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The kids aren't alright (continued)
This college graduation season, many commencement speakers are extolling AI, then getting boo'd by the students. Most notably Eric Shmidt, in University of Arizona, after telling students to "deal with it"; also less recognized speakers in smaller universities (like MTSU and UCF).
Glendale Community College received additional boos because it used an AI tool to read students' names, which messed up.
In contrast, Steve Wozniak told students they "all have AI — actual intelligence" to applause.
This reflects multiple overlapping problems:
Tech students are particularly affected: many were told that if they went to college, they'd be practically guaranteed an easy, high-paying job, like their older peers; but today they graduate to a bad job market. Meanwhile, the companies they planned to join are posting record profits. AI has invalidated some of their learned skills, and moreover, has the potential to worsen the job market and wealth gap.
Although it's not just tech. Liberal arts students have worse job prospects (although some of theirs were never good), and seem to be more against AI. Law and accounting are apparently being impacted, because AI automates their entry-level jobs.
In summary, the speakers have a completely different perspective due to their age, AI outlook, and wealth; and students aren't happy to see their college which has failed them do it one last time, by appointing an out-of-touch speaker (or using AI to flub announcing their names).
Where to go from here?
Undergraduate education is deeply flawed. I think (not an uncommon position): students should only go to college if for graduate education (which is also flawed but for different reasons, and has purpose until ASI or a suitable alternative). Otherwise, they can learn degree skills in high school or on-the-job training: probably a free unpaid internship, which (as long as it demands real skills, not cheap labor) would be an improvement over paying for college; or pursue a trade. But first, employers must no longer prioritize (let alone require) college degrees; I believe this is happening in some fields, but slowly. In the meantime, more students should and will attend cheap online degree mills, possibly alongside an internship (to graduate with job experience and a better resume).
As for AI...I don't really know. It has some great use-cases, and the potential to strictly improve standards of living (why do something that AI can automate?); it and/or another revolutionary advancement is probably necessary to mitigate climate change and TFR collapse. But it also causes some problems, and has the potential to create global catastrophe. Regardless, I don't expect I or the graduates can influence its evolution or effects. For those reasons, I'm not really optimistic or pessimistic about it. At least I'm aware enough not to extol it to college graduates.
Boomers have too much and are too entitled. I was thinking the other day how we live in a stone age primitive communism tribe where the village elders get way too much deference. As people age, politics insulates them from economic consequences. First at 45 they are afforded half-UBI like middle management positions, which 20 year olds could easily do but can never get because they're essentially handouts for middle aged people. Then they hit retirement age and they live off the backs of young workers. I believe that old people are a burden and young people should clear them out and take their wealth if they don't demonstrate utility to the young, who are the ones with the thumos and the vitality and the ability to make war and innovate. What do we need old people for, their life experience? We have ChatGPT for that.
Smart young people should take old people UBI and use it to launch careers, get married, and start families as well. The money is wasted on the elderly, who will never do anything for the human race.
One day you'll be old too, so I'd be cautious of discounting old people as mostly just a burden.
Funnily enough this isn't a new idea. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founder of the Futurist movement of the early 20th century asserted in his Manifesto of Futurism the idea that the old were useless and that it was the young with creativity, strength, and innovation.
He was 32 when the manifest was published. The guy lived to 68 and went on to fight in both world wars, enter politics, write books and poems, have a family, and continue to advocate for futurism. So doesn't seem like he upheld this portion of his manifesto... otherwise he would've stepped out of the way after he hit 40. Its easy to demand others do something until you also have to do the same.
Anyways if we want to actually tackle what utility old people can provide, I'm going to say the nuclear family structure has been detrimental to a role old people have played for most of human history. Older people in an extended family structure can provide support for the family through housework, taking care of the children, companionship, and yes, knowledge counts too. Also, it is older folk that is going to have the most knowledge of family history and pedigree. For a lot of people knowing their family and history gives meaning and a sense of legacy and purpose in context of the wider world. ChatGPT is not going to have information about your family history. It should also be the role of older people to act as a glue that keeps the wider family connected. They have the time and pre-existing relationships to maintain the network of family and having access to such a network provides value. ChatGPT is not going to provide that network. Older people can also fill less desirable jobs and roles that need volunteers.
Consider all the inventions, works of art and literature, businesses, etc that have been created and developed by people in their older ages. Is the rate lower than the rate at which younger people create these? Obviously yes, but your claim was that the elderly will never do anything for the human race. It's also likely the success of work produced by old people come from having many years worth of experience in life. Do you think JRR Tolkien was capable of writing Lord of the Rings in his 20s? If yes, why didn't he do it in his 20s? He began his most famous work at around 62. Also, the average age of a successful startup founder is 45. This is after filtering out small businesses with no intention of growing large. Should the group most likely to have a successful startup not reap the benefits of their risk and effort in their old age? Why would anyone bother taking that risk if they aren't allowed to do so?
Also, does legacy mean nothing to you? Would you not like to have grandchildren, maybe greatgrandchildren and see to their growth and success? You don't think you'll be able to provide them any value other than your previously accumulated material wealth? Do you believe that you would serve them better by dying and giving them an inheritance than guiding their growth?
I'm not fully discounting your complaints either, because things like advances in medicine has caused older people to live longer than they used to which has increased the strain on social security. Couple that with less people having children and this is one of the great pressing problems of the 21st century. Personally I'd restrict voting power to adults that pay taxes and that'll probably address a good chunk of the issues you point out. Maybe even have it proportional to the amount you are taxed up to a cap. But I don't think "clearing" out old people is the solution. What exactly do you mean by "clearing" out old people anyway? Make it illegal for everyone over 40 to have a job? Let them starve to death? Mandatory assisted death over 60? It's not like basic resources are an issue - we currently grow enough food to feed 10 billion people, and if people aren't having kids then eventually the population is going to start shrinking. You might think old people are getting the in the way of young people, and to an extent that may be true, but is that the main factor?
For example, lets consider the high price of housing and rent. A common sentiment I see online is that the boomers are hoarding all the property so young people cannot afford homes. But is that really the main issue? The cities with the worst housing markets are the ones that tend to have the most restrictions and regulations on housing and rent. In a city like New York, rent control leads to a lot of empty apartments because it's cheaper for the owners to leave it empty than to spend the money necessary to renovate it to a livable standard from updated codes in NYC. LA has restrictions on the size of apartments and in San Francisco you can spend years waiting for a permit because a study has to be done on the environmental impact your new building will have on the local bird population before you can begin construction. That's not really an issue with the existence of old people holding homes as much as it is an issue with government mandated regulations making it harder to increase supply of housing. The homes older folks tend to live in are also cheaper homes in LCOL areas where their money can go further, while young people are more likely to be competing for homes in more expensive cities where there is more opportunities in their career. I haven't crunched the numbers to see what has the bigger impact but my gut feeling is that the restriction on housing supply due to not being able to construct enough new homes is a bigger factor than the housing supply being constrained due to old people buying up all the homes.
The real issue with Boomers(and Spiritual Boomers) isn't that they're old and entitled, it's that they're old and refuse to acknowledged that the ground game has changed.
To use a less(hah!) contentious comparison, look at the flood of male divorcees/widowers getting back into the dating game after ten years of marriage only to find that things have become an utter shitshow.
If Boomer's general reaction to the state of, well, everything, was to basically say 'Yes, things have gotten really horrible' and just nod along in sympathy, they wouldn't get near as much vitriol thrown in thier general direction. Instead, the ones who end up being the loudest say 'You're just spoiled/entitled/lazy/we had it worse', and when people start bringing out the receipts, rather than acknowldging anything to zoomer's arguements, they double-down and go 'NUH-UH'.
My favorite example on twitter was one spiritual boomer bragging about how the home he and his brother grew up in was perfectly affordable at 250k, only for someone to do the work and discover that it was 100k just 8 years prior. ... Yeah.
So, we'll see how all that will work out in the end...
I feel like I have a vague memory of essays by boomers saying something like this, but I've so rarely run into it that I can't remember, and I've certainly never seen it among boomers IRL. Not that I hang out with a lot of those, so that doesn't mean too much.
But, eg this past week, I saw some kerfuffle on the social medias involving zoomers complaining about boomers not understanding how hard it is, and when I looked into it, it was because some boomer said zoomers ought not spend $28 ordering lunch and even generated a realistic cheap plan to make their own sandwiches, and zoomers scoffed that that was basically concentration camp food. Every interaction of this type that I look into seems to play out like that, where basic financial responsibility and the most minor of suggested sacrifices is made out to be some huge ordeal. Notably, I've never seen boomers implying that this would solve all zoomers' woes, merely that those are the types of things they should do first before declaring that making it in this economy is impossible.
I'm personally a privileged millennial, who was lucky enough not to suffer the pains of the 2008 crash that happened around the time I started working. So I don't have enough personal experience with such stuff to weigh in on. But I certainly have the experience of sacrificing location and comfort for price in rental, sometimes spending nearly 2 hours in commute each way for work, doing meal prep and budgeting my restaurant meals, not ordering food for months, not paying for any entertainment subscriptions, finding used or free furniture from Craigslist, things like that, in my 20s and even 30s. They're just not that much sacrifice, and certainly I think my qol with all the benefits of modern technology and policework is better than that of boomers when they were young adults.
I sense that zoomers were too grown up being fed fearmongering that these were the end times, and COVID plus AI gave them a one-two punch right as they were becoming adults. Like generations before them, they were sold a false bill of goods about college being the solution to all their career problems, and there's certainly blame that deserves to land on their parents' generations to some extent for all of that except maybe AI. And so they're somewhat understandably weary of being told advice. But jumping at shadows is still jumping at shadows, and devoting significant energy towards criticizing others instead of criticizing oneself tends not to be all that useful for getting oneself out of a hole, regardless of who dug that hole or put one in there.
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