glazyrin

You seem to believe that saving is a virtue, that you get what you pay for, that interest rates have a natural level much higher than zero, and in 'diminishing returns'. I accept that you and many other people believe in those things, but I don't think they are universally believed in, not particularly supported by evidence.

I completely agree, with the precision that there can be huge difference between two people with a similar amount of money, if one has most of their needs take care of (ie 'broke' but not 'poor') and the other will suffer severe consequences of they run out of money.

This is the comment you're replying to:

> why blame older people for your generation having less sex?

If you think it is the responsibility of older people that younger people aren't having as much sex, then why?

If not, then what are you challenging? I didn't say that there was more sex going on, not that student debt was great, not that Tinder was awesome.

Your whole argument seems to be 'there is less sex available because fewer people want to have sex'. This is, of course, a somewhat one-sided view of the situation. It does not contradict my suggestion that younger people are choosing to have less sex. Nor does it disprove the theory that the availability of alternatives to in-person sex has made it less attractive.

I think this is a truism which doesn't always apply.

Suppose that there are 1,000 basement-dwelling redditors (okay, it's a caricature). Each has their basic needs taken care of, but not much money, and not much scope to improve their lot in life. What little money they have doesn't get invested, but spent frivolously.

Suppose 1,000 such people could all put in $500 and give it to a randomly selected one of them. That person wins a life-changing amount of money. They suddenly have their prospects upgraded - they can travel, buy a house, live in some comfort, pursue a dream career. Couldn't it arguably be rational for all 1,000 to participate in that game? Doesn't it make sense that the utility curve is convex, not concave - that $500,000 is more than 1,000 times better than $500, when compared to $0?

After all, suppose that $500 was a year's spare income. Even saving for most of a lifetime would only yield $20-30,000, nothing like enough for many of the opportunities that half a million would make possible. And a lump sum at age 65 could be much less useful than one at age 25. Losing the $500 might barely make a difference to one's quality of life.

Now suppose that to participate in this lottery, they have to pay 10% of the money to Wall Street, or high frequency market makers, or whoever. Couldn't it still be a rational choice for each of the 1,000 to participate?

None of these really make much sense. Sex is free and not that time-consuming. You can work hard at college and still find time for sex. You can be in debt and have sex with other people in debt without incurring further debt.

Women getting married and having children later should mean more opportunities for casual sex, not fewer.

Boomers have not forced younger people to find hookups on tinder. The argument about competition makes no sense. Everyone can't be outcompeted.

If a generation has chosen only to have sex with its most attractive members, how did that happen? Why does it leads to less total sex? Why is this the fault of older people?

Lots of these points hit home - but why blame older people for your generation having less sex? Baby boomers didn't make casual sex illegal, nor have they bought up all the sex. Until covid, if young people wanted to have sex with each other they were perfectly free to.

Isn't it simply that masturbation and pornography have become relatively more attractive propositions than they were in the past?

If you put forward a theory like this about Wall Street, markets in general, capitalism in general, or the political system we have, you're an 'extremist'. When it comes to a bunch of people goofing around with meme stocks on a subreddit, suddenly lots of people turn into champions of the 'working poor'.