this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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I see this society as a pyramid scheme and as a young worker, I‘m somewhere near the bottom. I‘m supposed to be grateful cause others are further down and I‘m supposed to bring in more bottom dwellers to serve those above, but I refuse. Let it collapse for all I care.
Good enough of an explanation, or do I need to go into detail how much these too small apartments and mediocre food products cost?
I'm pretty torn on this. On one hand you are right, the current demographics mean, fewer yougn people have to provide for a lot of older people, at least realtively speaking. Te ratio between these groups has seldomly (never?) been this bad. This does mean we do not have the money to build out or even maintain the infrastructure, education, basically everything the generation after us will badly need.
On the other hand by not having enough children to at least have a better ratio, the generation after us will be in the exact same situation as we are, or even a worse one. So they are pretty much fucked anyways, but by at least maintaining population the generation after that might be able to do better?
That‘s why I call it a pyramid scheme lmao, you need to recruit more people into it to keep it going basically. That or take money and resources from the top of the pyramid, which I doubt will happen and if it does probably not without a lot of violence like in communist revolutions, which usually comes along with more fascism too, bad times. So I won‘t recruit anyone to this mess myself, but if you want to do that to your descendants to help out the system, go ahead.
Maybe the lack of my descendants can make the labour of others worth a bit more overall, or they get screwed by climate change anyway, since this pyramid can‘t grow forever without exhausting the planet‘s resources. Either way, I sleep well knowing I won‘t drag any more people into it.
You will, however, presumably, rely on social care supported by less and less working people, potentially leading to very unfortunate choices made by these people. Or do you prefer not to retire?
I don‘t know what I‘ll do in 35~ years, but if it‘s still a thing by then, then sure I will take advantage of it, I paid into it all my working life after all. I also try to save a bit, but inflation eats all of it up anyway probably.
If the young people don‘t want to sustain this and it gets repealed, I guess I will work until I am unable. If I became unable, I hope they at least provide me with euthanasia or otherwise I guess I’d have to haunt the streets as a homeless spectre to scare them into making the rich richer. Tough choices! Maybe I get lucky and die of cancer in my 40s like my parents instead.
You paid into sustaining social contract between generations, and you are also making it more difficult to continue sustaining it. It's commendable and honest that you are willing to forgo what is attributed to you in this contract and it is your right of course. I just think that a better, more inspiring, future exists.