Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrexroad | Hacker News Reader

I clicked the headline expecting a chuckle and left with an unexpectedly warmed heart.

> “We wanted to strengthen the connection between the children and the older generations in the community. There are so many amazing people here. I thought it was such a shame that no one knew about them,” [...] “Since the card game went viral, so many kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures.” > Kids have started attending local events and volunteering for community activities — just for a chance to meet the ojisan from their cards. Participation in town events has reportedly doubled since the game launched.

there's so much more I want to comment on--it's not screen-based, increased cross-generational interaction, strengthening community, elders having their stories known--but what I love is that these effects will compound into even greater benefits for the community.

View on HN

This brings back something we've mostly lost in modern times. Elders had respect because they knew a lot and had contributed a lot, and everyone knew that. But that's not scalable, and we migrate a lot more now.

This is an engaging way that brings that back - rather than focusing on fantasy heroes, show kids real life role models.

It's even less that we move around a lot more; technology advanced with the personal computer and Internet such that kids see adults not knowing things about the world that they already do. What is decades of personal lived experience wisdom when there's tiktok and YouTube and chatbots?

>kids see adults not knowing things about the world that they already do

In the age where anyone can find anything online, experience is more valuable than it ever was. Technology won't replace that.

In the US we are at all time lows for internal migration. Or at least very close to them, I haven’t checked those stats in a couple years since this last came up on HN.

We used to (as a population) migrate to opportunity far more than we do now.

For many reasons there is simply far less community engagement and integration going on. Fewer people put down strong “roots” in their communities these days.

Thats surprising, I thought moving was less common than now. In either case, is it possible that the single households is the other factor, people choosing more instead of interacting with whoever is around?

It might be who’s migrating. Possibly the coastal PMC workers sloshing back and forth while blue collar workers have less mobility than the 60s?

When? In my grandparents generation (born late 1800s to early 1900s) moving to either try to start a farm in the US or to leave a failing farm for a job in town at the local whatever factory was very common.

Post WW2 for the boomers was loaded with people flooding to all kinds of industrial boom cities.

After that it was hollowing out of the rust belt and moving out of cities to suburbs due to the lead/crime epidemic.

Then rich cities boomed back with millennials in a continuous feedback loop where the successful ones became more desirable as money brought attractions/activities/restaurants, draining the failing ones even more.

Then 2020 was the brief mega disruption where people thought the internet might catch on and they found out the vast majority of white collar jobs can be done from home so the fanned out to all of the nice and cheap suburbs, mountain towns, etc. Now the Internet fad has worn off so that’s reversing a bit.

Moving in the US has been very common until this brief lull where you could change jobs without relocating thanks to remote work.

Unfortunately we’re going backwards so it wouldn’t surprise me if constant relocation resumes.

The main factor that you fail to mention is living cost, and not the internet, which made it possible and desirable to frequently move in search of opportunity.

It didn't mean there weren't people that lived long-term in communities. However, it did mean that you could find more lucrative opportunities in different places while also affording to move and live there.

That began to slowly change in the 60's, beginning with the death of single occupancy residences and a lack of funding/investment in affordable housing for a significant portion of income brackets.

The last 30ish years helped cement that for lots of reasons, but the ability to work remotely via the internet isn't particularly new nor causative for that change.

People moving in search of opportunity back then weren’t doing it because it was easier. It meant giving up your family and friends far more so than now because of the lack of internet. An out of state move meant a handful of letters a year was the level of contact you were in for and that was only for close family.

Living cost was a big barrier back then (except maybe the homesteading) too. Any time someone is leaving a poor outlook to a more booming area it usually means cost of living is going up.

> but the ability to work remotely via the internet isn't particularly new nor causative for that change

It absolutely was the first time any non-trivial percentage of work was remote. More importantly, the spike meant 15% of the population became eligible to leave an expensive city that sucked during the lockdowns. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/dec/trends-wo...

There is most definitely affordable housing all over the US. People are just both picky and lacking opportunity in the cheaper places. Remote work was the fix for the latter part so downplaying that is missing the point.

If you have a remote job and just want to live in NYC because of culture, then you have no leg to stand on when complaining about housing. It’s purely a luxury decision at that point.

> That began to slowly change in the 60's, beginning with the death of single occupancy residences

This is only true in a few select areas. Check out https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/renters-vs-homeowne...

Specifically the “average annual homeownership rates since 1964”. Right below it has a snapshot of rates by state and the difference tells you everything you need to know.

Housing is only broken in the top desired areas and remote work gave you the opportunity to get a good job while leaving those.

> However, it did mean that you could find more lucrative opportunities in different places while also affording to move and live there.

Same as now. The data clearly shows more job opportunity in rural areas (not all rural areas) and more affordable living to go along with it. But we haven't (yet) reached the dire situation where the people actually have to make the move like previous generations found themselves in. Most people won't leave family and friends behind unless they feel they are out of options.

Housing crisis deters people from moving to where the jobs are, and it's a new phenomenon.

> I thought moving was less common than now.

International migration has increased over time, although still representing a very small segment of the population. Presumably that is mostly people fleeing terrible situations (e.g. war torn areas). When you are in a stable country, it doesn't matter so much where in the country you are.

Worth noting that the relations to elder is really getting rocky, and people are rethinking them in both directions.

We can't hide from the influence the elder generations had on the current situation. Japan is a developed nation with a crazy low crime rate and incredible infrastructure thanks to them. It's also a social mess and the poster child of stagnation thanks to them.

This whole trading card game surfaces both sides of the coin, with what these people are bringing to the community and also why small kids shouldn't look to much upon them as it's a recipe for trouble.

Japan always does the hard thing. If someone misbehaves and two people are close by you can be sure that they loudly will talk with each other about how the person misbehaves (they are not afraid). The prisons are very strict, with beatings if you don’t follow authority. The police acts swiftly and have small offices everywhere . Green tea and healthy food makes people be able to control their mood (hard to not stuff your face).

The rules are very open and clear. The deincentives for misconduct are strong.

The newspapers focus are different. More fun or actionable news.

People just think they are built different, that is not the case. They just succeed with many small things that makes a greater whole. But people just dismiss it as a culture thing, which is reductive.

>They just succeed with many small things that makes a greater whole. But people just dismiss it as a culture thing, which is reductive.

Aren't rules part of the culture? The culture helps strengthening the rules while the rules help strengthening the culture.

出る釘は打たれる。

The nail that sticks out gets hammered down (Google Translate.)

It is a way of dismissing clear rules.

Because it’s not that it is used to attack people that are different, but it is used to deincentive bad behaviour, but by conflating the two you end up in a bad place, where incentives are…misaligned.

It seems to me Japan does just fine by having rules and sticking to their culture.

Many people admire Japanese culture. But they wouldn't have anything to admire had Japanese people not conserving and caring greatly about their culture and sticking to their rules and ways of life.

I probably won't be integrating in the Japanese culture, but I admire and respect it and the fact they still have that culture.

Yes, but it is sometimes used to dismiss any actionable insights that can be used in politics.

”Would never work here, the culture is different!”

Maybe Im just ranting…

> If someone misbehaves and two people are close by you can be sure that they loudly will talk with each other

This is the exact opposite of my experience (and all my Japanese friends). They will stare at the person misbehaving but will absolutely not challenge him. Their culture is "avoid the problem/confronting at all costs".

> The police acts swiftly

They are considered tax thieves, even by Japanese people. Also, talk to some foreign women that got sexually harassed or even raped how the police helped them. In fact, I don't have proof, but I sincerely believe that if the police was trained well, crime rate would increase because they would find more crimes.

> healthy food

Are we talking about deep-fried food? Or perhaps over-salted dishes? Oh, no, you meant the sugar they add in basically all their cooking? Time where they mostly ate fish and rice is over. They barely eat enough vegetables. And fruits are for the well-off only.

It's a country that I love and have spent quite some time there—and more to come—but your observations are exactly the opposite of what I saw.

What they do correctly is the low unemployment rate, though I think it's starting to rise with younger people. People don't need to commit violent crimes to feed themselves if any work lets them afford necessities.

I think they are opposite because when I say police acts swiftly, you turn around and say that they are tax thieves. They can both be true?

Healthy food. Yes they eat healthy and their BMI shows it. I find it quite ludicrous to think their restaurants represent what they eat on daily basis. Proof is in the pudding (BMI). Yes it is getting worse and I hope American tariffs will help in this regard. Again, healthy living AND getting worse can both be true, especially with people that are friendly with cultures they want to know more about (many, but still a small subset).

Not sure why Violent crime would be better than non-violent crime for feeding your kids. But the narrative that is pushed heavily in media is the equal sign between poor and criminal, instead of the correlation, which again is reductive. Why? Is there anger? What food do trigger it? What mindset?

My grandparents where very poor (as in oat porridge for weeks poor). They would never hurt a fly. In certain minds that would have been a weakness, in certain minds it’s self sacrifice and equal strength.

Most want to be the wolf among the sheep. It is US greatest strength and greatest weakness at the same time.

> police acts swiftly

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "swift".

> I find it quite ludicrous to think their restaurants represent what they eat on daily basis

I have lived with 2 different Japanese family (one younger, one older) and I was referring to the younger one when writing my previous comment. You say that restaurant doesn't represent what they eat, but again this is not my observation; restaurants and prepared meal (bento) are socheap—price-to-purchasing-power compared to Western countries—that many people don't even cook for themselves. So yes, it's absolutely relevant.

> Not sure why Violent crime would be better than non-violent crime for feeding your kids

I never said it was. But hunger definitely makes you more violent and more irrational. I excluded non-violent crimes because people usually exclude those when thinking about a country's safety. There are a lot of scams in Japan, for example.

> They would never hurt a fly.

Most people would never hurt someone. Most people are lawful. But most criminals are not from well-off families and grew up needy. Perhaps there is a causation, perhaps not.

> But most criminals are not from well-off families and grew up needy.

Petty or to-some-extent violent criminals. White collar criminals, the worse kind of criminal, usually come from good/rich/powerful families (I'm generally speaking, not talking about Japan specifically)

Which is why I initially mentioned violent crime. The one people tend to care about the most.

nitpick: I'd argue the worse types of criminals are war criminals, like for example Hitler, who is, in my mind, worse than someone like Bernie Madoff.

I think it's more likely that social pressure to control people's weights is responsible for Japan's low BMI, not anything to do with the food. Japan is the land of vending machines and convenience stores. It's easy to eat junk food all day if you want to. But people will notice you getting fat, and unlike in Western countries they're likely to criticize you for it.

"Bring back shame again" increasingly feels like something that would actually be beneficial in the long run.

We tend to hit a Goodhart’s Law situation, where focusing on weight and BMI comes at the expense of actual health. That's how we get eating disorders and other mental health issues as well, so as usual it's complicated.

Assuming you are actually from the US, your point feels a lot like system justification[1] theory hard at work... If close to 50% (or even more) people around you have moderate to serious weight issues, I can imagine how you end up normalising the status quo, looking for explanations that rationalise it...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_justification

Just an anecdata but on my last stay in Japan I lost a couple kilos in a good month. Even though I did abuse kitkats.

Also some anecdata, but I think it depends so much on the person: I gained 10 kilograms by living more than a year in Japan.

I ate healthily so I wasn't fat by any means (in fact, I'm really skinny), but I ate so much that I think this is the reason I gained some weight. I ate a lot of rice (my rice portion was usually more than a Japanese person's entire plate).

FWIW if you're on a trip it might counter-balance: you might be more active with fewer idle time, and the local food might also be harder to fully process. I saw that on a Spain trip where it made absolutely no sense I didn't gain weight touring tapas places for a week.

It was a business trip matching my typical routine. I'd say I was even less active because apparently running in Tokyo sucks.

Every time I'm in japan I walk far more than I do while in the US. I also end up going up stairs a lot more than I ever need to in the US. Good public transportation makes a huge difference.

I'm euro and runner/cyclist so I doubt that was a factor. I also had my bicycle with me for some rides on off days, but it wasn't beyond my usual mileage. Maybe even less, because riding road bike in Tokyo was an experience that made me realise how good I've it back home. Surroundings hills are nice, but getting out of the city sucks big time.

BMI is mostly useless metric when comparing genetically diverse cohorts. Weight gain is mostly in fat and that is proportional to fat cell count. There is a saying "nerve cells are born and die, but fat - lives forever". The truth to it is that at an adult age fat cell count is mostly constant and mostly genetic. As you get fatter you don't produce more fat cells, they just get fatter, pun intended.

There is huge genetic diversity between geographic regions / ethnic lineages in this regard. On one end you have northern european / african lineages, on the other end you have far east lineages, with other lineages somewhere in between, with northern european / african lineages having the largest fat cell counts, east asians the lowest. Furthermore, north european / african lineages tend to have fat distribution much more biased towards subcutaneous fat, whereas east asian lineages are biased towards abdominal fat, so many of the problems associated with high body fat (not insulin resistance) are seen at lower body fat percentages in east asian lineages.

On top of that, body fat percentage does not map to BMI. BMI may roughly linearly scale with body fat percentage around the "healthy" region, however there will be huge offset between genetic cohorts, including sex.

You should expect east asian BMIs to be lower across the board given similarly "unhealthy" diets.

Not the person you responded to, but this is a topic that fascinates me; do you have any resource to learn more about that? One that explains in average human terms would be appreciated!

https://www.youtube.com/@benbikman This dude is awesome

Japan is also full of Japanese people.

Reductive

So?

If you think sugar added to everything is a Japan phenomenon oh boi, time to travel.

As someone that lived there, frankly your take come off as the typical "English teacher/exchange student that lived in Tokyo and spend too much time on r/japanlife" and think Tokyo represent the average.

> If you think sugar added to everything is a Japan phenomenon oh boi, time to travel.

You're not refuting my argument.

> As someone that lived there, frankly your take come off as the typical "English teacher/exchange student that lived in Tokyo and spend too much time on r/japanlife" and think Tokyo represent the average.

That's very condescending of you and again not refuting my claims at all. Do most of your colleagues eat their own dishes? Don't they add a helluva lot sugar and salt to everything? Hell, even Japanese-made Western desserts taste way too sweet.

I think you could be a bit kinder and not resort to personal attacks.

Edit: it's true that I lived in Tokyo, but unfortunately it's a country that contains 4 cities that get more dense by the day at the cost of unpopulated rural areas.

The poison is in the amount, not in the substance. Salty or sweet food is completely fine if you don’t eat a ton every day. You actually need salt, it is much more dangerous to not consume enough of it.

Don't you think we eat too much of those?

Most people are dying of heart diseases and guess their causes...

Japanese elderly don't even drink the broth of ramen otherwise they may literally die (not my words).

Edit: sugar we don't really need to survive (trace amounts found in fruits and vegetables is basically enough) and salt maximum daily recommended amount is around 3g. Do you know how much salt a tablespoon of soy sauce contains?

That may be the limit for sodium, the max RDA for salt is above 5 grams [1].

Now check what happens when you don’t consume enough sodium [2] (it happens relatively often among athletes and gym bros who drink too much water).

[1] https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/salt-in-you...

[2] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hyponatremia/...

> who drink too much water

I totally understand what you mean, however the vast majority of the population isn't even close to being hydrated properly so you're just taking an extreme example to make your point.

You’re right, but the point of my first reply was that the Japanese (unlike Americans) don’t eat excessive amounts of food on average.

This is definitely true from my experience. They eat less than even Europeans (which themselves eat less than Americans on average).

I live in the inaka (Aomori) and my experience is the same.

Many Japanese recipes I’ve tried have 2 tablespoons of sugar, but that’s not much in a meal for four.

Then there is mirin, which is basically sugar.

Yeah, the us subsidy for violent crime aka "no money for the unemployed" is quiet counterproductive.

This is about as deep of analysis of Japan as the Ghibli AI avatars are "art".

> If someone misbehaves and two people are close by you can be sure that they loudly will talk with each other about how the person misbehaves

This is just straight up fan-fiction, and absolutely not how the society here operates. You will get stared at. People will move aside, maybe. That's the extent of reaction from the public you can expect.

> The police acts swiftly and have small offices everywhere .

The "small offices"/kobans are more than useless for any actual "crime". They're quite useful in reporting that you lost a wallet/keys, but good luck when having any actual problems that need to be reported. Goes doubly so for areas where there's elevated chance of actual crimes happening — interacting with cops in Kabukicho has to be one of the least useful activities on the planet.

> The prisons are very strict, with beatings if you don’t follow authority.

And this is... a good thing? We have wildly different moral systems if you think that.

> Green tea and healthy food makes people be able to control their mood (hard to not stuff your face).

"Green tea and healthy food" is, frankly, an even stupider argument than "they're built different". Yes, it's the diet that makes the society more conformist, sure, why not.

There's many great, and many not-so-great things about Japan — why do these arguments online always just start with the most basic, surface level, inane pseudoanalysis?

1. Yes they won’t interact with the misbehaving person but they will loudly declare their feelings around it.

2. Police boxes are great when drunk people are causing ruckus. What are the details in your case?

3. Never said it was. You need to stop seeing things as being good or bad. What I said was strong incentives.

4. L-theanine has a calming effect, it is quite well known. Just as lead has the opposite effect.

To be productive, what actionable insights do you glean from countries such as Japan?

> L-theanine has a calming effect, it is quite well known.

The evidence for this in humans is very weak.

Here is a randomized, triple blind study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34562208/

”had significant positive effects on brainwaves, salivary cortisol, and self-reported state anxiety compared to the placebo in response to an acute stress challenge. These changes are indicative of relaxation in the brain and suggest a calming response in a moderately stressed but otherwise healthy population”

n=16. This isn't even worthy of classifying as a Phase I trial. Efficacy studies generally _start_ at n=100. Drawing any conclusions on efficacy from this kind of sample size is simply unscientific.

> Japan always does the hard thing

Talk about reductive, but also wrong. Not being racist, for example, is the harder option for most people, and not the one encouraged in Japan.

Another one: Japan still has children growing up in orphanages because it is considered weird to take in someone else’s child.

Office life is 50% time spent correctly pandering to your bosses feelings, and they have made so little effort to include women in the workforce and make parenting compatible with a good job that nobody wants to have kids.

I've been taught to respect the elders. But now I've seen that there are enough of them which aren't honest, good people, but only know how to present themselves in a positive light, while looking down on the ones they live with.

I now stand neutral against them: they may be good, they may not be. There's nothing in their age which makes them deserve more respect than the one younger people deserve.

So do you respect 12-year-olds as much as you respect 25-year-olds? Do you respect the opinions on work and adult responsibilities of a 23-year-old as much as those of a 35-year-old? Do you trust the professional judgment of a junior engineer as much as that of a senior engineer?

Older people, in general, know more and have better judgment than younger people.

Not in Japan.

You're conflating age with wisdom - a common fallacy when charisma is valued over education, leading to Septuagenarian Heads of State ruling on partisan lines rather than Technocratic and egalitarian governance.

Age correlates with wisdom. It’s not a fallacy. I don’t claim that every person is wiser than all people younger than him.

All you know about an old person is they’ve lived - and survived - longer than someone who is not so old.

That can have a lot of different meanings.

It used to be that elders were few and far between, as the population pyramid was, well, a pyramid.

The other day I joked in conversation that I raise my daughters to disrespect the elderly - particularly my generation in the future - as considering the fertility rates (worse than in Japan) in the region, there will be plenty of elderly compared to younger generations.

I'm only half joking really. My own parents are reaching the age at which they would use some help every now and then. I have two siblings, so it doesn't take huge individual effort from any of us.

Meanwhile I'm the only one there who has children and most likely that will remain the case. Should they feel any obligation to help my siblings once the time comes?

You can teach them whatever you want, but the model of the world you give them is also what they will pass on to their kids.

"Family is a burden, and screw old people" doesn't seem that conducive to a good society.

I get the sneaking suspicion that this might be a case of Poe's law.

I'm going more for "screw just old people". Nowhere in my parenting there's even a mention of family being a burden - well, the younger part at least.

Anyway, again, half-joking here - I'm not actively pursuing this approach, just not nudging them towards the traditional one.

I spent some years in Italy, where the younger generations are absolutely squeezed by the presence of a huge population of elderly. It went to such bizarre extremes where my one Italian friend not only doesn't own a home being in his 40s now, whereas both of his divorced parents each have their own properties, his salary is lower than his father's pension. Kids are of course out of the question.

My country is speedrunning this same scenario and the only thing preventing it from happening now is considerably lower life expectancy compared to Italy.

That's the same thing in France, where on average a retiree has a higher pension than a worker. Workers whose one third of gross salary goes to pensions, then at least another of net salary is paid for rent to live in a property often owned by the previous generation. It's very depressing environment to live in.

Every social norm will be exploited until it becomes a threat to existence. Right now the olds are exploiting their protected status to outright exterminate the younger generations. I will be down voted because the truth is too bitter for most to swallow. This happens close to all of us and isn't some bogeyman foreign/domestic politician or other convenient scapegoat.

I believe some resentment towards the elderly is unavoidable given the circumstances. Its unfortunate, but understandable. Looking at my own family, my mother inherited the family property after my father died. She has never had any officially payed job since her 30s. In the last 40 years, she has only lived off pension, and hasn't put anything back into the system. Meanwhile, I have worked 25 years straight now, and still don't have enough money to buy a decent apartment in the city where I work. I am guessing the perceived unfairness of this "pyramid" is going to make a lot more people unhappy in the future. Certainly, compared to my mother, my life feels like I am a drone. Not being female is a huge disadvantage these days. I mean, a pension for being married to a man who died? Alimony when the spouse leaves? All things males can only dream of. And, the incentives are all wrong. My mother didn't take on any official jobs because she would loose some of the pension she gets. So, its better to just suck every drop of blood you can out of the welfare state, instead of thinking about how the system actually works and that it needs people to put in effort so that others that really need it can take things out...

If my wife dies first I get half her pension, if I die first my wife gets half my pension.

If we divorce assets are spread equally. Kids complicate things a bit, the person who owes the kids get paid by the other one. As I have a far more flexible job (I do after school care etc) it’s likely I’d keep the kids and thus would be paid child support.

Things suck for the “young” (sub 45 nowadays). Despite what Andrew Tate and his ilk tells you this is nothing to do with gender. It’s to do with every increasing ownership of the wealth by the wealthiest.

First of all, great that you seem to have a relatively equal situation. It reads like your wife is actually working. Good for you.

However, your accusation is totally wrong and uncalled for. I know the name, but I have never read/heard anything from the Tate brothers. In fact, my opinion about female priviledge in our society stems purely from my own experience, in particular my mother. This is something I'd like to have (make and female) feminists understand. All I need to be resentful of female priviledge is my own mother and her spite and her totally lack of humility. Much of backlash towards feminism is self-inflicted. We don't need hateful men to tell us what to think about female priviledge. All we need is our own eyes. Not all women are shining examples of rationality and empathy. Maybe feminists should start by working on/with the bad apples in their own circles.

Fact is, my mother owns way more then I do, despite actually only having worked roughly 5 years in her whole life. All she owns was built up by men in the family of my father. And she inherited everything, including the priviledge of not having to go to work. If I could, I'd step into her shoes every day. And she doesnt even realize her priviledge, which is insulting.

This is just one example of the elderly spitting on the young, sometimes without even noticing. This tension is going to increase in the future even more.

This sounds like a personal issue you have with your own mother that you are desperately trying to extrapolate onto the rest of society. Taking one selfish woman and using it to demonise all women and even the concept of feminism is quite silly.

> Much of backlash towards feminism is self-inflicted.

Self-inflicted by non-feminists?

> We don't need hateful men to tell us what to think about female priviledge.

But you're going to do it anyway.

The sad thing is there are actual issues and there is a kernel of truth to the feeling that men are discriminated against in some cases (as of course are women - and let’s not go anywhere near transgender people) and life isn’t blind to gender - especially when it comes to custody decisions, but also in areas like justice and crime (are jail populations 50:50?), educational outcomes (boys do worse than girls), mental health (check suicide figures)

Sadly posters like this do so much damage to equality discourse that it’s unlikely to ever equalise until this vitriol is lost in the past like the prejudice to left handed people was.

> my life feels like I am a drone > Not being female is a huge disadvantage these days. > All things males can only dream of. Are you saying that the same dynamic do not occur when gender roles are reversed (pops stayed home while mom worked; mom does, pops gets house and pension)? No disrespect intended, but you might want to find someone to help you unpack and process these things you’re saying; no good will come of projecting on to gender dynamics and letting resentment fester.

"Screw old people" is a common theme in hospitals and ironically, elderly homes.

I mean, the model the current soon-to-be old people (boomers) operated on is exactly "screw everyone coming after me", so considered on the whole they deserve every bit of cold shoulder.

That doesn't mean that every boomer is bad of course, so if you have good (grand)parents, be good to them!

I prefer to frame it as “help the younger generations” rather than “screw old people”.

I saw my parents, especially my mom, waste their youth taking care of two people who lived to near 100 years old, and I don’t want to see my kids waste their time and resources on me.

You want someone else's kids to do it?

No.

> "Family is a burden, and screw old people" doesn't seem that conducive to a good society.

Great for GDP though

> Should they feel any obligation to help my siblings once the time comes?

Absolutely not, but hopefully your siblings will have been positive enough presences in your children's lives that they will want to of their own accord.

I think society hasn’t figured out the incentives for elders currently. In private settings it’s fine, but in the work context I’ve seen few incentives for >50 year olds to support younger generations. To the contrary, many of these people fear losing their job just before retirement so choose risk-averse behavior. At the same time, unlike in the village, the juniors are not their relatives so that is also not incentivizing any positive behavior.

And yes there are of course very nice people who are the exception, but from what I’ve seen they are truly the exception. As Charlie Munger put it “Well, I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther.”

Saying this as a rather old person myself...

I have a theory that, wrt knowledge, the relative advantage of age has been at least partially eroded by rapid technological advancement. In traditional/tribal societies, prior to the 20th century, wisdom actually accumulated with age, because the pace of change was slower. Wisdom & knowledge could be passed on from generation to generation.

Now, wisdom and knowledge become obsolete quickly. Many things you knew 20 years ago are outdated. The ICE engine you learned how to fix as a kid is now computer controlled, or has been replaced by batteries. Your optimistic/open/friendly mindset now makes you easy pickings for online scammers. Hell, even your family's secret cherished muffin recipe is spurned by your grandchildren because it has gluten or they're vegan or keto or whatever.

All this is just a take, but when I look at voting patterns in particular, I find myself pessimistic that the elderly are wiser than average.

I think this is true from a pure knowledge perspective but definitely not from a wisdom perspective.

Old people have -through their experience- gained a tacit wisdom that can be very helpful when considering life choices.

The craziest and stupidest things I hear regularly are from older people. There are broad swathes of old people that, not having been raised to be skeptical about media consumption on the internet, are entirely credulous about all manner of insane dis/mis-information.

That said, it's also something I'm seeing with younger people as well.

The oldest are the easiest to swindle. This isn’t new.

Also, current media has the veneer and polish of old media which makes it difficult for the unsavvy.

Yeah, maybe it’s more hope than reality

PS: Also, don’t forget that especially elder women help with children a lot.

Isn’t it weird how “old people” are so much like other people? The insecurities, hopes and so on? It’s like stereotypes just don’t work or something.

Be careful extrapolating too much from the emotional maturity of one generation where an unfortunately large majority was lead poisoned as children.

Elder and middle millennials are just about equally as poisoned, and we're all full of microplastics

For the future of the USA this is fortunately not very accurate, and microplastics are not associated with increased incidence of dark triad personality traits, as far as I know.

> ...but when I look at voting patterns in particular, I find myself pessimistic that the elderly are wiser than average.

Wisdom like 'It's harder to build something than it is to tear it down' and 'Change carries its own risk.'

The irony is that older people overwhelming voted for Trump on the basis of returning things to the way they were... and then Trump staffed his administration with young ideologues who are determined to upset the traditional order.

Midterms will be curious.

People group together uncorrelated concerns way too much in politics. I guess it's necessary side effect of the "us vs. them" mind virus.

> The irony is that older people overwhelming voted for Trump on the basis of returning things to the way they were... and then Trump staffed his administration with young ideologues who are determined to upset the traditional order.

There isn't any irony there. People heard promises of some X and Y and Z returning to the way things were, they voted accordingly, and then their candidate proceeded to go against them on A, B and C. This is only surprising if you believe there's a strong ideological correlation between all these things (there isn't), and that parties and their leaders act according to their purported ideologies (they don't).

It's not {X,Y,Z} vs {A,B,C}.

It's {X,Y,Z} vs {X,Y,C}.

That portions of the investment community threw in behind Trump and are now shocked (shocked!) that he has bigger priorities than keeping the market pumped is absolutely ironic.

Counterpoint: The only people who voted for Harris more than Biden were old white people (especially old white women).

The biggest shift towards right wing authoritarianism from a demographic perspective is among the young (specifically young brown/black men in America). This is happening globally at a rapid and unprecedented pace.

Get ready for a conservative, violent, radicalized youth. A Clockwork Orange but with 4chan like characteristics.

I'm not pessimistic about Boomers anymore. They're becoming teddybears as they age.

> radicalized youth

Two of my teenage sons play sports and at times it feels like all content consumption roads eventually lead to “manfluencers”[0]. If they’re watching content on lifting techniques, sports discussions, or gaming—not uncommon topics for teenagers—the recommendations are riddled with rabbit holes into the so called manosphere.

[0] https://www.psypost.org/rejected-and-radicalized-study-links...

Knowledge changes. I don't think wisdom necessarily changes. Maybe this is a philosophical discussion, but I think that is once of the key differences of knowledge and wisdom. However, I do think it is false that people necessarily accumulate wisdom with age. I know wise and unwise people of all ages, including people who think they're wise only because they're old.

when I look at voting patterns in particular, I find myself pessimistic that the elderly are wiser than average

Don't stop there, look at the US elected representatives! Washington is, from a lot of angles, a gerontocracy, and I don't think anyone would consider it "wise". The world has passed a lot of these folks by and even aside from that, their stubbornness to not step aside has in cases meant that they predictably die in office, so their seats go unfilled for a while, leaving people unrepresented...

I'm not sure that's accurate. If I think of the crazies in Washington they're almost all (relatively) young.

The median age of the House is 57.5 years old and the Senate is 64.7[0]

Its really not great. There's very few representatives that have any life experiences of someone in the 30s or 40s. I'd argue that makes them out of touch on a host of very real, very pressing issues.

The other thing to think about is the age of those with the levers of power. Its one thing to be elected as a House member or to the Senate, its a whole other thing to sit on key powerful committees, be the leader of the party in the respective chamber etc. and the most powerful folks in congress trend into the 60s+

[0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/01/16/age-and-g...

> Washington is, from a lot of angles, a gerontocracy.

This goes deeper than one might suspect at first glance. The word "senate" comes from sennex, or old man, the same root word as "senile"

Old people are also just a lot more numerous, relative to young people, than in previous eras of history.

I disagree on the advantages of wisdom as these days I’m thinking the opposite:

1) Lack of wisdom leads to reinvention of the wheel. How many programming languages are there only now doing things the same way as 30 years ago? What is novel versus an unnecessary re-invention?

I started studying Tcl code from back in the late ‘90’s and honestly was surprised. Hell, many people don’t even know what macports is even though homebrew isn’t much but an attempt to reinvent macports with a “cool” spin.

2) Societal language and general problem solving skills are deteriorating. Language, and mathematics evolve ever so slowly, and yet emphasis on their importance is reduced in favor of the whims of technological advancement.

I would rather hire someone with the slow-developing, traditional skills, than the new-age fads.

In addition, with the advances in AI the only people worth hiring will be the ones with traditional education—and the wise, classically trained among our elders will be evermore important.

> How many programming languages are there only now doing things the same way as 30 years ago?

Similar thing in abstract, but differently in practice and it does matter a lot.

Yet what we’re seeing on the web with Typescript components turning to a pretty version of MFC minus the right/middle-click capability. The “single-page app” becoming a defacto standard mode of development.

Looking at the Fluent design React components just makes me wonder: this is progress from the desktop metaphor designed in the 90’s? What are we trying to achieve?

Then, I take a step back and realize that the 20-something’s from today don’t generally know what that is because they are cloud native.

I find many “elders” I know think climate change is a hoax, solar power is dumb , transsexuals are evil, immigration is silly etc, basically they hold extreme views and it effects my ability to trust their word or opinion.

I’m not sure if technology is to blame, I think social media is probably part of their corruption, Fox News too, but yeah, the lack of interest in their opinions is mostly self inflicted and I feel they choose to believe in nonsense because it’s fun to hate things.

What technology has done is give me access to lots of knowledge and wisdom and now I don’t have to put up with all the cruft to get what I need.

Some elders in my life are more balanced and I enjoy seeking their opinion and wisdom and leaning on their experience for all sorts of things.

One exception for me is that in Japan, even opinions are considered to be potentially offensive so elderly people are careful with their words. I’ve very really interacted with an older Japanese person who just spits rhetoric and conspiracy theories. Japanese even are careful to make a statement like “this is the best chocolate I’ve tasted”, It’s much more common to say “I think this is wonderful”.

Every time I scroll through r/wallstreetbets or r/cryptocurrency I realize that I understand something about risk and patience that many young people do not. I am not disrespecting individual investors and I don't hate btc (tbh I don't invest in it either).

It's obvious that a lot of people feel like they have to find a way to get rich in the next three years or they will be poor forever. I am sure my generation was often the same. But people who have been through good times and bad times understand risk and patience.

people today cannot imagine what it would have been like to have each generation do, experience and believe exactly the same thing. for thousands of years. even just a few hundred years ago, new ideas were basically a waste of time because everything had already been tried. history would swallow you up.

There was a news article few months ago, about waiting times for healthcare (in the UK, if I remember correctly). One govt official commented something like older people having to wait longer to see physicians is "not a priority". I was stunned reading it, didn't even know how to react.

It is nice to read articles like this. I wish more humans looked at other humans beyond their youth, looks and their net worth

My dad got a guy assigned to his farm once from the unemployment office once. Guy was in third generation unemployed. Tried to bribe himself out of shovelling shit, but my father wouldn't take the money. The tales a 90 year old person made redundant by society and thus avoiding society must have to tell. Stay a while and listen..

My takeaway of the cool dynamic at work here is that universally (but particularly in Japan) no one wants to be seen promoting themselves. Especially for older people they've done so many cool things, and are currently doing cool things now that they're retired and have free time, but socially it's a bit awkward to just ask, what cool and interesting stuff can you tell me about.

And the physical / game medium helps connect intergenerationally as well. But actually I could see this kind of trading card dynamic working in other situations like business networking or speed dating or something.

> increased cross-generational interaction

cross-class interaction too.

in ~2012 i was in Tokyo, and by chance was (also) invited to someone's birthday.. The guy was working as pizzeria-waiter, and has invited.. all his usual clients to his birthday - in his small apartment, with "everyone brings some food they made" instead of gifts. My friend was a client.. so i landed there too. That was the most bizarre mix of people there. Some were just mom-and-pop. Some were millionaires. And everything in between. Most were japanese, but also from about 3-4 diff. countries. And everyone talking with everyone else as equal..

a very interesting cross-section - and should i say glimpse-of-future - of society.

Apparently there are trading cards for everything now: https://divorceddads.shop/

I was surprised this wasn't mentioned in the article - I assumed this is what they were talking about.

I hope the people don't get too much pressure to up their stats.

>The rarity of a card isn’t based on fantasy stats — it’s tied to real-world contributions. The more actively the ojisan engages in volunteer work or community service, the higher the chances of their card being upgraded to a shiny version with a glossy laminated effect.

I'm a bit reminded of the cards Harry and Ron find in their chocolate frog packaging, each of which features a picture of a famous wizard, some historical, some contemporary like Albus Dumbledore. The kids had a chance of actually meeting some of the heroes pictured on their cards.

For real. This is the best thing I’ve seen on HN in a long time. My kids are very into these card collections/games and I told them about it and they thought it was a great idea to put “normal” people on these cards. Super great story and concept. Japan isn’t perfect, but some amazing things come from their society.

> Since the card game went viral, so many kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures.

per usual, women just exist :) men get to be heroic elders, women are footnotes, merely assisting men to become heroes.

way to add a negative twist... there's no reason an expansion or separate 'obaasan' set couldn't be made

I kinda get where you're coming from, but the comment is about the fact it hasn't been done, and there's no reason why it should be a separate set.

Elderly men are more vulnerable to suicide die to lack of social connections. So it makes sense for a project that fosters social connections to prioritize men.

It's about equity, not equality.

This is such a cynical, keyboard-warrior take. Why do you feel the need to drag down someone else's positive and impactful contribution? No one is stopping you from creating a card game with women as the heroes.

The article makes it clear that this was the passion project of Eri Miyahara, Secretary General of the local council and a woman herself. Though I'm sure you had noble intentions with this comment, it ignores the professional judgement that led her to create this game and turns her efforts into "merely assisting men to become heroes."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com