I’m tired of people acting like they shouldn’t contribute to the betterment of society as a whole because their contribution doesn’t benefit them personally, or benefits others they dislike.
And it absolutely does benefit them personally, just in ways they’re too dumb to see.
I vote for school tax levys. I don’t (and probably will never) have kids.
I always take it to a literal extreme when these sorts of arguments come up.
“I’m happy paying towards unemployment benefits because everybody needs to eat. Even if its going to drug addicts spending it on crack, because they need thst crack and theyre going to get it. I’d rather them be in the dole office with their hands out than sneaking around my house in the night taking my xbox.”
Same is true for people who really really don’t want to work. I’d rather they live in social housing, get some small social assistance check and spend their time in front of the tv drinking beers, than roam the streets and bothering people by begging or worse committing crimes because they can’t hold a job down and refuse all help.
Some people just can’t be convinced to better their lives and these people need to be managed and jail is not the answer. And often these people do turn around and start accepting help.
People are not a consistent part of any community and have no relationship with the past or future of any community. The past is a completely different world, as will be the future, and we move through communities constantly in modern life, never becoming a meaningful and enduring part to any of them. A community would have to be part of our sense of self to have any of our interests be in its future. The pace of change has completely disconnected us from any concept of planning beyond the boundaries of our own lives, especially into a future we will never see and for communities we don’t, and never felt a part of.
We have also become almost completely powerless with regard to how the world is shaped and for what purpose. Corporations, the wealthy and powerful, and authoritarian inclined governments have taken that power from individuals and communities to use for their personal desires. They are also the cause of the pace of change, creating the very context of community disempowerment which enables them to take that power.
Everyone in the lower 99% is struggling to simply keep existing and find a justification to do so, maybe have a couple of kids if they’re lucky. It is not reasonable, living in a rapidly changing system of constant political and economic selfishness, to expect the struggling people to make their own lives harder to try and make plans that benefit other people’s futures. It’s impossible to even know what plans are wise when the powerful and wealthy change things so fast to benefit themselves, that most plans will never have any confidence to even be fulfilled.
We are all being fucked, present past and future, by the runaway selfishness of people whose power is seemingly unchallenged. Pointing fingers at each other for making desperate decisions that hurt others to protect ourselves is fucking stupid. These are not the choices we want to be making but are forced to. There are no good choices to make, be selfish or be dead is becoming normal. That’s the world we inherited.
I am 70 and tired of paying for wars, corporate welfare, and bailing out bankers and oil companies.
EDIT: And genocide.
Sorry, but Bari Weiss is running a story on 60 minutes about a rich black woman using food stamps to buy a fancy car. So now we’re cutting the Give Surplus Food to Starving People program in half and giving twice it’s value to a company run out of Hondorus by Peter Thiel’s Ket dealer called QueefCoin.
The best corporate propaganda money can buy.
I love the “but I don’t use that so I shouldn’t pay for it” argument. Like come on, my dude, that’s what a society is about. If you don’t want to live in society, move to Siberia.
Did you not go to school when you were younger? You benefited from those schools at some point in your life.
The doctors giving you end of life care also went to school. Unless you are ok with us changing that?
Yup. No matter which angle you want to approach it from, bitching about funding schools is not a good look.
“Why should I, a man who religiously drives and has no children or grandchildren, pay for these things?”
Because it benefits you and society at large in other ways. It is in society’s best interests that people are educated so they can do much more in society than they would’ve otherwise. It is in society’s best interests to have robust, comprehensive public transport, because that way the roads won’t be clogged up, stopping you from driving. It benefits you that the nurses at your care home can read what meds they’re giving you and can do maths. It benefits you if people can get to their destinations without driving otherwise you would not be able to park at your destination. Your meals on wheels not getting stuck in traffic? The ambulance being able to get to you and get you to the hospital on time? The people around you being able to have the skills to operate in not just the work place and the world? All of that benefits you.
Thinking like this is how we ended up in the shit we’re in worldwide.
Yep.
Just cause you don’t actively use it every day, doesnt mean you don’t actively benefit from it every day.
People are so myopically fucking ignorant…
I have met people who think like that on the regular and I just want them to go move to an American Car Suburb and see how they like it.
Funny username
I’d be willing to wager these people also exhibit telltale signs of anti-social personality disorders. Who woulda thunk, that anti-social people would be antithetical to society?
If you’re 90 and that selfish, you shouldn’t have made it to 90.
Overgrown toddler. (The actor going on the dumb rant, not you)
Fun fact, the guy who posted that (Caleb Hammer) is a YouTuber that allegedly hired actors to pretend to be broke people making bad financial decisions to get money off selling you a budgeting course when real people weren’t shocking enough for the audience, and also allegedly pressured a guy into doing OnlyFans after touching him inappropriately. Fun! /s
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beware-austin-based-creator-caleb-hammer-victor-vulcano-bjzaf
Jesus that’s on Linked in
Linked in is basically facebook for weirdo “80 hour workweeks should be a minimum, thats how I show my dedication!” types.
The allegations don’t entirely surprise me, either. I find it hard to believe people the kind of people desperate enough to come on his show, would act like that without an incentive of being encouraged, or just being wholesale fake actors.
Wouldnt surprise me if the accusations of being a right wing troll prove accurate, with how they keep seemingly trying to get people who look like what right wingers think liberals are, just to scream at them and denegrate them while they act, according to script, flippantly.
Jesus Christ, it’s not Jason bourne
Common Caleb L.
I’ve seen a bunch of the videos. Ones from a year ago or longer were much better, lately he’s been a dick.
How that person move around at 90 without public transit? Hope is not driving.
Cycling? My granddad did at 90. 4 years later he still does, but on 3 wheels
Not sure, but the two arguments aren’t even equal.
“I don’t want to pay for something I’ll never receive” vs. “I don’t want to pay for something I already received”
Neither one is a good attitude, but one seems more selfish than the other. Now, if the other person said “well I was well off and went to private school so we never used it” at least it would be more similar, still greedy
What public transit. If you don’t live in a larger city there is none.
Edit: I would surly love to hear from the down votes how I’m wrong? But I doubt I will.
If only there was some way to change that
Give up! All is lost!
We sure do live in a society… why are boomers/silentgen like this?
Their parents didn’t hit them hard enough.
Username checks out
If it has a blue check on a Nazi platform, it might be a Nazi.
They also give out blue checks for verified accounts and frequently if you don’t even ask for it. Plus, lots of them are just idiots, not Nazis.
Social security does need reform. There’s no reason we should cap contributions. We also need more nuance by ability and type of work one does when we determine retirement ages.
At 40, I’m tired
Current boomers have paid for 100% of their Social Security pension from payroll deductions from their working years. Social Security pensions are not dependent on young taxpayers. It hurts to see Lemmy becoming a source of youngster misinformation like Reddit. Lemmy needs to delete this miseducational and divisive thread.
Okay, we’re still paying money into social security that we will never receive, so the anger won’t just go away
we’re still paying money into social security that we will never receive
You don’t know that you won’t receive Social Security. That’s just pointless scaremongering. In any case, vote for legislators who will manage Social Security better instead of blaming everything on boomers.
There will never be another general election in the United States.
You can hold onto all the hope you want, but some of us can do basic math and situational reasoning.
That’s not how Social Security works. The money the Boomers paid into the system went to paying benefits for the previous generations. The benefits the Boomers (at least the ones that have retired) are getting now is being paid by the workers in the younger generations. While it’s true the program has run a surplus, if the young taxpayers stopped paying into the system that surplus wouldn’t last very long.
The money the Boomers paid into the system went to paying benefits for the previous generations.
False. The pension is fully vested by the workers receiving the pension, based on the taxes that they contributed. In fact, many elderly would be better off if the amount they contributed were invested in a hedge fund instead of Social Security.
That’s exactly how it works, well other than me having the dates off as the Boomers weren’t even born when Social Security was enacted by FDR. When Social Security was enacted, retirees started receiving benefits even if they never paid into the system, which was paid for by the current workers who were paying into the system. It’s been like that ever since. Social Security is also not a pension.
You are correct that for most people would be better off investing their Social Security taxes into a hedge fund but workers don’t really have a choice in the matter.
retirees started receiving benefits even if they never paid into the system, which was paid for by the current workers who were paying into the system.
The vast majority of current boomers have fully paid for their own Social Security pension.
Social Security is also not a pension.
That’s a distinction without a difference.
The OP specifically depicts someone that’s 90 years old.
Doesn’t that mean the amount they paid in to Social Security might have actually run out years ago?
Social Security was designed to have winners and losers in the contributions game. My mom died at 64, and my dad died at 59. They both contributed to Social Security during their entire working lives without collecting a cent from it. That’s the way it goes.
Okay, but that necessarily means that other people are now paying for their Social Security. This person, specifically, did not fully pay for their own Social Security. They’re living off of public money, not money they contributed themselves.
Now that’s misinformation. They could not afford to survive off only what they put in.
They could not afford to survive off only what they put in.
That’s why many senior citizens live below the poverty line.
*specifically boomers between years 1946 and 1964, which have actually paid more than they’ll get in benefits.
The others are still taking more than they contributed. It’s fair to say that some current boomers have paid for their Social Security, but many others have not, and the situation isn’t getting any better.
To put it simply, there are just fewer workers paying in to the system than there are people taking money out, and that number only grows as people get older.
This means only about 80% of existing benefit rates are expected to be paid to people when they retire later, and many of those benefiting from existing rates are already taking more from current generations than they paid in.
I don’t think we should universally hate boomers just because the economic situation they were in happened to favor them in some ways, after all, I want my grandma to keep being able to afford her retirement care right now before she dies, but it’s also just not true to say that all current boomers have paid for their social security in its entirety.
Only some of them have, and with the way things are going, it’s not looking like we’ll be any better as we grow older, as rates will have to decline just to prevent draining the entire fund, while people continue to pay the same % of their income into the system.
boomers between years 1946 and 1964, which have actually paid more than they’ll get in benefits.
So boomers 79 and younger are fully paying their own way. According to Google, the average US longevity is 78.4 years. I don’t see an unfairness problem. Google also states that only about 4-5% of the U.S. population is 80 and older. You also assume those over 80 have paid nothing toward their pension.
I don’t think we should universally hate boomers just because the economic situation they were in happened to favor them in some ways
Again, most boomers pay their own way. And many seniors are living below the poverty line. And speaking of being favored, male boomers were required to risk their lives for their country. Current US males can take that risk optionally. Do you have any idea of how many young men had their lives cut short during WW2 and Vietnam?
there are just fewer workers paying in to the system than there are people taking money out, and that number only grows as people get older
Obviously false. Most seniors have already fully paid for their pension. If everybody is paying their own way, what difference does it make whether there are fewer workers? You falsely assume that current workers are paying for current seniors.
it’s not looking like we’ll be any better as we grow older
Whatever happens to you, it won’t be because of the boomers who are paying their own way.
1946 to 1964 is exactly the range of birth years traditionally assigned to ‘baby boomers’. anyone older or younger isn’t a boomer at all.
opinion: individualism is a plague and the generational war is a distraction
Yep, the real war is the class war and the billionaires are winning.
Amen, brother. No war but the class war.
Jesus Christ you said the exact words I was going to. Am I robot?
It’s a common mantra.
Na brother, we’re all just equally burnt out from this capitalist hellscape the billionaires created, and with a collapsing global ecology, we want justice for the future that has been stripped away from us and our children.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Preach sister!
Exactly. Class is the biggest thing that divides us, the rest is a distraction.
Most billionaires are also boomers. The class war and the war against gerontocracy are one and the same.
Musk is Gen X, Suckerberg is a Millenial, Luckey is a Zoomer, etc. etc.
Money generally takes some time to acquire, so many ultra rich will skew towards older demographics by volume. As Boomers die, it will be mostly Millennial billionaires as we’re the biggest age demographic alive now.
This is so close. You’re nearly there. Just let go.
There are shitty people in every generation.
Neither of those are billionaires.
Gerontocracy is fundamentally an issue of the few holding more than their fair share of wealth and power at the expense of others and pulling the ladder up behind them. It is a class issue same as everything else.
We’ve got Sam Altman and Taylor Swift in the millennial category off the top of my head. Elon Musk is Gen x, not a boomer. So boomers have Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia at the moment, but soon they’ll go to gen X and the problems will perpetuate. Oh, Googles Ceo is Gen X as well
Yes, and once boomers start dropping dead, gen Xers will be fighting tooth and nail to hold on to their slice of the state pension ponzi at the cost of everyone below them on the ladder the same as boomers did. That does not change my point at all.
There is no fair and equitable world in which state pensions can continue working the way they work now. The system was built on the expectation of infinite growth with every generation being larger than the last.
With the projected population decline, the inflationary effects of creating money in order to pay pensions could actually be beneficial
Yeah, if we saw something like an unavoidable 25% tax on all wealth over $300 million, we would see around $2.5 trillion in taxes that could be distributed as a universal base income that would place $17,857 per average household (2.5) in the U.S.
If we actually combated housing prices, that could potentially cover housing everyone in the U.S. from that alone, then retirements would only need to cover food costs. There are a lot of changes that would need to be made, they just won’t come until the last second when people are dying in large enough numbers to make people do something.
opinion: individualism is a plague and the generational war is a distraction
people should be able to have their own sense of choice and identity.
people should also realise that together we can make it so that everyone can reach their full potential, making society better.
pay your fucking taxes
We can’t, because there is always a percent of people, a large percent, for whom suffering is the point.
We can’t, but something else can, and something more civilized will displace us.
Our evil dies with us.
I love taxes, I would gladly pay even more taxes if that meant everyone would be provided for.
Except at the moment our taxes here in Belgium are already quite high, and our tax system is a complete cluster fuck with plenty of loopholes for the strongest shoulders to not have to carry their weight. Some part of that is even fraudulent, and they’re trying to get a law through right now to find those cases of fraud more efficiently… But it is being opposed by parts of the govt with privacy as the excuse (which I’d normally agree with, except what they’re trying to change is not that egregious afaik and the ratio of found vs investigated fraud is insane)
I wasn’t calling out your tax Stance, more of a general statement to go with the “pro individualism” statement I have.
I wasn’t calling you out at all just going on a bit of a tangent :)
There can be more than one issue, of which both of these are a problem.
The boomers and the rediculously wealthy have the same mindset: fuck you, I’ve got mine
It’s a myth that all the boomers got theirs. Don’t get me wrong, our deal is absolutely worse, but the rich have been fucking people for profit as long as there’s been rich people.
Something something not all boomers. There’s selfish rich people in every age group. In the case of Boomers they happened to be born at the same time as a ton of other people, so they became the most influencial voting block (and later the wealthiest voting block because of the political influence) but of course many boomers are absolutely struggling financially, getting screwed over by the same ladder pulling that younger folks are getting screwed over them
For sure I don’t disagree.
But as you say, they are the wealthiest generation ever. And based on who is voted in and policy made (at least in my country), they very much don’t want to share that wealth.
My parents are a part of that struggling generation, so I know first hand it’s not all
I love paying for schools, because I hate being surrounded by dumb people.
Jokes on you, I pay for schools and am still surrounded by dumb people!
How unbearable would it be if they received no education, I can’t imagine.
The underfunding or undercutting of education is a big part of why we’re in the current situation
Yup, stupid people vote Republican. Their war on education will only end when their party is dead, burned, buried, and pissed on.
stupid people vote Republican
That’s not true, though. Partisanship is far more tied up with local industry than individual intelligence or educational attainment.
People who earn money in Republican friendly industries vote Republican. What the GOP has done to capture the nation is to seed big swing states with a petrochemical industry and tell people “if you vote Democrat, they’re going to Green the economy and you’ll lose your cushy jobs”
I’ve heard this argument before. It seems to neglect how much modern libertarian ideology is packed into the modern school curriculum.
Conservatives scream about education being Marxist and Woke. Thousands of teachers are purged. Curriculum gets ratcheted further to the right. And by the time your own kids are going to school, they’re asking why history textbooks are venerating Newt Gingrich, bio textbooks include disclaimers decrying evolution and germ theory, and math class is just 8 hours a week of long division exercises the whole semester.
But you can’t just pretend we’re living in a Shepard Tone of a society, because we’re here now in spite of “superior” education we received a generation or two ago.
We can’t just blame this on “schools make you smart/dumb” because so much of your modem understanding of the world is formed after you’ve graduated.
