Hacker News Reader

Comment by fxtentacle | Hacker News Reader

The first step is to convince people who grew up with the western "individualism and freedom are the most important" culture why they should care about elderly that they are not directly related to.

Those old people who have lots of family that cares about them will be fine in any case. So the "problem" are those old people that are socially isolated and went all-in on the governments' promises of public retirement care. But now we're finding out that the old retirement system is too expensive for the young generation to handle, plus the young were taught not to care about anyone but themselves...

View on HN

It is really common in the gay community for people to not have children and to struggle throughout their working years. While many get help from family from childhood to early adulthood it is still common for gay people to either get kicked out of or flee from their homes and families at or before official adulthood.

It seems like punishing people for not having children and not being consistently successful in their working life is going to leave a lot of old people destitute. That is not necessarily a simple cultural issue.

I am a non westerners relatively young person. I am in a western country to only make money. When I retire I will go back to Asia.

Western country like USA is good for competition and individualism and you can make a lot of money because of it, and then you bring the money back to Asia, and retire in Asia, where everything is cheaper and community is stronger than in western country.

As someone living in Asia, cheaper but you get what you pay for.

I think about this plan a lot. It feels like a way to "hack the system".

And yet, if everyone does it, then Asian countries will also end up with no community -- because all the young people will be in the West.

Already, rural parts of China and Thailand are depopulating as young people go to cities. The same in Eastern Europe. And the same, come to think of it, in the United States. What were once small towns and farming communities are now empty save for a Dollar Store and a few 50-year-olds. This would be a global-scale version of that same phenomenon.

The other issue is that this plan probably means you'll only be able to have a small family, simply because you're starting later. Over time that would also break the model. Hard for the kids to care for grandma when there are as many grandmas as kids.

But for an individual it seems like a decent plan. Except --

Well, it's a little more workable for a man, since in principle, if he's lucky, he can marry a younger woman and still have a family. But that has problems: An equal relationship is less likely, and she will be left a widow at some point. It probably just won't be as good a marriage as if you'd married your highschool sweetheart.

If you want to do geo- and cultural- arbitrage, it seems like, while harder to pull off, it might be better to do remote work and go to a traditional/low-cost country when you're younger.

> And yet, if everyone does it, then Asian countries will also end up with no community -- because all the young people will be in the West.

Not to mention the impact on prices in those countries.

Over the long term, lots of young people starting their careers (i.e. low net worth) would leave the country to seek good jobs abroad, and only return at the end of their successful careers (i.e. high net worth). All that extra wealth would drive up prices, making it even harder on locals.

> If you want to do geo- and cultural- arbitrage, it seems like, while harder to pull off, it might be better to do remote work and go to a traditional/low-cost country when you're younger.

Wasn't this the whole idea of "digital nomadism" which seemed to be popular in the 2000s? Now that remote work is popular, we'll probably see a resurgence.

> Wasn't this the whole idea of "digital nomadism" which seemed to be popular in the 2000s? Now that remote work is popular, we'll probably see a resurgence.

Yeah, could be. That said, the same force that allows remote work (COVID) also prevents travel, or at least makes it less attractive. We'll have to see if the remote work stays after the COVID leaves.

Also, don't they all just go to Bali anyway? ;-)

There is also a question of -- are you actually becoming part of the community you're joining? For example, I hear a lot of guys (it seems to be mostly guys) who've gone to Puerto Rico have encountered a ton of resentment. It doesn't help that many fit a "crypto bro" stereotype (or is that just the media reports?).

One of the more positive versions of this (though not without problems) has been the "back to Africa" movement. Although there's sometimes resentment, mostly I get the impression that people are received well (also, there's a choice: racism here or resentment there?). And, the thing that makes me feel a little more positively about it than "nomadism" is that this is done with an intention to stay, integrate, and invest.

(I also think some of the negative reaction comes from negative perceptions of Western culture. When the arrivals turn out to be chaste respectful people who are not on drugs, I suspect opinions change. That was certainly the case in India for a while, where it was unfairly assumed that Americans were worthless hippies who slept around too much. Well, India did get its share of hippies, so I can understand...)

I guess you also do see these things happen in an idiosyncratic way, usually as a result of marriage. For example, a European web developer who meets a Jamaican and moves there to be closer to her family, stuff like that.

> Not to mention the impact on prices in those countries.

...but yeah, it only works if it isn't popular.

I am a Korean-American US citizen. My wife is a South Korean citizen. Initially we thought it was natural for her to gain US citizenship, but we've now decided otherwise - both for reasons similar to what you mentioned, and also because the US seems to be in a downward spiral politically.

Also I've witnessed first hand the Korean healthcare system at work via my wife, and it is by far not only less expensive, but also (maybe more importantly) less complicated. It's not perfect, but for the average person I'd greatly prefer it to the mess we have in the US.

Of course, South Korea also has its share of political issues both internally and externally. So it has also crossed our mind that perhaps we ought to think of obtaining citizenship or residency in a third country for when the "earning period" chapter of my life starts to close.

> the young were taught not to care about anyone but themselves

as were the old.

Social Security won't have funding issues for almost a decade but there is no political will now, especially among the elderly, to find a solution to this problem

With current birth rates in westernized countries, I'm surprised any of these social services will still be around in two decades.

People are living longer, immigration can't solve the problem, people are relatively healthy and wealthy, etc. but there is not enough babies entering at the bottom of the pyramid to grow into tax payers to continue funding the social systems.

Dystopian me sees a world where western governments will have to institute mandatory, two child per woman births, moratoriums on birth control, huge incentives for people with children under 18, and aggressive pushes for couples to raise adopted children and/or make new ones.

> Dystopian me sees a world where western governments will have to institute mandatory, two child per woman births, moratoriums on birth control[....]

Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to just allow more immigration?

I mean, there are plenty of young, able-bodied, english-speaking people who'd like to move to rich countries.

The politics around allowing immigration are complex and controversial though. Som e people will fight tooth and nail to prevent more of the "others" from coming into their country. I'm not just referring to the US and Europe.

Look at Japan for example. Immigration has been touted by Western think tanks and pundits as a solution to their demographic problems, but instead they've chosen to go all in on automation and robots to attempt to solve it.

I expect Korea to follow the same path. Probably China too. A lot of East Asian countries that are at the bleeding edge of the demographic bomb place extremely high value on population and cultural homogeneity. The West would probably label that as racism.

>The politics around allowing immigration are complex and controversial though.

And forcing every woman to have two children isn't?

Per my other reply on this thread:

I would imagine such aggressive measures (i.e. forcing of anything) would occur first in a certain other countries before it happens in the West - if it ever does. I would also not be surprised if the West would implicitly choose to implode first before sacrificing an iota of "freedom and individuality".

Outside the West, I also would not be surprised if some countries/cultures would implicitly choose to implode before sacrificing their homogeneity.

America is never going to "force" people to have children, but it may ramp up transfer payments to those who do. The Child Tax Credit was a big part of the Biden agenda, for example. So is, AFAICT, subsidized daycare and such.

(If more aggressive payments by other countries are any indication, this will have approximately zero effect on people's decisions.)

Japan has started loosening it's immigration requirements

> Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to just allow more immigration?

Both in the EU and US, various immigrants (both legal and illegal), have been coming into the continents since the 1960s.

But even with all the immigration, currently there are still near one child fertility rates.

The native inhabitants, both the native born and born from immigrant families, still need to make up the short fall of having their own children.

In typical EU cities the default housing option is a small 2 bedroom / 1 bath flat. That makes it awkward to have more than one child. Admitting more immigrants further increases competition for very limited housing supplies. Building more housing in those cities would probably be a good idea but realistically it's not going going to happen on any large scale.

I feel norms are a big part of the problem. In other parts of the world nobody bats an eye at six children living in a one-room hut.

> But even with all the immigration, currently there are still near one child fertility rates.

Is it matter while enough immigrants coming?

I would imagine such aggressive measures would occur first in a certain other countries before it happens in the West - if it ever does.

I would also not be surprised if the West would implicitly chooses to implode first before sacrificing an iota of "freedom and individuality". As the saying goes, "give me liberty or give me death", or that famous Benjamin Franklin quote about trading freedom for security.

Social Security will still be around in two decades. They'll just increase the retirement age again, raise taxes, and cut benefits in order to close the financial gap.

"individualism and freedom are the most important" is not incompatible with caring for the elderly or your family.This is a misconception that people think of individualism as equivalent to being selfish.The best generosity and care one could provide is from his own conscience and goodwill, not doing it out of necessity or as a requirement.This was vastly pushed in EE where people would hijack Christianity or any generous aspect of a religion in order to promote their ideological umbrella of the system. The problem we have in the Europe with elderly (see Italy or other countries with similar demographics) is precisely >because< we think everyone should have at least 2-3 of their last decades of life lived in a comfortable environment where any agency is bad agency.This is overall a bad look on life and you even some young people behave like this, because "the system will provide".We put the futures of people under promises and hypotheticals.

If you want the reverse take a look at cultures that think in the opposite fashion: SK,eastern cultures,or maybe Japan(though i'm least familiar with that, and what consists as "elderly" continues to increase);Now even there you have a lot of problems, but problems are inevitable and that is precisely the argument and reason of why we should strive to behave less "civilized" - as in staying comfortable -. The reality of life is that it is constantly degrading, generations who went through war always understand this and seem "superhuman" to later generations who grew up in peace.It's not about war and conflict between people but war against the degradation of life.

I agree with you in that the best care that can be provided is one through genuine goodwill.

However I would argue that the vast majority of people are very selfish and do not have much more than a token amount of generosity beyond themselves or at least their immediate family.

Thus while not the ideal situation, some amount of mandatory force by society is the next best, imperfect, option I can think of.

I'm Korean, and it's been traditional in Korea for children to take care of their parents when the become old. Often times this meant multigenerational households where the elderly would live together with one of their adult children. But this too is changing, and today, quite a few of the elderly are either left alone or put into nursing homes.

Since the old have done nothing to help the young (quite the opposite in fact) that will be an uphill struggle.

I've heard a similar sentiment recently.

"I'll start respecting the elderly when they stop bothering me with their email problems."

It's more like I'll have capacity to help the elderly when I've paid off the huge student loans they dumped on me, got a house in the ridiculous market they setup and found a job worth having in the labour market they built...

That, too. My uncle could buy his house for 3 months of salary. It was cheap and made from wood and he had to put in lots of work to make it nice, but good luck just buying the land nowadays for that price.

That said, the horrible housing market is in my opinion mostly due to foreign mafia/dictator/oligarch investment through shell companies. The most expensive areas in London are all sold, but empty...

Yeah, you're not wrong especially in places like London (also based there). But the voter block that vetos changing that is OAPs...

> due to foreign mafia/dictator/oligarch investment through shell companies

True, but this was allowed to happen by the current and old generation of voters.

I thought it was about destroying the planet and enabling the ever-growing financial inequality.

Well, we western youth have certainly inherited a huge national debt, crumbling infrastructure, an upcoming climate catastrophe, a political system in deadlock, and geopolitical rivals of vast and rising power. No doubt about that.

But old people did manage to produce a first-world country as successful as any other, get their language spoken all over the globe, vastly increase college education (which they thought was doing the young a favour), build a tech sector that pays wages considered ridiculous everywhere else on the planet, create the internet and basically give it away for free, give birth to and raise us, have much less racism and sexism than there were a few generations ago (although they both remain very real problems), avoid any wars that couldn't be fought with an all-volunteer military, and avoid destroying the world with nuclear weapons - something that seemed as inevitable, in its day, as global warming is today.

Thinking the old have done _nothing_ betrays something of an ignorance of history IMHO.

Nitpick, but by "we western youth" you mean "we American youth" or even more probably "we US youth".

West in world context is not just the USA.

I was deliberately unspecific.

It's true that (e.g.) France hasn't reaped the benefits of getting their language spoken all over the globe, but they certainly have increased college education, the internet, and no major wars. And they also managed to introduce other benefits, like quality healthcare for all.

Most of the positives you list were achieved by people long dead. The generation that fought WW2 are now (at least) 95. They have my respect.

Below them are a much much bigger block of 60+ old people. They dedicated their lives to the opposite: narrowing educational access,destroying the generous labour market they inherited, stopping people accessing housing, some are even trying to reintroduce Nazi-ism.

C'mon, Boomers were also in the Civil Rights movement. Yeah they're not the Greatest Generation. Yeah they're maybe too individualistic (whether on the left or the right). But if you're going to talk about the far right you should at least acknowledge how many of them were on the left.

>the old have done nothing to help the young

I suppose all those babies paid for their own housing, food, education, healthcare and vacations for up to 25 years before they were productive members of society?

If you borrow it from them then yes they pay for it.

Who borrows money from babies?

National debt.

Politicians. It's one thing to issue bonds to pay for much needed infrastructure at the time. It's quite another thing to issue bonds to pay the interest on existing bonds. Our governments have kicked the can since the 80s. If you issue a 20 or 30 year bond you are saying I'm not paying for this, but kids born today are definitely good for it.

Not all debt is bad but our government is using it poorly. A 30 year bond on a bridge with 60 year lifespan is good debt. A 30 year bond on 2 expensive, 20 year wars with no positive objective is bad debt.

That's not quite the same argument as implied by the previous statement "the old have done nothing to help the young".

Said argument reminds of Monty Python's "What have the Romans ever done for us".

if we can’t help each other without getting something out of it then we’re doomed to be like this forever

You're not wrong. But that isn't the only issue. It is also true that if we keep helping people who give nothing back, well just end up with lots of people who give nothing back...

Personally I think the correct line here is personal responsibility and fairness. OAPs have have had huge opportunitied. Until we've given the same to everyone else, they can wait.

Fortune cookie: having a small family is probably the biggest mistake you can make in your life.

Or be dick parents to your children so that you have no relationship with them later on.

Since lots of couples in wealthy, developed nations are choosing to not have kids, I wonder how this will impact things in the future.

Especially in countries where it has been traditionally implied that your children will take care of you when you grow old.

> But now we're finding out that the old retirement system is too expensive for the young generation to handle

I had read somewhere that, long long ago people who retired at, say 60 would probably eventually die by 65.

In that case the retirement system, pensions, savings etc would work because they only need to be supported for a few years.

However, as the healthcare system across the world increased, people are now living much longer lives and hence they need to be supported longer. This stresses the existing retirement mechanisms.

It's kind of ironic if that theory is true.

People making this kind of comment should disclose their age.

Mid 30ies. But I used to work in a government retirement home for a year just because I was curious about it. And the loneliness in there is depressing.

EDIT:

BTW, if it weren't for the fact that tech pays 20x the hourly rate, I might even have stayed working in social places.

But I have also experienced the other side, like when a restaurant refused to let us in because we came with kids. They argued that their mostly elderly customers would feel disturbed by the noisyness of kids talking to each other.

My spouse is working in a government run long term care home. The conditions are bad and so is the pay. We're not the only couple like this I know, and at this point I feel like techs high salaries are indirectly subsidizing the system.

Meanwhile my significant other works in our state government granting public money to help needy elderly people have somewhere to live out the rest of their lives.

The amount of money these places get per individual is fucking staggering, like $15k per month, every month. What does that get you? Like a shitty bed in a shitty room with shitty daily food and 1/10th of a nurse, who, like you said, is paid garbage.

But don't worry, some rich fucker's portfolio is doing great now that the elderly had to sell everything they've ever earned to afford end of life care, instead of letting their family, children, or even the next generation inherit it.

Ouch.

UK comparison: my mother spent the last few months of her life in an Alzheimer’s care home 3 miles from the family home, and that was “only” £1,000/week.

Owing to the pandemic, I wasn’t able to see the place in person, but it looked pleasant enough on video call.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com