This morning I’m really really fed up with hearing how everything is the fault of Boomers - plenty of younger people showed up for Trump and drank the kool aid while some of us have been fighting our whole 70 plus years against Trumpist thinking under various labels. Boomers have certainly fallen short on our responsibility for the planet and its peoples but we didn’t fail alone. Vent over. We now return you to your ongoing apocalypse. Stay safe.
The story of MAGA and other trumpists, and especially their narrative, is somewhat older - if you trust this fella, it had been unresolved since US founding era ca 1776-1789. So for now it's something finally taking its toll.
Another datapoint had been done nearly 2 decades ago - OkCupid dating service had collected massive data array on politics vs age. Conclusions are not so much soothing...
I also see a common thread from the Age of Reason that inspired the “Founding Fathers” right through to today, which is why I try to remind everyone that it’s all the same damn fight.
"TIL that Thomas Paine, one of America's founding fathers, was extremely progressive for his time. He advocated for the separation of church and state, universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and an early kind of socialism. When he died, only six men came to his funeral." https://buff.ly/WcaaNfH
and then:
"His second great work The Age of Reason was not well received by the American religious."
"Benjamin Franklin advised him against publishing it. (Paraphrasing)
> If men are so wicked with religion, what would they then be without it?
(Franklin also wrote A Lecture on the Providence of God in the Government of the World that's worth reading.)
Another Founder, Elias Boudinot, released a response to Paine's Age of Reason called, The Age of Revelation" https://buff.ly/iVl5J8t
There are a number of initiatives in place in other countries, but they do take government investment. These can allow people to "age in place," which can be more cost effective than prematurely going into care facilities. In all of these countries, average lifespan is several years longer than it is in the US, and the provision of services for the aged improves quality of life in the declining years.
Where i am these initiatives range from affordable cleaning and gardening services, care visits, social assistance, meal delivery services, community transport, which can include regular outings for shopping, physical activity (eg swimming, attended by exercise physiologists trained to work with the elderly) and social activities, seniors activity centres, and integrated health care plans which include free visits to allied health care professionals. These services are subsidised, although many include a small co-payment, which is usually means tested and may be waived in cases of financial hardship.
We are going to have to increase our expenditure on these kind of initiatives as our population ages, and this is somethingthat does get attention from policy-makers. We also rely on immigrant workers to provide many of the services. This is factored into immigration policy. From a budgetary and Immigration perspective, the US looks to be heading in a direction that is diametrically opposed to where it needs to be going.
This morning I’m really really fed up with hearing how everything is the fault of Boomers - plenty of younger people showed up for Trump and drank the kool aid while some of us have been fighting our whole 70 plus years against Trumpist thinking under various labels. Boomers have certainly fallen short on our responsibility for the planet and its peoples but we didn’t fail alone. Vent over. We now return you to your ongoing apocalypse. Stay safe.
The story of MAGA and other trumpists, and especially their narrative, is somewhat older - if you trust this fella, it had been unresolved since US founding era ca 1776-1789. So for now it's something finally taking its toll.
https://youtu.be/93r-C3_m5cY?si=QYdE9W6XtzzkZlSP
Another datapoint had been done nearly 2 decades ago - OkCupid dating service had collected massive data array on politics vs age. Conclusions are not so much soothing...
The Democrats Are Doomed, or How A ‘Big Tent’ Can Be Too Big - by OkCupid https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-democrats-are-doomed-or-how-a-big-tent-can-be-too-big-fdc9bf8be312?source=social.substack
I also see a common thread from the Age of Reason that inspired the “Founding Fathers” right through to today, which is why I try to remind everyone that it’s all the same damn fight.
they say that:
"TIL that Thomas Paine, one of America's founding fathers, was extremely progressive for his time. He advocated for the separation of church and state, universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and an early kind of socialism. When he died, only six men came to his funeral." https://buff.ly/WcaaNfH
and then:
"His second great work The Age of Reason was not well received by the American religious."
"Benjamin Franklin advised him against publishing it. (Paraphrasing)
> If men are so wicked with religion, what would they then be without it?
(Franklin also wrote A Lecture on the Providence of God in the Government of the World that's worth reading.)
Another Founder, Elias Boudinot, released a response to Paine's Age of Reason called, The Age of Revelation" https://buff.ly/iVl5J8t
Thomas Paine was sufficiently progressive that he would later be arrested in post revolution Paris!
I thoroughly enjoyed both of those links! Thanks!
There are a number of initiatives in place in other countries, but they do take government investment. These can allow people to "age in place," which can be more cost effective than prematurely going into care facilities. In all of these countries, average lifespan is several years longer than it is in the US, and the provision of services for the aged improves quality of life in the declining years.
Where i am these initiatives range from affordable cleaning and gardening services, care visits, social assistance, meal delivery services, community transport, which can include regular outings for shopping, physical activity (eg swimming, attended by exercise physiologists trained to work with the elderly) and social activities, seniors activity centres, and integrated health care plans which include free visits to allied health care professionals. These services are subsidised, although many include a small co-payment, which is usually means tested and may be waived in cases of financial hardship.
We are going to have to increase our expenditure on these kind of initiatives as our population ages, and this is somethingthat does get attention from policy-makers. We also rely on immigrant workers to provide many of the services. This is factored into immigration policy. From a budgetary and Immigration perspective, the US looks to be heading in a direction that is diametrically opposed to where it needs to be going.
One way of playing an active role in this dynamic is for elders to take charge of the challenges and the potential solutions, ideally in an inter generational context. Alternative community designs are out there and can be developed and implemented co-operatively. I have described two examples here: https://thomasmengel.com/from-concept-to-implementation-co-operative-community-designs-for-the-future/…