Astral Codex Ten Podcast

[original post: Against Against Boomers]
Before getting started:
First, I wish I'd been more careful to differentiate the following claims:
Boomers had it much easier than later generations.
The political system unfairly prioritizes Boomers over other generations.
Boomers are uniquely bad on some axis like narcissism, selfishness, short-termism, or willingness to defect on the social contract.
Anti-Boomerism conflates all three of these positions, and in arguing against it, I tried to argue against all three of these positions - I think with varying degrees of success. But these are separate claims that could stand or fall separately, and I think a true argument against anti-Boomerists would demand they declare explicitly which ones they support - rather than letting them switch among them as convenient - then arguing against whichever ones they say are key to their position.
Second, I wish I'd highlighted how much of this discussion centers around disagreements over which policies are natural/unmarked vs. unnatural/marked.
Nobody is passing laws that literally say "confiscate wealth from Generation A and give it to Generation B". We're mostly discussing tax policy, where Tax Policy 1 is more favorable to old people, and Tax Policy 2 is more favorable to young people. If you're young, you might feel like Tax Policy 1 is a declaration of intergenerational warfare where the old are enriching themselves at young people's expense. But if you're old, you might feel like reversing Tax Policy 1 and switching to Tax Policy 2 would be intergenerational warfare confiscating your stuff. But in fact, they're just two different tax policies and it's not obvious which one a fair society with no "intergenerational warfare" would have, even assuming there was such a thing. We'll see this most clearly in the section on housing, but I'll try to highlight it whenever it comes up.
I'm in a fighty frame of mind here and probably defend the Boomers (and myself) in these responses more than I would in an ideal world.
Anyway, here are your comments.
Table Of Contents:
1: Top comments I especially want to highlight
2: Comments about housing policy
3: ...about culture
4: ...about social security technicalities
5: What are we even doing here?
6: Other comments
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-boomers

If you're not familiar with "X years to escape the permanent underclass", see the New Yorker here, or the Laine, Bear, and Trammell/Dwarkesh articles that inspired it.
The "permanent underclass" meme isn't being spread by poor people - who are already part of the underclass, and generally not worrying too much about its permanence. It's preying on neurotic well-off people in Silicon Valley, who fret about how they're just bourgeois well-off rather than future oligarch well-off, and that only the true oligarchs will have a good time after the Singularity.
Between the vast ocean of total annihilation and the vast continent of infinite post-scarcity, there is, I admit, a tiny shoreline of possibilities that end in oligarch capture. Even if you end up there, you'll be fine. Dario Amodei has taken the Giving What We Can Pledge (#43 here) to give 10% of his wealth to the less fortunate; your worst-case scenario is owning a terraformed moon in one of his galaxies. Now you can stop worrying about the permanent underclass and focus on more important things.
On that tiny shoreline of possible worlds, the ones where the next few years are your last chance to become rich, they're also your last chance to make a mark on the world (proof: if you could change the world, you could find a way to make people pay you to do it, or to not do it, then become rich). And what a chance! The last few years of the human era will be wild. They'll be like classical Greece and Rome: a sudden opening up of new possibilities, where the first people to take them will be remembered for millennia to come. What a waste of the privilege of living in Classical Athens to try to become the richest olive merchant or whatever. Even in Roman times, trying to become Crassus would be, well, crass.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/you-have-only-x-years-to-escape-permanent

[Original post: Vibecession - Much More Than You Wanted To Know]
Table of Contents
1: When was the vibecession?
2: Is the vibecession just sublimating cultural complaints?
3: Discourse downstream of the Mike Green $140K poverty line post
4: What about other countries?
5: Comments on rent/housing
6: Comments on inflation
7: Comments on vibes
8: Other good comments
9: The parable of Calvin's grandparents
10: Updates / conclusions
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-vibecession

This year's prediction contest is live on Metaculus. They write:
This year's contest draws directly from that community, with all questions suggested by ACX readers. Both experienced forecasters and newcomers are invited to participate, making predictions across U.S. politics, AI, international affairs, and culture.
To participate, submit your predictions by January 17th at 11:59 PM PT. At that time, we will take a snapshot of all standing forecasts, which will determine the contest rankings and the allocation of the $10,000 prize pool. While you are encouraged to continue updating your predictions throughout the year, forecasts made after January 17th will only affect site leaderboards, not contest rankings.
You are welcome to create a bot account to forecast and participate in addition to your regular Metaculus account. Create a bot account and get support building a bot here.
And they've also announced this year's winners for best questions submitted. Congratulations to:
Gumbledalf ($700)
espiritu57 ($500)
setasojiro843047 (Substack handle) ($400)
sai_39 ($300)
nicholaskross ($250)
(Anonymous) ($200)
(Anonymous) ($200)
RMD ($150)
(Anonymous) ($150)
Hippopotamus_bartholomeus ($150)
To participate in the tournament or learn more, go to Metaculus.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/acxmetaculus-prediction-contest-2026

Hating Boomers is the new cool thing. Amazon offerings include A Generation Of Sociopaths: How The Baby Boomers Betrayed America, the two apparently unrelated books How The Boomers Took Their Children's Future and How The Boomers Stole Millennials' Future, and Boomers: The Men And Women Who Promised Freedom But Delivered Disaster. "You don't hate Boomers enough" has become a popular Twitter catchphrase. Richard Hanania, who has tried hating every group once, has decided that hating Boomers is his favorite.
Some people might say we just experienced a historic upwelling of identity politics, that it was pretty terrible for everyone involved, and that perhaps we need a new us-vs-them conflict like we need a punch to the face. This, the Boomer-haters will tell you, would be a mistaken generalization. This time, we have finally discovered a form of identity politics which carves reality at its joints, truly separating the good and bad people.
I think these arguments fall short. Even if they didn't, the usual bias against identity politics should make us think twice about pursuing them too zealously.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/against-against-boomers