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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   16898 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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For those wondering about the whole fertility thing, why people aren't having children... this post gives you one underdiscussed reason. How much sharper than a serpent's tooth...

I thought for a second that you meant people aren't having children because infertile boomers are hoarding the wealth from those who are young enough to marry and reproduce. For example, I married younger than most people of my generation, and we can't afford a wedding ceremony, or a child, and our marriage process still costed a lot of my net worth. I make about 95th percentile income for my age group and I am old for marriage by historical standards. We don't feel like we can afford to have a baby right now. So that would be a take based in reality, yes?

But then I saw that that boomer, who is known for his feeling of entitlement to his old-age pension, The_Nybbler, posted the comment, and I looked up the serpent's tooth quote, and ... my priors have not shifted on you.

„How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child:” I am a minority. The children are too thankful. Even if they were all like me, that would be no reason to not have kids. I still want kids. Mine will inherit my ideas. Is it a horror, that they will believe I should not exist on the dole for 30 years of retirement if they are struggling to afford to give me grand children? Not quite. That being a horror seems to only make sense if one is in denial about his mortality and the true conditions of old age. It is best for my Darwinian fitness to kill myself at age 65 for my grand children. If you do not agree, you will be replaced by those who do.

I'm not a boomer, and I don't have a pension. I was also never middle management, for that matter, although the idea that it is "half-UBI" for the old is pretty laughable. And I didn't expect your priors to shift because integer ones never do.

I make about 95th percentile income for my age group and I am old for marriage by historical standards. We don't feel like we can afford to have a baby right now. So that would be a take based in reality, yes?

No, it's really not. It's that word "feel" that gives it away.

I'm not a boomer, and I don't have a pension. I was also never middle management, for that matter, although the idea that it is "half-UBI" for the old is pretty laughable. And I didn't expect your priors to shift because integer ones never do.

You are over 50 years old. Gen X is Boomer. Get with the new hip lingo.

No, it's really not. It's that word "feel" that gives it away.

You just think young working couples, whom the world depends on, should be poor, while you sit around on a pile of „earnings” (which really do not survive worthiness audit anyway, although that's beyond the point), and stronger younger men are barred from competing for it except for through pandering to you. The problem with this is that it is more ideal biologically to cut you completely out of the loop at this point. Is that the nicest way to do things? No. But it is evolutionarily best, and we are much too tilted toward Boomer worship and far too removed from the law of nature or nature's God.

You are over 50 years old. Gen X is Boomer. Get with the new hip lingo.

You are a self-parody.

You just think young working couples, whom the world depends on, should be poor, while you sit around on a pile of „earnings” (which really do not survive worthiness audit anyway, although that's beyond the point), and stronger younger men are barred from competing for it except for through pandering to you.

I just think that the pile of earnings I worked for when I was younger is my pile of earnings, and do not somehow belong to the younger generation merely because they are younger. Your idea that we should have a world where only those who are on top at any given moment should have anything is dystopian.

You are a self-parody.

This is how gen Z and alpha actually talk. There is no gen X in the lingo. FWIW other 55 year olds I've spoken to have also expressed disdain for being called boomer so it's not unique to you.

I just think that the pile of earnings I worked for when I was younger is my pile of earnings

There's a strong argument and a weak argument here. The weak argument permits sitting on bygone glory that can't be presently defended, but audits your earnings and finds that dotcom era webdev work was overpaid. The strong argument says that even if you invented the transistor and capitalized completely fairly from that, evolution dictates that once you are done producing with that money and reproducing with your gametes, it is no longer optimal to allocate those earned resources to you. They should be dispersed, and do become dispersed, in the state of nature. That's how aging and death works.

Your idea that we should have a world where only those who are on top at any given moment should have anything is dystopian.

The old gods are harsh but not dystopian. What we have now is a dystopian for young people. In reality I don't support going all the way on Gnon's law, but I think it helps to present the pure case of it and then discuss where to actually set the points of divergence. We are currently pandering way too much to old people and it has to stop. Maybe the optimal point is to cut OAPs in half and re-organize the tax system to tax reproductive age income less and old people spending more. That doesn't mean everything is taken from you overnight and you die in your 50s but it also means men like me will not be your slave while you sit on a boat somewhere into your 90s, having been retired for decades.

This is how gen Z and alpha actually talk.

No wonder they're poor.

I just think that the pile of earnings I worked for when I was younger is my pile of earnings

There's a strong argument and a weak argument here. The weak argument permits sitting on bygone glory that can't be presently defended, but audits your earnings and finds that dotcom era webdev work was overpaid.

There's no argument at all for young people to judge the worthiness of work done by old people long ago with an eye to confiscating the fruits of their labor.

The strong argument says that even if you invented the transistor and capitalized completely fairly from that, evolution dictates that once you are done producing with that money and reproducing with your gametes, it is no longer optimal to allocate those earned resources to you. They should be dispersed, and do become dispersed, in the state of nature. That's how aging and death works.

Ah, but most of us aren't dead yet. And before you suggest "that could be arranged", you might want to consider that if you were in any position to arrange it, you wouldn't be poor.

Ah, but most of us aren't dead yet. And before you suggest "that could be arranged", you might want to consider that if you were in any position to arrange it, you wouldn't be poor.

Nobody wants to arrange that. I want to arrange for you to work more and pay more taxes and receive less wealth transfer from reproductive people. The pure state of nature is mentioned because you will object to this, but in reality you should be thankful we prevent roving gangs of young people from taking your stuff from you. Therefore you owe us more and we owe you less.

There's no argument at all for young people to judge the worthiness of work done by old people long ago with an eye to confiscating the fruits of their labor.

Like I said, I prefer the strong argument. But on this point, I don't need to analyze old people's labor, I can just analyze labor right now. I'm convinced most of the economy is just a circus and is pretty far removed from serious natural laws. The economy should be in service to improving the human race but 95% of economic activity is not that. That means a lot of people make a lot of money producing no value, since I only count value as human race improvement. This point meets a brick wall with most people though because you can't make a man understand what his salary depends on him not understanding.

Like I said, I prefer the strong argument. But on this point, I don't need to analyze old people's labor, I can just analyze labor right now. I'm convinced most of the economy is just a circus and is pretty far removed from serious natural laws. The economy should be in service to improving the human race but 95% of economic activity is not that. That means a lot of people make a lot of money producing no value, since I only count value as human race improvement. This point meets a brick wall with most people though because you can't make a man understand what his salary depends on him not understanding.

You're basically a communist, you think there is some way that we could organize the economy to produce more abundance and progress. Yet all attempts besides nibbling around the edges have failed just giving people property rights with some ground rules and letting it rip, which produces all these things you complain about. Doesn't apply to like government mandated redistribution but that's not the central case. Nothing stops you from trying to create a business that competes with the unfair and negative sum discrimination you claim is endemic, if you're right you should be able to quickly crush those institutions and take from the boomers what they didn't earn.

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