to just vote with their party. They should just have to retire when everyone else HAS to retire based on laws they introduced...
      - constantcrying 2y ago
        Sure, but how do you force them out if the entry level jobs are terrible and the aren't enough young people to take them anyway?
- AstralStorm 2y ago
assimpleaspossi 2y ago
These "outdated notions" are based on decades of experience and working knowledge. One should not discount that. One should never base quality on age alone. New is not always better. EDIT: Of course, now I read the article which pretty much says the same thing.
- TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
  But clinging to old ways, we would be still cave dwelling hunter-gathers.
  - assimpleaspossi 2y ago
    No one said anything about "clinging to old ways".
fxj 2y ago
Yes the proposal is quite interesting. But do you really think a 60 year old software developer will want to work in a social service job? He was working his ass off for 40 years in daily scrums or so and then he should be doing social work in a retirement home or hospital? Retirement is done of a special reason, because people want to stop working and not because they want to change into a social service. My suggestion: Let people start part time retirement with 55 and train and consult the next generation that comes after them. Then the loss of knowledge is avoided and when they are 65 just leave them alone in their retirement. They have deserved it well. If someone wants still to work, good for him, but a mandatory social service sounds to me like slave labour and the votes at the next elections will come in. There is a reason why the ultra right are so strong in the east of germany.
2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
> there is a proposal that suggests individuals nearing retirement should work in a social service job for a year this proposal is in your head.
kcplate 2y ago
> unprecedented percentage of elderly individuals in positions of power, and they are often reluctant to relinquish their authority Why are they reluctant? Because you eventually realize as you age that slow societal change is better than fast change. The young demand fast change aka “revolution”. Revolutionary change creates volatile societies and volatile societies don’t create progress that sticks. When I was in my twenties, I was impatient and demanded immediate change. Now approaching my sixties, I want progress, but know that a slow trickle is better and would rather be patient to get there.

jajko 2y ago

The disconnect was always there in 20th century too, if you actually cared to look hard enough at your / peers previous generation. The more you steered from some basic life path the more friction there was, and not even going into various social minorities who can now actually live a decent life. The idea that now young have it much tougher is simply not a reality in my surroundings, I had 1% of the options my children had and ie path to just freedom was where you risked your actual life. Some young just have little patience and want it all immediately, or otherwise they are failing in life and some form of communism needs to be installed promptly. Cant comprehend that social networks arent showing a reality, just few marketaeble slices of it. But this is largely failure of parents failing to explain to kids how world runs, what to expect and how to get what you want out of it.

rafaelmn 2y ago
Problem is world isn't fair, some people do get it all for free, absurd/perverse scenarios happen all the time. I think what's different in this generation is that it's becoming much more visible to everyone, so even if these are the outliers everything is judged accordingly. Also it's kind of making extremes more acceptable slowly because they are always in the attention sphere. Just look at the political spectrum - Trump really changed the game even here in Europe, politicians lost so much shame - stuff that would previously cause you to resign - now they just do some stupid spin, double down and get even more support from the tribe. I'm mid 30s and I feel things have changed considerably in last 10 years, loss of shame in particular - once you get stuff chewed up by social media as the latest shock fad - everyone gets used to it so fast and it becomes almost normalized (not shocking at least).
gizmo 2y ago
Previous generations lived through world wars, famines, and other devastation. Those born in the wrong place also face unimaginable hardship today, but most of us have not been that unlucky. Still, youth unemployment in the south of Europe has been 20%-40% for the past two decades. You can’t blame people for feeling their prospects are grim when they see all their friends struggling in young adulthood, even when objectively speaking previous generations had to deal with far worse problems. The paradox is that when everybody has a lot of opportunity then competition becomes proportionally more fierce. That gives rise to the impression that things are getting worse when people should conclude the opposite: more people getting more opportunities means more competition. You can’t have upward mobility without commensurate downward mobility.
piva00 2y ago
They don't have it much tougher in life comforts, for sure, but it's not because of that they should be grateful and accepting of all the issues and injustices that plague societies. People have always wanted a better world, and the young have a very different lens than you to judge that, it's absolutely common to become more conservative when you grow older because you lived through how the world was before, that world is gone and the before of the youth's future is right now, they will strive to make it better just like you might have had in your past. An old man sitting down and pointing fingers at how the youth is corrupted compared to their golden days is a tale as old as time, you're just playing your part of this endless cycle... Aristotle ~400 BC: > “[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances. > They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” Horace ~20-50 BC: > Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt. > The beardless youth… does not foresee what is useful, squandering his money. You'll find many, many many many more examples of the same rhetoric across all human writing. Old man yells at cloud, let the youth carry the fire of bettering societies, you already got comfortable and scared.
danaris 2y ago
What are you talking about? This is the first time in modern history where the younger generations are materially worse off than their parents were at the same time on a massive scale—as in, not just in localized areas due to specific circumstances, but in most of the western world.

unyttigfjelltol 2y ago

Heuristics of a lost world. Older people have much lower "give a darn" so we do still need younger clueless people to show us the way we were when we were young, and that whatever that thingy was-- it was important.

jmnicolas 2y ago

> there is a proposal that suggests individuals nearing retirement should work in a social service job for a year And what about letting people live their lives without constantly micro managing their fate. What happened to freedom? As long as I pay my taxes, don't infringe on the basic universal sane laws (you know, don't kill, steal etc) leave me the fuck alone. I don't know for Germany but France, my country, starts to ask too much in exchange for what they're offering. Can't do this, can't do that, pot holes everywhere, prices and taxes skyrocketing, impossible to find a doctor that will receive you the same day and now they want to send us to die in Ukraine?

BoredPositron 2y ago
>> What happened to freedom? I was part of the few generations that got drafted so I guess it improved? For the new proposal? It seems only fair that the whole corpus of the population has to cover the burden and not only the young.
- fxj 2y ago
  When you are 65 then you already have done a lot for the economy of the country. The probelm at hand is that 30% of the workforce will retire in 2030 because of the baby boom in 60s. In the 2030s there will be many open jobs for young people to show their talent and AI will help them to be even more productive. There is no need to bother old frail people into social service. Very often people in their 60s are burnt out and will not be very helpful for the society anymore. just my 2 ct
  - hkpack 2y ago
    > and AI will help them to be even more productive I admire your optimism. But from the datapoints we have, it is not the direction we're heading.
    - throwAGIway 2y ago
      Could you provide a link to these datasets? People always talk about data but never show it. I wanted to make an opinion but couldn't find the data at all - not counting obviously opportunistic inconclusive studies designed to support a predetermined political opinion.

hl6 2y ago

The main issue is the health care system is pretty good at fixing physical hardware and quiet inept at upgrading mental software. There is another German propsal to stop funding hardware fixes if software upgrades can't be done. I personally think this is the right path.

AstralStorm 2y ago
The other issue is accumulated toxic damage we cannot fix at all. When did we phase out leaded petrol? (We haven't fully, but you get the idea...) When did people mostly stop smoking carcinogens and heavy metals? When did we start, or stop, using toxic azo dyes for clothing? Or particular fireproofing or plasticizing chemicals that are endocrine poisons? Or the latest plague, which hit a lot of people in the brain? While any of those things is not predictive enough at individual level due to genetic variance, statistics of big numbers show delayed correlations that heavily imply causation, while high dose studies show obvious toxicity of this kind. And when such chronic damage happened 20-30 years ago there's not that much our medicine can do yet. We cannot even reactivate a thymus (major gland of the immune system) well yet en masse. Or fix or reliably help livers.
bruce343434 2y ago
Are these euphemisms for physical and mental health, what are you trying to say??
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
  I interpreted the post as an indication that hospitals have got good enough at keeping mentally absent old people alive until they die. It rings true. Certainly, not all of them are 'not there', it does not seem like a small chunk of the population either.

constantcrying 2y ago

I think you are completely ignoring the single most important factor here, ge reason why more older people are in power. The demographics in the West are heavily skewed towards older generations who had a lot more kids than their kids, who are now having less kids than their parents. The power discrepancy directly follows from that and in my opinion so does the disconnect between the generations. The "retiree draft" is just an absurd proposal which will do exactly one thing: increase resentment and further disconnect.

BoredPositron 2y ago
Demographics play a part still having 70% of our government officials over the retirement age (*Germany) of normal people is a clinging to power problem.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  Being a government official is also a terrible job, especially for a young ambitious person. Low numbers of young people also make it hard to push out people who still are in power. It's a direct consequence of demographics.
  - BoredPositron 2y ago
    It's only a terrible job if you want it to be we have more than enough government officials in the back ranks that miss 80% of sessions and get payed really well to just vote with their party. They should just have to retire when everyone else HAS to retire based on laws they introduced...
    - constantcrying 2y ago
      Sure, but how do you force them out if the entry level jobs are terrible and the aren't enough young people to take them anyway?
AstralStorm 2y ago

assimpleaspossi 2y ago

These "outdated notions" are based on decades of experience and working knowledge. One should not discount that. One should never base quality on age alone. New is not always better. EDIT: Of course, now I read the article which pretty much says the same thing.

TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
But clinging to old ways, we would be still cave dwelling hunter-gathers.
- assimpleaspossi 2y ago
  No one said anything about "clinging to old ways".

fxj 2y ago

Yes the proposal is quite interesting. But do you really think a 60 year old software developer will want to work in a social service job? He was working his ass off for 40 years in daily scrums or so and then he should be doing social work in a retirement home or hospital? Retirement is done of a special reason, because people want to stop working and not because they want to change into a social service. My suggestion: Let people start part time retirement with 55 and train and consult the next generation that comes after them. Then the loss of knowledge is avoided and when they are 65 just leave them alone in their retirement. They have deserved it well. If someone wants still to work, good for him, but a mandatory social service sounds to me like slave labour and the votes at the next elections will come in. There is a reason why the ultra right are so strong in the east of germany.

2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago

> there is a proposal that suggests individuals nearing retirement should work in a social service job for a year this proposal is in your head.

kcplate 2y ago

> unprecedented percentage of elderly individuals in positions of power, and they are often reluctant to relinquish their authority Why are they reluctant? Because you eventually realize as you age that slow societal change is better than fast change. The young demand fast change aka “revolution”. Revolutionary change creates volatile societies and volatile societies don’t create progress that sticks. When I was in my twenties, I was impatient and demanded immediate change. Now approaching my sixties, I want progress, but know that a slow trickle is better and would rather be patient to get there.