That previous post was a real bummer—sorry. In that post, I argued that most of our desires are competitive, and that, therefore, our desires cannot all be satisfied. Most of our strivings are collectively futile, and we’re going nowhere as a species, except toward
Interesting theory with possible disturbing ramifications. We're in the midst of a huge demographic shift thanks to longer lives and fewer births. In other words, the population is aging, and the concept of retirement at 65 is being actively challenged for economic reasons. Add to that the billions being invested in age reversal and life extension science and we'll become a society where older people don't really make room for the dwindling number of young people. If you're correct, intergenerational conflict is unavoidable. (I write a substack on the topic of the economic importance of older people at https://www.longevitygains.com/)
May 18, 2023·edited May 18, 2023Liked by David Pinsof
Very interesting essay. I think you're onto something with your ITC theory.
Re: the two footnotes, there are a few things I can think of that might be contributing factors to both.
(1) As it relates to life satisfaction, "perceptions of intergenerational improvement," and "optimism for the future," I think concept creep plays a big part in making it appear as though things are not getting better even when they actually are, thus making people more pessimistic about the future.
The bottom line from this research article on concept creep sums up my point well, and speaks volumes about our times, I think: "Social problems may seem intractable in part because reductions in their prevalence lead people to see more of them."
(2) Concept creep may also explain some of the increased deaths of despair among black men in particular. The police shootings that you mentioned are one area where, at least as I understand the data, things appear worse than they actually are (which is not to say that things are good, just that they may be less bad than they seem). The numbers below reflect that.
(b) Men are increasingly feeling purposeless, isolated, and adrift in many areas of modern-day life and society—they are also going backwards in some of the areas where women are advancing (in eduction, for example). Not that it's a zero-sum thing. It's not. It's just that we've not yet addressed many of the unique (and in some cases new) issues facing boys and men like we've been working for a relatively long time now to do for girls and women.
(c) Working-class boys and men in particular—a large share of which are black—are not doing well economically. Richard Reeves has done great work covering this. In his book (and to some extent on his Substack—https://ofboysandmen.substack.com/) he goes into great research-heavy detail on all of this.
This video summary from him covers both male deaths of despair and the economic issues specific to working-class men (e.g., they're earning lower wages, dropping out of the labor force, losing occupational stature, and so on):
Thanks Brian! This is a fantastic wealth of information—I really appreciate it. I fear you might be right that concept creep might be keeping us from realizing that we are actually outcompeting our elders, at least in some cases. It seems as though culture is playing a role here too—and not merely intergenerational economic growth. You mention the growing issues among men these days—and I’m familiar with Richard Reeves’ work. I wonder if part of the problem among men and boys is the rise of educational credentialism, and the increasing necessity of higher levels of education for economic success? That would help explain why we’re not seeing it among women and girls, who tend to do better in school. It seems education was not as necessary for a middle or upper class life in prior eras, so maybe men are failing to outcompete their fathers and grandfathers (and fathers and grandfathers are watching their sons and grandsons fail to outcompete them), which might be behind some of this malaise. Thanks again for reading and looking forward to your further thoughts as well!
Agreed. The rise of educational credentialism seems like another likely contributor to me. It would also align with the fact that black men (and Hispanic men, whose suicide rates are also rising) have some of the lowest high school graduation rates. It will be interesting to see how the more recent rise in skills-based hiring (in both state and private jobs) affects things.
I think brains in jars hooked up to simulations more reliably & more effectively solves this problem, it just obviously comes with ethics & agency concerns.
The two weaknesses I see in your method are instability and unsustainability.
It's unstable because the older individual doesn't care about the next generation as a whole, they care about themselves, and then their offspring. This means that they will vote for policies that benefit themselves the most which most likely consequentially benefit their in-group, which would likely be in a similar age-range. There would need to be some aggressive marketing for this concept to reverse this effect, but the group with the most power to execute that marketing would be their own group.
It would be unsustainable due to the logistics of continued growth, science will eventually end & physical demands will halt productivity progress, those pesky laws of thermodynamics will get in the way, especially near the end of scientific progress if we agree that accessible truth regarding how reality works has a finite amount.
Another way to solve for this is to trick the individual into thinking they're outcompeting their peers while simulating those interactions. Eden is a warehouse full of brains in jars connected to simulations where you are the only conscious agent. That's the only scenario where I can see 'losers' not experiencing being a 'loser' but still being able to generate a 'winner.'
It's either that or we hope that our subconscious is dumb enough and consistent enough to be predictably manipulated through some type of mental practice.
Thanks, Brandon. Good points. I agree that intergenerational competition is unlikely to be promoted through the political process, because as you rightly point out, people will favor policies that help their specific group over future generations more broadly. I think if it happens, it has to happen through economic growth and technological advancement. But yes, I also agree that such growth and advancement cannot last forever--we'll eventually bump up against the laws of physics. So maybe you're right that plugging ourselves into the matrix or something is our best hope.
Hey - where'd everybody go? I thought thiis party was just getting started.
Maybe I missed it but key to your thesis is the means to achieve it, productivity growth. The nice thing about productivity growth is that it allows us to out-compete our elders with not too much environmental impact. Our elders can still play but at some point they leave the workforce.
There's always the risk that we get so good at things that we put each other out of work, but we can just work less, make the same amount, spread the wealth, and save resources all at the same time. Idealistic - a bit, I know, but having more leisure time is also a win over the prior generation.
We also have a historic precedent - the post WWII era, where all these things come true. Still we are in the midst of an energy changeover - sort of like when we changed from coal to oil between the wars. That's making things bumpy right now.
Thanks for your thoughts here. Yes productivity growth is key, but it has to be stable over multiple generations, so that each generation can economically outcompete the previous one. Short-term productivity growth will not have positive effects, which is why short-term growth spurts in developing countries have not been miracles for them. The growth has to be stable and long-term. Or at least, that’s what the theory predicts.
Well, I genuinely worry that if we can’t keep outcompeting previous generations, we’re going to have some serious problems. I think the fact that this is already starting to happen for some groups, and it’s already starting to cause serious problems, is evidence for that. I think gratitude is helpful, especially on an individual level, but I’m not optimistic that we can create a worldwide movement for gratitude, beyond mere lip service, that makes a serious dent in the problem. But I’m open to other ideas. Not saying this is the only possible solution to our predicament. I’m hoping this sparks a larger conversation about how we’re going to unfuck ourselves as a species.
I always thought parents only want their children to do well for their own status signaling...
I could be in trauma though :D
Yea that’s certainly part of it. But I also think parents genuinely want their kids to have high status for pretty straightforward Darwinian reasons.
Interesting theory with possible disturbing ramifications. We're in the midst of a huge demographic shift thanks to longer lives and fewer births. In other words, the population is aging, and the concept of retirement at 65 is being actively challenged for economic reasons. Add to that the billions being invested in age reversal and life extension science and we'll become a society where older people don't really make room for the dwindling number of young people. If you're correct, intergenerational conflict is unavoidable. (I write a substack on the topic of the economic importance of older people at https://www.longevitygains.com/)
Very interesting essay. I think you're onto something with your ITC theory.
Re: the two footnotes, there are a few things I can think of that might be contributing factors to both.
(1) As it relates to life satisfaction, "perceptions of intergenerational improvement," and "optimism for the future," I think concept creep plays a big part in making it appear as though things are not getting better even when they actually are, thus making people more pessimistic about the future.
The bottom line from this research article on concept creep sums up my point well, and speaks volumes about our times, I think: "Social problems may seem intractable in part because reductions in their prevalence lead people to see more of them."
https://dtg.sites.fas.harvard.edu/LEVARI2018COMPLETE.pdf
More on that study and "how progress blinds people to progress" here: https://rabbitholemag.com/how-progress-blinds-people-to-progress/
(2) Concept creep may also explain some of the increased deaths of despair among black men in particular. The police shootings that you mentioned are one area where, at least as I understand the data, things appear worse than they actually are (which is not to say that things are good, just that they may be less bad than they seem). The numbers below reflect that.
US police killings 2013–2023:
https://mappingpoliceviolence.us/nationaltrends
US fatal police shootings 2015–2023:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/
More on how "fatal shootings by police used to be much more common": https://reason.com/2023/01/12/police-killed-1183-people-in-2022-despite-a-viral-claim-thats-not-a-record-high/
Three other things that might explain the deaths of despair among men generally and black men in particular:
(a) Men are more likely to kill themselves to begin with, and that overall number is rising
https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/suicide-data-statistics.html
(b) Men are increasingly feeling purposeless, isolated, and adrift in many areas of modern-day life and society—they are also going backwards in some of the areas where women are advancing (in eduction, for example). Not that it's a zero-sum thing. It's not. It's just that we've not yet addressed many of the unique (and in some cases new) issues facing boys and men like we've been working for a relatively long time now to do for girls and women.
(c) Working-class boys and men in particular—a large share of which are black—are not doing well economically. Richard Reeves has done great work covering this. In his book (and to some extent on his Substack—https://ofboysandmen.substack.com/) he goes into great research-heavy detail on all of this.
This video summary from him covers both male deaths of despair and the economic issues specific to working-class men (e.g., they're earning lower wages, dropping out of the labor force, losing occupational stature, and so on):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBG1Wgg32Ok
Just some thoughts. I'm very much looking forward to reading more of yours here.
Thanks Brian! This is a fantastic wealth of information—I really appreciate it. I fear you might be right that concept creep might be keeping us from realizing that we are actually outcompeting our elders, at least in some cases. It seems as though culture is playing a role here too—and not merely intergenerational economic growth. You mention the growing issues among men these days—and I’m familiar with Richard Reeves’ work. I wonder if part of the problem among men and boys is the rise of educational credentialism, and the increasing necessity of higher levels of education for economic success? That would help explain why we’re not seeing it among women and girls, who tend to do better in school. It seems education was not as necessary for a middle or upper class life in prior eras, so maybe men are failing to outcompete their fathers and grandfathers (and fathers and grandfathers are watching their sons and grandsons fail to outcompete them), which might be behind some of this malaise. Thanks again for reading and looking forward to your further thoughts as well!
Agreed. The rise of educational credentialism seems like another likely contributor to me. It would also align with the fact that black men (and Hispanic men, whose suicide rates are also rising) have some of the lowest high school graduation rates. It will be interesting to see how the more recent rise in skills-based hiring (in both state and private jobs) affects things.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3689170/skills-based-hiring-continues-to-rise-as-degree-requirements-fade.html
I think brains in jars hooked up to simulations more reliably & more effectively solves this problem, it just obviously comes with ethics & agency concerns.
The two weaknesses I see in your method are instability and unsustainability.
It's unstable because the older individual doesn't care about the next generation as a whole, they care about themselves, and then their offspring. This means that they will vote for policies that benefit themselves the most which most likely consequentially benefit their in-group, which would likely be in a similar age-range. There would need to be some aggressive marketing for this concept to reverse this effect, but the group with the most power to execute that marketing would be their own group.
It would be unsustainable due to the logistics of continued growth, science will eventually end & physical demands will halt productivity progress, those pesky laws of thermodynamics will get in the way, especially near the end of scientific progress if we agree that accessible truth regarding how reality works has a finite amount.
Another way to solve for this is to trick the individual into thinking they're outcompeting their peers while simulating those interactions. Eden is a warehouse full of brains in jars connected to simulations where you are the only conscious agent. That's the only scenario where I can see 'losers' not experiencing being a 'loser' but still being able to generate a 'winner.'
It's either that or we hope that our subconscious is dumb enough and consistent enough to be predictably manipulated through some type of mental practice.
Thanks, Brandon. Good points. I agree that intergenerational competition is unlikely to be promoted through the political process, because as you rightly point out, people will favor policies that help their specific group over future generations more broadly. I think if it happens, it has to happen through economic growth and technological advancement. But yes, I also agree that such growth and advancement cannot last forever--we'll eventually bump up against the laws of physics. So maybe you're right that plugging ourselves into the matrix or something is our best hope.
Hey - where'd everybody go? I thought thiis party was just getting started.
Maybe I missed it but key to your thesis is the means to achieve it, productivity growth. The nice thing about productivity growth is that it allows us to out-compete our elders with not too much environmental impact. Our elders can still play but at some point they leave the workforce.
There's always the risk that we get so good at things that we put each other out of work, but we can just work less, make the same amount, spread the wealth, and save resources all at the same time. Idealistic - a bit, I know, but having more leisure time is also a win over the prior generation.
We also have a historic precedent - the post WWII era, where all these things come true. Still we are in the midst of an energy changeover - sort of like when we changed from coal to oil between the wars. That's making things bumpy right now.
Thanks for your thoughts here. Yes productivity growth is key, but it has to be stable over multiple generations, so that each generation can economically outcompete the previous one. Short-term productivity growth will not have positive effects, which is why short-term growth spurts in developing countries have not been miracles for them. The growth has to be stable and long-term. Or at least, that’s what the theory predicts.
To me, "death of despair" reads as despair being killed, ie one is now free of despair having killed it. Maybe "death from despair"?
You are wrong about your first assertion as it is one of the the biggest academic fields. Sociology and anthropology.
Well, I genuinely worry that if we can’t keep outcompeting previous generations, we’re going to have some serious problems. I think the fact that this is already starting to happen for some groups, and it’s already starting to cause serious problems, is evidence for that. I think gratitude is helpful, especially on an individual level, but I’m not optimistic that we can create a worldwide movement for gratitude, beyond mere lip service, that makes a serious dent in the problem. But I’m open to other ideas. Not saying this is the only possible solution to our predicament. I’m hoping this sparks a larger conversation about how we’re going to unfuck ourselves as a species.