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While completely fair to do so, one consequence is that it might dissolve any intergenerational social contract, and it is entirely reasonable for the younger g

While completely fair to do so, one consequence is that it might dissolve any intergenerational social contract, and it is entirely reasonable for the younger generation to vote to defund pension programs, not provide elder care (or make it extremely expensive), etc. Essentially, looking at things from a high level, if the previous generation's decision to not have children means that the current generation has to spend an overly burdensome fraction of their economic output to support the previous generation, then it's their prerogative to simply not take care of them. Particularly for people who have no ties to the current generation.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Full disclosure, I help folks get permanent birth control who want it [1] to empower and provide agency in a system that is attempting to not provide it to humans. Why? Because the intergenerational social contract already doesn't exist. Outside of a handful of countries with pro natalist policies, there is no material support. In the US, the expectation is that people should have kids so line goes up, broadly speaking (productivity = capital market gains and pay as you go social program funding), while making working arrangements as tenuous as possible, no daycare subsidies, no guaranteed paid time off, requiring to go into debt to procure an education credential employers can mandate but not need for a role, etc. Per the Brookings Institute, it costs ~$310k to raise a child 0-18 (not including daycare and college). ~40% of annual pregnancies are unintended, per the Guttmacher Institute. It is a pyramid scheme that is upset the latest entrants have wised up to the scam and do not want to be juiced for their working life. Therefore, society must make potential parents a better offer, or live with the consequences at scale (rapidly falling fertility rates) of rational actors making rational decisions to protect themselves from an adversarial system they are forced to exist in. Is it young cohorts' fault society ran up this enormous liability [2] [3] [4] they must now pay? It is not. They do not exist to pay off someone else's credit card tab, nor should they be encouraged to have children as a means to fund these liabilities. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41034976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41034976 [2] https://www.pgpf.org/infographic/the-national-debt-is-now-more-than-35-trillion-what-does-that-mean https://www.pgpf.org/infographic/the-national-debt-is-now-mo... ($35T US national debt, does not include unaccounted for liabilities around future societal obligations, pollution remediation, carbon emission sequestration, etc) [3] https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ICF-CR-Cost-of-Climate-Change-Study.pdf https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024... ("The cost of climate change to a baby born in 2024 in America could be around $500,000 over their lifetime. When more uncertain factors are included, the costs could reach about $1 million.") [4] https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-damage-could-cost-38-trillion-per-year-by-2050-study-finds-2024-04-17/ https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-... ("Climate change damage could cost $38 trillion per year by 2050, study finds")
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  We seem to be saying the same thing. It is not the younger cohort's fault that they've been given an enormous liability. A great deal of that liability is to the older cohort, paying for things like their ability to retire, health care, social security, etc. It would be entirely fair for the younger generation to cut pension programs, tax retirement savings away, and cut funding for e.g. medicare so that more of their economic output can go to providing goods and services they and their children need and fixing the planet for their children instead of working to provide services for the previous generation who caused the issues and to whom they have no connection anyway. Of course when that younger cohort becomes older themselves, the same applies to them. If they did not put in the work to prepare a future generation and set that generation up for success, then they should be prepared to have no support from the children of people who did. If people plan to DINK it up, save a bunch of money, and buy their way into a comfortable life in old age, they should at least be prepared for a scenario where their money is no good when the next generation decides to tax them heavily or hit them with extortionate prices for services they need while removing social safety nets. e.g. take all of their money for a couple years in long-term care, and when it runs out, leave them homeless. People are and should be free to live they lives the want, but they should consider that it is risky to count on an overburdened future generation with no familial ties to take care of them, and they shouldn't be upset if that generation decides to cast off that burden so that they and further future generations can succeed.
  - AndrewKemendo 2y ago
    I mean, I just wanna sit here and appreciate that this chain of comments (which I upvoted all of them) demonstrated in the affirmative that it is possible to have a productive conversation on this topic In fact, to such an extent that it has opened my eyes to considerations I hadn’t thought of, and this concept of intergenerational debt and expected life outcomes have so changed and diverged over the last couple of generations, that we are not even operating under the same basic set of assumptive principles I don’t think it can overstated enough, the impact that birth control being generally available and trivial to use effectively has had on this issue. In effect, it has upended the entire biological history with respect to assumptions about the way you live, and what you should expect comes from simply living As a father of three who had my children simply because we weren’t trying not to, while most of my peers did not go about it like this, shows me the functional and cultural difference in mindset that you can’t really bridge
Log_out_ 2y ago
Resulting in economic constructs like colonizing pensionfunds seeking to enslave the young by economic means. Resulting in intergenerational civil war.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Full disclosure, I help folks get permanent birth control who want it [1] to empower and provide agency in a system that is attempting to not provide it to humans. Why? Because the intergenerational social contract already doesn't exist. Outside of a handful of countries with pro natalist policies, there is no material support. In the US, the expectation is that people should have kids so line goes up, broadly speaking (productivity = capital market gains and pay as you go social program funding), while making working arrangements as tenuous as possible, no daycare subsidies, no guaranteed paid time off, requiring to go into debt to procure an education credential employers can mandate but not need for a role, etc. Per the Brookings Institute, it costs ~$310k to raise a child 0-18 (not including daycare and college). ~40% of annual pregnancies are unintended, per the Guttmacher Institute. It is a pyramid scheme that is upset the latest entrants have wised up to the scam and do not want to be juiced for their working life. Therefore, society must make potential parents a better offer, or live with the consequences at scale (rapidly falling fertility rates) of rational actors making rational decisions to protect themselves from an adversarial system they are forced to exist in. Is it young cohorts' fault society ran up this enormous liability [2] [3] [4] they must now pay? It is not. They do not exist to pay off someone else's credit card tab, nor should they be encouraged to have children as a means to fund these liabilities. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41034976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41034976 [2] https://www.pgpf.org/infographic/the-national-debt-is-now-more-than-35-trillion-what-does-that-mean https://www.pgpf.org/infographic/the-national-debt-is-now-mo... ($35T US national debt, does not include unaccounted for liabilities around future societal obligations, pollution remediation, carbon emission sequestration, etc) [3] https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ICF-CR-Cost-of-Climate-Change-Study.pdf https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024... ("The cost of climate change to a baby born in 2024 in America could be around $500,000 over their lifetime. When more uncertain factors are included, the costs could reach about $1 million.") [4] https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-damage-could-cost-38-trillion-per-year-by-2050-study-finds-2024-04-17/ https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-... ("Climate change damage could cost $38 trillion per year by 2050, study finds")

ndriscoll 2y ago
We seem to be saying the same thing. It is not the younger cohort's fault that they've been given an enormous liability. A great deal of that liability is to the older cohort, paying for things like their ability to retire, health care, social security, etc. It would be entirely fair for the younger generation to cut pension programs, tax retirement savings away, and cut funding for e.g. medicare so that more of their economic output can go to providing goods and services they and their children need and fixing the planet for their children instead of working to provide services for the previous generation who caused the issues and to whom they have no connection anyway. Of course when that younger cohort becomes older themselves, the same applies to them. If they did not put in the work to prepare a future generation and set that generation up for success, then they should be prepared to have no support from the children of people who did. If people plan to DINK it up, save a bunch of money, and buy their way into a comfortable life in old age, they should at least be prepared for a scenario where their money is no good when the next generation decides to tax them heavily or hit them with extortionate prices for services they need while removing social safety nets. e.g. take all of their money for a couple years in long-term care, and when it runs out, leave them homeless. People are and should be free to live they lives the want, but they should consider that it is risky to count on an overburdened future generation with no familial ties to take care of them, and they shouldn't be upset if that generation decides to cast off that burden so that they and further future generations can succeed.
- AndrewKemendo 2y ago
  I mean, I just wanna sit here and appreciate that this chain of comments (which I upvoted all of them) demonstrated in the affirmative that it is possible to have a productive conversation on this topic In fact, to such an extent that it has opened my eyes to considerations I hadn’t thought of, and this concept of intergenerational debt and expected life outcomes have so changed and diverged over the last couple of generations, that we are not even operating under the same basic set of assumptive principles I don’t think it can overstated enough, the impact that birth control being generally available and trivial to use effectively has had on this issue. In effect, it has upended the entire biological history with respect to assumptions about the way you live, and what you should expect comes from simply living As a father of three who had my children simply because we weren’t trying not to, while most of my peers did not go about it like this, shows me the functional and cultural difference in mindset that you can’t really bridge

Log_out_ 2y ago

Resulting in economic constructs like colonizing pensionfunds seeking to enslave the young by economic means. Resulting in intergenerational civil war.