On Ageism

September 29, 2023 11:12 AM

Are you ageist? Take a 10-minute implicit bias test and find out. Work against ageism. It's good for you, it's good for society.

Toward Reducing Ageism: PEACE (Positive Education about Aging and Contact Experiences) Model (2016)

The population of older adults is growing worldwide. Negative ageism (negative attitudes and behavior toward older adults) is a serious international concern that negatively influences not only older adults but also individuals across the age continuum. This article proposes and examines the application of an integrative theoretical model across empirical evidence in the literature on ageism in psychology, medicine, social work, and sociology. The proposed Positive Education about Aging and Contact Experiences (PEACE) model focuses on 2 key contributing factors expected to reduce negative ageism: (a) education about aging including facts on aging along with positive older role models that dispel negative and inaccurate images of older adulthood; and (b) positive contact experiences with older adults that are individualized, provide or promote equal status, are cooperative, involve sharing of personal information, and are sanctioned within the setting. These 2 key contributing factors have the potential to be interconnected and work together to reduce negative stereotypes, aging anxiety, prejudice, and discrimination associated with older adults and aging. This model has implications for policies and programs that can improve the health and well-being of individuals, as well as expand the residential, educational, and career options of individuals across the age continuum.

posted by aniola (147 comments total)

This is difficult for me, because otoh, I don't want to be ageist. But OTOH, I sure wish the boomers would all retire and let some of us youngbloods* run the show a little bit.



*And by youngbloods I mean anyone under sixty.
posted by nushustu at 11:23 AM on September 29, 2023 [43 favorites]

Ooh, if you go to their main test page they'll let you try ALL the -isms! It's like Myers-Briggs for bigots!
posted by mittens at 11:26 AM on September 29, 2023 [16 favorites]

Not all psychologists believe the IAT is valid or useful.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:46 AM on September 29, 2023 [28 favorites]

I felt that the IAT merely tested the strength of early finger training over later finger training. "Go as fast as you can learning that young and good go together, now switch!"
posted by Lafe at 12:01 PM on September 29, 2023 [24 favorites]

Take a 10-minute implicit bias test and find out.

* Results of 10-minute test do not in fact reliably inform you as to whether you are ageist or not.
posted by axiom at 12:11 PM on September 29, 2023 [10 favorites]

Well, that was a silly and pointless test.

Ageism is still bad, though.
posted by kyrademon at 12:14 PM on September 29, 2023 [9 favorites]

I sure wish the boomers would all retire and let some of us youngbloods* run the show a little bit

Anexdotally, most of the complaints about "ageism" I see are from boomers upset that people think they shouldn't run everything in perpetuity.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:20 PM on September 29, 2023 [24 favorites]

Allow me to be the exception. I'm Gen-X and have noticed a distinct trend of people in my cohort getting screened out during job applications compared to younger applicants.
posted by Karmakaze at 12:26 PM on September 29, 2023 [69 favorites]

Anexdotally, most of the complaints about "ageism" I see are from boomers upset that people think they shouldn't run everything in perpetuity.

I mean, yah, that's why I suspect this is more and more a hot-button topic: because for the first time, people are starting to question whether octogenarians ought to be running everything.

(For the first time people are having to start to question whether octogenarians ought to be running everything, because before now, generations generally retired at some point.)
posted by nushustu at 12:34 PM on September 29, 2023 [7 favorites]

I felt that the IAT merely tested the strength of early finger training over later finger training. "Go as fast as you can learning that young and good go together, now switch!"

They address this in their FAQs by claiming "the order of finger training has minimal and statistically insignificant effects" but if that was true, they'd serve up half the tests in the opposite order and count those in their aggregate results. But they don't. It would be trivially easy for them to do this but they won't.

Heck I'd even be happy with just a control test involving random association pairs, such as, say, associating days of the week with "good" and months of the year with "bad" , then switch, then see if there's population level biases that show us that people hate the months of the year but love the days of the week. Yet another demonstration of their test's validity that would be super easy to set up but noooope.

To me this proves that the IAT is full of shit.
posted by MiraK at 12:34 PM on September 29, 2023 [14 favorites]

I assure you that there is lots of ageism and that it isn't the same as "I am mad that I can't run the country for fifty years until I am physically no longer capable of it or drop dead".

If, for instance, you lose a white collar job at fifty or fifty-five, you're probably going to need to take something else that pays much less and it's going to take you longer to get hired, even though you have twelve or eighteen working years left and lots of relevant experience.

If you're elderly, especially if you're female, doctors will routinely say that your aches/pains/general low quality of life are just what is to be expected from aging, meaning that serious developing conditions can get missed and treatable things can get ignored and your overall quality of life is lower.

People treat the limitations of the old, especially the frail old, as embarrassing and shameful. When my mother was slowly, slowly dying of a degenerative condition, she was treated as an embarrassment by people in public. She and my dad got hassled by young men in cars several times while he was helping her go for walks because she was visibly frail and needed help.

Studies show that ageism exists, and yet in this very thread the first comment and indeed two of seven comments are basically "ageism is just boomer whining". Granted that it is difficult to respond to any post that is pretty much "here is this bad thing, we should not do it" with anything but agreement (which isn't to say that those posts aren't interesting, just that they may not generate long threads). But still, two out of seven being like "well, the old are after all kind of bad"?

I mean, my mother, FTR, was not [aged and bad political figure that you fill in]. She was a lovely person who did a reasonable amount of good in the world, she was very funny and she pretty much deserved a lot better than she got.
posted by Frowner at 12:35 PM on September 29, 2023 [119 favorites]

The test says that I have a moderate preference for young people.

Didn't see that one coming.
posted by box at 12:35 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also, this is heavily a Gen X and elderly millennial site. History has a stutter, it says w-w-w-w-watch out, as the fellow said. We're not getting any younger no matter how many marathons we run.
posted by Frowner at 12:36 PM on September 29, 2023 [14 favorites]

Ageism is definitely a thing, not limited to the Feinsteins of the world, and it is coming for everyone, even those in this thread who believe it doesn't really exist or (quite laughably) has never been discussed before.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:41 PM on September 29, 2023 [13 favorites]

The comments in this thread reveal quite a bit of bias, moreso probably than the test. For instance, using the term "boomer" as a synonym for "old and in charge." Or "youngbloods" as anybody under 60, when technically a baby boomer is anyone age 59 - 77. Diane Feinstein, who was "in charge" was 90 and not a baby boomer. Donald Trump is on the cusp of being older than baby boomers. Joe Biden is too old to make the cut. Justin Trudeau and RIshi Sunak are both Gen X, not baby boomers.

Chances are if you use a catchy epithet for a whole set of people, you might have a negative bias that affects your worldview, and you might consider reflecting on that.
posted by tempestuoso at 12:41 PM on September 29, 2023 [39 favorites]

Allow me to be the exception. I'm Gen-X and have noticed a distinct trend of people in my cohort getting screened out during job applications compared to younger applicants.

I'm Gen X and I figure I am right on the cusp of this. I'm not seeing it happen yet with friends, but I am sure I will within the next few years. It's pernicious.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:43 PM on September 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

Thanks for sharing these interesting articles. Although ageism isn't a new problem, my personal feeling is that it's getting worse, and that's it's becoming even more acceptable in otherwise progressive circles. For example, an organization I work with wanted to add age as an area of potential bias/discrimination for discussion in its DEI workshops, and the pushback from significant parts the target audience was explicit and unashamed.

I was shocked and a bit frightened, but that could just be because I am getting older...
posted by rpfields at 12:44 PM on September 29, 2023 [9 favorites]

They address this in their FAQs by claiming "the order of finger training has minimal and statistically insignificant effects"

Huh, what FAQs are you referring to? Because if you go to Learn More -> Frequently Asked Questions, it definitely says something different:

Could my result be due to the order in which I did the two parts?

Yes, there is some evidence that the order in which you take the two parts of the test could influence your overall results. We refer to this as an “order effect”. However, our current understanding is that this effect is usually small. One way we try to minimize the possible order effect is by giving you more practice trials before the second pairing than we did before the first pairing.

The potential effects of order are not yet fully understood. Order effects are almost certainly larger for some tasks than for others and are likely to differ across people based on factors such as the strength of associations, ability to control one’s responses, and learning ability. We hope to know more about this in the coming years. For now, the fact that there may be order effects and that they are not yet predictable is one of several reasons that we encourage you to take your IAT feedback as an opportunity for reflection rather than as a perfect measure of your implicit biases.

posted by solotoro at 12:47 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

but if that was true, they'd serve up half the tests in the opposite

"Go as fast as you can learning that young and good go together, now switch!"

FWIW this is not the first combo I got.

Apparently I have no preference for young people vs old people. Can't be biased when you hate everyone equally 😇
posted by phunniemee at 12:52 PM on September 29, 2023 [8 favorites]

"Your responses suggested no automatic preference between Old people and Young people."
posted by mittens at 12:52 PM on September 29, 2023

I did the test and it said that I had a moderately more favourable view of older people (I'm 42, and most of my friends are older than me by virtue of the demographics of the area I live in). So I'll concede that I may be less prone to being ageist against older people. I think I gain a great deal from both younger generations and older generations. And I think both have the capacity to frustrate me in equal measure as well.

But, for the test itself, I really just felt like I got better at the task by the time the E = young people and bad set came around.

I do agree that the ageism conversation does seem to be largely one way - from the old to the young. I think it's possible to say the bulk of society's decision making being in the almost exclusive control of the over 80 set isn't necessarily a good thing, and also not be ageist. I also think it's possible to say that young people should listen to the advice of their elders and integrate that into their decision making, and also not be ageist.

I think where the ageism conversation is important is:

1. Care and support for people to age with dignity.
2. Support for the rights of children (as codified by the UNCRC).

At the end of the day, we need to ensure we're viewing both young people and older people as the autonomous human beings that they are, and treat them with dignity and respect. That does not mean never disagreeing with someone, and that does not mean acknowledging differences rooted in age. It does mean ensuring that we don't dehumanize one another - because that's what leads to harm.
posted by eekernohan at 1:03 PM on September 29, 2023 [9 favorites]

The comments in this thread reveal quite a bit of bias, moreso probably than the test. For instance, using the term "boomer" as a synonym for "old and in charge." Or "youngbloods" as anybody under 60, when technically a baby boomer is anyone age 59 - 77.

Are you arguing that I'm wrong because I put 59 year-olds in the non-boomer group? Or that I included octogenarians in the Boomer group?

Either way, I'll grant you, I have a bias in that I believe having the oldest Senate in US history is curious at the very least, not unlike how having the hottest summer on record is curious.

(Also? Wait until you hear the name that GenZ kids call 40-somethings on TikTok. I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with "zoomer.")
posted by nushustu at 1:04 PM on September 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

Gen Xer checking in, and despite 20+ years of experience in admin, yeah, it's totally getting harder to get a job. Used to be that experience was an asset, but now? I would like to paid what I'm worth and less exploitable than I was when I was younger. It freaks me out a bit.
posted by Kitteh at 1:04 PM on September 29, 2023 [26 favorites]

Now that I think about it, it's interesting that the Senate issue is always framed as "the Senate shouldn't be Old People" rather than "the Senate should be representative of the population when you look at the aggregate".

I mean, let's imagine that somehow we had a Senate composed exclusively of people between 18 and 35 - do you think they would be good at creating policies about aging and healthcare, retirement funding, the needs of carers, etc? Unlikely! Because for the most part those things would not be real to them and would be at best of shallow concern. For most of them, their parents would still be relatively young and in relatively good health, for instance.

We all know that it's not bad to have a representative number of quite old politicians, assuming that they are in decent health. (Although just considering population-level concerns, maybe a retirement age would be a good thing - we can't all be [insert your favorite over-75 politician here].

~~~
Ageism works differently than some other isms because it's possible to have a society that is both significantly ageist against older people and significantly ageist against younger people, though usually along different vectors. It is rare that really young people have the kind of institutional power to discriminate against older people, but middle aged people have institutional power to discriminate against both.

While it is difficult to do the fine-grained stuff about "what exactly is fairness, anyway", we could skip a lot of the arguing on these fronts by being a bit outcomes-based. Everyone should have secure, dignified housing; meaningful ways to spend their time; whatever medical care they need; and freedom from social and physical violence/fear/attacks based on their individuality or their identity. We should be able to identify ways in which different groups lack these things and create solutions appropriate to each.

For instance, the population of homeless people over age 50 has been rising and is expected to continue to increase a lot. I personally don't feel 100% sure that I will be healthy and housed my entire life the way things are going - what about you? This situation is going to share some things with youth homelessness, racialized homelessness, etc, but may also have its own unique aspects - like, it's different to be unhoused because you were kicked out or ran away from an abusive home than to be homeless because you are no longer physically strong enough to work in the job you've done your whole life and no one will let you start over because you're 57 and frail. Those problems are both solved, on one level, by just having housing, but on another, they demand youth protection strategies and worker and disability protection strategies that will differ.

Everyone should get a fair shake and have an averagely comfortable life regardless of their age, skills, health, etc. We should be able to use concepts like "ageism" to identify problems to solve, not to bicker over whether boomers are all rich and angry or all broken down from a lifetime of manual labor and precariously housed.
posted by Frowner at 1:24 PM on September 29, 2023 [30 favorites]

I predict the meaning of the word "Boomer" is going to shift from "was born in the the post-WW2 baby boom" to "is over 45" if it hasn't already.
posted by straight at 1:26 PM on September 29, 2023 [9 favorites]

Ageism is absolutely and definitely a thing. (I'm sorry if my comment above ranting against IAT suggested otherwise.)

One of the concerns I have in discussions of ageism tends to be, people even on the left will often argue something along the lines of, "Well ageism is bad BUT sometimes ageist discrimination is necessary because ... incompetent octogenarian politicians!"

This strikes me as being the same kind of logic as "Well sexism is bad BUT sometimes sexist discrimination is necessary because it's generally men who have the upper body strength to lift widgets in my warehouse." Most of us don't have any trouble recognizing this as a bad faith comment on the topic of sexism. So why can't we recognize that "zomg! octogenarian politicians!" is a bad faith comment to make on the topic of ageism?

Like, yes, women in general have insufficient upper body strength to lift your widget. That is not relevant to discussions of sexism because sexism is defined as discrimination on the basis of gender, when capacity to do the job is not in question. Refusing to hire unqualified people isn't sexist . Never was, never will be. The fact that you're acting like this falls under the category of sexism - THAT is sexist, because it shows an assumption that no individual woman could be strong enough. The fact that you're arguing that "sometimes sexism is necessary" - THAT is sexist because you're literally in favor of unjust discrimination.

Similarly, yes, people do generally become incapacitated in many ways and incompetent to perform most jobs as a result of their age. That is irrelevant here, because ageism by definition is discrimination based solely on age when competence and capacity is not in question. It's not ageist to require, for example, people in positions of great consequence especially should be required to prove competence on a regular basis and/or as a qualification to stand for elections. It's not ageist to want politicians who are incapacitated by age to be thrown out of office. Key word being incapacitated, not age! Let's not muddy the waters by pretending this falls under the purview of ageism and that "sometimes ageism is necessary". THAT is an ageist position.
posted by MiraK at 1:29 PM on September 29, 2023 [15 favorites]

"Boomer" just means "old fucker" now.
posted by pracowity at 1:29 PM on September 29, 2023 [11 favorites]

Maybe it's because I just bounced from the thread on it, but I feel very weird about this being on the front page the same day that Feinstein died. It's not ageist to point out that people can get to a point where they can no longer cognitively perform a highly cognitively demanding job, and I'd like to believe that this isn't a passive aggressive finger wag at people stating that, but the timing makes it hard.
posted by bookwo3107 at 1:30 PM on September 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

"However, our current understanding is that this effect is usually small."

Solotoro, yes, this is what I was paraphrasing. It's bullshit. It would be trivially easy for them to reverse the order but they won't, because they like the press they're getting based on their junk pseudoscience.
posted by MiraK at 1:32 PM on September 29, 2023

Allow me to be the exception. I'm Gen-X and have noticed a distinct trend of people in my cohort getting screened out during job applications compared to younger applicants.

Yeah this is a real thing that should be noted.

I don’t think that precludes complaint about the clustering of wealth up one end of the age range or certain political parties being in the grip of extremely rich necromancers though.

I would also note that many of the extremely rich and evil people currently making everything suck for everyone are technically Gen X themselves.

Maybe the actual problem is money, the concentration of power and capitalism itself.
posted by Artw at 1:33 PM on September 29, 2023 [11 favorites]

I predict the meaning of the word "Boomer" is going to shift from "was born in the the post-WW2 baby boom" to "is over 45" if it hasn't already.

It 100% has. Boomer is pretty much anyone over 35.
posted by pullayup at 1:38 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Boomer is pretty much anyone over 35.

So it really is becoming a problematic epithet.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:45 PM on September 29, 2023 [5 favorites]

lol. Like the kids have that much pity for the late 20s eldsters.
posted by Artw at 1:45 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Are you arguing that I'm wrong because I put 59 year-olds in the non-boomer group? Or that I included octogenarians in the Boomer group?

Yes, because it removes nuance from the discussion, implies that anyone under 60 is worthy of elected office and anybody over 60 is unworthy, regardless of their personal story or qualifications. Also, I'm arguing that epithetical word choice may be a bellwether for implicit bias. Age affects different people in different ways, and is as arbitrary as race or gender with respect to qualification for anything (other than, perhaps, breast exams or colonoscopies and the like).

Wait until you hear the name that GenZ kids call 40-somethings on TikTok. I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with "zoomer."

Though you are attempting to equate TikTok users and "GenZ kids", and then painting them both with a wide brush, I will grant you that the specific commenters to whom you are referring might have an ageism bias. They should take the test.
posted by tempestuoso at 1:47 PM on September 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

Ageism is when your first question is how old is this person and then you start forming opinions about them. Before I clicked on this thread I knew it would be riddled with ageism, as there are a lot of people here who first label someone with an age based term like boomer, and then proceed to lambaste them with criticism. It’s always age. No matter the topic in a thread at some point someone will introduce a generational term and then start criticizing. The funny thing is that the criticisms are usually human traits that exist across all ages, but for some people these traits get lumped under some common term and then applied to everybody that age. Ageism is as pernicious as other -isms that we all decry but still continue to practice. There is a reason why some people need to grow up.
posted by njohnson23 at 1:48 PM on September 29, 2023 [12 favorites]

they like the press they're getting based on their junk pseudoscience.

IATs have been around for almost three decades now. I think there are very real limitations to their validity (my results today seem to suggest to me that I sped up on the test over time through familiarity, because I don't think I have a more positive implicit view of old people than 94% of the population), but it's not some brand new clickbait on a rando website.
posted by praemunire at 1:48 PM on September 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think chess players have an implicit bias against particularly good moves, because those are the moves they spend the longest amount of time on.
posted by surlyben at 1:52 PM on September 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

WRT the "boomer" epithet, I am reminded that a number of years ago my father-in-law, who is a Silent by generational analysis, was out to breakfast with a number of his old men buddies of the generation ahead of him, and all the other old men were complaining about the actual honest-to-goodness born-soon-after-WWII Baby Boomers: about how they were feckless in this way and wrongheaded in that way. FiL made a rather dry comment about how somebody (like the Greatest Generation complainers) should have raised them better.

My takeaway from a lot of ageism discussions is 1. ageism is real; 2. it runs both ways with the olds detesting the youngs as well as vice versa; and 3. based on a number of comments from actual old folks like my sharp-as-a-tack FiL, every generation dislikes the Baby Boomers.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 1:52 PM on September 29, 2023 [9 favorites]

Not all psychologists believe the IAT is valid or useful.
As long as you make all important life decisions in about 1/10 of a second it should be fine
posted by Lanark at 1:52 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's definitely interesting to be an Xer right now, because I feel like I'm in a position to see ageism operating in both directions.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:58 PM on September 29, 2023 [25 favorites]

I can't even post a comment safely without an edit button.

I mean I have been given maybe 65 years to learn how to prepare for eternity. We should be fine with 1/10 of a second.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 1:58 PM on September 29, 2023

It's definitely interesting to be an Xer right now, because I feel like I'm in a position to see ageism operating in both directions.

I feel you on that one, A_E

my approach is to acknowledge, and move on. I don't think it's healthy to pay too much attention to a person's "generational grouping"

I'm sure I am very Gen-X in some ways but the more I reflect on stuff like that, the less human I feel. And it works on you from the inside out, pretty soon you start seeing others as demographic slices and it's all pretty bogus.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:12 PM on September 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

I predict the meaning of the word "Boomer" is going to shift from "was born in the the post-WW2 baby boom" to "is over 45" if it hasn't already.

I'm not even 40 and I've been called a boomer by the youths. I think it just means "old" now, which is always relative.
posted by selenized at 2:19 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't think it's healthy to pay too much attention to a person's "generational grouping

Hmm okay I hear what you're saying, but here is a chat I (a millennial) got from a coworker (not a millennial) just today.

You tell me we don't all have our niche.
posted by phunniemee at 2:20 PM on September 29, 2023 [7 favorites]

my approach is to acknowledge, and move on. I don't think it's healthy to pay too much attention to a person's "generational grouping"

I'm sure I am very Gen-X in some ways but the more I reflect on stuff like that, the less human I feel. And it works on you from the inside out, pretty soon you start seeing others as demographic slices and it's all pretty bogus.

Indeed.

On the plus side, one of the cool thing about being in my 50s is having friends who are 20 years older, and friends who are 20 years younger. It forces me to exercise my seeing-people-as-individuals mental muscles.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:20 PM on September 29, 2023 [10 favorites]

Hey, I had to do a couple of these for work last week, and I picked this one and the one about gay people. I don’t know that I trust the IAT (the first time I did it I had exactly the same immediate response as MiraK) but for whatever it’s worth both tests told me I had a slight bias favoring the marginalized group. What it did not tell me but what I felt is that I was abysmally slow on both, and I have to wonder if that affects the validity since this is meant to be a speed test. My executive function has taken a real hit over the last few years.
posted by eirias at 2:23 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah, as an aside, I'm super curious to see how response times have shifted since the start of the ongoing covid pandemic.
posted by aniola at 2:26 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

As far as test results go, I have a slight automatic preference for younger people. I don't think it's bunk because it was easier for me to associate young with good and old with bad than the reverse.

This doesn't indicate to me that I subconsciously think less of older people: I think I have subconscious association of old/bad and young/good.

Which is not at all surprising due to, y'know, society. It's a subtle but important distinction to me because it's a good thing to think about. It HAS been drummed into me that Old is Bad. How much of my aging millennial angst is because of that?

Of course aging is a thing that I would naturally have feelings about regardless, but I appreciate the reminder that I've been bombarded with Getting Old is Horrifying and Bad content for decades. When I'm having really negative feelings about aging, hopefully I'll remember to take a moment to figure out if the negativity is warranted or learned.

some of it is for damn sure warranted, my neck never used to hurt like this darn it
posted by Baethan at 2:35 PM on September 29, 2023

I remember in the very early 90s when the definition of GenX was being formed that it originally didn't include people born past 1974, and I was apparently GenY or whatever, it hadn't been named yet, and then later on GenX was redefined to be 1965-1980, and suddenly I was GenX, and I realized then and there that generational delineations are pretty much arbitrary and a bunch of BS.

Anyway, I took the test and apparently have no implicit bias against young or old. Which makes sense, because I run and work with a bunch of 20 and 30somethings and we all get along and also I love hanging and talking to my family friends who are 75+ and also will go see Johnny Mathis one night and Chromeo the next.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:38 PM on September 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
And now you're even older.
You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older,
And now you're older still.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:38 PM on September 29, 2023 [17 favorites]

Are you arguing that I'm wrong because I put 59 year-olds in the non-boomer group? Or that I included octogenarians in the Boomer group?

Either way, I'll grant you, I have a bias in that I believe having the oldest Senate in US history is curious at the very least, not unlike how having the hottest summer on record is curious.

I am a Gen Xer who is probably dealing with ageism in my current job hunt, but I can still oppose gerontocracy when it comes to politics. (By the way, if you are hiring a statistician or data scientist who has talent for explaining math to the less mathematically inclined, I'm available!) The median age for a U.S. Senator is 65.3 years, which is about the same as saying that the median U.S. Senator is a Boomer who was born in 1957.

There are about 48 million Millennials over 30 (e.g., the minimum age for being a U.S. Senator). There are about 65.2 million Gen Xers, 71 million Boomers, and about 18 million members of the remaining pre-Boomer generational cohorts (the Silent Generation & the Greatest Generation).

Based on Pew Charitable Trust data from 2021, there was 1 Millennial, 20 Gen Xers, 68 Boomers, and 11 pre-Boomers in the U.S. Senate at time (cite). Shouldn't representative bodies be representative? If the U.S. Senate in 2021 actually matched the age distribution of the population, we would have about 24 Millennials, 32 Gen Xers, 35 Boomers, and 9 pre-Boomers. Boomers would still be the generational cohort with the most members in terms of share of population, but they certainly wouldn't be a veto-proof majority of the Senate as a whole.

In fact, before I did this back of the envelope math, I thought I was going to be harder on the pre-Boomer cohorts, but in fact, their representation in the Senate is not that disproportionate. There are 11 pre-Boomers under the status quo, which isn't that far off from the 9 pre-Boomers who'd be in the Senate under my more "representative" model. The real gap is with the Baby Boomers. Under conditions of proportional generational representation, the Senate would 35% Boomer, which is still larger than any current generational cohort, if only because one-third of millennials haven't reach the minimum age of 30 yet. However, under the current status quo, the Senate is 68% Boomer. If it is the case that Boomers have a coherent political interest as a generational cohort, then we have a veto-proof supermajority of Boomers who can literally block any non-Boomer agenda from coming to fruition in the United States Senate.

Damn this back of the envelop math. I'm more depressed after finishing this post than when I started it.
posted by jonp72 at 2:44 PM on September 29, 2023 [19 favorites]

Came to say what Frowner said about the ageist comments on this post, and also to add that Metafilter as an entity is extremely ageist. I’ve reported ageist comments and posts here many times over the years, and I cannot remember a single instance where one was deleted or even called out. It’s the reason I don’t participate much anymore, and although no one seems to be aware of it, it’s the reason behind the disappearance of a lot of well known members who used to participate heavily. There’s so much handwringing here about why the site has shrunk so much, but when we tell you, you ignore us.

Metafilter: fuck old people
posted by MexicanYenta at 2:50 PM on September 29, 2023 [37 favorites]

The world we built for ourselves is different from the world the generations before and after us has built for themselves. It's all the same world. I don't know that it's so much a factor of age as it is about community, and we are all a part of the community we grew up in. Covid had a huge impact on this, and let's face it, there are definitely age groups that do things like bar-hopping. As the next generations trend away from things like going out to bars or clubs, their community is more likely to be online or smaller in scope.

I was at a funeral last week, at a church. I don't go to a church very often, but I grew up with it, and that community has changed A LOT. It's mostly boomers and older now...not a lot of teens, not a lot of kids (insignificant sample size, so anecdotal). We have less cross-generational interaction now.

Both my kids are Gen Z, and their friends' parents aren't part of our social group. This means we don't do things with multiple generations in the same setting very often. This got me thinking about how it used to be - my folks met a lot of people through church, and all the age groups were represented in social gatherings. Kids, grandkids, parents, grandparents all in the same space together...I don't see a lot of that anymore. Not sure why that is, but I don't get out much any more.
posted by Chuffy at 2:51 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Old people rock.

Say Hello In There.
posted by neuron at 2:51 PM on September 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

I will say this: I like knowing and being friends with people of all ages. I feel lucky for this! Ageism is super real, and I have sadly seen friends deal with ageist discrimination in hiring and firing. I'm a middle school teacher so, yes, I guess my preference is young people?! Which is good because they face a lot of ageism too. I see a lot of people in their 40s and 50s helping out people in their 60s and up; a particular example was at the DMV earlier this week. It was so heartwarming! And my pre-teens and teens tend to LOVE older people, like Boomers even more than Gen X or Millennials, because they tend to love their grandparents. One-on-one and in smaller groups, I think there's a lot of respect and appreciation across the ages. However, we all feel the pressure in society at large and it certainly affects the individual.

Ageism is especially real in terms of the message we receive about beauty, and it breaks my heart that none of us are safe from hearing its bullshit all around us. I really feel for the younger generations who are growing up with the pressure of social media: I'm a fan of social media but not the impossible beauty standards it promotes that seem nearly escapable unless someone totally opts out, which is unrealistic.
posted by smorgasbord at 2:57 PM on September 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

I remember in the very early 90s when the definition of GenX was being formed that it originally didn't include people born past 1974, and I was apparently GenY or whatever,

I remember this and remember being offended that I (b.1976) was too young to be GenX and feeling like I'd been left out of the cool kids club. Like, for real, is this because I was too young to ever see the Replacements live back in the day or whatever?

And then there was some article in that period that GenX ending at 74 and Gen Y starting at 80 and I had this extremely weird and liberating feeling that came with being forgotten and/or deemed non-existent, demographically speaking. Then they shoved us into Gen X. Then they shoved all the kids up to 81 into into Gen X. And a few years back I saw some stupid generational cohort article that tried to argue that everyone up to 85 was Gen X, which was the exact moment I realized they were going to graduate people out of the Millennial label as soon as they got too old to complain about.

So yeah, the generational rules are bullshit. The kids call everyone boomer. Ageism is absolutely real. Some of my favorite people are technically "elderly." I absolutely want young people in positions of political power and do all I can to try and convince young people to run for office. I am terrified of losing my job because I'm a few years shy of fifty and headhunters give me the long pause when I ask about trying for another job. We'll all be victims of ageism eventually if we're lucky enough to live that long, as I am reminded of all the time when I think about how young me viewed people my age now when I was still young enough to believe age would never catch up with me.
posted by thivaia at 3:52 PM on September 29, 2023 [10 favorites]

Working in tech, another aspect of ageism is that shitty employers prefer to hire young people because they can exploit their naïveté. It’s not that older people can’t do the job, it’s that they tolerate less bullshit. In that sense, stronger labor laws would benefit both old and young.

Anecdote. My spouse put a ton of time and effort into starting a tech career in their late 30’s: earned a CS master’s from a good school, did internships, spent a year in a startup, landed a FAANG engineering job… and quit a year later after being re-orged onto a team with an abusive manager who demanded 70 hour work weeks on a permanent basis and constantly threatened to fire everyone. All the young people on that team are still there, suffering through Lord of the Flies meets Agile.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 4:01 PM on September 29, 2023 [28 favorites]

In that sense, stronger labor laws would benefit both old and young.

QFMotherfuckingT
posted by thivaia at 4:06 PM on September 29, 2023 [9 favorites]

I sure wish the boomers would all retire and let some of us youngbloods* run the show a little bit.

It's fine with me. We had our chance and the world is in pretty bad shape.

Maybe the next few generations can make things better.

I sure hope so.
posted by freakazoid at 4:15 PM on September 29, 2023

I sure wish the boomers would all retire and let some of us youngbloods* run the show a little bit.

I’d love to fucking retire, if I was old enough, but I’m not. Nor is my brother, who is four years younger. And anyway, I will probably have to work until I drop dead, because contrary to popular belief, not every Baby Boomer has a fat retirement account and a pension. A whole lot of us got screwed by the system as well, and we have to figure out what we’re going to do if we get too ill to work. Also, a whole lot of us had to take major salary cuts in our mid-to-late 40’s, when society decided we were no longer valuable. So that’s what you have to look forward to.

It’s not “old people” who screw things up, it’s rich white men. Always has been, and apparently always will be.
posted by MexicanYenta at 4:49 PM on September 29, 2023 [43 favorites]

I just wish the American dream was a just society capable of taking care of even the least of us rather than fuck you I got mine.
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:57 PM on September 29, 2023 [8 favorites]

The age of certain American politicians who should get the fuck outta politics is only a side effect of the real problem: the more power you have, the easier it is to get yet more power. And there are plenty of people in the world who have an endless appetite for power. In politics, we need term limits and the elimination of big donors. In business, we need marginal tax rates that crush billionaires out of existence. Fixating on one particular demographic just means you get steamrolled by another.
posted by McBearclaw at 5:09 PM on September 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

Yeah, tech is a tough one as an old. Back when I was about 50, a decade ago, after five years of trying to find some way to replace me, they finally found someone who was able to write some software that maybe did what mine did. He was also an older guy, but he was local to the office in Tennessee, and I was in Seattle. He was the third or fourth guy to try to do what my software did. They tried to move me from an employee to a private contractor, but it was a medical device/software combo, that likely would have opened me up to personal liability should something go wrong, so I told them to pack sand. Didn't hurt that I had inherited my parent's estate the year prior, so I knew we would be OK. Felt good.

Turned out the owner sold the company off within a year to a bigger company. I assume the whole concept of what my software did was killed off. Fucking rich white guys. Spent a lot of time in hospitals the last year, and still haven't seen anything that worked as seamlessly as what ours did, but I digress.

Given that when I started that job, the dev environment for it was already dead, and was the only one I knew, I knew I wasn't going to get hired as a 50+ year old who was just learning the new language whatever employer was using. And knowing I wasn't going to put up with the above-mentioned 70 hour work weeks anymore.

Now at 60, I can't imagine anyone hiring me for anything more than a Costco greeter or something...
posted by Windopaene at 5:24 PM on September 29, 2023 [5 favorites]

I’ll admit I struggle to enjoy the company of most young people.

They say a lot of nonsensical stuff (my nephew tried to convince me that the President is ‘King of America, sigh) and I either have to stay silent and let chattering inanity rule the day, or say something and cast myself as an ‘old’.

I’m 51 and my 70+ friends treat me like a kid. The kids think I’m ancient.

I’m a tattooer so that throws some kind of wrench in the works too. Like yeah it’s legal for this 18 year old to get tattooed but man I’m not the one.

They just look like babies to me.

YOU MUST BE OLDER THAN MY CURE T SHIRT TO GET TATTOOED
posted by chronkite at 5:37 PM on September 29, 2023 [17 favorites]

This is difficult for me, because otoh, I don't want to be ageist. But OTOH, I sure wish the boomers would all retire and let some of us youngbloods* run the show a little bit.

*And by youngbloods I mean anyone under sixty.

As a teenager with my first job in mid-eighties, I was told essentially, "It's not much, but keep in mind that in a few years the baby boomers will start retiring and the good jobs will all open up."

Smash cut to title card:

FORTY
YEARS
LATER

posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:38 PM on September 29, 2023 [23 favorites]

Boomer is pretty much anyone over 35.

so ... never trust anyone under thirty-five?
posted by philip-random at 6:12 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

As it's used in retorts like "ok, boomer!" it doesn't even refer to age. You can "ok, boomer" someone that's younger than you. In that sense, it means something closer to "deluded and out-of-touch." 35? 20? 16? Doesn't Matter.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:18 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

As it's used in retorts like "ok, boomer!" it doesn't even refer to age. You can "ok, boomer" someone that's younger than you. In that sense, it means something closer to "deluded and out-of-touch."

JFC, do you not see how that’s even worse?!? Because that’s using a slang term for a generation as an insult. It’s disgusting the same way using cunt or twat as an insult is disgusting - using a slang term for vaginas as an insult implies that vaginas are bad. Using Boomer as an insult implies that being a Baby Boomer is bad.
posted by MexicanYenta at 6:28 PM on September 29, 2023 [10 favorites]

I wasn't commenting on whether it's good or not. I was merely unpacking how the term is used. Some arbitrary cutoff like "Anyone over 35" is missing the point.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:34 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah there’s an implication that being a boomer, or Gen-x, or older in general is bad. Specifically that as a generational cohort or set or cohorts you’ve selfishly consumed everything, fucking up the world, leaving later generations high and dry while simultaneously scorning them for not doing as well as you.

Honestly kind of hard to rebutt. Not all boomers I guess.
posted by Artw at 6:49 PM on September 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

It is a bit dismaying that, even on the blue, there are a lot of people who think that ageism is the acceptable prejudice. I had my own incident where I called out someone's ageism--they were accusing boomers and only boomers of something bad, when it should have been clear that plenty of younger people were involved--and got my comment deleted and was scolded by a mod whom I'd previously had a lot of respect for. And the really sad thing, IMO, is that to me it's pretty clear that the oligarchs encourage this sort of thing because they love it when we fight each other instead of keeping the attention and pressure on them.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:12 PM on September 29, 2023 [17 favorites]

IATs have been around for almost three decades now. I think there are very real limitations to their validity (my results today seem to suggest to me that I sped up on the test over time through familiarity, because I don't think I have a more positive implicit view of old people than 94% of the population), but it's not some brand new clickbait on a rando website.

IATs are more in the “can’t believe this is still taken seriously” category than the “brand new clickbait” category.
posted by atoxyl at 7:16 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

fucking up the world, leaving later generations high and dry while simultaneously scorning them for not doing as well as you.

Honestly kind of hard to rebutt

Pretty easy to rebut that any of this is actually specific to any particular generational cohort.
posted by atoxyl at 7:22 PM on September 29, 2023 [9 favorites]

I’ve become increasingly convinced that my own (Millennials) is going to be almost as hated by our successors as the Boomers and equally baffled by it.
posted by atoxyl at 7:25 PM on September 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think there's a missed moment of increasing class and anti-oppressive solidarity by being mindful of our own biases - it's a value that I should work on more strongly as I often find myself thinking ageist thoughts at work and in life that are unhelpful and lead to poorer judgement calls

With that said, I think I might take exception to the idea of 'ageism' in the same way that one might say a POC cannot be racist (but can be a bigot). If you were to point to the levers of power everywhere from academic to corporate leadership, political and military, and so on, there are, as far as I can tell, mostly geriatric hands in control. Even beyond that, you could point to the polling locations inside of senior living facilities and the provisions of social security and tax-protected retirement savings allowing, too, the ability to not have to take time off to vote all of which leads to much higher percentages of voter turnout in the elderly populations. So in such a society where older folks have a much larger share of power you could argue that there are, perhaps, more pressing concerns within the spectrum of ageism

Like, for eg, the general disregard and minimizing of younger people (gen alpha and zoomers in particular). The general disdain and hatred of TikTok does have legitimacy - but it's also a lie to say that a lot of it isn't rooted in just dismissiveness towards what younger folks value. Also given that their population is also the one going through the extremely exploitative ritual of aging known as having a shitty job and getting paid worse than shit wages for it paired with little to no political power at the polls (or anywhere else), there are bigger concerns

I know for me, I experience some of this too at the intersection of race and age. I look much younger than I am and in being so much younger, my voice and my thoughts lean towards being overlooked with my points requiring much more substantiation than someone who is quite a bit older

So I do think you can be bigoted towards older folks in extremely unhelpful ways that get in the way of class and anti-oppressive solidarity in the same way that having bigoted assumptions about white people writ large would entail the same. But I would not agree that in the big picture the elderly face the most oppression or are suffering the worst out of all the age brackets and I think that's the point that folks are maybe trying to make here
posted by paimapi at 7:29 PM on September 29, 2023 [5 favorites]

I’ve become increasingly convinced that my own (Millennials) is going to be almost as hated by our successors as the Boomers and equally baffled by it.

I am sorry to say that ship has sailed. Into port. Already. Which works for management of all ages because divide and conquer.
posted by y2karl at 7:58 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Pretty easy to rebut that any of this is actually specific to any particular generational cohort.

Yeah, but they’re the last generational cohort.
posted by Artw at 8:01 PM on September 29, 2023

This may skirt the edge of derail, but given that I'm speed sailing direct to crone island, that boomer/vagina comment above reminded me that I'd be 1000% up for MetaPause as a spinoff site. Because, girl, these hot flashes . . .
posted by thivaia at 8:28 PM on September 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

With that said, I think I might take exception to the idea of 'ageism' in the same way that one might say a POC cannot be racist (but can be a bigot).

Race and age are not the same kind of category. People don't start out BIPOC and turn into white people over time. Age is fundamentally biological in a way that race is not. Race is "inherited" in a sense as it is "passed along" through our narrative of parenthood and kinship; age is not inherited except in the original-sin-born-to-die sense. We can't just assume that all major social categories that impact people's social status map onto each other.


~~~
Contra some assumptions in this thread, "ageism" isn't primarily "we as a society don't like old people; it's that after about forty people face increasing discrimination economically and socially because of their age. Ageism isn't primarily "someone said something mean about a boomer"; it's "no one wants an admin who isn't young and sexy, so women who have spent their entire careers in pink collar labor find it harder and harder to find and keep jobs".

If you are a member of a marginalized group and you are rich enough, you can obviate many of the problems of marginalization. If you're a multi-millionaire, it doesn't matter if no one wants to hire you after you turn fifty-five, because you have lots of money already.

~~
Also, aging is a physical process that happens to everyone. It happens unevenly - if you're marginalized in other ways or genetically unlucky or got a bad illness in youth, it happens faster and worse, and if you don't have access to good medical care it happens faster and worse,but no amount of money means that you don't weaken and die. People who are trans aren't physically weaker because they are trans; people who are eighty-five are physically weaker because they are eighty-five, even if they're pretty strong for their age. It's not opinion, it's literal physical fact. That means that as we age we have completely unavoidable material needs that increase over time and we become less capable over time. We become more vulnerable over time - physically and often mentally.

It is flatly ridiculous to assert that the people who are increasingly frail and need increasing levels of care are, because of their identity as old people, an oppressor class the way white people are. The precariously housed eighty year old who can't afford medical care even if she can figure out a way to get to the doctor simply does not benefit from her age the way even the most marginalized white person benefits from their whiteness. An old, frail person is worse off because of their age.
posted by Frowner at 8:30 PM on September 29, 2023 [24 favorites]

As a tail end boomer, I've benefitted from the huge amount of public money that was spent catering to the ME generation. They're inarguably the most spoiled demographic in human history but over the last decade or so, they've started talking like they lived through the Great Depression and fought WWII. Fucking frauds, the lot of them.
posted by brachiopod at 8:31 PM on September 29, 2023 [8 favorites]

It's not ageist to point out that people can get to a point where they can no longer cognitively perform a highly cognitively demanding job,

It’s important for us to note that this is exactly ageist. Because it equates age with cognitive impairment - which are sometimes correlated but still very distinct things. People of all ages can be significantly cognitively impaired, and dementia can onset by the 50d, easily, meanwhile, a great many people in their 80s and 90s remain cognitively sharp. Cognitive function is a health issue that does not perfectly map to age. So asserting that just because someone is old means they no longer cognitively function is, well, ageist.
posted by Miko at 8:37 PM on September 29, 2023 [22 favorites]

Also, "having an unfair advantage and/or stupid ideas because of the economic moment that your cohort went through adulthood" is not the same as "old people are all rich and selfish and bigotry against the old is impossible". What if you were, eg, seventy in 1955? Young enough to get stuck serving in WWI, lost your economic stability in the Great Depression when you were too old to start over - are you oppressing young people because of the power that your age brings? Or are you kind of screwed because of the way your age and the economy intersect?

Also, if it were 1985 and (a sizeable minority of) the boomers were just getting solidly entrenched in yuppie Reaganism and people criticized their generation, would that be about age, or would it be about the intersection of a generation with various economic and political moments?

You can certainly say, for instance, that there's a sourness, an inward turning and a meanness that characterize a lot of Gen X culture (I think that's true, speaking as a younger Xer) but that has absolutely fuck-all to do with pink collar workers losing their jobs when they hit forty and the CEO wants a sexier sec.
posted by Frowner at 8:45 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

Well the old world may be dead
Our parents can't understand
But I still love my parents
And I still love the old world
Oh, I had a New York girlfriend
And she couldn't understand how I could
Still love my parents and still love the old world
So I told her
I want to keep my place in the old world
Keep my place in the arcane
'Cause I still love my parents and I still love the old world
Alright
posted by credulous at 9:47 PM on September 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

I am sorry to say that ship has sailed. Into port. Already. Which works for management of all ages because divide and conquer.

Oh, I know Milennial hate (from younger folks) is already a thing, that’s why I’ve been thinking about this. One major precipitating factor behind Boomer hate (and probably the one that explains why it’s become a catch-all epithet for “old person “) is just how culturally dominant they have been for so long. As the next biggest generation, we’re next. And the other big ones are the perception that they had it so good when they were young yet don’t appreciate it and don’t appreciate the struggles of younger people, and the perception that they think they were so revolutionary but actually fucked things up. For us I feel like it’s gonna be more that we were the last ones who could have turned things around, and talked like we were so principled, but still fucked it up, and when they come at us about it we’re just going to try futilely to deflect blame to the Boomers. And a lot of us are already getting snotty about Zoomer culture even though it’s not even really that different (though of course this goes both directions).
posted by atoxyl at 9:58 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

Just wait till YOU’RE a boomer, sonny…
posted by ducky l'orange at 11:13 PM on September 29, 2023

Mod note: One ageist comment removed.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:37 AM on September 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

I see agism in a lot of directions. It's notable that it took a very long time to even get started on later start times for high school, even after it was known that a lot of people that age *can't* get enough sleep if they have to wake up early.

On the other hand, I remember-- it's not so long ago-- when there seemed to be a consensus that if the boomers would just die off, racism would be solved. I'm not sure why I stopped seeing that stuff. I suspect someone noticed there were young neo-Nazis rather than realizing just what they were saying about boomers.

I think naming the generations has made agism more fine-grained.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:07 AM on September 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Describing people by their generation is about as accurate as astrology. "Oh, you're a Zoomer, but a cusp Millennial! That explains so much about you!"

No. If you know a person's age, gender, education, wealth, race, religion, nationality, voting record, etc., you might know a little about that person's character, but you won't get much just by knowing someone was born somewhere in a broad range of years.
posted by pracowity at 3:50 AM on September 30, 2023 [9 favorites]

So, back to the test.

WTF was that test actually measuring? I bailed on it about 3/4 of the way through, as it seemed to have fuck-all to do with measuring ageism and entirely to do with memory and following increasingly-convoluted directions correctly. It struck me as a more vicious version of the sort of test a doctor throws at someone showing early signs of dementia.

.....
One ageist comment removed.

Only one?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:10 AM on September 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Of course ageism is a thing, because ableism is a thing. We are all going to become some degree of disabled, if we get old enough, some of us sooner than others. And this (=everywhere) is no country for the disabled.

Workplace age discrimination has an additional component. Some employers don't employ older people for the same reason some guys don't date older woman - less easy to fool with empty promises, less easy to exploit. But it's often committed by the old against the equally old, or just marginally older. (I got back into teaching, partly, because I know this is something they will let me do as long as I can stand it). The -ism is coming from inside the house.

I'm less upset about the resentment coming from the kids; it won't solve anything either, it's too diffuse to accomplish much and in that sense misdirected, surely, a waste of energy and a distraction, just playing into the hands of the real culprits, who benefit from "divide and conquer", but looking at the world we'll be leaving to them, I can see where it's coming from.

I do agree that we're losing opportunities for multi-generational social interaction and exchange, and I think that's a big problem. I've always been very glad to have people of all ages in my social circle and I think that everyone who's chiefly interacting only with their own age cohort lives a very impoverished life.
posted by sohalt at 5:34 AM on September 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

People try to put us down...
posted by Reverend John at 7:02 AM on September 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Just tossing in a reminder that "generations" demarcations as we're using them here (Greatest / Silent / Boomers / X / Millennials / etc.) are mostly applicable to white Americans and of more and more questionable use the further you get from white Americans.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:17 AM on September 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

Reverend John: People try to put us down...

just because we've been around.
posted by Too-Ticky at 8:26 AM on September 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm guessing this was posted in response to the comments about Feinstein's legacy in the other front page post, and I just want to say:

You don't hate old Democrats.

You hate rich Democrats.
posted by AlSweigart at 8:32 AM on September 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

I was thinking it was posted at least partially in response to this MetaTalk post.
posted by box at 8:40 AM on September 30, 2023

Whenever I'm feeling annoyed at young people I just use the word yeet incorrectly and tell them they're cringe for pointing it out and it makes me feel better
posted by rouftop at 9:10 AM on September 30, 2023 [9 favorites]

My dad is the oldest boomer cohort and 76. My mom is the youngest at 79. Boomers aren't taking your jobs.
posted by atomicstone at 9:19 AM on September 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

I mean, they're not taking my job because I don't have enough senority to compete for roles (no pun intended), but my boomer parents just retired a few years ago and the youngest are still in the workforce. It's 59-77.
posted by Selena777 at 9:42 AM on September 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Welp, if nothing else this prompted me to remove all age-related info from my profile here.
posted by skyscraper at 10:04 AM on September 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

My dad is the oldest boomer cohort and 76. My mom is the youngest at 79.

Exsqueeze me? Call me innumerate but oldest... and 76 and youngest at 79 sounds somewhat Bizarro to these ears. Typo, time travel or higher math by another means? Please MeMail me soonest if the last -- I am intrigued.
posted by y2karl at 11:15 AM on September 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

gentlyepigrams In my experience, American POC definitely reference and subscribe to mainstream definitions of generations. I will say that there may be a difference in perception. For instance, when i think of Boomers, i think of the people who fought for civil rights, so there's less of a knee jerk "born on third base" thing and some reverence.
posted by Selena777 at 5:58 PM on September 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

No epithets. No grouping according to some arbitrary labeling system that came from (?). No blame. No accusations etc.

A simple question(s). Can they do the job? Are they doing the job?

Let's see...

Business... here.

Arts/etc... here, here (slightly out of date due to deaths!)

Music... here (rock).

Politicians (USA)... here. And here (interesting).

Politicians (global - out of date)... here. More up to date here.

Religious leaders ... exactly HOW OLD should a religious leader be? When is 'too old'

I could go on but, put simply, when someone declares that [insert appropriate age related epithet here] I would say 'Show me what skills, knowledge, experience you have that makes you think you are capable of doing the job in question'.

Equally, when an advertiser places a job advertisement asking for specific skills [must have x years of], when is 'x years plus y' too much OR you expect someone who is 'age challenged' ('too young' / 'too old') to match their specific needs. Often someone straight out of college could not possibly have the skills/knowledge/experience requested. Equally, at what point does having 'too much experience' not be considered an ageist comment?

NOTE: I am over 60. I am fit, fit enough to pass most military enrollment physicals. Highly skilled - hardware, software, business management, project management etc.

What I am seeing is the lamentations of a specific age-range of individuals who have consistently been rewarded for being there and simply turning up now lamenting the fact that, on the cusp or over 40, now are facing the "thank you for you application but we have found other candidates with skills more in line for what we are looking for" responses to their job applications.

Welcome to the world of "Olds". Live with it...
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 6:48 PM on September 30, 2023

on the cusp or over 40, now are facing the "thank you for you application but we have found other candidates with skills more in line for what we are looking for"

years ago, when I was in my twenties, I was refused for inclusion in a training program (specific to an industry where I had proven experience and accomplishments) because I was deemed too young (ie: they wanted thirty-somethings). Maybe ten years later, I was refused for a similar program because I was now deemed too old (ie: they were now focusing on twenty-somethings).

Sometimes, the demographics just hate you.
posted by philip-random at 7:10 PM on September 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

In 2021, 55.7 million Americans were age 65 and older. Half of all older adults had less than $27,382 in yearly income from all sources.

Pension Rights Center -- Income of Today’s Older Adults

posted by y2karl at 7:30 PM on September 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

In 2021, 55.7 million Americans were age 65 and older. Half of all older adults had less than $27,382 in yearly income from all sources.

This, to me, is the most interesting thing about our current gerontocracy -- most ruling institutions like the senate and the presidency and so on are loaded up with the senior-to-very-senior age group. But, they are in no way running things to benefit the majority of people in that age category. (If they were, there would be robust age protections in the workplace, and social security would get better and better every year.) We're getting all the negatives of having the higher reaches of power clogged up, but without the benefit of knowing they were at least securing our own elderly futures.

That low median average income is matched with equally low median retirement savings. I'm as on board with all the "OK boomer" jokes as anyone, but all the real boomers I know aren't exactly jetting off of lavish vacations.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:09 PM on September 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

For instance, when i think of Boomers, i think of the people who fought for civil rights, so there's less of a knee jerk "born on third base" thing and some reverence.

Thank you for this example of how the cohort period demographics may be similar but the experiences are not! It drives me a little nuts that so many folks take the pop version of generational discourse around white people as the end-all and be-all when it's not.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:33 PM on September 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

I hope people will understand why I don't really give a shit if I seem "ageist" when I object to my country being run by short sighted, selfish, elderly, people who won't live to see the consequences of their policies is right up there in intellectual and moral rigor with The Jews control Wall Street to my mind -- a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing.

All apart from the fact that if someone here were to talk such shit about BIPOC, gay or trans people the same way, they would gone the day before yesterday. But old people? Feel free to talk shit about them. It's open season all the time. Feel free to other us. You have the tacit looking away permission of staff, owner and apparently the bulk of the community.
posted by y2karl at 8:40 PM on September 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

I am a Gen Xer who is probably dealing with ageism in my current job hunt, but I can still oppose gerontocracy when it comes to politics. ... Shouldn't representative bodies be representative?

I have some issues with the way the term "gerontocracy" has been thrown around a lot lately. This seems like a case in point. Sure, representative bodies should be representative, but there are different ways of defining what that means. Probably one of the most important ways that representative bodies should be representative is that members should be elected by the people they represent. And guess what? All those old people got there because people elected them.

And elected them recently! Senators don't serve 20-year terms -- they serve 6-year terms. So if you don't like your senator, you can vote for someone else within 6 years at the most. Now, you'll have to persuade a bunch of other people to vote for that person too. But if you fail to do so, it doesn't automatically mean that the Senate is undemocratic. It means that most voters in your state thought their senator was doing a decent job, and were content to have them continue in that role.

I realize that there are ways in which the Senate is in fact undemocratic. But that's more about all states getting 2 senators, regardless of their populations, than it is about the ages of senators.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:06 PM on September 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'll add that I find it even more problematic when people point to Nancy Pelosi as an example of "gerontocracy". She has gone before the voters of her district every *2* years! And they keep sending her back to the House... because they obviously think she's doing a good job!

And how did she get to be speaker, twice? Because her fellow House Democrats -- all elected by their own constituents every 2 years -- elected her to that position. That's not gerontocracy -- that's straight-up democracy.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:09 PM on September 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

You know what seems undemocratic and unrepresentative to me, tho? Saying that "everyone over X age should be forced out of public service -- even if the voters of their districts elected them, and want to keep electing them."
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:11 PM on September 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

Or term limits.
posted by Artw at 9:15 PM on September 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

And how did she get to be speaker, twice? Because her fellow House Democrats -- all elected by their own constituents every 2 years -- elected her to that position. That's not gerontocracy -- that's straight-up democracy.

That is assuming rather a lot.
posted by Artw at 9:19 PM on September 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

What am I assuming, exactly? Was Pelosi not in fact made speaker by her fellow House Dems? Or were they not elected by their constituents?
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:23 PM on September 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

That the Democratic Party is mostly controlled by millionaires in their 70s because progressives really like that and not because of the politics of entrenched power, winnowing of the bench, encumbancy effect etc… basically everything you’ve ignored.

That’s wild.
posted by Artw at 9:37 PM on September 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

I never mentioned "progressives". I was talking about Dem voters, broadly. There are about as many moderates in the Dem voter base as people who could be plausibly labeled "progressives".

Some progressives are unfortunately unaware of this, and consequently come up with mistaken theories about why Dem politicians do not cater exclusively or primarily to them.

It is true that people who have more experience are better at navigating the system. This is not so much a conspiracy as a pretty much inevitable reality of any system.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:24 AM on October 1, 2023

Mod note: One deleted: In a discussion of ageism, using the most hyperbolic terms to refer to old people as horrific monsters. Really?
posted by taz (staff) at 12:59 AM on October 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

The state of the senate, etc, is about as "representative" as American politics generally. Why is medicare for all impossible when it's popular? Why are we worsening the climate crisis? Why did the MPLS city council stage a vote on Eid to exclude its Muslim members and vote down a rent control ballot measure?

Now, obviously, there have been many times in this country's history where the "popular" will has been monstrous; I'm not saying that the people are good.

But "democracy" in this country is mostly about putting the brakes on anything that helps those in need at the expense of wealthy-to-obscenely-wealthy. It's about giving working people the minimum to keep them from pitchforking the wealthy, and the wealthy have just about figured out that with enough Cop Cities and propaganda you don't need to give working people much at all.

People aren't voting between Feinstein and a broad range of equally well-funded and connected candidates with a range of ages and positions; they're voting between Feinstein and people who are either dramatically weaker and less wealthy or obviously much worse, sometimes both. I mean, show me Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and I'll vote for Biden every time; that does not mean that I think he's able to respond to the crises facing this country.

~~
As to democracy and representation, one thing I believe very deeply is that it is extremely, extremely difficult for people to understand and deal with the concerns of a group they're not members of, especially if they are not working as equals with members of that group. Just as I would not want a senate full of people too young to worry about aging, or a senate of only men, I do not want a senate whose most powerful members are past retirement age, especially people who are totally unrepresentatively wealthy.

The interests of a very rich seventy-five year old, no matter how generous they are to their family, no matter how much they give to charity, no matter how nice they are personally, just don't have the horizon of the interests of a thirty-five year old. Someone who is seventy five and wealthy doesn't have to worry about good medical care or assistance as they get frailer or having a comfortable climate-secure home, and they are unlikely to need to worry about anything at all more than twenty years out.

History shows us that even a good, kind, decent person doesn't have the same urgency when working on issues that do not affect them personally. (And ask yourself, if you do any volunteer work or activism on an issue that is not mostly about your concerns, do you have the same urgency as the people most affected by the problem you work on? I don't, I can't.)

This is why I would not want, like, a Council of Youngs setting all policy, and similarly, I do not like it when our most powerful people are all old, almost all white, all very rich. If you tell me to choose between the rich conservative or the rich fascist, I will choose the conservative every time, but that's not democracy, it's blackmail.

Anyway, this is not about ageism. If you think the problem is that Old People Are Bad, I have such Proud Boys to show you.
posted by Frowner at 5:32 AM on October 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

I'd like to check a theory. Part of what happened to have a minority of older people stuck at the top is that health care got just a little better. With an extra ten or twenty years of healthspan (not great, necessarily, but not falling over) there was no urgent need to hand power over to younger people.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:54 AM on October 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I suggest we retire the term "ageism" because it is not actually used to describe discrimination based on age, but rather is a weaponized term used to silence people who object to our defacto Gerontocracy.

Note, for example, that when Biden expresses his deeply held hatred and disdain for anyone younger than him no one describes that has ageism. When Biden aggressively entered the personal space of a young person to shove his finger in her face and screech at her for daring to ask him a question that was not described as ageist.

When elderly people vote to impoverish younger people this is not described as agesit.

When elderly people vote to kill young people via climate change this is not described as ageist.

The term does not refer to the actual discrimination many older people face, it's exclusively a silencing term deployed against people who voice opposition to the elderly oppressor class.

This is not, as some here have said, a question of value or worth. It is a question of hoarding.

I do not argue that the elderly are unworthy of power, but rather that they have hoarded it and by refusing to share they are harming our nation.

Intergenerational transfer of power is one of the more critical things a society has to do, and America has decided to deal with that problem by not doing it. The same people who held power in the 1990's hold power today. The same people who held power in the 1980's hold power today.

And America is suffering for it.

We lost Roe because Ruth Bader Ginsberg clung to her power so desperately she preferred to die in office and let young women suffer under Republican misrule than to gracefully bow out and let a younger person take her place.

We have lost dozens of judicial appointments, and will likely lose more, because Sen Feinstein clung so desperately to power and forced the Democrats to pin their control of the judiciary committee on her health and presence.

When Obama was elected it was the first time in my entire life that the election did not center around the fucking Vietnam war. I held the foolish belief that we'd finally gotten past that and going forward politics wouldn't be dominated by people for whom Vietnam was the only thing that mattered.

But no, then we got Trump v Clinton and Trump v Biden both of which involved fucking Vietnam.

Why?

Because the elderly oppressor class won't let go.

We see retirement age keep going up. Why? Because the elderly are pulling the ladder up after them. They'd rather younger people suffer than share the wealth.

I'm 48. I'm hardly young. But I know for a stone cold certain fact that I will never collect one penny from Social Security. The elderly have been pulling up the ladder, they won't let us pass the laws that could actually fix it. Instead they'd rather watch me die of poverty when I'm old myself.

The sheer malicious hatred the elderly exhibit towards younger people is staggering.

They want to kill us via climate change.

They want to make us poor.

They want to keep us from retiring.

They want to let us die from lack of healthcare.

Yet, because "ageism" is a weaponized term that exists only to attempt to shame critics into silence, no one describes any of the vicious attacks on the young by the old as ageism.

The real thing, actual genuine discrimination in the workplace based on age, is important and bad. But we can't talk about that because the word that used to be useful for discussing that issue has been turned into a political cudgel wielded against anyone under the age of 60.
posted by sotonohito at 9:19 AM on October 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

There’s an actual real problem, which we’ve touched on briefly, but it does seem like we’d prefer to use the term to pretend some other problems don’t exist/you’re a bad person if you mention them.
posted by Artw at 9:35 AM on October 1, 2023

Also there’s a difference between being “elderly” and “rich and in power for a long time”.
posted by Artw at 9:37 AM on October 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Artw Sure. My mother is elderly.

But as a bloc the elderly vote to enrich themselves and fuck everyone else.

This is not a criticism of any specific old people, merely an observation that as a group America's elderly have chosen not to share power and have chosen to use the power they hoard to hurt everyone younger than them to the maximum extent they can without a revolution.
posted by sotonohito at 10:04 AM on October 1, 2023

The sheer malicious hatred the elderly exhibit towards younger people is staggering.

They want to kill us via climate change.

They want to make us poor.

They want to keep us from retiring.

They want to let us die from lack of healthcare.

Yet, because "ageism" is a weaponized term that exists only to attempt to shame critics into silence, no one describes any of the vicious attacks on the young by the old as ageism.

Um... yeah, right.
posted by y2karl at 10:08 AM on October 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

In the experience of regular non-master of the universe/c-suite older people, if you lose your job in between say 50 and 65 and have to find a new one are you SOL, or are employers fine with hiring you? The arguments about raising the retirement age are based on an assumption of the latter being true and I don't trust it.
posted by Selena777 at 10:09 AM on October 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

OTOH there’s a fair chance you have a house and a pension, something a lot of people younger than me will never see. And the basic math of it is if you don’t fall off line-goes-up economics you’re going to get more from it as time progresses, and whoever gets on earlier gets less.

We do seem to be conflating by a number of things here to get the least useful possible outcome.
posted by Artw at 10:23 AM on October 1, 2023

Um... yeah, right.

To expand on this point, the Wikipedia page on ageism literally has a photo of Greta Thunberg.
posted by aniola at 10:54 AM on October 1, 2023

In other words, see also Donald Trump on racism and who is a racist to understand how these things always equally go both ways.
posted by y2karl at 11:26 AM on October 1, 2023

I suggest we retire the term "ageism" because it is not actually used to describe discrimination based on age, but rather is a weaponized term used to silence people who object to our defacto Gerontocracy.

Yikes. Maybe try substituting "racism" or "antisemitism" in that sentence and see how it sounds.

Note, for example, that when Biden expresses his deeply held hatred and disdain for anyone younger than him

WTAF?

[Citations needed]
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:54 AM on October 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

Note, for example, that when Biden expresses his deeply held hatred and disdain for anyone younger than him

WTAF?

That was a total head scratcher for me, too.
posted by y2karl at 11:56 AM on October 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Citations needed indeed.
posted by y2karl at 12:01 PM on October 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Joe Biden on problems faced by people younger than him "give me a break man!"

Joe Biden when questioned by people younger than him: yells and stick fingers in their faces.

Joe Biden tries to kill Social Security before people younger than him can get it.

Joe Biden says he would personally veto any bill that extended the healthcare old people get to young people.

Joe Biden has never pretended to have anything but contempt for people younger than him.

Our government is by, of, and for the elderly.

And so far our government has passed laws that impoverish young people, laws that doom young people to death via climate change, laws that will keep young people from retiring, and laws to deny young people healthcare.

Obviously elderly people aren't cackling with glee at the thought of hurting young people. But regardless of their attitude, what they are DOING is voting to kill, hurt, impoverish, and inflict illness on people younger than them.

If the elderly wished to strengthen Social Security so people my age, much less people my son's age, could enjoy its benefits they could. Instead our gerontocracy has chosen to pump Social Security dry and assure that me and my child will pay into it but never get anything back.

If the elderly wished to prevent their children and grandchildren from dying by climate change they could. Instead they pass laws to hasten the climate catastrophe and assure it will be impossible to avoid.

Again, it's not like there was HB 102 Fuck Young People that passed or anything, but the effect of the laws the oppressor class passes is to hurt, kill, and impoverish young people.

And you sling maliciously false and weaponized accusations of "ageism" when younger people dare to suggest that perhaps their elders shouldn't be working quite so hard to fuck them over.

Here's a thought: Maybe if our gerontocracy let a bit of power go and actually HELPED younger people for a change there might not be so much resentment against the elderly power mongers who abuse us so much!

And can I add that I'm fucking horrified that at 48 I'm in the position of being a "young person" in comparison to those who have power? Consider how utterly fucked up that is. I'm practically half a century old and I'm "the youth" to our rulers.

Artifice_Eternity You can make any argument sound preposterous or evil by
substituting words, that's not really a great metric.
posted by sotonohito at 12:59 PM on October 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

I fail to see how first totally flipping out nastygrammatically and then doubling down when challenged contributes to the site or conversation. Four years old links from mostly right-wing websites is kinda like a drowning well digger grasping at straws in a cave in sort of move. Convincing it is not.
posted by y2karl at 1:41 PM on October 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Joe Biden has never pretended to have anything but contempt for people younger than him.

This kind of bizarre, sweeping, extreme generalization is just so obviously false.

Joe Biden has, throughout his career, expressed praise and positivity for people younger than him on numerous occasions.

And as y2karl said, those links appear to be low-quality, highly slanted, cherrypicked "evidence" from right-leaning sites like The Hill, The Intercept, and Vice. Maybe that's actually where you're coming from -- some kind of conservatarian perspective? It doesn't seem like it, but if not, maybe you shouldn't rely on those kinds of sources uncritically.

And so far our government has passed laws that impoverish young people, laws that doom young people to death via climate change, laws that will keep young people from retiring, and laws to deny young people healthcare.

Biden has personally done more than any previous president to fight climate change and accelerate the transition to renewable energy. I follow energy and environmental policy for a living, and I've posted about the Biden administration's achievements in this area numerous times over the last couple of years... check my comment and post history for details.

He's also engineered more student debt relief than any previous president, in spite of persistent opposition and sabotage from the right. And he's pushed to make the child tax credits included in COVID relief measures permanent... again, in spite of opposition from the right.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:34 PM on October 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

Evil gerontocrats discussing their plans to destroy the planet:

Earlier this month, President Biden personally sent word to Carter that he had moved to protect millions of acres in Alaska and canceled oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

“Biden knows how much this means to him,” said his son James Earl “Chip” Carter III, who took the White House call.

Jimmy Carter has described the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act as one of the most important achievements of his presidency and was angry when Donald Trump opened the Arctic refuge to oil drilling. More recently, at the age of 97, Carter filed a lawsuit to block the construction of a road through the Alaska wilderness.

posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:16 PM on October 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

I’ve spent a not insignificant portion of my personal and professional life working with elderly people who are hoarding neither power nor property. I have no end of Boomer-related quibbles myself but feel like some of you must be hanging out with lots of silvery-mustache twirlers because an awful lot of old people I meet are still struggling to pay for medical care even with Medicare and insurance, effectively priced out od most retirement/assisted living/skilled nursing communities, and are dependent on (often understandably aggrieved) family members for care and community, after a few years when most of them swerve disproportionately affected, isolated and dying from the pandemic.

I’m not psyched about voting for a president who is older than my parents (and technically older than a Boomer) either, but surprisingly(?) neither are plenty of the left-leaning folks at the senior center.

Having a lot of money tends to cushion you from having to worry about the things that most people worry about. That’s true not matter how old you are. And while I’m aware that the Boomers are collectively holding on to plenty of wealth, there are rich assholes at every age. The people in my general are stirring up shit about banning books and keeping kids away from drag queens and stopping affordable housing projects from
Getting built too close to their 4000 square foot Tesla garage are 35-50 I mean, Ron DeSantis is 45. I’m not saying that gets Biden off the hook but the notion that everyone over a certain age is somehow automatically adjunct to evil the world is absolutely bananas.
.
posted by thivaia at 3:56 PM on October 1, 2023 [9 favorites]

I probably don't have enough retirement savings. Ageism, sexism and ableism made me leave a job I was good at, liked and paid okay because it made me ill. My jobs since then have been underpaid. Sexism and ageism have been evident. Ableism, too. So I may end up in some crappy situation because of this. I can still do terrific work, I'm still smart, I have a great work ethic and an awful lot of common sense. There's a genuine shortage of employees in tons of areas. It would make sense for companies to recruit geezers. Some of us want part-time work and a lot of use will accept flexible scheduling. Every worker deserves fair pay, benefits, and respect.

I think a lot of the current hate for old people is being used to create discord in general and distract from a lot of bad things that are happening, like Peak capitalism and the transfer of wealth to the already very wealthy. Yep, lots of geezers in the Richie Rich group, but the real struggle is rich vs. not rich. Class warfare and corruption. I choose to fight that battle with more vigor than old vs. young. and not just because I'm immature.
posted by theora55 at 5:29 PM on October 1, 2023 [10 favorites]

If I'm coming off as a right winger than I've clearly gone so far off the rails that any point I had is long lost.

Sorry for being an asshole and shitting up a post.
posted by sotonohito at 6:00 PM on October 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

As someone said to me in a MeMail:

I'm glad you're speaking up. I wish I thought it could do some good. But the anti-old people narrative is just way too strong and unexamined, I'm afraid.

Too true that. As for someone's But Greta Thunberg! comment implying ageism going both ways, oh please. It's never been anything but strictly one way here. And we all know which direction that is.
posted by y2karl at 11:15 AM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

People that are normally good at spotting how powerful actoirs use identity differences to create political division that works to undermine potential coalitions often fail to notice that in action when it comes to age cohorts.
posted by Miko at 11:39 AM on October 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

Judging anyone categorically is the fallacy of composition/division, also known as stereotyping. Selecting one group at a time to raise awareness probably had confusing sideways implications, like past attempts to save a few natural species from extinction instead of most of them from further loss.
posted by Brian B. at 1:17 PM on October 2, 2023

People that are normally good at spotting how powerful actoirs use identity differences to create political division that works to undermine potential coalitions often fail to notice that in action when it comes to age cohorts.

Yes. I honestly have to thank sotonohito for posting those links, and y2karl for noting their sources, because it highlights for me who is driving the "gerontocracy" narrative that seems to be exacerbating antagonism toward elder Democratic officials with long resumes who are getting big things done.

We've seen before that the right will happily adopt pseudo-leftist framing to sow division. This seems like another example.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:44 PM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

As for someone's But Greta Thunberg! comment implying ageism going both ways, oh please. It's never been anything but strictly one way here


I want to push back a little on the idea that there's no ageism against young people or that ageism is only one way (i.e. against older people). The discrimination is different but it is still harmful. And the fact that this is completely dismissed out of hand by alot of older folks is also discriminatory.

-Young people do not get taken seriously at work, even in the most professional settings (you dont even have to be actually young for this one, just look/sound young enough and you're ingnored!)
-Young people's ideas are routinely dismissed as being unrealistic (hello climate change!)
-Young people for a long time were used as cannon fodder in war
-The music and language that younger people used is derided here regularly.
-Young people are called babies and not given the respect that any other fully lawful adult gets

I think this phrase is what alot of young people feel when they're not being taken seriously as people: Sometimes people use "respect" to mean "treating someone like a person" and sometimes they use "respect" to mean "treating someone like an authority." This means sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say, "If you don’t respect me I won’t respect you" but what they mean is, "If you don’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person."

I see this dynamic alot in the generational interactions: older folks thinking that they aren't getting the respect they deserve, and younger people's interests being derided and ridiculed and deemed not serious or worthy of serious discussion.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:40 PM on October 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

When I think about the youngs getting hated on, I'm reminded that the same stupid articles about being slackers and not wanting to work were made about Gen X and Millennials and I'm now seeing them about Gen Z. I assume they were written about the Boomers in their day as well, and all the generations back to Rome and Greece and Sumeria.

"When I was your age, I walked to work uphill in the snow both ways for a pittance, and I was happy to do it" wasn't a compelling argument when I was in the demographic that received it. It honestly doesn't sound a lot better now that I'm in the demographic that's started spouting it.

I don't know whether that's technically ageism, but if you're talking about power+prejudice, the power that a collectively older management/employer work sector has over a collectively younger individual contributor/employee work sector would seem to apply.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:10 PM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

All of that is true but I was talking about here in this thread. Where someone wrote

The sheer malicious hatred the elderly exhibit towards younger people is staggering.

They want to kill us via climate change.

They want to make us poor.

They want to keep us from retiring.

They want to let us die from lack of healthcare.

Yet, because "ageism" is a weaponized term that exists only to attempt to shame critics into silence, no one describes any of the vicious attacks on the young by the old as ageism.

  ...blah blah woof woof. That sort of thing is baked in the onsite culture here so hard here that people just can't or won't see it. Here. In this thread. It's not a case where the putative cane and walker set has been viciously dehumanizing our precious young either above or onsite. Both siding the outside world while ignoring that is, um... what's the point?

I am really thinking that Joe Biden is the ghost at the banquet here. The frail old guy with the stutter. Who beat Trump and has turned out to be FDR in practice even with the people he governs despite of. Everyone wants him to do well but it's a big job and they worry. Meanwhile Donald Trump is half H.P. Lovecraft's Fungi From Yuggoth and half Philip.K Dick's Faith of Our Fathers wherein the Chinese have won World War III and the Absolute Leader of the People is either God or an interstellar minor deity who has taken over the franchise. And either way is not very nice. Except in our case that would be TFG. I will leave you with that cheerful thought.
posted by y2karl at 2:49 AM on October 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

OTOH there’s a fair chance you have a house and a pension, something a lot of people younger than me will never see. And the basic math of it is if you don’t fall off line-goes-up economics you’re going to get more from it as time progresses, and whoever gets on earlier gets less.

Houses aren't disappearing, you know? In fact this gets to the heart of the confusion of class and age. Where do you think that housing wealth (from the subset of older people who have it) is going? That's right, to their children.

It cannot be true that there are no houses because "the boomers" have taken them all because they're not, you know, eating them. They own them, mostly because that's where they live, and when they reach an age when that is no longer possible or they die, that wealth goes to their children.

So it is not the case that no millennials or younger people will own houses, although those will not be equally distributed. So where does that leave us with our cohort analysis? I would suggest that the children of wealthier boomers have class interests that align with their parents and not their age cohort.
posted by atrazine at 5:01 AM on October 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

...when they reach an age when that is no longer possible or they die, that wealth goes to their children.

Now we get to the heart of the matter:

...They want to kill us via climate change.

They want to make us poor.

They want to keep us from retiring.

They want to let us die from lack of healthcare.

Hence

...The sheer malicious hatred the elderly exhibit towards younger people is staggering.

tldr: Where oh where's my money!? Why aren't they dead yet!?
posted by y2karl at 11:09 PM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

The criticism of my vitriol, absolutism, and generalization is entirely valid. I was a dick. And I apologized and tried to bow out.

But come on. Nothing I said could be reasonably construed to mean I'm an evil person demanding grandmaw die and leave me her house.

If you're not going to let me just leave the thread after I apologized for being an asshole and you're going to keep bringing me up as a punching bag and example of the evils of young (48 year old young) people at least try to keep it based in things I actually said.

Can I go now? Have I been shamed enough yet?
posted by sotonohito at 10:05 AM on October 6, 2023 [1 favorite]