The other day, while trolling the fetid depths of Reddit, I was amused by the response to this story about more and more boomers becoming homeless. The nugatory netizens of Reddit were not sympathetic. They blame the execrable boomer generation for many of the ills, both real and imaginary, that have befallen them. Yes, boomer hatred is booming! As a bombastic boomer, all I can say is get in line, kids; nobody hates them more than I do. The raging Redditers were particularly incensed that they, the gen-what-evers, will now have to clean up boomer messes — and diapers — while forking over vast sums to do so. It turns out that paying for old, unproductive people is not popular. Who could have predicted that?
I labor under many illusions, but I have never swallowed the bilge that “society” cares about the welfare of the “unproductive.” Of course, what counts as “productive” depends on what is doing the counting. Maybe a tortured homeless artist, dissolving in an opioid haze while awaiting a muse’s touch, might be considered worthy in some dissolute domains. But I can assure you that is not how governments measure worth. They have a more straightforward method. Are you paying taxes? If you are paying taxes, you are worth something. If you are not paying taxes, you are worthless. It gets worse. If you are receiving net benefits, you are worse than useless; you are a liability, a parasite, and society would be better off if you were dead. So, the Redditers have a point. Boomers are now mostly expensive liabilities, and while the gen-what-evers are not currently on board with murdering them, they wouldn’t mind if something else did. All entities seek to eliminate liabilities.
We all know this, but we pretend it’s horrible to resent supporting the useless. See all those unhoused addicts shitting in public parks; it’s going to take some fine bullshit to rationalize their utility, their human dignity, their inherent worth, and the pressing need to put them up in subsidized homes and throw good money after bad. The argument becomes even more challenging when the money comes out of your pockets. Oh, in case you’re wondering, you don’t get to spend other people’s money!
How much are you (just you) willing to pay to help the homeless? When asking myself such questions, I play an order of magnitude game. Here’s how it goes. John, would you pay one dollar to help the homeless? I’m a good sport, so sure. Have a dollar.
Would you pay ten dollars to help the homeless? Sure, I can pony up ten bucks. Would you pay one hundred dollars to help the homeless? Now I’m beginning to think about the money. Is that wreck of a human being degrading public spaces worth a hundred bucks? Ok, I will cough up a hundred bucks, but this had better be a one-off. Would you pay one thousand dollars to help the homeless? Now I am absolutely thinking about the money. With a thousand bucks, I could get a decent camera lens or pay for five years of Amazon Prime. Let’s face it: there are a million better ways to spend your money. OK, would you pay ten thousand dollars to help the homeless? Uh — hard no! The order of magnitude game quickly sets bounds on your compassion. I care roughly one thousand per annum for the homeless1. If government financial rapists (tax authorities) come for more, I will bitterly resent it and use every electoral opportunity to punish the rapists. I identify as a compassion-free device!
Because our “compassion” is biologically limited to a few people, crafting “compassionate government policy” is a fool’s errand. I don’t want to pay for your compassion; I doubt you want to pay for mine. We can’t even agree on what constitutes compassion or devise objective measures for it. We have built many devices to measure electron mass, but I challenge you to build a compassion meter. You will quickly discover that “compassion” has no physical basis. At best, “compassion” is a word associated with the behavior of some social animals that derive evolutionary benefits from cooperation. Beyond that, compassion is airy fairy sky fairy nonsense, and basing public policy on it is pure idiocy.
Hence, insurance companies, corporations, governments, and even homeowner associations base policies on things that can be measured, like cool, clear cash. And when such stark measures are applied, it turns out that society prefers dead liabilities.
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 