Yet, my mother and my grandfather participated in the Romanian revolution, where real bullets have being shot against the people. I was almost 8 years old and I will be forever grateful for what they did. There is no other way, there is nobody else to help you if you accept what is happening. It's not on the same level, of course, but my anecdotal experience does not align with what you said. You can't fight lawless with law, but you can at least protest.

Obviously when I use universal quantifiers, even implicitly, it is easy to find counterexamples. Of course there are individuals that are willing to sacrifice even when old.

But don't you think that your (grand)parents may have been more motivated due to having children and grandchildren? Now, why an old, childless lady or man, living on pension, would take risks, especially when they lived their life watching things taking shape? Again, some will act on principles they believe in, but such people are always a minority. And I doubt people in age of your (grand)parents constituted a bulk of protesters.

I am from Poland. When mass workers protests were happening under communist regime, age median was under 30 yrs. Today it is over 40 yrs. Even excluding other aspects (like liberal ideology taking a firm hold here, and real economic growth that happened since), people today are much more complicit, and much less willing to take direct action, even if today's government is much less likely to beat you to death in jail.

I was thinking about this and honestly, I would be more willing to take action exactly if I were old, simply because I'd have less to lose. Sucks to get life sentece at 20, doesn't change much when you're 80.

Young people, in general, don't even bother to vote in the USA. They're not going to be participating in a revolution any time soon.