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> cordial relations between the generations are over

Is ageism not like racism, sexism, etc.?

Do you have decent relations with your living parents and grandparents?

Ageism comes for everyone unless they die early. Racism usually only happens to some.

> Is ageism not like racism, sexism, etc.?

First, young people didn't choose this. It's been coming from the other direction and out in the open for a very long time. Why not make it official that it's mutual? Past time this was acknowledged, expected, and planned for. Second, I don't dislike all old people in all cultures or anything like that. We're talking about a specific cohort that shares the same experiences and most of the same perspectives. This isn't about who they are anyway, or about what they are like in some abstract sense. It's about what they've done as group and continue to do.

Boomers wrecked the veritable paradise that their own parents built with unforced errors and some combination of greed, stupidity, and malice. Then they blew up the lives of their children, and have moved on towards wrecking the rest of the country and indeed the whole world as much as possible before they check out. They did that, not some impersonal forces of history.

America IS boomers. That's the whole point of the article. Are things going well? America may not actually survive boomers. There's no point in a long list of their crimes, it's in TFA too, and everyone knows the inheritance. Housing crisis, national debt, and climate change alone would be a crippling blow for posterity, but now that's just a few of the disasters ahead, and we're in a much worse position to meet any of it. The first generation that was actually selfish and stupid enough to piss away so much prosperity that they've very likely ruined things for several generations. Boomers can't even disagree with this, because who would they blame? They'd have to sit down, shut up, and let someone else steer.

A lot of people put their life on hold for the unhealthy and the elderly during a global pandemic that occurred a few years ago.

While many of the people who did so profited handsomely many did not.

There hasn't really been any recognition of this or any sort of plan to provide restitution for this sacrifice.

That isn't ageism. That's reality.

Sounds dramatic, but what are we talking about here?

Are you planning to work through democratic processes or do you mean revolution?

by law, then by unrest, then by revolution.

By law is how we got to where we currently are. There's no reason to think that would change. You'd have to trick all the people who are old (plus all the people who realize they will get old too) to vote away their assets, income, and power.

Unrest will just harden the people who see your cause as unjust against it. That will be a strong majority of people, so will go no where.

Revolution seems highly unlikely to succeed -- it would be unpopular and you'd have to turn much of the military/police to your side.

Frankly, I think the push of the idea of the intergenerational conflict is a con. It will not lead to anything getting better, but when people are angry and scared, they become vulnerable.

Be wary of anyone offering big, impossible promises. They'll be sticking their hands into your wallet soon enough.

> Unrest will just harden the people who see your cause as unjust against it. That will be a strong majority of people, so will go no where.

I think you're wrong here. Most people are pretty fed up right now.

If most people were fed up I think you'd see it in voting patterns.

Instead, a substantial fraction of the population don't care enough to vote one way or the other. Those that do vote have been pushing us toward the system we have now.

It's going to be hard to sell policies that disenfranchise old people...

There are a lot of people who don't want to be penniless and homeless with a diminished capacity to work. That includes people who are old already and people who realize they will become old.

That's why I think this is all a scam. We are, almost all of us, old people or people who hope to get old. This is an effort to get us all upset enough at each other that we don't stop to realize we're fighting ourselves.

It you want to unravel the scam, follow the money.

>It's going to be hard to sell policies that disenfranchise old people...

Not at all. Remember how before he got dementia the president ran on an antidementia platform?

> That's why I think this is all a scam. We are, almost all of us, old people or people who hope to get old. This is an effort to get us all upset enough at each other that we don't stop to realize we're fighting ourselves.

Not at all, it's just a fact that old people have arranged things so that old/young is simply more important than left/right. Old people are absolutely committed to protecting and boosting the stock/real-estate markets that young people are locked out of. The market is not the economy.. except that actually for old people with assets, it basically is. Youth may have left/right preferences, but establishment Left/Right are really just Old, and both have clear and stable intent to inflict economic violence on everyone else.

> It you want to unravel the scam, follow the money.

You're suggesting I'm a shil? The money trail is simple.. people don't have much and things are getting worse. Who's in charge now? Who was in charge before that? And who was in charge before that? Who paid off the people in charge? Who continuously benefits and who suffers?

So, what exactly do you think will happen? Nothing? You've ruled out every other alternative.

Yes, nothing. Your intergenerational war isn't even going to start.

The societal problems we face are real. Framing them as young/good vs. old/bad is effectively the same as ignoring them entirely.

You should be looking for a different framing.

> Sounds dramatic, but what are we talking about here?

How about this? https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4633773-eat-the-boomers-...

> In his book, “A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America,” Bruce Gibney argued that “generational plunder” was their economic legacy. Through tax cuts and deficit financing of several wars, the Boomers left America in shock. “Plunder” is a strong word. In the corporate legal world, it is enough to justify a clawback of the plunderers’ assets.

IMHO if we don't use it to settle the debt, it won't be inherited by people anyway, it will simply be deleted during end-of-life care, where the oldest boomers pay the youngest boomers that are still in charge of whatever insane private-equity healthcare mess we land on, thus making the "greatest generational transfer of wealth" directly to the 1%.

That article is calling for an additional estate tax. That's sounds reasonable to me.

But you seem to be talking about taking the retirement savings and homes of people who are using them to live.

You find different numbers in different places, but the median retirement savings for boomers is under $200,000. That's a lot of money, but it needs to last ~15 years or so, years where they're likely to have reduced or no capacity to work.

A lot of old people have paid-off houses, which is a major asset. You could take those (e.g., by taxing them out), but then where do the old people on a small, fixed income live?

The attitude seems to be, "to hell with them, who cares?"

But I think a lot of people care: the old people themselves, of course. The people who love them. And everyone self-aware enough to realize they too hope to become old.

> You find different numbers in different places, but the median retirement savings for boomers is under $200,000.

from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/03/18/national-...

> Greene desires something that has long been forecast but that has not happened: “more generational conflict.” However, “the boomers are organized,” and there has not been “a broader political awakening among younger generations.” So, boomers are serenely unthreatened as some of their households receive almost $117,000 annually from Social Security, and some Medicare programs cover “golf balls, greens fees, social clubs, ski trips, and horseback riding.”

Indeed, so serenely unthreatened that they are very actively threatening to everyone else. These are the same people that are forever using hunger as a bargaining chip with snap, school lunches, and policing what other people can and cannot get.

> The attitude seems to be, "to hell with them, who cares?"

The attitude is just that they were the primary beneficiaries of the spending. They presided over the debt growth to ~40 trillion and if they did not approve they also did not stop it. They still will not let anyone else stop it! If the generational conflict were literally a war with a truce, one might expect significant reparations, or at least acknowledgement and apology? Far from it. Older folks gouged out 10x profit selling crappy houses, and while young people are delaying life milestones for decades to try to buy that house, boomer landlords charged them rent to stay at their third investment property and mocked legitimate hardship with latte and avocado toast bullshit.

For whoever needs to hear this, that 'ok boomer' reply feels less and less adequate. It's actually deadly serious and a very bloody business to just doom millions of people. Data will be clear about this one day and you already see all the trends.. deaths of despair up, life expectancy down, births down, conflict up, climate crisis closer, all with zero resources to pick up the slack. Boomers have even begun destroying international standing and friendships that might have helped us negotiate the national debt situation later. While they're working to pull the ladder up for the improvements they made to civil liberties and women's lib. On the whole they'll have lived longer, happier lives in better conditions than their kids, and they did it by stealing the future.

> everyone self-aware enough to realize they too hope to become old.

That's exactly what I'm getting it. Again not so much for you but for whoever needs to hear it.. Prospects on HN are better than average, ok? And Gen-Z looks to be childless, which may be painful, but is rational and avoids drama. Listening to average Gen-X / Millennials though.. many obviously don't plan to be old. They know they can't afford to be old. So they are taking care of their elders, they are taking care of their kids, and when that tapers off they're planning to just die quickly themselves if/when they get sick. The worst nightmare of what must never happen to the elderly in civilized society is just another awkward future that boomers may have already caused and will not have to face, but posterity will.

Hope this helps someone, really. Boomers need to be able to hear it. This is a bit like being an American abroad.. you expect to be a bit of punching bag on occasion. It doesn't actually matter if you're personally complicit, you kind of need to acknowledge you're a member of a group that has been up to no good. It's not a shame ritual, or bitter ranting, or just provocative. It's a calculated test that's probing for ignorance or understanding, character, empathy, and solidarity. Most boomers don't pass, and don't pass, and don't pass, and make things worse. => End of patience, end of cordial relations, end of respect, end of trust, end of relationships.

Wait...aren't you quoting the Boomers from the 60s?