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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   24105 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026

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Yeah but the government sets forth with many entitlement and implicit vibes then takes them away arbitrarily. End of the day the system has to balance financially somewhat. The seniors of today didn't accumulate sufficient points to get the age target they wanted and it's better to make common sense shifts now rather than be forced through austerity or the day of the pillow in future

I think the best option is to simply raise the retirement age. There wasn't some big reason for it to be at 65, that was just the age of the federal railroad pensions. And they already raised it before, the full retirement age now is 67.

If there's any age it should be set at, it should be one where a substantial number of people are no longer able to be meaningfully employed. That way it is truly an insurance for old age, as the name implies. That more and more people are continuing to work while collecting benefits is proof that the age is not set properly for insurance purposes.

People who are crippled early can collect disability benefits as a form of early retirement, something we already did unintentionally back during the great recession.

Note that you'd need to raise the retirement age to, like, 75 in order to avert insolvency if that's the only thing you're doing.

Pseudo-source (option C2.5: (1) raising the early-retirement age from 62 to 64, (2) raising the full-retirement age from 67 to 70, and (3) thereafter adjusting the full-retirement age so that the ratio of retirement years (life expectancy minus full-retirement age) to working years (full-retirement age minus age 20) remains constant would eliminate only 44 percent of the shortfall)

If there's any age it should be set at, it should be one where a substantial number of people are no longer able to be meaningfully employed.

Things are going to get really interesting when AI reverses the direction of this and brings it down from 67 to roughly 20 (ironically the highest current age at which someone finds jokes about 6-7 to be funny), as the only form of employment available to anyone becomes the original form of employment. Then again, improving cosmetic surgery and sun protection might mean that the age goes back up and/or just remains stable before going up to the 100s.

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