It would be pretty interesting if you had more than 3-4 generations at a time (say a generation is 30 years, then 3 x 30 = 90). I think the significance of a generation is as you say: in human terms, it seems the vast majority of your personality and outlook is formed by age 30.
If people lived to be 1000 years old, then you would have 33 different generations at once. At the very least, those 33 different generations will tend to cluster together socially, to the exclusion of another. They will have come of age with the same events. You already hear people in their 30's talking about how they don't understand what teenagers are doing (Snapchat, etc.). Imagine if there were 32 other generations to comprehend: you would have to be an expert in history to even relate to people.
People already say that baby boomers have hogged wealth at the expense of their children and younger generations. I haven't investigated those claims in detail but it seems plausible. You would probably see different generations fighting for policy that favors them. I mean it would be hard to imagine this NOT happening.
>People already say that baby boomers have hogged wealth at the expense of their children and younger generations. I haven't investigated those claims in detail but it seems plausible.
This generational warfare meme is pushed by, among others, Stan Druckenmiller:
You'll note that they push both sides at once. Boomers are told that millenials are feckless and lazy. Millenials are told that Boomers screwed up the economy and are hogging all the wealth.
I'm a boomer, and I just want to state I don't feel 'millennials are feckless and lazy'! I get so tired of
every generation looking for fault in the new generation.
As a kid--my father never stopped complaining about the Hippies, even though deep down inside he had the same values, but did what society dictated. I always knew he wanted more
out of life than going to a job he really didn't like, and putting up with a partner who just complained. He died from
liver cancer at 64. Yes, due to drinking. He was a good man
and tried to rebel againts the system in little ways, but I always knew the life he kinda picked, or fell into is not the
life ge really wanted. I rember as a child he once told me,
he would probally like the effect of heroin if it wasn't so dangerous. He repeated that stement many times over the course of his life. Years later, I still wonder how such a convective
man could even go to those dark areas? I am sharring too much? I just want to go on the record as I'm sick of the
sterotypes(hippies, generation z,y,x etc., hipsters, all of them). While, I on the box. I wish society would stop judging me by what I do. I have never liked the obligatory
"What do you do?". Maybe, it's just an American thing? When I used to go to clubs if the "wdyd" came out if a person's
mouth; I just politely answered, and walked away. Sorry, about rambling. I'm just venting.
wdyd is just a protocol handshake. If you exclude everyone who honors a common protocol, you will be left with a needlessly small sample set. Instead, a double entendre response to a protocol handshake can be a good Turing test.
>I get so tired of every generation looking for fault in the new generation.
Well then, inform the ones you know of the how and why they are being manipulated into doing that. Mr Druckenmiller would hate it if everybody turned on him instead of each other.
> ... Imagine if there were 32 other generations to comprehend: you would have to be an expert in history to even relate to people.
This already exists, since history often repeats itself as cyclical philosophy/law overlaid on technology fashion. Social groups have varying technological and cultural capacity for intergenerational memory and finance.
As media technology for influence/advocacy/propaganda has become commoditized, what may appear as non-deterministic weather patterns of techno-socio-political fashion, could also be viewed as intergenerational economic warfare. Albert Brooks novel 2030 covers some of these themes in a future dystopia.
Imagine if 32 generations were concurrently using the same words, to represent very different questions, goals, values. Imagine if one generation was unknowingly influenced by 32 past generations, all advocating to be memetically reborn.
Imagine if 32 possible-future generations were advocating for the opportunity to come into sequential or concurrent existence.
> ... You would probably see different generations fighting for policy that favors them.
Historically, such fighting has been more physical than informational. The web, with sites like HN, move that balance towards the latter. If a corporation or foundation is immortal, how does the identity of that corporation change over time as constituent humans are gradually swapped out?
Here is a recent summary of policy advocacy using intergenerational financial capacity to influence single-generation humans, "..this book illuminates how elite consultants have adopted grassroots advocacy tactics for paying clients. Rather than being dismissed as mere 'astroturf', these consultants' campaigns should be seen as having real effects on political participation and policymaking", http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IO0E69E/
I've always wondered if the average human lifespan is somehow implicitly factored into interest rates. If people lived to 1000+ years old, a small investment made early in life could potentially balloon into incredible wealth given even relatively conservative investments. Obviously political and financial stability could have huge impacts too. I have to imagine multi-century-long held accounts would have an impact
I think the markets will regulate themself as they always do. If (actually, in such scenario it's best to say when) the accounts held for a vastly longer amount of time start to spread, there would be at most an initial impact, but then the markets will stabilize automatically and nothing will by disrupted unrepairably. What now we call "short term investments" will become very very short terms, and so on. There's nothing that will be distructed on this side in my opinion.
What could lead to problems (that is: a not changing social and political situation) would be the adaption of political mechanism for the longer lifespans. For example, now politicians have mandate that last from 3 to 5 years, then there are elections (talking about not totalitary states). Putting this in prospective, with humans having a 1000+ years lifespan, politicians mandate would grow to 50+ years. That's bad, and in my opinion will only lead to deadlocks.
Imagine a nation guided for 50+ years by the same persons. They will start demanding always more power, leading to mostly only totalitary scenarios. Everything will fall apart.
Instead, keeping the actual model could lead to even more variety (that's not the right word in this case, my apologize for it) than what we have now, and there's a reasonable chance that humanity will benefit from this.
Of course, the one described is just one of the worst case scenarios (altought not the worst at all), maybe our brain will change drastically and we will become a complete different thing.
That seems logical. I think the average lifespan is factored into nearly all facets of human civilization, implicitly and explicitly. Come to think of it, I probably take my expected lifespan into account when making all kinds of decisions, both consciously and unconsciously.
Does it not seem possible that many of the factors leading to this gender grouping are influenced by biological age? For example, research shows that our brains are hugely influenceable until our mid to late 20's. At that point major pathways have been established which influence our thinking for the rest of our lives.
What if we counter aging such that people never leave their peak physical condition? (25 years old?)
Will they still group by the generation in which they were born?
In the movie, In Time, the 25-year old non-aging humans receive a starting "bank balance" of credits shown on their smartwatch. When their credits drop to zero, they die. Life for most people consists of working or stealing to top-up. They mostly group by geographical free-trade zones sorted by bank balances of "time credits", separated by borders and armed checkpoints.
If people lived to be 1000 years old, then you would have 33 different generations at once. At the very least, those 33 different generations will tend to cluster together socially, to the exclusion of another. They will have come of age with the same events. You already hear people in their 30's talking about how they don't understand what teenagers are doing (Snapchat, etc.). Imagine if there were 32 other generations to comprehend: you would have to be an expert in history to even relate to people.
People already say that baby boomers have hogged wealth at the expense of their children and younger generations. I haven't investigated those claims in detail but it seems plausible. You would probably see different generations fighting for policy that favors them. I mean it would be hard to imagine this NOT happening.