this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Broadly because of gerontocracy and the idea that oldness = competency.
It is also why the world is slowly dying and the people in charge don't give two shits: They'll be dead by the time it gets TRULY shitty so they don't have any incentive to care.
And as far as like, work is concerned, gerontocracy is fine.
Not so for politics. Hence, youth quota.
Ehh. Blaming it on age and not the isolated actions of a single generation is really doing a disservice to all of humanity. Historically older people never hosed younger people as things have been happening now so it can't be an age thing.
Granted, there's historical precedent for having a mandatory retirement age and age minimums for a lot of things, but banning 50-70 year olds is a really hard sell, especially since that's around the age when people are the most influential and productive in their lives.
I didn't say a ban. I said a quota of young people in bodies of government to ensure the ancients can't piss all over the future just to get their own.
And I maintain that the main reason people are at their "most influential and productice" at 50-70 is because of a culture of gerontocracy, and that should not be the case.
And the late bloomers who are unable to start their lives until their 50s, what about them? And that happens a lot; domestic abuse victims who are never able to escape and are turned into slaves for their narcissistic parents or spouses until they die is a pretty good example. It's at best an unnecessary hurdle devoid of context.
Quotas are just a slippery slope to bans, honestly. It's how all people are, not the current generation of tyrants we're trapped under.
I'm not judging you for offering your opinion on the matter at hand or anything. I just thought it was worth a quick debate, is all.
"Quotas are a slippery slope to bans" to me smells the same as "affirmative action is racist".
Pretending that there is a slippery slope where there isn't even a slope to begin with, and if there is, it's sloping the other way.
Enfranchising the disenfranchised is not the same as disenfranchising the enfranchised and never will be.
And no, I don't think the "current generation of tyrants" is in any way special or different. It just so happens that we are living right now, and the current sword of damocles of climate change is so transparent and all encompassing that their sacrificing of the young to maintain their spoiled lives is so damn obvious.
But "old people in power make decision, and it is the young who pay for it" is in fact older than feudalism. Who declares the wars? The white-haired old heads in government. Who actually goes and dies in the wars? The young who are under their thrall. Who makes reckless economic decisions that lead to recessions? The old who already have property to lean back on. Who lives through those recessions and suffers without being able to afford a living? The young who had no choice. Etc. etc. etc.
It is older than feudalism. The tyranny of the ancients is the most -- Er -- Ancient. Form of tyranny in humanity. Simply because having time already gives one an unfair advantage in consolidating power.
Many ancient kings who'd send people to war were themselves young or middle aged.
And we can see on Lemmy that tons of people explicitly want politicians of a certain age to be forcibly retired, be that age 80 or 75 or 65 or whatever. You're swinging young even by our standards. So we can conclude it is a slippery slope because it is kind of what people want, and will incrementally allow people to make what they want socially acceptable enough to pass bans completely. Which is, of course, what a slippery slope is.
Everybody else did the same with smoking bans. We have eyes that can see and ears that can hear. Come on now.
I don't even necessarily disagree with you. I just want you to think about what you're asking for.
Also if you have a 'youth quota', it incentivizes the gerontocracy to actually value the youth and their knowledge (or lack thereof) and work to improve it.