Comment by Imustaskforhelp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Imustaskforhelp | Hacker News Reader

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Imustaskforhelp

"I think Europe is hopeless. It’s an old continent full of old people who have a deeply vested interest in maintaining the status quo"

By this , do you mean the Average age of a person or birth rate or what exactly , because I think europe doesn't have those issues.

Are you mentioning the fact that Europe has power vested in the old. Doesn't everybody ? Maybe you are mentioning this in the fact that europe doesn't have a startup culture like silicon valley which can give newcomers (young passionate people) a incentive.

I definitely have some points over relativism and though I don't necessarily agree with that , I think we can first agree to discuss about what you mean by the old people comment.

By status quo , what do you mean exactly ?

Look at population pyramids. Europe is old.

Most people are looking up to retirement and their pensions. The system is unsustainable and predatory on young people. They pay an overwhelming amount of taxes to sustain this system. It also needs massive immigration which causes severe security and cultural problems, but they don’t care as long as that guarantees they will get their pension.

Same about housing. It’s old people who own houses. They vote so new housing doesn’t get built as to keep the high value of their houses. They don’t care that young people can’t afford rent.

Many other examples you can think of probably. It’s a society that caters to the old. The young get screwed. And there’s nothing they can do because they are outnumbered and that will only get worse.

This is the status quo. A society that functions like this is dead.

Basically housing & pensions ? Don't they pay for the pensions from their own money, something like Social Security?

Housing is a problem in every country and I totally agree about that. I myself, really like the georgist philosophy of economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

I doubt if this system really is broken. Catering to the old people's pensions so that they can live and unlike america's social security system which was recently cut by doge, which impacts every old person. I think it's decent? What suggestions do you think could help with the pensions scheme

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