11 ms·

> why taking care of the elderly, something humans have done since before recorded history Well yeah, but before government-organised pension, it was your kids

by tomp 1y ago

> why taking care of the elderly, something humans have done since before recorded history Well yeah, but before government-organised pension, it was your kids taking care of you when you get older, so the system was much more balanced (or rather, only imbalanced on the micro scale, not at a mega scale we see now...)

kulahan 1y ago
This is missing the elderly with no young to support them for whatever reason, so some level of government support is necessary. You can’t just have old people dying in the streets of course.
- zeroCalories 1y ago
  Sometimes you gotta know when the parties over and it's time to leave.
- buckle8017 1y ago
  Those people literally dug their own graves.
  - timschmidt 1y ago
    NIH / WHO put infertility at somewhere between 10% and 17.5%. You've condemned a sixth of the world's population through no fault of their own.
    - buckle8017 1y ago
      Adopt some orphans.
      - timschmidt 1y ago
        George Washington chose to found a country instead. Beethoven and Chopin wrote some music. Queen Anne united a Kingdom, and Queen Mary II assented to the 1689 Bill of Rights. Frida Kahlo painted some art. Virginia Woolf wrote some literature. Helen Geisel edited Dr. Seuss. Rosalind Franklin helped discover DNA. Jean Purdy helped develop IVF. All infertile due to no fault of their own. Perhaps you should consider moving out of the country, avoiding classical music, literature, and art, foregoing all DNA-related medical developments and IVF, and meditating on empathy as you do so.
        RestlessMind 1y ago
        These people were outliers and they could pursue their passions and contribute to the societies because vast majority of adults were rearing a bunch of kids. The problem is that for the last few generations in the Western societies, everyone wanted to be a George Washington or Rosalind Franklin and decided to pursue their passion. Not enough people were willing to do boring work of raising kids. That is definitely not sustainable.
        timschmidt 1y ago
        > These people were outliers What part of 1/6 the population don't you understand? Is this ignorance willful? > The problem is that for the last few generations in the Western societies... Not enough people were willing to do boring work of raising kids. That is definitely not sustainable. Biology seems to have incentivized reproduction heavily enough that we're sitting at 8.2 Billion humans worldwide. "The human population has experienced continuous growth following the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the end of the Black Death in 1350, when it was nearly 370,000,000." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population Wake me up when it actually starts shrinking. Alternatively, if you think there's something you can do to incentivize reproduction more than sex, let me know, I'd like to be a first-round investor.
        michtzik 1y ago
        > What part of 1/6 the population don't you understand? Is this ignorance willful? The 1/6 number is made up. Here's an example source: https://www.who.int/news/item/04-04-2023-1-in-6-people-globally-affected-by-infertility https://www.who.int/news/item/04-04-2023-1-in-6-people-globa... The first red flag is they use the Newspeak "experience infertility". If you look at the data sources, they're calling women (and men) with children "infertile": https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/i-keystat.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/i-keystat.htm Obviously there's a sense in which a woman who's had children and now can't is "infertile" (though FAR more than one-sixth of women experience menopause). But it's not the sense being used by you and your parent commenter in this thread.
    - broken-kebab 1y ago
      But it's not like birthrate falling has been mainly because of infertility?
- Aeolun 1y ago
  They would work until they couldn’t, and then die?
  - jodrellblank 1y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44088316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44088316
timschmidt 1y ago
> it was your kids taking care of you when you get older This oversimplification has never been true. Humans evolved in extended family groups generally between 30 - 300 people. And humans are far more promiscuous and willing to adopt chosen family than most will admit. The nuclear family is a shockingly recent invention.
- broken-kebab 1y ago
  It doesn't negate the claim that parent made though. "Your kids" had a wider meaning (and still has in a lot of places) but the principle remains: an adult had to provide, and protect a limited number of (usually related) kids to be cared by those of them who survived later in life.
  - timschmidt 1y ago
    No. You've failed to get the point. "An adult" didn't provide. All adults did.
    - broken-kebab 1y ago
      That's not how it works unless you try to say that adults in general are interested in kids survival. This would be true but it's not what drives larger efforts, and resources allocation. For that there are always related kids which get the most of one's resources, and other kids which may get something sometimes. And there are your elders and others' elders as well. Actually, there are plenty of countries where pensions either not a thing, or too small even for basics. I lived in some of them and I dare to say I know what I'm talking about.
      - timschmidt 1y ago
        > Actually, there are plenty of countries where pensions either not a thing, or too small even for basics. I lived in some of them And you left them for places with a stronger social safety net. Interesting.
- 1y ago
SarahC_ 1y ago
>something humans have done since before recorded history Inuits would leave their old out in the snow, and walk away. Just saying.
- timschmidt 1y ago
  I looked for references. Found the following which cites three references across 5 decades. It indicates that this practice was 1) rare even before it ended in 1939 2) considered repugnant by many Inuit 3) an alternative to starvation when there was no other choice. https://www.straightdope.com/21343302/did-eskimos-put-their-elderly-on-ice-floes-to-die https://www.straightdope.com/21343302/did-eskimos-put-their-... I'm not sure what you meant to communicate by sharing this thought. That 100 years ago hunter gatherers in the harshest inhabited climate on the planet made some unfathomably hard decisions and did horrifying things to survive? I don't see how that has any relevancy to what we do today in the richest most industrialized society in the world. Some tribes in Papua New Guinea prior to 1960 practiced occasional cannibalism. Doesn't mean we should be eating our neighbors today. Wild that I should have to say so.
  - babyent 1y ago
    Steve is 75 and retiring. Quick! Barbecue him!

by tomp 1y ago

kulahan 1y ago

This is missing the elderly with no young to support them for whatever reason, so some level of government support is necessary. You can’t just have old people dying in the streets of course.

zeroCalories 1y ago
Sometimes you gotta know when the parties over and it's time to leave.
buckle8017 1y ago
Those people literally dug their own graves.
- timschmidt 1y ago
  NIH / WHO put infertility at somewhere between 10% and 17.5%. You've condemned a sixth of the world's population through no fault of their own.
  - buckle8017 1y ago
    Adopt some orphans.
    - timschmidt 1y ago
      George Washington chose to found a country instead. Beethoven and Chopin wrote some music. Queen Anne united a Kingdom, and Queen Mary II assented to the 1689 Bill of Rights. Frida Kahlo painted some art. Virginia Woolf wrote some literature. Helen Geisel edited Dr. Seuss. Rosalind Franklin helped discover DNA. Jean Purdy helped develop IVF. All infertile due to no fault of their own. Perhaps you should consider moving out of the country, avoiding classical music, literature, and art, foregoing all DNA-related medical developments and IVF, and meditating on empathy as you do so.
      - RestlessMind 1y ago
        These people were outliers and they could pursue their passions and contribute to the societies because vast majority of adults were rearing a bunch of kids. The problem is that for the last few generations in the Western societies, everyone wanted to be a George Washington or Rosalind Franklin and decided to pursue their passion. Not enough people were willing to do boring work of raising kids. That is definitely not sustainable.
        timschmidt 1y ago
        > These people were outliers What part of 1/6 the population don't you understand? Is this ignorance willful? > The problem is that for the last few generations in the Western societies... Not enough people were willing to do boring work of raising kids. That is definitely not sustainable. Biology seems to have incentivized reproduction heavily enough that we're sitting at 8.2 Billion humans worldwide. "The human population has experienced continuous growth following the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the end of the Black Death in 1350, when it was nearly 370,000,000." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population Wake me up when it actually starts shrinking. Alternatively, if you think there's something you can do to incentivize reproduction more than sex, let me know, I'd like to be a first-round investor.
        michtzik 1y ago
        > What part of 1/6 the population don't you understand? Is this ignorance willful? The 1/6 number is made up. Here's an example source: https://www.who.int/news/item/04-04-2023-1-in-6-people-globally-affected-by-infertility https://www.who.int/news/item/04-04-2023-1-in-6-people-globa... The first red flag is they use the Newspeak "experience infertility". If you look at the data sources, they're calling women (and men) with children "infertile": https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/i-keystat.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/i-keystat.htm Obviously there's a sense in which a woman who's had children and now can't is "infertile" (though FAR more than one-sixth of women experience menopause). But it's not the sense being used by you and your parent commenter in this thread.
  - broken-kebab 1y ago
    But it's not like birthrate falling has been mainly because of infertility?
Aeolun 1y ago
They would work until they couldn’t, and then die?
- jodrellblank 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44088316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44088316

timschmidt 1y ago

> it was your kids taking care of you when you get older This oversimplification has never been true. Humans evolved in extended family groups generally between 30 - 300 people. And humans are far more promiscuous and willing to adopt chosen family than most will admit. The nuclear family is a shockingly recent invention.

broken-kebab 1y ago
It doesn't negate the claim that parent made though. "Your kids" had a wider meaning (and still has in a lot of places) but the principle remains: an adult had to provide, and protect a limited number of (usually related) kids to be cared by those of them who survived later in life.
- timschmidt 1y ago
  No. You've failed to get the point. "An adult" didn't provide. All adults did.
  - broken-kebab 1y ago
    That's not how it works unless you try to say that adults in general are interested in kids survival. This would be true but it's not what drives larger efforts, and resources allocation. For that there are always related kids which get the most of one's resources, and other kids which may get something sometimes. And there are your elders and others' elders as well. Actually, there are plenty of countries where pensions either not a thing, or too small even for basics. I lived in some of them and I dare to say I know what I'm talking about.
    - timschmidt 1y ago
      > Actually, there are plenty of countries where pensions either not a thing, or too small even for basics. I lived in some of them And you left them for places with a stronger social safety net. Interesting.
1y ago

SarahC_ 1y ago

>something humans have done since before recorded history Inuits would leave their old out in the snow, and walk away. Just saying.

timschmidt 1y ago
I looked for references. Found the following which cites three references across 5 decades. It indicates that this practice was 1) rare even before it ended in 1939 2) considered repugnant by many Inuit 3) an alternative to starvation when there was no other choice. https://www.straightdope.com/21343302/did-eskimos-put-their-elderly-on-ice-floes-to-die https://www.straightdope.com/21343302/did-eskimos-put-their-... I'm not sure what you meant to communicate by sharing this thought. That 100 years ago hunter gatherers in the harshest inhabited climate on the planet made some unfathomably hard decisions and did horrifying things to survive? I don't see how that has any relevancy to what we do today in the richest most industrialized society in the world. Some tribes in Papua New Guinea prior to 1960 practiced occasional cannibalism. Doesn't mean we should be eating our neighbors today. Wild that I should have to say so.
- babyent 1y ago
  Steve is 75 and retiring. Quick! Barbecue him!