I do agree that they are difficult to compare directly as the scenarios are quite different. I can also say that your attitude towards raising children is the minority, most parents will let a tv or tablet babysit for them unfortunately.

I don’t understand where this sentiment comes from. Don’t vote?? It’s not like being tired is being dead. The status of the world/country/society still impacts older people too.

Replace "boomers" with any other demographic group if you wish to understand why this is an ugly statement to be making.

Hint: it isn't because "boomers" are more vulnerable to misinformation

> Hint: it isn't because "boomers" are more vulnerable to misinformation

Is this actually true though? Well all demographics are vulnerable to misinformation, seniors do seem on average somewhat easier to manipulate. There is a reason that scams often target seniors, it isn't because all groups are equally susciptible to manipulation.

It's lovely to see that the youth of today know everything just like the youth of your day (my day, whatevs). The boomers get made fun of by the kids because they don't know tech, but the kids don't want to admit that they fall prey to the similar scams/conspiracies/blah just because it comes from some influencer.

What's doing whatever you want have to do with voting? You suggesting that people who have leisure time shouldn't be voting?

I dont agree with the setiment, but i think the logical connection is the social contract of voting: in exchange for the right to chose leaders, the citizenry are expected to be informed voters. I suspect the parent post is allegeding that those who watch tv all day are remiss in their duties as an elector.

Sounds like the justification that was used to deny the right to vote to people, mostly minorities, that couldn't pass a poll test.

Or like the current justification for why non-citizens cant vote.

But yes, i agree it is a very easily abused slipery slope and why i dont agree with the sentiment except in a hortatory sense.

It's hard not to interpret this as a kind of "youth is wasted on the young" sentiment - that children shouldn't be allowed to do things they enjoy if those things are seen as wasteful, but that retirees should. I'd submit that society might be better off if we only required people to work to a degree reasonable for their mental and physical health, and didn't frame our entire lives around "getting somewhere" so we could finally be left alone. That might mean profits stop growing quite as quickly, but I think that's a fair trade for people actually being happier.

I think the same thing. The concept of retiring early has never made sense to me - but I enjoy writing software, and building things, and learning things, etc. Financial independence does make sense to me, but only in-so-much that I want to be able to generally provide for my family, and have enough slight cushion to be able to take drastic creative risks and not have to starve to do so.

I don't mind if I'm working when I'm 70/80 (as long as I'm physically capable to) - I do mind if I'm slogging 60hr weeks, doing things I'm not interested in, at those ages however.

I'm "retired," but that's mostly because I ran into a bunch of the types of folks that have been adding to the comments on this story, and gave up on looking for work.

I won't go, where I'm not wanted.

Best damn thing that ever happened to me. I "retired" at 55, and have been more productive, in the last five years, than I probably was, in the previous 20. It's amazing what happens when you don't have clueless, jargon-addled middle managers, interfering with the projects, and destroying work productivity.

The coroner is gonna need to rub "YTЯƎWϘ" off my cheek.

There is a huge difference between "working because you need money" and "working because you want money/something to do/achieve a higher calling", to the point that it's not really fair to compare the two. The latter is better for society as whole, in my opinion.

And the tragic thing is that we could probably achieve a society where that second mode of work is available to everyone, with enough capital investment. Many jobs that people work out of necessity could be automated completely, with today's technology (forget any bleeding-edge AI stuff, I'm talking Robotics 101). Jobs that remain could be made immeasurably less unpleasant. It would just take a restucturing of society around minimizing human suffering, rather than maximizing the wealth that can be accrued by a ruling class.

> It's hard not to interpret this as a kind of "youth is wasted on the young" sentiment - that children shouldn't be allowed to do things they enjoy if those things are seen as wasteful, but that retirees should.

This seems like a motivated conclusion. Children and retirees are not the same. Children are flexible and lack life experience. Small events leave large imprints on children. Older folks tend to get less flexible with age and have lots of life experience, so an understanding of what they do and do not enjoy. While there's definitely similarities (we're all human after all), I don't see this conclusion following at all.

That doesn't mean that retirees should simply passively consume low-complexity content or anything. More that older folk will generally understand themselves, their habits, and importantly their weaknesses better than children. Many "retirees" spend their days doing their best work unencumbered by the self-doubt and expectations they had of themselves when they were young.

> Children are flexible and lack life experience. Small events leave large imprints on children.

> Older folks tend to get less flexible with age and have lots of life experience, so an understanding of what they do and do not enjoy

I believe Children are an opressed group, just like ethnic minorities were at a time. In my life I have personally witnessed dozens of children who were forced into careers and lifepaths based of false pre-conseptions that were formed by older people 40 years ago. The world has moved on, the older people responsible have declined in both mental facoulties and income, and the young people are stuck eith life choice that were made for them, their lives bent out of shape.

The media constantly treat young peolle with derision, mockery and disrespect. No political party represent interest of young people under 25. Their life opportunitues, social mobility and the chance to own a home are all declining. The age of lawmakers is climbing every year.

The disenfranchisement of young people in the west will be our downfall

> I believe Children are an opressed group, just like ethnic minorities were at a time.

That's very strong language but I can generally get behind the idea that children need some work on their rights in the West given the changes of the last 50-80 years in society. This is orthogonal to the above point that retirees are not children. Children are not retirees and their rights will reflect this truth. The rights and expectations of children will have to reflect what it means to be a child and likewise with retirees.

> In my life I have personally witnessed dozens of children who were forced into careers and lifepaths based of false pre-conseptions that were formed by older people 40 years ago. The world has moved on, the older people responsible have declined in both mental facoulties and income, and the young people are stuck eith life choice that were made for them, their lives bent out of shape.

This is heavily, heavily steeped in your own anecdata. I haven't witnessed children under any such parental force, but I've heard other people talk about this. They all had shared upper-middle class suburban upbringings with parents who were trying to force them into elite schools and elite careers. This personality is replete in American tech companies. If this is the background with which you bring this up, remember that this is hardly universal.

I grew up in an immigrant ghetto. Kids were left to do whatever they wanted as early as was feasible. The kids I knew roamed the streets, got into gangs, drugs, and all forms of unfulfilling sex. There were few jobs in the community and the kids had no direction. If anything the kids I witnessed suffered because their parents gave them no help; no parents to talk to the kids about hard conversations, nobody to help find jobs or careers, nobody to even teach the kids about how to modulate their own emotions, often saddled with the debt their parents placed on them through gambling or other poor decisions. The anecdata of my life would cause me to be impassioned about very different set of dangers for children. I saw more lives ruined through minor marijuana possession than through pushy parents.

> The media constantly treat young peolle with derision, mockery and disrespect. No political party represent interest of young people under 25. Their life opportunitues, social mobility and the chance to own a home are all declining. The age of lawmakers is climbing every year.

I haven't seen "derision, mockery, and disrespect". Political parties don't represent the interests of young people because they don't vote. It's pretty simple. Getting young people to vote is the hard part. The aging cohort of lawmakers is a separate, and yes deeply troubling, issue.

> The disenfranchisement of young people in the west will be our downfall

Wait until you realize what it's like to be young in Asia.

I think in both cases, children need to feel psychologically safe confiding mistakes in parents, and neither neglected (emotionally and educationally) and unsupported, nor receive conditional love and be punished when they fail to earn achievements to their parents' satisfaction.

I agree. Supporting children in society and government is hard. I just don't think getting riled up over one's anecdata is a good way to do it.

Better yet, why not snuff people when they get to 30?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film)

People can already choose to work less for mental and physical health reasons. Just move to a low cost area and do the bare minimum work to obtain necessities.

But people who want a nice large house, luxury cars, new electronics, and fancy vacations are going to have to work harder in ways that might not be optimal for health. Most middle class people seem to be voluntarily willing to make that trade, and you're not going to convince them otherwise.

For society as a whole, growing profits represent an overall increase in living standards (although the benefits are unevenly distributed). If we were to collectively decide that current living standards are sufficient and stop trying to grow then we might have easy, pleasant lives for a couple generations but would eventually be overrun by more growth-oriented foreign societies. Life is a competitive sport and we ignore that reality at our peril. There are more important things than happiness.

I honestly can't tell if this is serious or satire.

100% serious

What are the things more important than happiness?

Building things of lasting value. Raising children. Leaving the world a better place than you found it.

You can get really happy by taking opioids, if you consider happiness to be of primary importance. But happiness alone is empty and not something that we should consider important by itself.

If you don't derive happiness from lasting value, why build it?

If you don't derive happiness from raising children, why have them?

These things aren't intrinsically valuable. You may derive happiness from them, and that's perfectly fine. Or you may derive happiness from rigidly following some moral code, and that's fine also. But there's no "we" when it comes to what one considers most important by itself.

"Seen as wasteful" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Spending 6+ hours a day watching TV is seen as wasteful, heroin addiction is seen as wasteful, becoming a musician is seen as wasteful, dropping out of a law degree to start a company is seen as wasteful. The first two are different from the last two, though.

I think watching 6+ hours of TV a day isn't just seen as wasteful, it's seen as actively harmful, and therefore as falling under the moral and legal duty of care adults have to protect children. In contrast, a mentally sound retiree is an adult. Adults are allowed to hurt themselves.

Is 6hrs a day of reading wasteful and harmful? That's how doctors and lawyers and engineers are made.

Reading requires active engagement in a way that makes it inherently healthier than TV (though perhaps not than games).

For me, yeah. I probably spent about that long reading on most school days as a kid, including hiding books in my pencil case, walking the dog while reading, riding a bike while reading, reading on the bus, reading during recess and lunch, reading in front of the TV, reading on the toilet, reading when I was meant to be asleep, and reading during family dinners.

I absolutely should have stopped reading so much during family dinners, during classes I struggled in, when I was meant to be asleep, and during recess and lunch.

There's also something childlike about elders as they experience mental decline. There's a reason we try to protect people from "elder scams." Personally I hope if I'm found in front of the TV absorbing conspiracy theories for hours a day somebody clocks me on the head and drags me to safety.

I think this misses the productivity aspect of the parent's comment. Conceivably, there is a bigger productivity hit with young people since the assumption may be that retired people's most productive years are behind them *

* I do recognize all the problems with this assumption, like the fact that older people can continue to be productive in retirement, even if it's not necessarily economically productive. I also cringe at the idea that a society is always hyper-focused on productivity. Despite all that, I also know it's a common viewpoint.

To some degree, we kind of caused this, because we’ve structured work society where we essentially burn out by the time we’re 65.

Before the advent of old age systems like pensions or Social Security elders mostly suffered through high elderly poverty rates. The current system is certainly better, because elders are not starving or forcing themselves into sex work to pay for food and medical bills [1] but now it turns out being too idle might also be problematic.

I know in Japan, there are attempts to address this with organizations that hire seniors to do part time jobs like sweeping and cleaning. It mostly serves as an optional supplement to income and it gets them out of the house if they’re alone. But the way we run cleaning operations in the US is also to run people down to the bone.

[1] - This is a thing in South Korea where elder poverty is much higher than the rest of the OECD due to a very bare social net. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchus_Ladies

In know this may be an unpopular take, but some of it comes across to me as an entitlement mindset. Retirement is viewed as something expected and a debt owed by society, rather than something prudently planned for.

I’m in favor of a strong social safety net, but geared towards helping low-probability or unforeseen circumstances, not for avoiding a completely visible and very slowly approaching cliff.

Especially as more "elder scams" resort to tapping into their loneliness to encourage action, it's important families and communities pay more attention to this growing problem of elders attached to their screens.

There aren’t more scams of that nature…they’ve been around forever. You’re just more aware of them, there are more elderly around and it is easier for anonymous scammers to target the elderly with today’s IT. Protecting the elderly is an IT problem worth working on. I hear there are several thousand FAANG types at loose ends at the moment…

When every major mobile or desktop OS update comes with compulsory interface changes, hiding some routine action, it breaks down many users’ faith in themselves to figure out how to do things on their computers or phones, making them more susceptible to tech support scams and other online malice, but especially older users who patiently wrote down the steps for important but infrequent operations.

How many hours a day do you spend on various social media being manipulated by dark patterning, agitprop and echo chambers…eh, Sonny? :-) Are you sure you’re staying balanced and objective?

Just easier to ID manipulative media when you aren’t the target demographic (and it isn’t your flavor of conspiracy). It’s not necessarily age-driven, but you’re right that the isolation of age and the relative lack of trusted feedback makes it worse.

Please post your viewing habits so the Elders can assess whether they should send someone to perform preventive percussive maintenance on your skull. :-)

Yeah they really need to tune out those mainstay news channels! Oh wait, that's not what you meant is it... :p

I find the view that productive achievements are a chore, a thing, that once accomplished, thankfully we never have to do again, kind of sad.

What's the point of living if not to interact with the world?

How about raising children with the stated goal of having them move out?

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. I'm not suggesting you should do the same productive achievement all your life. Life changes and so should your goals as time moves on.

Also, why are you having children if your only goal is to get rid of them? Yes, part of having children is hoping and preparing for them to eventually be independent adults, but that's hardly the only thing raising children is about.

I disagree that consuming media and participating online is not "interacting with the world". I spend a lot of my free time reading Wikipedia, watching YouTube, and playing games. This content comes from "the world". At my job I sit in front of a computer and interact with people via text and voice call. This is interacting with "the world".

I don't understand why we fetishize in-person interaction as being "the world" and virtual interaction as "not the world".

What about reading books? Would you criticize someone for reading too many books? Does that person not have a "point in living" in your opinion?

In my opinion, this is a true Scotsman fallacy. And the bias is due to nostalgia.

That being said, I think there is a general bias in American culture towards "making something of yourself", which results in the act of participating in non-productive activities (ex: "mindless tv" such as gameshows, infomercials) as something which you need an excuse to do. For example: "I need to de-stress so I can be productive tomorrow". When you get old, this excuse is no longer possible. Which is why folks refer to vegetating like this as "sad".

A hedonistic/utilitarian framework is a better model to look at these situations. Is that elderly individual enjoying themselves? Yes. Will their inaction today result in negative consequences (financial, health, etc.) later in life? No. In this framework, it's a perfectly good use of their time then.

As a redneck, I love America. But I think this question posed by the OP is interesting because it shows the tradeoff everyone must make in American culture between exercising individual freedoms and increasing social credit/value/standing.

> Is that elderly individual enjoying themselves? Yes.

Are they? I dont think its as obvious as you think it is.

People often trade long term joy for short term joy. If they didn't, drug dealers, casinos, facebook etc would be out of business.

> This is interacting with "the world".

To each their own, but no, it's not the world. We're made for real, in person interaction. Huge chunks of our brains are made to discern subtle facial details or body movements.

I remember there are studies that socialization is good even for introverts. They think it isn't, but it is.

We're social creatures by design, it's built very deep into us. To try otherwise is foolish for 99.9999% of people. Of course, everyone thinks they're that 1 person in a million:-)

It may be beneficial from a medical perspective, but you're ignoring the obvious risks. For people with SAD, etc. there is the risk of severe stress. For all people, there is the risk of sexual assault. There is the risk of false or true accusations from students, friends, or partners, the risk of getting assaulted, physically confronted, or robbed, reputational damage, etc. The list goes on.

It's up to each individual to decide whether the rewards of in-person social interaction outweigh the risks. And it's not up to anyone but me to proscribe what my decision on this matter is.

> For people with SAD, etc. there is the risk of severe stress

I think you used the wrong acronym. I assume you are not talking about seasonal affective disorder.

More to the point, for most people in most places there exists social options where such risks are not significant relative to other risks.

Social anxiety disorder.

Yes I agree with you that the risks are low.

But I disagree fervently and am offended with the parent comment. It doesn't make one foolish or prideful to take ownership over evaluating the cost/benefit. As an asocial person who prefers it online: parent commenter, kindly fuck off.

> And it's not up to anyone but me to proscribe what my decision on this matter is.

True, but then when stuff like cost of mental healthcare goes up, which it constantly is, who pays that bill? The correct answer is: everyone.

> I remember there are studies that socialization is good even for introverts. They think it isn't, but it is.

As a pet peeve. Being an introvert is not the same thing as having social anxiety or disliking socialization. Lots of introverts like socializing.

I consider engaging with media to be interacting with the world.

Passively Watching TV all day = no interaction

Writing an essay about the tv you watch = interacting. Or even just talking about it with someone.

I think what im trying to criticize is passive consumption. If you exert agency or creativity in what you do, than it isn't passive anymore.

Thinking about the TV you watch but not writing an essay about it = interaction or no interaction?

Where is the boundary; how can you define it?

Life isn't binary but full of shades of grey. There are no hard lines.

You have the “right” as much as the next person but society is most benefited from those with experience helping those without.

The argument that you deserve to watch TV all day because you once had a job is curious.

Most people while you are working, save money in the retirement plan. So when they retire, they are just using the money they saved, not living out ot thin air.

In some jobs, old people can still contribute. But other jobs like that require a lot of physical strength are almost impossible.

An extreme case are sports. After some age, your body is just not good enough. Some can transition to being a coach or reporter. Some are only good at kicking a ball. If they are good enough to make millions of people happy, why can't they save some of the money they earn and have a nice life?

> The argument that you deserve to watch TV all day because you once had a job is curious.

How so? I think you're missing the most important part of my comment, which was about encouraging children to discover their passions and achieve self-sufficiency.

It's not about "once holding a job." It's about being able to take care of yourself. I'm not saying that I like the idea of spending the latter part of my years being unproductive, but that the wealth accrued during those productive years gives one the ability to do that.

If I'm not dependent on anyone, if I worked and saved in order to earn that life for myself, then yes I deserve to pursue my own happiness whatever that means for me and it's no one else's business or place to dictate otherwise.

Let's imagine a very talented 10 year-old who earns a billion dollars (perhaps they're a media star or very gifted technically, whatever the reason, they have earned this money through their own efforts rather than inheriting it) and has had themselves legally emancipated. Would you feel comfortable with this child deciding they are now going to exclusively watch television for the remainder of their life?

If a 10 year-old somehow managed to get themselves legally emancipated (that's a crucial piece of context that you offered) AND had earned 10 billion dollars to sustain themselves for the rest of their lives then yes, absolutely without question. They have every moral right, and my full approval, to do whatever they want to with their one shot here on earth. I'm more than perfectly comfortable with it and it's none of my business.

Then by your argument, there should be no young teachers as what the hell kind of experiences could they possibly have to teach?

Teachers don’t teach experiential knowledge

That is probably the saddest thing I have read all day.

The best teachers I ever had were the ones that taught the subject material but from a relatable manner based on their years of experience. Yes, the best teachers I personally had were older.

Feels like you’re making emotional appeals to make the previous responder look out of touch in this post, and the previous, in opposite directions.

The best teachers I ever had were kind, smart, and well funded.

The first post was that old timers not sharing their experiences was bad which in my mind extrapolates to old timers should all be teachers.

The second post was that acknowledging the fact that teachers no longer teach but instruct based on a preset curriculum arranged to get grades for specific tests higher.

The fuzzy logic in my head might not be clear to me let alone others, but I feel you're trying to make something out of nothing as well.

Most of the job of a teacher is being a publicly appointed babysitter.

Much of the rest is teaching the basics, which, as a functional adult, they should have decades of experience with.

You'd be amazed at the number of "functional adults" that are lousy babysitters

Probably all of the experience they gained by getting a degree and becoming certified to teach, for a start

My MiL spends 10+ hours a day watching conspiracy theory videos on the internet (used to be YouTube, but now a lot of the channels are suspended so she uses alternative sites). It doesn't make her happy, it isn't good for her physical health, and it causes extreme social isolation.

Anger and conspiracy completely dominate her personality. We can't go more than 10-20 minutes without some sort of serious accusation, which are often passive-aggressive and accusatory toward people in the room. She has directly accused me of multiple serious felonies and conspiracies, by virtue of the fact that I work in tech.

She is no longer allowed to visit one of her daughters because my BiL (wife's sister's husband?) is not on speaking terms with her. She chooses not to visit another daughter. She floats around church social groups, who all sort of give her a few months and then punt her to the next group.

To be clear: these aren't down to major political disagreements. Most of her family and friend group are all on the same page. Even her Q Anon neighbor won't speak with her anymore. It's bad. She has no friends and is slowly losing her family.

When she visits us for holidays we have to warn friends not to engage with the fights she tries to pick. We train them on how to treat her as they would a child without being patronizing. It's hard.

She is not happy, and I wish we could get her to spend less time watching videos on the internet.

I find it sad, that you can find such stuff on discovery network channels... so channels that were for legit education and documentaries not that long ago, and now show some reality crap (pawn stars,...) and fake conspiracy crap (ancient aliens, mermaids, bigfoot, etc.).

> bigfoot

That particular one offends me the most - we went from 0.3 megapixels to 300 and it's still fucking blurry

A typical old school film camera is about 87 megapixels equivalent

https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/film-resolution.htm

*film stock in optimal conditions.

I took a photography class in middle school. We used 35 mm black and white film. I scanned all the negatives in with a decent Nikon film scanner. I can't remember why I settled on scanning at 2MP, but you could already see the grain: https://i.imgur.com/dcFksGp.jpeg

Sounds like it was a fun class!

If you still have them, and a digital camera with a macro lens, you'll be surprised how much better result (actual resolved resolution versus MP "resolution") you'll get with than using a scanner.

If I had to guess as why you stopped at 2MP, it was probably a mixture of diminishing returns in terms of extra resolving power and size. Idk when you took them, but I imagine size was also a consideration. A 2MP uncompressed tiff (which I imagine is what the scanner gave you) is ~5MB. Now, you could drop that down to ~1.6 if you could save them as single channel rather than RGB.

This is also where the optimal conditions come in (motion blur, camera shake, exposure, and how it was developed).

It was! I scanned them around 2009, so it wasn't size, it was that I wasn't getting more useful resolution. The scanner was a Nikon Coolscan V ED. I might still have some prints I can look at to compare, but I'm not sure how to do the same with a negative.

As per usual Ken is being pretty disingenuous here, even ignoring the hyperbole about needing a 175MP digital sensor to 'capture the same information'.

Velvia 50 might resolve 160 lines/mm (I'm not sure if this is line pairs/mm or lines/mm) but that's at a contrast ratio of 1000:1, for a contrast ratio of 1.6:1 (more typical for normal shooting conditions) you're down to 80 lines/mm which is 22.1 MP, and that's for just the film stock under optimal conditions. When you factor in real life shooting conditions like the lens MTF charts, the aperture you were shooting at, whether you were shooting on a stable tripod, dust, grain, noise, etc, that number only goes down.

Conventional wisdom has been that you can get good results scanning colour film at 6-12MP, and this tracks with the results people got when they started comparing the first DSLRs to 35mm film - something like the full frame 11MP Canon EOS-1DS from 20 years ago with a mere 25 line pairs/mm (including losses from the Bayer and AA filters) compares favourably(*) to medium format film, with 6-8MP DX format DSLRs from the same era comparing favourably to 35mm. B&W film can be scanned at a higher resolution but still, 87MP is a theoretical maximum not a practical one.

https://luminous-landscape.com/shootout/

It’s always in sufficient light for a modern camera to have 1000+ shutter speed as well.

Leave sasquatch out of this.

I remember watching Discovery and National Geography documentaries when I was a kid and absolutely loved them. A few years ago when I could afford a cable subscription of my own I was so excited about finally getting access to that content again, but the excitement didn’t last long. It was all reality TV, conspiracies and ads, like all of it all the time. Not a single serious documentary was aired in the first two weeks of being subscribed, and by the third week I had stopped checking the program. So I canceled it before the month was up.

I find Pawn Stars (without the ads, i.e. on YT) pretty enjoyable and interesting.

I agree that Discovery Channel and similar ilk are pretty awful though, not much substance at all to those - and the volume of ads makes it unwatchable regardless.

Pawn Stars is just harmless fun. They don't push any politics or conspiracy theories, the fake drama is minimal, and you can actually learn little bits of interesting history.

The problem I have with Pawn Stars is the main cast is so insufferable.

I have a relative like this, but she watches absolutely nothing. She believes some of her family members are out to get her though. She's in an assisted living facility and her phone has been taken away because she has called the police too many times, claiming that one of her family members is breaking in her window, to poison her.

I'm not claiming that's the same thing, but I'm not sure less time watching videos will correct the issue or won't just lead to some other issue.

No, it's a good thought. Thanks for sharing. We've talked with her physician about the possibility of this being some early signs of dementia. We don't have actual family medical history, but what we know from word of mouth lines up with dementia-like symptoms. So it may run in the family.

But she is still functional and able to do the business of life. For now.

There is something to this — the general theme of daytime TV in Britain, when it’s not doing endless property shows, or shows where people buy property in other countries, is “the man is out to get you” — a litany of shows on small time criminals, consumer scams, or local crime waves. Perhaps not surprisingly, Britain’s elderly population tends to be very right wing.

> a litany of shows on ... consumer scams

That sounds like it could be good to be aware of, came across so many acams myself, most prosperous industry after brexit

In the 80s, US AM radio was taken over by similar content. It is happening again with local news, both broadcast and "print".

Seems to be the fate of declining media modalities.

Unless you provide reasoning this comes across as needlessly snide.

The parent poster, a 99.99%ile brilliant engineer (seriously) and entrepreneur has a long history of posting libertarians talking points on any vaguely related topic.

I'm not sure what you're trying to assert?

I'm not aware of a ile scale of brilliance. I also don't know why a history or libertarianism is relevant?

I just think that the comment wasn't constructive.

> libertarians talking points

Frankly, I've haven't read much of any libertarian literature, nor touchstones like Ayn Rand. My opinions come simply from reading lots of history and economic books.

A seminal experience for me was touring East Berlin in 1969. The contrast with West Berlin was stark.

Here's one for you. It takes 10 government funded housing units to get one homeless person into housing.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10511...

It's hard to conclude that this is an effective program.

Some discussion of this in the WSJ:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/housing-first-foments-homelessn...

A consistent reason why left wing programs fail is they do not take supply&demand into consideration.

My impression is that there have been “cranky paranoid old pensioners” around since the dawn of time. I wouldn’t ascribe your MiL’s attitude or behaviors primarily to on-line videos or TV. They’ve been ranting in fraternal lodges, political party offices, coffeehouses, etc. for many hundreds of years prior. Twas ever thus. Keeps the circulation flowing for old folks.

If you can find someone her age who shares her “disruptive” world-views and likes arguing, facilitating a folie-à-deux might make things better for all concerned. Older folks tend to become more blunt and uncensored as time progresses and they also accept blunt and uncensored feedback…but generally only from those in their own age group. Of course, then there are two of them :-).

If it gets really bad, then a (surreptitious?) evaluation for some degenerative brain disorder probably needs to happen. Count your blessings, it isn’t that bad yet and as a SiL you are blissfully distant from the need to initiate anything.

> I wouldn’t ascribe your MiL’s attitude or behaviors primarily to on-line videos or TV

The social network rahe machine feeds your inherent fears like a drug dealer feeds off those in desperate or dead end life situation. They are somewhere between exploiting for profit an existing condition, or creating / worsening it.

> She floats around church social groups, who all sort of give her a few months and then punt her to the next group.

My teenager and her friends know someone like this who they described as "speedrunning friendships", and honestly that's the best description you're going to hear.

It's even worse. She cycles through, as in multiple times with each group. The church knows her issues, so they cycle her through 3-4 small groups for a few months at a time so that she's included and taken care of but not overly burdensome on any particular group of people.

The patience of saints. Good to know that someone's keeping an eye on her, I guess.

They are also very patient with sexual and financial predators in their midst. If I was going to make my living scamming, my home base would be a large fundamentalist christian church. Over 40, bald and fat? Want teenage girls fighting each other for the chance to be your bride? I can point you in a few directions. They will even house, feed, and clothe you until you can get on your feet and ravage their flock.

Yeah, we had to intervene with respect to a particularly scummy financial planner from the church in particular. Completely idiotic fixed income products that made no sense relative to the alternatives. He was a non-fiduciary and taking commission plus absurd fees, of course.

The church is a net positive and mostly saints, as GP characterizes. But anywhere you find a high trust environment with low barrier to entry there will be some wolves in the flock.

I have a close friend who is in that exact same situation with his mother. She lost her job, her husband lost his job, she's representing herself in a vaccine lawsuit (Spoilers: it's not going well), and she is completely incapable of being a human being around her children, all of it because she's fully committed to the Qult.

This isn't advanced age mental decline, this is just the consequence of a garbage-in-garbage-out information diet, and every nutty group building their own Facebook echo chamber.

> This isn't advanced age mental decline, this is just the consequence of a garbage-in-garbage-out information diet.

I’m not goong to excuse crappy behaviour, but given that they both lost their job I think we can assume the economy is also a contributing factor (not claiming it’s the sole factor though).

You mean the economy that is facing a worker shortage has caused them to lose their job?

I love the idea of forcing a fired 59 year old mid level executive to suddenly serve coffee at a Dunkin Donuts, and shouting at them asking "Why aren't you happy with this job!?!"

Realistically, the reason we have a worker shortage is because all the jobs are non-unionized shit jobs that treat you like a meat puppet and actively abuse you

A 55 year old losing their 100k job and facing only minimum wage offers that replaces 30% of their income is a sad reality for a lot of Americans right now. There is not a worker shortage in every area of the economy just in the economy as a whole.

Wages for the bottom 25th percentile of Americans are significantly up in the last 2 years, even counting inflation. I promise the economy is actually doing well.

(For instance, if everyone was losing wages there wouldn't be inflation.)

Didn't real wages decrease in the latest print?

Yes, real wages decreased on average for everyone, but the bottom quartile increased so much from 2019 that they're still ahead. Of course, it always depends which point you start measuring from.

Gas prices (which drives a lot of how people feel everything is doing) have also been up and down but are solidly down recently.

Is it a worker shortage or a wage shortage though?

Exactly, if I put out an add like this it will be counted into worker shortage:

'Hiring decelipers with experience of devops, security, and 15 years of Rust experience. Proven controbutions to linux Kernel. $30k'

We can all see how laughable this is. It is equally laughable to hire workers on shit wages, just because they are blue caller jobs doesnt mean there is no minimum bar at all

The market swings both ways, but media seems to have inherent bias favour how employer's would like it to be

They lost their jobs in 2021, because they, among other things, thought that someone who has taken the COVID vaccine 'emits particles that damage the female body'. (They would not allow their son into their house for months after he was vaccinated.)

The economy was not the problem last year, unassailable certainty in ignorant beliefs was. They have new jobs now, which are harder, and much worse paying.

Just wanted to acknowledge your response. Don’t really have anything to add though. Probably a whole bunch of contributing factors /shrug.

> accused me of multiple serious felonies and conspiracies, by virtue of the fact that I work in tech.

You can't use this site for an hour without that happening right here.

There are stories of adult children deprogramming their parents / in-laws by blocking these sites via their routers [0], and within a few weeks they're able to see their parents' views and demeanor visibly change for the positive [1].

The post from BestOfRedditorUpdates [1] for example shows the progression, basically the same as the 5 stages of grief, or withdrawal from a drug habit. First they get angry, then they try to find ways around it, then they accept that they can't and start doing something else.

The truth is most people don't really go to these sites out of choice, they do it out of habit. If you can alter the habit, you can stop them from consuming such content. It's no different than stopping any other habit, like (if you're a smoker or alcoholic) not going to places where people smoke for example.

You can also replace the habit with something else; like smokers chewing nicotine gum instead of smoking, or like those trying to lose weight going for a walk instead of sitting at home and cracking open a cold one after a long day of work, this person's aunt replaced it with BTS [2].

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/vb3ddu/rhe...

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/yz7y...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/comments/sis22t/my_...

I’ve been tempted to do this but it feels…wrong. Like bordering on gaslighting/taking someone’s phone away without their consent. It makes me feel like a bully.

Sure, but is that better or worse than your parents becoming cult-like and being harmed psychologically? Propaganda is a real thing, these websites and TV channels spend a lot of time and money trying to manipulate their users, I don't think it's morally wrong to fight back against that.

It's the same as what many HNers say about TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, etc, except it's now applied to those that are older who don't necessarily use those platforms but instead use others. If one doesn't like the former, they also should not logically like the latter either, they're two sides of the same coin.

If they don't care enough to undo what you did, is it really hurting them?

Would you say the same if they were shooting heroin?

> If they don't care enough to undo what you did, is it really hurting them?

I’m not really sure ignorance of (to?) a solution makes this suddenly a morally justifiable action.

I don’t know how to change a tire. I’d still be justifiably upset if someone just removed one while I was at dinner lol

Consider another example, if you were out drinking and someone took your keys and refused to give them back so you could drive home while intoxicated, I'd consider that morally justifiable.

While there’s perhaps a “clear and present danger” distinction, I think this analogy is a good one because we are talking about similar interventions: nonviolent, easily overcome. No one’s gonna die from taking a cab home or missing out on the latest conspiracy theory.

No one is going to die if I take their phone away from them once a day and monitor everybody who calls and texts them. I don’t think that’s really a good bar.

That’s a little different as I am under the influence of a known, measurable substance with known, measurable impairments it induces. I basically can’t exercise ANY judgment. Not just driving.

Yes I understand that someone indoctrinated/obsessed with conspiracy theories can quite literally not be able to get out of that orbit without external intervention, but it’s harder to quantify and it’s harder to draw the line on where and when it’s appropriate to declare someone unfit to set their own media consumption habits.

We’d also have to clearly define what does and doesn’t contribute to the problem, which would vary from person to person. That is definitely not a straightforward delineation. Especially when the person in question doesn’t agree at all.

You can think of it as an application of the golden rule.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Would you want someone to do this for you if they found you in a similar situation?

If so, then you know what you need to do.

> Would you want someone to do this for you if they found you in a similar situation?

I mean this assumes I’m absolutely right AND it’s my right to unilaterally cut off my family from certain media without their consent. I feel like in the end I’m correct but not in the right.

The big thing is not to cut them off - that's likely part of it - but to replace the problematic habit.

Propaganda thrives on engagement. Engagement must be replaced with something equally stimulating.

But I am cutting them off. The content is blocked. I am denying them access.

Should also put on Fox News whenever possible, maybe set their browser home to it.

You want to make the situation worse? Might as well broadcast Tucker Carlson into her headphones while she sleeps

You'd have to block mainstream media too if you want to avoid disinformation.

Perhaps we should all decrease our news consumption. I stopped years ago and it's been a boon to my mental health.

Same here, it's basically all fear porn no matter which you consume

PBS newshour was actually pretty decent when I did watch it though

Alas, these can be symptoms of a neurological disorder. I suggest consulting with a neurologist.

Thanks. We know and are very concerned about dementia in particular. Unfortunately, she's not interested. Fortunately, she is still fully capable of carrying out the normal business of life, at least for now. Not much we can do until things progress further, but we're making financial and logistical plans for if/when that day comes.

In the mean time, subtracting even a few hours of the angry conspiracy TV would help a lot. We do see her come out of the stupor a little bit when we take her "off grid" for a long weekend. But, yes, we fear worse things are to come.

After a close family member went down the conspiracy slide, I've realised believing conspiracy theories is an excellent indicator of mental health issues.

Your MiL is a case in point, and sounds like she needs serious help. Fifty years ago the men in white coats would intervene, but now mental health is basically ignored by society. If you care enough about her, you/your wife need to do act.

>> Fifty years ago the men in white coats would intervene

I dare say they cared about people's mental health even less. Asylums were built to incarcerate relatives you found troublesome. Some healthy people made it there, too.

Not to mention the "treatment" they received there was brutal.

My mom was like that and it turned out she had undiagnosed schizophrenia. It’s way more common than you can imagine.

I have a similar experience, parents and in-laws are totally consumed by right wing media and conspiracy theory’s to the point that we have to be careful about who we bring near them due to racism comments etc.

Its also super exhausting to be around them as we’re always on edge.

There’s not doubt its Facebook and modern “television”.

Ten years ago they were different people.

> It's not hypocrisy. A child and a retiree are not even remotely comparable. One is accountable to their parents, the other has likely worked their ass off for decades to earn a bit of down time.

Interesting that the perceived needs of people change over time based on how productive they are or were. This belies a sort of strangely managerial/administrative mindset as to the values that make a person "valid" to take time to pursue things they enjoy, and "earn" down time.

I like this perspective. It reads like the Ben Franklin quote: “Many young men die at age 25, but are not buried until they're 75.”

> will leave me the hell alone to do whatever I want to with the rest of my limited time here on earth.

Many elders are left to wither away alone, and loneliness of older people is a rampant issue - they want to feel loved or at least feel relevant in the family and not forgotten.

Okay deal, we’ll leave you alone if you promise not to vote.

Children are more stressed and have less free time than anyone else; it's not their fault that they're legally barred from doing anything "productive". They're not even allowed to vote on the laws that bind them!

> A child and a retiree are not even remotely comparable.

Excessive consumption of low quality media is both bad for the brain and bad for society.

> leave me the hell alone to do whatever I want to with the rest of my limited time here on earth

If that means being manipulated by aggressive algorithms designed to keep you locked in and wasting your limited time, that's fine for you. Personally, I find it horrifying.

Dude, hell no. This is an incredibly entitled outlook.

You don't get to check out and look at your phone while your children or grandchildren want your attention. As an elder, you're expected to invest your time and wisdom into the next generation, not sit around on your ass doing nothing. Sure, maybe it's your right to squander your experience, but if it's also your choice then you deserve no respect.

There's also the looming reality that as you continue to age, you'll be less capable of caring for yourself. Hopefully your children will take care of you, at least until they grow sick of you. And the caretakers in a nursing home certainly won't give a damn about your "productive achievements" when they're changing your diaper.

You're right about one thing. A child and a retiree are not comparable. You should hold yourself to a much higher standard than a child.

The blogpost was clearly written about parents who had no such high aspirations for their children, though.

This feels like a programmed response the article calls out

Parents are accountable to the children, just as you say the children are to the parents. That's what relationships are.

You're right in that generally it's none of my business how my father spends his days.

However, decades of the outrage figure on TV have shown that aspects of how he spends his time are not only his concern.

Had he listened to the majority of the family he'd still have those relationships

Even now as an estranged adult, I'd appreciate his (non-deranged) input

> You're right in that generally it's none of my business how my father spends his days.

Why would you say that? Family relationships matter.

True, that's the thesis of my post!

This is the struggle, respecting autonomy while still caring for someone

Say I saw his health declining, I'd mention it - but I probably wouldn't expect much of it either, considering

Edit: thinking on it, the effectiveness comes down to method

Articles like this one are understandably inflammatory.

Similarly, if I called my father something awful, I couldn't expect a good result. Asking how he feels does nothing

We'd both be better off if I offered to cook him some meals, for example

> I'm not 65 yet, but once I am I hope that others will recognize my productive achievements and will leave me the hell alone to do whatever I want to with the rest of my limited time here on earth.

100% reasonable. If you're done contributing and want to sit the rest out you're welcome to in my book. But I suspect that most people keep at least 1 hand on the reigns in a critical way: they vote.

If you're planning on influencing the lives of the following generations, I think it's pretty reasonable to be concerned about your mental well being.

This seems like a reasonable argument until you go deeper.

> most people keep at least 1 hand on the reins in a critical way: they vote

> it's reasonable to be concerned about [old people's] mental well being.

So you're saying old people shouldn't be allowed to vote... because they're mentally incapable?

I remember one time in American history when certain folks decided certain other folks were mentally incapable of voting... (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test)

Please don't post nonsensical rewrites of posts. Find a charitable interpretation, or at least an honest one.

Just want to ask; how is it a disingenuous rewrite. What is the charitable interpretation of "old people have mental problems, but they still vote, and that's a problem"? That's literally what the parent comment says.

I'm right to compare it to Jim Crow, I'm quoting verbatim, and that's essentially what they're arguing for.

To clarify, there are two logical consequences of that parent comment.

Suppose a 65yo person watches too much tv and still votes.

1. In order to be allowed to vote, they need to watch less tv.

2. They don't get to vote otherwise.

My point is: we have so much stigma against the elderly in this country that arguments like these even appear reasonable at first glance. I'm arguing that there are dark consequences of this line of thinking.

So, how is this not the same as another restrictive voting requirement, such as literacy tests or poll taxes?

That's not at all what I had in mind, but I still think it's an interesting (if extreme) line of reasoning.

Why do we ban 12-year-olds from voting? Seems we already have some concept of the capacity to vote built into our legal system here in the US. Wonder if that's true of all countries... Most states don't allow felons to vote either... It feels weird that you can vote by proxy even if you barely know your own name. I think I agree dementia patients should still be able to vote, but like... it feels weird, right?

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/blog/can-people-with-dementia-...

It's not extreme to be an absolutist here like myself.

The best things about the U.S. system are simple. If you are born on her land, you are a citizen. If you are a citizen over 18* you can vote. You have the right to free speech and religion as long as it doesn't injure anyone else.

These decisions were made in part to reject the British monarch's divine right to rule and establish popular sovereignty. I am not a historian; this is not the full picture, but this is how I understand it.

To me, talk of disenfranchisement is categorically dangerous because it undermines the foundation of the government, and walks back the 250-year work of civil rights activists to establish what is today for most, a pretty good system.

So yeah, should we let kids vote? Maybe, why not.

Should we take that right away from anyone based on fuzzy criteria or a doctor's evaluation? No, and I refer you to the history of the post-reconstruction South as an example.

*(or historically 21, also male, white, etc.)

Yeah, good point. Taking away people's right to vote isn't a direction I'd prefer we all head in.

Interesting then that 2 states: Vermont and Maine (and DC!) let you vote even while you're in prison.

They weren't actually arguing that people over 65 shouldn't be able to vote. They were saying that people over 65 _do_ vote (in this case, despite claiming they are throwing in the towel on caring about the world around them) and we actually have to care if their brains turn to mush on reality TV and conspiracy videos.

OP is saying that if you vote, you're not entitled to the "I'm retired from worldly concerns, let me live however I want, even if what I want is very strange" deflection regardless of age.

It's unfortunate that that horrendous historical abuse of a fundamentally sound idea has poisoned the well.

Umm... yes, historically disenfranchisement was driven by racism and sexism.

This is driven by ageism.

Obviously racism was historically much more abusive. But both are still discrimination.

Then the disenfranchisement of the young is surely equally discriminatory.

Maybe not equally. I know maybe like 10 old people. Most of them are very smart.

I've met several 2-year-olds. Dumb like a rock.

But should 12-year-olds be allowed to vote? I don't see a reason not to besides history. In the U.S. during Vietnam the minimum age was lowered from 21 to 18. Why not younger?

Children have no interest and know nothing about politics. Realistically they would just vote for who their parents vote for.

Realistically a lot of old people just vote for who the guy on TV told them to, or the party they joined 40 years ago. But we don't see disenfranchising them as legitimate.

> Realistically a lot of old people just vote for who the guy on TV told them to

Is there a study or some data backing this up? Or just a stereotype?

Same amount of evidence as saying kids would just vote for who their parents vote for.

Nah, nobody here has suggested we ban anything for kids or old people.

OP's saying that it's reasonable to care about what we put into kid's brains as they have a future, but not to care about them because they're old. I'm saying you absolutely still impact the future even if you're done working, so maybe we should consider everyone's media consumption.

Honestly I would much rather trust a voter who spends a lot of hours watching TV than someone who spends a lot of hours on social media.

I wouldn't. I suspect it's a lot easier to bump into differing viewpoints on social media than sitting in front of [insert channel here] for 8 hours a day.

But I'm not at all confident in this, and I think that's the point. I think they're both likely to fuck you up, so I think it's reasonable to be concerned about both.

Controversially I think the problem with taking this point of view is that it's also an argument for why seniors shouldn't be allowed to vote.

However, I think old people should be allowed to vote.

So really what we should be looking at is something more nuanced - that perhaps excessive screen time is wasteful, maybe even exploitative, even for seniors.

There is certainly an unevenness to the moral panic of children with screen time - but moderation is key, not blanket statements.

To take a contrarian view: Raising kids is not curing cancer, having a fruitful career isn't solving world hunger. Many people get to retirement age having worked hard for their own benefit, nothing more. How does that earn them the right to contribute nothing productive back to society for the rest of their years?