[dane-pgp]

It's not unusual to see such timeframes in the context of nuclear decommissioning. For example:

"At around 2116, care and maintenance will end and any remaining buildings will be removed and the site returned as close as possible to its original state."[0]

Also, depending on what you mean by "some definite plan", and how young you are, your pension plan may include an estimated retirement date later than 2070.

[0] https://www.anglesey-today.com/decommissioning-wylfa.html

[shoto_io]

I think that’s about the time that interplanetary space travel starts in Star Trek. I always thought that’s way too early and the whole time should be starting 1,000 years later.

[another-dave]

Given only 58 years from the first flight to getting someone in space, they probably thought another 100 years of innovation sounded OK!

Crazy looking back to think that Star Trek originally aired before the moon landing.

[guerrilla]

Seems like Blade Runner did even worse.

[shoto_io]

Indeed. I don’t get it though. Why not push every timeline out by a safety margin of hundreds/thousand years?

[dane-pgp]

Personally I would have a hard time suspending disbelief if a story set in 2200 didn't have super-human AI and all diseases cured. Similarly there should be no pollution or over-population, at least in first world countries.

For humanity to avoid achieving those things, there would have to be some significant barriers to progress that we don't know about yet, or a fairly disastrous collapse, which would limit the possible stories that could be told.

I suppose that setting a story thousands of years into the future allows there to have been multiple collapses and renaissances, but I'm not convinced that such a path is as likely as a permanent collapse or reaching some sort of uninterruptible paradise state.

[guerrilla]

I just think of it as an alternate timeline now

[shoto_io]

Nice. That’s great trick

[Retric]

I think the retirement thing is a stretch. A 16 year old might see a retirement age of 2070 using a retirement age of 65.

[jltsiren]

Someone born in the late 1990s might expect to retire around 2070. Given the population structure in wealthy countries, early retirement at 65 is no longer feasible for most people in the younger generations.

[MomoXenosaga]

People from my mother's generation often started working when they were just 16. So when I see someone talking about them retiring at 65 it's important to keep that in mind.

[mech422]

I was actually working 30+ hours/week from 12-13 years old, and I'm GenX. We're slated to retire at 67.

P.S. - I was doing data entry for local real estate companies and simple BASIC 'cash register' setups for local businesses.

[Ericson2314]

This is an oft-quoted phenomenon, but I think it's important to point out it need not be true. We've had chronically weak demand, in which case more retires should actually be good, raising wages and spurring productivity improvements.

In the US, just need to keep healthcare costs under control.

[adrianN]

Retirees are not known for generating large amounts of demand compared to younger people who work.

[Ericson2314]

I don't really follow? Workers are supply (their labor) and demand (their consumption), but as we have more productive industrial capacity and more of it, the cycle breaks down as not enough labor is needed, reducing their purchasing power and further slackening the labor market in a vicious cycle.

Retirees don't work, which means nevermind the absolute amount of demand (no kids, etc., make less per household sure) the ratio of supply to demand offsets the productivity / industrial capacity gains. Coupled with more retires, that could restore the balance and get the "Keynsian feedback loop" going again.

(We could still go into a massive worldwide recession, but that would be a political result of the powers that be not wanting the profit share of national income to decrease. That is plenty possible but not some unavoidable "demographic destiny".)

[adrianN]

I see. Thanks for clarifying.

[tiagod]

Calling 65 years old early retirement is insulting...

[cyberlurker]

Not sure if joking but that’s generally the age where pension kicks in/an individual can start pulling from tax advantaged retirement accounts.

[Retric]

In the US you can start pulling from retirement accounts in your 40’s as long as it’s even distributions for the rest of your life.

[JamilD]

The options for retirement funds in my 401(k) include "LifePath Index 2065 Account A", but that's as far as it goes for now.