In itself, having a more reasonably distributed age distribution is neutral (in my view). But it is a consequence of two good things: the population boom is leveling off, and healthcare has improved tremendously around the globe.
Could you explain? Recent policy seems to have been about pushing everyone possible into the workforce, even the not-able-bodied. By every means short of actually putting up wages.
[1] http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/americans-not-...
It can also be pushed into meaning that young people are mostly barred from effectively investing and creating successful business.
Of course, the other side of that coin is that there needs to be enough jobs available to employ everyone, and forcing retirement is one way to reduce a labour surplus...
See the age breakdown of the recent Brexit vote for one example. I also remember with the Irish referendum on gay marriage in 2015, there was much worry that the older generations would swing the overall vote to "No", despite the legislation having no impact on them.
Worth thinking about: How many Brexit "Leave" voters have simply died of old age in the two months between then and now?
Only a downside if you (a) disagree with them; (b) for whatever reason, feel they are not entitled to their beliefs
> and can end up drowning out the voices of the young.
Funny how when your opinions are the majority it's democracy, and when they're not it's "voices being drowned out."
> Worth thinking about: How many Brexit "Leave" voters have simply died of old age in the two months between then and now?
It's not.
You don't even have to do that, I'd make July 4th election day in the states for example.
There is really no compelling argument I can think of for why there shouldn't be a federal holiday to vote, unless you are arguing about lost productivity as a business owner or policy changes from more people of different demographics voting. Neither are compelling arguments.
When there's polarization in a society where a majority of population out-vote a minority on every proposal, said minority has all motivation to withdraw from public politics and secede.
Imagine a country with 60% big-endians and 40% little-endians. Big-endians own every president, every senate and every vote they care to win. Little-endians have no sensible choice but to split into their own country where they'll be a majority, perhaps with civil war and ethnic cleansings in the process.
The first past the post system strongly encourages this sort of manipulation. If electorates were made larger and multiple candidates elected for each then this problem would disappear, but established parties would never allow that to occur.
Edit: it has become evident recently that the HN downvote system cannot cope with political discussions, as evidenced by your post being killed. I would suggest that posts with political content have up and down votes shown, rather than the sum being applied to modify visibility. As it is, the downvotes are just "I don't want you to be able to express your ideas."
I think I am fairly liberal, but in being objective I know I could very well be wrong.
Just to put the counter point. If conservative ideals are correct, then older people voting more would be a huge UPSIDE.
I agree that the older voting bloc causes a problem, but it's not because they are conservative, it's because they're retired and will continue to try to vote more benefits for themselves while removing benefits from others.
But to say it's a problem because they are conservative? You're just saying people that agree with you are right and people who disagree are wrong. It's closeminded.
This is actually not true [0]
[0]http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/getting-more-li...
" At any given time older people are likely to be more conservative than contemporaneous young people. But relative to themselves as young people, today’s older folks have generally become more liberal than they once were."
It seems your thinking of the latter half of that quote, but the claim was regarding the first half.
And if that happens organically, without special policies, the better still.
My thoughts on the matter was always that nature itself will eventually take care of the numbers if we keep going the way we are without some form of measure to keep control - every population explosion has had it's eventual decline - sharp or smooth. We seem to believe that we're different but we're not.
If we self regulate by choice - whether it's the lack of income, lifestyle or a lack of want to have children that has brought us here it's always going to be preferable. As unsavoury as it may be in some regards.
I don't think most people would disagree. It's just that nature isn't very merciful, and the way it enacts it's policies could lead to a lot of suffering. It'd be much more pleasant if we self-regulated so that nature didn't have to.
There seems to be whole businesses building around milking elderly people's retirement money. I'm thinking about highly polluting cruise ships etc.
Interesting times ahead.
Which BTW makes no sense when you look closer at demographics, since most depopulating areas are rural, but immigrants usually live compactly in countries' largest cities (where also existing youth flocks to), increasing population imbalance in fact.
Yes they get total head count stable but at cost of getting everything else wrong.
Population growth has been slowing due to increases in quality of living, and is set to peak around 2050. Then we'll experience population deflation, which may be even more problematic than inflation.
This is a myth.
In fact birth rates are decelerating at an alarming rate and actually starting to decrease in some parts of the world. In a couple of decades, population is projected to begin decreasing worldwide. Many governments are creating programs to encourage procreation to try to hold off the inevitable death spiral most countries will experience.
1: First people argue there's no problem with low birth rate, and then people tell that they're solving the problem. Pick one.
Less resources are needed if you have less people. Ultimately everyone will benefit from it.
Elon Musk may be having success changing those huge incentives, but relying on revolutionaries like that isn't ideal and might not work.