[01100011]

Old people are organized and more social. I see it in my community. They run the newsletters and they host community events. "Oh that's because they're retired!" No, many of them are not. Many still work.

I want the gerontocracy to end, but I'm also worried what takes its place. Gen Xers like me seem to lack some of the abilities present in our older generations.

We'll probably be more equitable and fair, but will we be as politically effective and organized towards achieving our goals? I sort of doubt it.

[lenerdenator]

They've had decades to save up the money that allows them to do the things alongside work.

They also came up in a time and place that allowed them to build social relationships outside of work. Many Gen Xers and Millennials just... don't have that kind of personal time. I know several people in my circle of friends who don't want to do anything after work because they're exhausted. Bills gotta be paid, and there's more pressure to squeeze more productivity and consumption out of individuals than there was in 1980-1995. A lot of that pressure, oddly enough, comes from the necessity to keep shareholder returns high to keep the retirement accounts of the Boomers flush with cash.

Gen X and Millennials are also less likely to have had kids than the Boomers, so the socialization that came along with having a child (extracurriculars, PTA meetings, etc.) just never happened.

We incentivized, and eventually started requiring, economic output and consumption over building in-person social networks and hosting events outside of work. It was what we considered important.

[WalterBright]

I'm curious how you figure that pressure to increase profits has increased?

[lenerdenator]

The US birth rate began to drop in the 1960s. [0] At the time we were a more self-contained economy.

Since then, there are fewer births per capita, and we've opened up global markets for labor and resources.

If you have fewer people aging into markets for goods and services as time goes on, you have to monetize them more intensely in order to maintain revenues. At the same time, other markets (China, India, etc.) offered relatively-high GDP growth (and thus return on investment) compared to the US [1], since their labor costs are lower and the needs of then-developing nations were cheaper to meet.

The result is a worker that's expected to produce more profit to compete with those elsewhere, while also being more intensely monetized through their consumption habits. If they can't produce enough profit to compete with workers elsewhere, they just don't have the income necessary to be more intensely monetized, so their standard of living drops.

[0] https://www.macrotrends.net/datasets/global-metrics/countrie...

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?name_...

[WalterBright]

Why wouldn't people "monetize" things before?

[lenerdenator]

Because you can only monetize people so much before they get testy about it.

They get tired of being advertised to. They start complaining about being nickeled and dimed for every single thing they used to get as a part of another purchase. They look at their wages staying flat while costs go up and up.

[WalterBright]

So why is it different now? Costs go up because of inflation (government deficit spending) and the ever-greater burden of government.

[mike50]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch#Criticism

[underlipton]

>A lot of that pressure, oddly enough, comes from the necessity to keep shareholder returns high to keep the retirement accounts of the Boomers flush with cash.

This is it. The American economy has been warped by the interests of older people who are more interested in keeping the wealth that they've accrued safe than in investing in ventures that are riskier but that provide a broader and more diverse base of opportunity. When you ask, "Why are so many young people unemployed or underemployed today?", it's because cash, which could have funded the investments that stupid young people would have made in risky small businesses that employ workers with idiosyncratic or less-than-expert skill sets, were instead placed in the hands of boomers who just bought more FAANG stock.

Suddenly, those huge conglomerates are the only ones with capital, so they bid up wages and costs to keep resources out of the hands of would-be competitors. This creates a cycle of "growth" (or, rather, when the organic growth subsides, government steps in with subsidies because they can't let the largest employers and economic engines in the country do poorly).

And here we are.

[throwaway173738]

Organization is a skill that can be passed on, and to the degree that old people are still doing it themselves they’re depriving us of opportunities to learn and to practice and to benefit from their experience. That’s why we’re not as good at it.

[Aurornis]

> and to the degree that old people are still doing it themselves they’re depriving us of opportunities to learn and to practice and to benefit from their experience.

Young people’s ability and motivation to organize and communicate is not dependent on anything other than themselves choosing to do it and get involved

> That’s why we’re not as good at it.

If you continue to believe that you’re dependent on older generations to teach you everything you’ll never get anywhere.

What works for older generations isn’t going to be good advice for getting younger generations to organize and communicate. The age differences are large.

[lostapathy]

Relatedly, it's a skill that goes with positions that are clung to such that nobody else gets to practice and learn said skill.

[WalterBright]

An awful lot of young people are starting businesses. Look at all the people under 30 becoming billionaires. This just didn't happen when I was young.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2025/12/22/why-there-...

[armchairhacker]

> Fueled by AI, prediction markets and online gambling, there are more self-made billionaires under 30 than ever before, 13 up from a previous record of 7.

Two of those examples are online gambling, which is controversial to the extent that it's partly outlawed in the US.

But more importantly, 13 isn't an awful lot. Approximately how many young people today have started successful businesses whose valuation is under $1 billion?

[WalterBright]

> Approximately how many young people today have started successful businesses whose valuation is under $1 billion?

You can type such questions into google as well as I can.

> 13 isn't an awful lot

There aren't that many self-made billionaires of any age.

[estimator7292]

Yes it did. Billionaires are a relatively new thing, but successful businesses were led by young people across the entirety of human history.

And you should not praise someone for simply being a billionaire. That's a bad thing to be.

[WalterBright]

> Yes it did.

I don't recall any. I remember when people were all agog when Gates became one.

> successful businesses were led by young people across the entirety of human history.

Sure. But billionaires?

> And you should not praise someone for simply being a billionaire.

If they're self-made, they earned the praise.

> That's a bad thing to be.

Creating value is not a bad thing. Being a self-made billionaire means they created a billion dollars of value. They didn't take it from you or anyone else. Creating SpaceX, Starlink, etc., are good things.

[cweagans]

> If they're self-made, they earned the praise.

They aren’t and they didn’t.

> Being a self-made billionaire means they created a billion dollars of value. They didn't take it from you or anyone else.

Nobody is a “self made” billionaire. That value you’re talking about didn’t just spring into existence. It had to come from somewhere. There is always a source.

Who flew the rocket? Who built the rocket? Who built the parts for the rocket? Who mixed the fuel?

Building big ambitious things is a good thing. But consolidating an amount of money that nobody could ever reasonably spend into the hands of one person (especially when that money is just the excess value produced by the workers) is unethical and unneeded.

[mylifeandtimes]

> Being a self-made billionaire means they created a billion dollars of value.

two of the people on the list did it via online gambling. Which is by definition a zero-sum game. No value was created.

[01100011]

Sure, and if I was so inclined I could go rub noses with them. They're eager to find young folks who are community minded. But I don't want that. I'm gen x and full of cynicism and antisocial attitudes. The only people I know who aren't that way in my generation are churchgoing types and a few influencers.

[throwaway173738]

What I’ve seen where I’m at is many of the old people who organize don’t want to give anything up to a next generation. They want all the accolades for themselves. So they’re happy to have young people do the work but aren’t comfortable letting them lead while teaching them the skills.

[CalRobert]

Mixing work and hobbies is easy. Mixing kids and hobbies is not.