4 ms·

That’s “extreme” only to their children, who most probably (the children, that is) hold very extreme beliefs themselves, such as smaller pensions and reduced St

That’s “extreme” only to their children, who most probably (the children, that is) hold very extreme beliefs themselves, such as smaller pensions and reduced State-supported assistance for the elderly. It is true, those (relatively younger) children think that they still hold the Gramcsian hegemony-like hold on what’s considered to be the “truth”, and hence the non-“extreme”, but that has stopped happening with the advent of social networks and the democratization of information (think of how happy everyone was about that democratization via social media when the Arab Spring started).

saagarjha 2y ago
??? Where did all this come from?
- paganel 2y ago
  Don't you have friends in their 30s, even 40s, asking for the pensions to go down? And for the old people to die off soon enough because they're keeping all of us (younger people) down, with their (the old people's) voting habits being a very good example of that? Because I certainly do have those type of friends and acquaintances. Or maybe it's just an Eastern-European thing and further West there's no inter-generational war.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    We don't really have pensions in the US (anymore). There is a meme of baby boomers cashing out of Social Security and leaving it unreplenished for future generations. I don't think "let's kill off the older people" is a common viewpoint but "the old people vote against our interests and I am waiting for them to die" is.
    - paganel 2y ago
      Artificially keeping the stock exchange up (and inflated), no matter the consequences, is a form of State-sponsored pension, even though technically it is all private money. Somebody should write a study to show the correlation between the pension funds getting bigger and bigger and the number of companies getting in/out of the the S&P500 or Dow Jones getting lower and lower over time. That second number getting lower and lower means less innovation, means less real wealth going into the future, means less real money for people who are now in their 30s and 40s. I’d say that many of the NIMBY policies also respect that premise, i.e. government-supported decisions that help keep the wealth among the elderly by (artificially) keeping the existing home prices up (and it is known that those houses are some of the most important assets that said elderly people own).
harimau777 2y ago
In my experience, the extremism comes from those who are sucked into conservative media no longer adapting to social changes. Previously, when some new social shift occurred there would be an initial conservative backlash. However, over time as people were exposed to the change they would see that it wasn't actually the end of the world and find ways to adapt their views to find a "new normal" that allowed the old and new to coexist. That doesn't seem like it's the case anymore. People are fed a constant stream of media designed to keep them afraid of anything that's different such that they don't have a chance to experience the other side and find a middle ground.
- Yaa101 2y ago
  Not only conservative media, people are so afraid to really communicate with each other (be tolerant of each others viewpoint), that they constantly cancel each other on the fear of that viewpoint, thus do not give each other a chance to communicate. And things becoming worse each generation, younger generations are not learnt to think for them self anymore.
yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
I’ve heard people from my parents’ generation argue in favour of allowing all of my friends to die. Seems pretty extreme to me.
- paganel 2y ago
  I've heard the exact opposite thing, i.e. people from my age-bracket (late 30s - early 40s), saying that they won't deplore in the least if many of the old people were to die, especially those old people voting the wrong way (presumably not the way those people in their 30s and 40s were voting).

saagarjha 2y ago

??? Where did all this come from?

paganel 2y ago
Don't you have friends in their 30s, even 40s, asking for the pensions to go down? And for the old people to die off soon enough because they're keeping all of us (younger people) down, with their (the old people's) voting habits being a very good example of that? Because I certainly do have those type of friends and acquaintances. Or maybe it's just an Eastern-European thing and further West there's no inter-generational war.
- saagarjha 2y ago
  We don't really have pensions in the US (anymore). There is a meme of baby boomers cashing out of Social Security and leaving it unreplenished for future generations. I don't think "let's kill off the older people" is a common viewpoint but "the old people vote against our interests and I am waiting for them to die" is.
  - paganel 2y ago
    Artificially keeping the stock exchange up (and inflated), no matter the consequences, is a form of State-sponsored pension, even though technically it is all private money. Somebody should write a study to show the correlation between the pension funds getting bigger and bigger and the number of companies getting in/out of the the S&P500 or Dow Jones getting lower and lower over time. That second number getting lower and lower means less innovation, means less real wealth going into the future, means less real money for people who are now in their 30s and 40s. I’d say that many of the NIMBY policies also respect that premise, i.e. government-supported decisions that help keep the wealth among the elderly by (artificially) keeping the existing home prices up (and it is known that those houses are some of the most important assets that said elderly people own).

harimau777 2y ago

In my experience, the extremism comes from those who are sucked into conservative media no longer adapting to social changes. Previously, when some new social shift occurred there would be an initial conservative backlash. However, over time as people were exposed to the change they would see that it wasn't actually the end of the world and find ways to adapt their views to find a "new normal" that allowed the old and new to coexist. That doesn't seem like it's the case anymore. People are fed a constant stream of media designed to keep them afraid of anything that's different such that they don't have a chance to experience the other side and find a middle ground.

Yaa101 2y ago
Not only conservative media, people are so afraid to really communicate with each other (be tolerant of each others viewpoint), that they constantly cancel each other on the fear of that viewpoint, thus do not give each other a chance to communicate. And things becoming worse each generation, younger generations are not learnt to think for them self anymore.

yakshaving_jgt 2y ago

I’ve heard people from my parents’ generation argue in favour of allowing all of my friends to die. Seems pretty extreme to me.

paganel 2y ago
I've heard the exact opposite thing, i.e. people from my age-bracket (late 30s - early 40s), saying that they won't deplore in the least if many of the old people were to die, especially those old people voting the wrong way (presumably not the way those people in their 30s and 40s were voting).