AIBU to Think MNHQ needs to tackle the ageism on this site?

[LastGoldenDaysOfSummer]

The venom and hate aimed at older people on some of the Covid threads is disgusting. If the same was aimed at disabled, TW or BAME people then the posts would be deleted immediately, and rightly so.

But because it's the elderly it's left to stand, even after being reported. This isn't new, MNHQ has always been a hotbed of ageism but it's usually dealt with when reported.

But not any more. Should they be doing more?

@LeaveMyDamnJam

Those who have an issue with older people need to remember that it will be them one day who are over 50 and past it 😉. Time passes bloody quickly.

Hilarious. I hadn't noticed ageism before I read this post 🤪

(I'm 54 and not past it, btw)

@Xenia

I would like to see a lot less deletion of anyone as we can all cope with it and can look away if we don't. I am over 50 and can take the heat as I am sure women can when men are nasty to us too and vice versa. Let freedom prevail.

However it is true that generalisations about groups of people whether gay, white, female, old and young tend to be a bit unfair as you do have people in those groups who are not the same Eg I have no pension other than state pension at 67 as I have given it ti HMRC (hundreds of thousands of pounds) when I turned 55 as a gift to the nation (well kind of ,...) and to the children for housing so my children have had more than I had but that is not the narrative the young like to hear.

I don't think the CV19 issue is particularly ageist. I am against the lockdown laws on freedom and human rights grounds even though being over 50 I would be likely to die and younger people would not. To that extent I am fighting the corner of the young.

Let us see if we can delete many fewer posts and let freedom prevail -then people can see the views of others, avoid echo chambers and perhaps even be converted to the views of others.

If only Xenia.

I am fully aware of the intersection of prejudices and that not every boat was floated through the post war years. Nevertheless it was a period of stability the like of which we’ve never seen before or since. I really do not know what people were thinking when they sold off and cashed in - as a group, no not everyone etc etc - on the mechanisms which had permitted the period to exist when it can be very clearly compared with the rampant unchecked commercialism of the pre-war and post-Thatcherism periods. I really don’t know how anyone can deny that people living in that period did better than those before or since. Or that the burden of an ageing population is one that we’ve never had to face before and we urgently need honest conversations about it.

There’s outright nastiness on one side, and then there’s refusal to accept reality on the other.

Dh and I have been very fortunate. We'll pass it all down the line to our kids though and end up living in a shed somewhere.

@Quaagars

I haven't seen any ageism personally Racism and transphobia on the other hand, yes

Coming from you I find this post properly funny. oh dear.

Sorry, you’re51 and lived through the 3 day week! I’m 46 and lived through it too, but as a child, like you. Don’t be so disingenuous.

Well, yes, obviously I was a child. I kind of figured that anyone who a) had some knowledge of when the 3 day week was and b) could count would have worked that out. It was using it as an example of things that have happened in my lifetime.

@DimityDeNimes

The thread was started to discuss ageism against older people on MN not argue about student infection rates. It's irrelevant

Perhaps you should take your own advice and not discuss things outside of ageism too.

But it is ironic to dismiss my experience of living as a child in the 70's whilst whining about things that children now have missed out on due to covid.....it's almost like saying that children have always lived through tough times, got through it with the love and support of their parents and flourished - but that would go against the current rhetoric about how this generation of children are soooo poorly treated won't it?

@CayrolBaaaskin
how about less tax after pension age? That’s what we currently have. Despite the fact that care for the elderly and universal state pensions are a huge cost to the state.

Even is this is correct, people have been contributing to it over the course of their lives - that’s how pensions work. Almost as ridiculous as saying that older people have most of the wealth - obviously there are exceptions but generally that’s because they’ve had 60 years to save up for it. It’s quite normal for young people to have nothing (certainly was when I was young).

By your logic no child should be allowed to go to school because they haven’t contributed to the cost of their education.

@MrsFezziwig - people over state pension age pay less tax on income regardless of how wealthy they are. State pensions are paid out of ongoing tax receipts - theresno pot of money. I do think if we are going to continue with universal state pensions we should merge income tax and Ni and just have one income tax.

I think we need to make generalizations to discuss things like generational inequality- same with inequality between any other groups. Obviously a generalization will rarely apply to everyone in the group. Doesn’t make it some sort of hate speech as long as it’s clear it’s generalisation. The vast majority of people at risk from Covid are in the older age groups. It does no one any good at all to ignore that.

I should clarify that of course people will contribute different amounts throughout their lives and that is to be expected. However there is a cohort of current pensioners who benefited from low state pension ages, high house price inflation (so cheap housing when they bought it but now worth a fortune due to no effort of theirs), free education and so on. I do think it’s unfair as my daughters generation will pay for the majority of this.

How is that unfair?

What should the pensioners have done?

@CaptainMyCaptain - pensioners don’t pay Ni. That’s why they pay less tax.

And workplace defined benefit pension schemes have bankrupted lots of businesses as caused huge financial issues for many more. Generally because of longer life expectancy rather than some anonymous rich person spending all the money. That’s why they are now only available in the public sector generally.

@SomewhereEast

Yes to what *@CayrolBaaaskin* says. Basically the 'direct' cost of Covid is massively born by the over-seventies (average age of fatalities is 82, which is actually higher than the ave UK life expectancy), but the cost of prioritising Covid over everything else or attempting to rigorously suppress Covid till...really who knows when???....will be overwhelmingly born by the under-fifties and very particularly the under-thirties....and that cost is turning out to be absolutely eye-watering on every level - financial, educational, emotional, medical (missed cancer diagnosis for example). There really isn't any way round that issue and shouting 'ageism' every time someone broaches won't make the reality go away.

Yes, indeed.

I really don't see all this horrific ageism against older people on MN! There do seem to be quite a few people desperate to take personal offence when facts about which age group is considerably more likely to vote Tory, who undeniably voted Leave, who own the most property, who have the best pensions- are stated!

That would be the over 50s! Who also seem to be the ones decrying 'snowflake millennials', and who are being manipulated into believing it's the students wildly spreading Covid (who, let's remember, were forced into uni and into immediate isolation, guards and all, because the Tory supporters are uni LLs)....

These are 'generalisations' backed by facts.

And I'm knocking 58.

@echt - it’s obviously unfair because one group of people is paying for another to get benefits they will never get. It’s not really what “the pensioners” should have done tho - more society as a whole.

@DimityDeNimes

Here's an example of an ageist and uninformed post from *@Napqueen* on a Covid thread

Yes we are. School children are having hugely disrupted education, the shit show going on in higher education and the lack of opportunities and jobs for young people generally. Although older people are higher risk of becoming ill or dying of covid this risk is still small and they generally have the benefit of pensions, higher salaries, bigger houses etc to sit this out with. I feel the younger generation will feel the effects of this considerably more for considerably longer

I agree with Napqueen, actually. In general, what they've written is a statement of how things are, statistically.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@CaptainMyCaptain - pensioners don’t pay Ni. That’s why they pay less tax.

And workplace defined benefit pension schemes have bankrupted lots of businesses as caused huge financial issues for many more. Generally because of longer life expectancy rather than some anonymous rich person spending all the money. That’s why they are now only available in the public sector generally.[/quote]
The picture on workplace pension is nowhere like as simple as pensioners living too long (the cunts) and bankrupting companies.

There has been a range of changes including (but not limited to) the end to dividend credits for schemes, the tightening up of the rules after the Maxwell and similar scandals. Many final salary schemes in the 70s and 80s were having employer contribution holidays as there was so much apparent surplus. Once it became clear that the regulation was so lax it let scum like Maxwell plunder the schemes, changes had to happen.

It's a bit rich blaming it on the poor pensioners (again).

One thing governments should do is ensure that if people are promised a pension, they get it - which the Maxwell pensioners didn't.

This continual mantra that we can't afford old people, and it's all old people's fault is nasty ageism.

I am 70. I do feel that the death of a younger person is more tragic than the death of a person with a long life behind them but some of the language used on here is very unpleasant. Talk of an old person "dribbling and having their nappy changed" and therefore being worth less. This is a fully human being who is being referred to who deserves dignity. It isn't only death we are talking about either but dying in a very unpleasant way. Also I recognise I lived in a generally fortunate generation but not everyone was fortunate. I agree that many posters are speaking from their own limited exerience of knowing comfortably off older people, not older people on state pension only living i rented acommodation. What I really dislike is the stereotyping and assumptions. 36% of over 65s voted remain. There are shades of political opinion in all age groups The implication that old people are selfish old bastards deliberately screwing over their grandchildren is insulting. The boomer generation was fortunate in the opportunities available but some things were worse. It was common to be groped in smoky offices and you were expected to laugh. There were no 'in work' benefits. In the 1970s the police would not come out to domestics. Benefits were paid to the man in a family apart from family allowance. Women were treated as second in command. It was much harder to LTB This was slowly changed by women themselves. Older women who have been through a divorce tend to be oorer in old age. The newspapers used to be full of crap about working mothers and single parents, childcare was harder to find. Young women who were sexually abused by older men were stigmatised more than now and the men were judged less harshly. Interest rates went so high at one point that we found it hard to pay mortgages and there were repossessions. I am not whinging , we had it easier in many ways, I am just trying to illustrate that much that is said about boomers is over simplified.

These are 'generalisations' backed by facts.
No. They are generalisations based on statistical probabilities extrapolated from often tiny sample sizes. That they are so often recast as "facts" is alarming.
Statistical probabilities are just that, not facts.

If you've not seen the ageism on MN then you've not looked very far, or are so entrenched in the attitude yourself (which pp, despite being 58, accuses all the over 50s (except herself?) of voting Tory, voting Brexit, having a good pension, and being a university landlord exemplifies with biased, lazy stereotyping. But I'll cancel you out by being a 54 year old renter with no pension and who thinks the Labour Party is too right wing.
It's all a bit "I know a nice black man" = therefore racist I'm not, isn't it?

Actually we don't know how many old people voted leave or remain. I'l just point that again WE DO NOT KNOW.

Quite.
But that won't get in the way of the lazy generalisations. I do believe various cross party think tanks hold the view that most leavers are the right wing working class males aged between 30 and 45. (I think it was a yougov survey held just after 2016)

Yep, like I said. Facts.

By the way, I’m not saying I disagree with some of the points that have been made about the financial setup - but all generations including my own are funding those who went before them, and the arguments are not helped by the tones of absolute hatred which are often used. Fortunately I don’t see this replicated in the real world where parents are assisting their adult children in different ways to the best of their abilities and the children are quietly getting on with things. I think there must be a lot of dysfunctional families on MN as it seems to project a mindset which isn’t reflected in real life.