Comment by pixelmonkey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pixelmonkey | Hacker News Reader

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The Economist just launched a new podcast, "Boom!", on why boomers, as a generation, have been holding an "iron grip" on major US institutions.

The first episode is free on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QEy9RO7bEJ8 -- I listened to it today, I thought it was pretty good. It digs into the history of a very important political year of boomers' lives: 1968. And it started to answer why the demographics of US political institutions skew so much toward people in their 70s and 80s (and, occasionally, 90s).

Recent data visualization on that: https://github.com/amontalenti/home/assets/40263/c21a34e4-2c...

This is the Thiel quote I'm reacting to here: "What I would add to Mark's summary is that, in a healthier society, the handover from the Boomers to the younger generations should have started some time ago (maybe as early as the 1990s for Gen X), and that for a whole variety of reasons, this generational transition has been delayed as the Boomers have maintained an iron grip on many US institutions. When the handover finally happens in the 2020s, it will therefore happen more suddenly and perhaps more dramatically than people expect or than such generational transitions have happened in the past."

As a cynical and slacker-esque GenXer, my take is that capable people, people with drive and resources, choose instead to follow all the broadening paths to wealth (and by extension power) rather than pursue politics.

Before the dot.com, the ways to relatively rapid wealth were mostly, finance, law, and maybe medicine (and that was less rapid) — starting a company and acquiring capital was much more limited. Going into politics was actually a decent option if you were smart but a little less connected to get into finance and didn’t want debt of law/med school.

Additionally, with the rise of the internet, being political which requires a lot more public speaking than most other careers, offers way more chance for missteps and life altering embarrassments.

To summarize: GenX basically said “talk to the hand” to politics.

I don't know, I'm skeptical that a politics career is less dependent on connections than finance. Not that finance isn't, but a huge portion of successful politicians come from well connected families.

The money needed to run even a lower level campaign is far more than most average folks have a way to access. Things might have even gone the other way and gotten slightly more accessible over the past couple decades. The internet has given a platform to many people to build a brand on, and made it easier to collect small dollar donations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/07/generatio...

I'm sure Boomers would love this to happen. Then they can't even be criticized as a group while they continue to steal from the younger generations.

I am not sure how changing how we refer to cohorts of people would do that.

Aside from that, I have no idea what you mean by "all people who were born, depending on who you ask, between 1946 and 1964, steal from people who were born after them"

That cannot be true. I am not sure anyone agrees with that broad of a statement, yet, it is repeated often.

Instead you could say, "People in the US who gathered assets before 1970 and are still alive today had a greater economic advantage than those who were born in 1985 and gathered assets before 2008".

At least then it would be easy for someone to know what you are actually talking about, and to not be dismissive of absurd claims.

Here's a whisper-generated transcript of the first episode for people that prefer text: https://nopaste.net/boom_transcript

You're first YouTube link is marked private, anywhere else to watch?

Perhaps here?

https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/boom

Weird people who see the world through eyes with biases toward arbitrary cohorts made up by social scientists.

I hope the hilarity of Thiel's comments is not lost on Zuck, Thiel being just 3 years from Boomer-age himself

It was handed to Obama (gen X) and then we went back to the boomers again!

Obama is a tail end boomer (‘61)

GenX starts ‘65

https://guides.loc.gov/consumer-research/market-segments/gen...

And then to the silent generation.

And all we know now is that it won’t go back to gen x or later for at least another four years.

Birth years of last 5 presidents: 1946, 1946, 1961, 1946, 1942. And, assuming no one drops out and they both survive to election day, 1942 or 1946 will be the next one.

Obama, being born in 1961, is on the edge of Boomers and Gen X, since generational boundaries are always a little poorly defined. He was 47 years old when elected to his first term in 2008, so we definitely think of him as a "young president." Plus, he was only a US senator for 3 years before winning the presidency. Bill Clinton, a definite boomer, was 46 when he was elected in 1992.

Amusingly, "the baby boom" used to be counted from 1946 to 1965. I believe the largest annual cohort was born in 1960 or 1961.

Looks like "Gen X" has subsumed what used to be late baby boom.

The Baby Boom is a real effect, but it doesn't make everyone born during the boom a shared culture.

Trump is technically Silent Generation (edit: Nope, im wrong, he's a boomer), but I feel like he's very much a "Gen-X" president in how he sort of encapsulates that generations id. He rose to prominence in public consciousness during Gen-X's formative years. His TV career likewise took off as Gen-X grew as a share of the adult TV viewing audience, with his shows doing well in that demographic. And finally, during the 2016 and 2020 election his support was extremely strong with them in 2016 and 2020[1], tracking closer 65+ voters than Millennials or Zoomers. Romney did not enjoy the same support from Xers in 2012[2]. Long story short, Trump has tapped into Gen-X in a way even Gen-X politicians have been unable to.

[1] https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2016 https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2020

[2] https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2012

1946 is absolutely the beginning of the Boomers. The Boomers are the babies born after soldiers came home from WWII in 1945. If anything, Biden (1942) is technically the Silent Generation.

Gen X are the children of the Boomers. So starting ~1965 or so. Trump may have a connection with Gen Xers, just like Reagan had a connection with Boomers, but he's not a Gen X president. Not in any way.

His father is a draft dodger real-estate robber-baron, so I don't think the post-WWII zeitgeist matters too much. He's certainly not Silent either.

> Trump is technically Silent Generation

Isn't he a Baby Boomer? Born June 14, 1946

Trump (1946) is 9 years older than the average boomer (1946—1964.)

Biden (1942) isn't even boomer anymore, he's Silent Generation (1928—1945)

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