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Nov. 10, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
33:11
MY THOUGHTS ON BOOMERS!
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Hey everybody, hope you're doing well.
Stephanie Molly 27th of September 2025 in our Lord's Year of Science Fiction.
And I wanted to talk about Daboomers.
Daboomers.
1945, birth to 1965.
And just this is not statistical.
This is not data-driven.
This is just sort of my experience.
One of the good things about getting older is you just have gathered so much experience that you understand things that you're just not going to understand as much when you're younger, right?
You get it.
So, sorry, a bit redundant.
So with regards to the boomers, if you have a generation that has particular characteristics, it's more difficult to ascribe moral responsibility to each individual, right?
So for instance, if you look at my mother's generation, the children who were born shortly before the Second World War in Germany, they had particular traumas, as did, of course, a lot of the people in other countries, but, you know, Germany and Japan were sort of bombed end to end.
And so the kids had a set of characteristics around trauma.
Like, I could never quite understand why my mother and her relatives were just so strange, just so bizarre and all of that.
And of course, we understand now, sort of looking back, not only the trauma of the war, but the trauma that happened to the population after the war was staggering.
How much of the rape of the Germans, the destruction of the Germans, the starvation of the Germans, like just wretched.
And again, you know, you can say, well, but Germany started the war and so on.
It's like, yeah, but my mom didn't, right?
She was just a little kid.
So when you look at particular generations and they have very specific characteristics, there must be something that affected all the generation.
And therefore, it's harder to blame each specific individual, if that makes sense.
Is it fair to blame my mother's generation for being strange?
It is not fair because they all went through the war.
And because they went through the war, that is insanely traumatic.
And especially, again, they underappreciated what happened to the Germans after the, well, at the end and after the war, where all the women from like eight to eighty, and I'm sure some were outside of that range too, were repeatedly raped by Russian soldiers and starvation and all of the horrible things that happened.
And so you can't blame specific individuals for that which is inflicted on a generation as a whole and produces those kinds of specific characteristics.
Collective trauma can't be laid at the feet of particular individuals, particularly, of course, when they're children.
So with regards to all of that, that's important to remember.
That's very important to remember.
And so blaming the boomers when the boomers all share particular characteristics is unfair, because if there's something in the air, you can't blame these specific individuals.
So sorry, I know that that's a bit repetitive, but it's important to make that point.
But there's an exception to that as well.
There is an exception to that as well.
The exception, and I think why people get so particularly bothered by the boomers is that the exception to that rule is if the boomers, or not the boomers in particular, but if there's a generation that demands of its offspring particular values that it refuses to live by itself, then you have reason for criticism.
So if the boomers were to say to the younger generation, you have to live within your means, you have to be responsible, don't get into debt, and then the boomers keep voting for more and more government spending without wanting to pay the requisite taxes to cover those, resulting in deficits and debt and unfunded liabilities, then that's a different matter.
In other words, just about everything, and I genuinely mean this, and again, I'm not talking about violence, I'm talking about sort of mental attitudes and so on.
Just about everything is forgivable except hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is the one unforgivable sin for the simple reason, or maybe it's simple, maybe it's not, but for the reason that hypocrisy is a clear indication that you know the values that you're talking about.
You respect and treasure the values that you're talking about, and therefore you cannot rationally or reasonably blame people for not pursuing those values or for failing those values.
So boomers said to young people as a whole that ignorance of the law is no excuse, don't get into debt, be responsible, and you have to accept the negative consequences of your own bad behavior, right?
If I tell you, don't take the cookie and you take the cookie, then you will be punished.
And that punishment is just and right and fair and good.
And if you don't study for the test, then you will have to fail the test.
And that means that you might, in fact, be stuck in that particular grade for another year.
You might be held back and lose an entire year of your life.
That's a very, very big deal.
To lose an entire year of your life is a very, very big deal.
And if you didn't save for it, then you can't afford it.
Then you shouldn't buy it.
You know, all of these things.
So that, to me, is the big problem with the boomers.
And you could sort of argue that they gave to their children the lectures that the cash-starved greatest generation, right, those who went through the Great Depression, Second World War, and, you know, all of that sort of stuff.
And if old enough, even the First World War.
But they gave the lectures that they had received from the greatest generation, which was the last pragmatic generation of the West, the last sensible, objective, empirical, results-based pragmatic generation that lived in the West.
So they gave the lectures to the young that they had received from their elders, but did not apply the same rules to themselves.
And they were very keen on all of the consequentialist ethics of their elders.
If you can't afford it, don't buy it.
Don't get into debt, right?
And you have to be responsible and you have no one to blame but yourself.
if you're not responsible, then you have to suffer the negative consequences.
And I will punish you for failing to listen and failing to be good and failing to be practical and failing to be sensible and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I said on X that evil is when you use the principles of virtue against the virtuous, right?
So when you say to people, well, you have to be responsible and then you exclude yourself from all consequences, right?
So you say, you say to a little kid, if you fail to save up for the toy, then you don't get the toy.
If you fail to study for the exam, you fail.
If you fail enough, you get helped back a year.
You've no one to blame but yourself and so on.
Right.
So if pragmatic consequentialism is used and responsibility is applied and inflicted on kids, on kids, then consequentialism should be applied to adults, right?
I mean, if a seven-year-old who failed to study for a test fails the test, you say, well, you should have studied, even if that kid is in a situation where studying is, you know, fairly impossible because of the chaos or violence or addiction or dysfunction or whatever it is, yelling and fighting at home.
Well, it doesn't matter, right?
You're still 100% responsible and you fail just like everyone else.
So the kid who's got a good home life and parents who are knowledgeable and encouraging, he fails if he fails the test, as does the kid whose parents are drunken, drug addicts, irresponsible, yelling, screaming, violent.
It doesn't matter, right?
It's judged by the same standard.
And I get, I mean, I understand that.
I understand that because facts are facts.
But what it's saying is that harshness and an inability to study through no fault of your own, right?
Because it's not like, I mean, if you're a, I understand you've got to have a doctor.
Doctor's got to know their stuff, right?
You can't just make up, oh, well, if you have a drug addiction, we're going to pass you because drug addiction is tough because being an adult and studying to be a doctor is all voluntary chosen stuff, right?
So I get all of that.
And we're talking kids here.
Kids don't choose their families, but they're blamed for the effects of their families, which is bad.
So the issue with the boomers is that they inflicted ethics on their children that they would never submit to themselves as adults.
So the boomers say things like, like if you were to say to the boomers, look, we, as you'd have to, like in any sort of sane system, you'd have to say to the boomers, look, we don't have the money to pay your retirement benefits and your health care and all of the, we just, we don't have the money.
The money's, my money's not there.
And they would say, well, that's unfair because we paid into the system.
But that doesn't, that doesn't mean much.
And the boomers would say that too.
So let's say that you studied for an exam but still failed.
If you failed the exam and you said, but I studied, they'd say, well, you didn't study well enough or you didn't study the right thing or you didn't practice enough or you didn't study enough at all, right?
You'd still fail.
Even if you, quote, did the right thing, you still failed.
Or even if you studied diligently and still failed, they'll say, well, maybe you're just dumb.
You still fail, right?
Even if you did all the right things, even if you did have a tutor and study and go over the material and ask the teacher for extra help and you did all that and you still failed, say, well, maybe math is just not for you, or maybe you don't have a math brain, or maybe you're not that smart or whatever.
You still fail, right?
And they would drop you down to the basic courses and all of that.
And when I was a kid, right?
It's basic, intermediate, and advanced.
So doing the right thing does not guarantee a good outcome.
So if you're a kid, you're working in a hardware store and The hardware store goes out of business.
You say, but I was working hard.
I did all the right things.
And, you know, maybe you don't get your last paycheck or two or something because they're bankrupt or whatever, right?
Well, they'd say, well, that's a real shame.
That's a real shame.
You did all the right things, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, right?
Sometimes you do all the right things and bad things happen.
If you are the victim of a con, right?
If you're the victim of a con and some guy says, oh, give me $100 and I'll give you $200 in a month.
And you give the guy the $200 and you get a receipt, right?
And then the guy's nowhere to be found in a month, then what would the boomers generally say?
They'd say, well, yeah, he was wrong, but you were dumb.
Yeah, he was wrong to offer you $200 for $100.
But you also, you know, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
And you should be skeptical.
And yeah, maybe the guy should be thrown in jail, but you also shouldn't have fallen for such an obvious con.
And if you could get your money back, maybe the boomers would support that.
And they'd say, well, you know, if you arrest the guy and he's got all the money in his suitcase, we should go back, give it back to everyone who has a receipt.
Sure.
But they would also say that it's by beware.
And if something seems too good to be true, and you've got to be skeptical and so on.
And they wouldn't say if you, at the age of 30, let's say, gave $1,000 to someone who said, I'll give you $2,000 in a month.
They'd say, oh, come on, like, nobody protects that return on investment.
You should be skeptical.
And while what the guy did was wrong, you're not innocent in the matter.
And they might even go so far as to say, well, this will teach you a lesson, right?
Which is not to fall for scams, right?
That's how the boomers in general would respond and react.
So that's the question.
Is the boomers were also raised, you know, you're born in 1945.
So you're 20 in 1965.
You're born in 47.
You're 18.
You're born in 1950.
You're 15 at the age of 1965.
And, you know, in the 60s was a massive counter-revolution against government.
Government is a ripoff.
And a lot of it was driven, of course, by the fact that the American government was opposing the communists in Korea and Vietnam.
But there was, you know, stick it to the man, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, be a rebel, don't trust the government.
I don't trust anyone over 30.
Hope I die before I get old.
All that kind of stuff, right?
So you would have been exposed, whether you directly participated, it was not particularly relevant or important, but you would have directly been exposed to foundational criticisms of the government.
There was not much blind patriotism in the 1960s.
Rebellions on campuses and everyone's a fascist and we need more free speech and government and corporations are in bed together and the military-industrial complex and right.
So there was all of that.
It's a big deal.
So people can't, in the boomer generation, they can't say, now, maybe, of course, if you're born in 1965, then you're zero to one in 1965.
So I get all of that.
But then when you grew up, you still had the backwards history of the 60s.
So you're born in 65, then you're 15 in 1980, but you still have the whole 60s thing, right?
You still be aware of the whole, it was still in the rear view.
So that's really the question for me with the boomers: is not, were they propagandized?
Sure, sure, they were.
Sure they were.
I mean, they were propagandized a lot less than the current generation.
And certainly the males in the current generation are very skeptical of power.
The females are leftist and socialist for the most part, but the males were able to resist that and, in fact, go the other direction.
And part of that, of course, is memes and the internet and Pepe and all that kind of stuff.
But there was a lot of counterculture.
It was called the counterculture, right, in the 1960s.
It went against the dominant culture.
Don't trust the man, don't trust the state, blah, blah, blah, right?
Now, I think that what the socialists meant was don't trust the current state.
We'll give you a much better one that's way bigger, but whatever, right?
I mean, there was still a pushback against sort of dominant narratives in the boomer generation.
And the internet was full of books that were very skeptical of the government and hostile towards the government in many ways.
So when the boomers say we paid into the system, when they were raised on the system sucks and is corrupt and is full of liars and cheats and is a con, right?
They can't say we did everything right and we enforced the doctrine that if you do everything right, you should get a good outcome.
I mean, certainly when I was younger and worked hard and had a good resume and so on, if there was a recession, the boomers didn't hugely sympathize.
It's like, well, you know, the economy's up, the economy's down.
And so what does it, I mean, what does it really matter, right?
It all evens out in the end, blah, blah, blah, right?
But there wasn't a huge amount of sympathy, even if you do everything right.
And if you buy a stock and the stock crashes to zero, a company goes out of business, just a bunch of worthless wallpaper, then it's like, well, you know, but those are the risks, right?
There's an upside and there's a downside.
Those are the risks.
So for me, the issue with the boomers is not that they were propagandized.
Sure, they were.
But part of their propaganda came from the greatest generation, which was, you know, be responsible, don't spend more than you earn.
And just because you do everything right doesn't mean that you have the right to have everything turn out well.
I mean, there's lots of people who make the right health decisions and exercise and eat well and maintain healthy weight and they still get sick, right?
I mean, there are people who invested into Bankman Frieds.
There are people who invested into Bernie Madoff.
There are people who invested into Enron and they lost their money, right?
They did everything, quote, right.
I mean, these places were all approved of by the SEC and had all of the right paperwork on the walls and all of that.
So they did everything right.
And again, I'm not saying that the boomers wouldn't have supported Bankman Fried or Bernie Madoff or whoever the Enron guys going to jail.
I get it's a fraud and all of that.
But they would say, they would also say, buyer, beware.
If it seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is too good to be true.
So when the government that they were trained to be skeptical of comes along and says, we can spend infinity dollars and not tax you too much, what did the boomers say?
What did the boomers say?
I remember leading a SOT, Save Our Teachers, when teachers were being underpaid or their job security was threatened.
I remember leading that in junior high school.
I led a whole sort of campaign to support the teachers.
And of course, the nihilists, the males, the boys, they changed SOT, Save Our Teachers, to Stretch Our Tits.
That was sort of inevitable in hindsight, but yeah, that was...
So there was a movement, and that's me as a 14-year-old doing something, you know, obviously not massive, but you know, it's quite a bit of effort and time.
I'm giving speeches in front of the classes.
So that's me as a kid doing some activism to help a cause that I considered right and just and fair and good.
So I want you to sort of picture something, right?
So picture the protests that would erupt if Social Security became means tested, right?
So if they were to say to the boomers, look, there's not enough money.
We can't afford to pay you everything.
So if you have savings and assets, we can't give you Social Security.
Now, if you have, let's say you have over a million dollars in assets, we can't give you Social Security.
And let's say it's not all real estate because, you know, getting people to sell their houses would be a challenge and all that.
But let's just say if you have half a million to a million dollars in liquid assets, we can't give you full Social Security, maybe half or a quarter or something like that.
Like it has to become means tested.
Now, imagine the protests that would erupt.
It would be massive, immense, intense.
And you really wouldn't be able to sleep for the cataballing of the aged if you made a proposal like that.
Why is it the third rail, Social Security?
It's the third rail of American politics.
You touch it, you die, right?
Okay.
Now, were there the same protests when governments were overspending like crazy?
Like, we can't give the kids this much debt.
This is terrible.
This is wrong.
Well, no.
Now, I get one would be a policy announcement, which would be concentrated.
The other is a bit more diffuse and so on.
But have you ever seen a protest among the aged when the or or and it doesn't have to be 10,000 people or 100,000 people in Times Square?
It could be anything.
But when the government votes to raise its debt ceiling again, right?
Is there any particular protest from the aged saying, oh, this is terrible, blah, blah, blah, this is wrong.
It's too much debt for the kids.
My kids want to get ahead.
The boomers are the richest generation in human history, right?
So some of them at least can afford fewer government benefits and they'll still survive, right?
So that's the issue.
I think that's the issue that they only protest for their own benefits and they refuse to accept the rules as adults that they inflicted upon their own children.
Right.
And they also do not seem to have, collectively, a shred of conscience over the certain knowledge that they have that there is no money to pay them their retirement benefits.
And therefore, the only way that their retirement benefits can be funded is by excessive tax upon their children, which is horrible, grossly unjust, unfair, immoral.
Even by the general standards of statism, it's wrong to vote for yourself all these benefits, to not accept the level of taxes necessary to pay for them.
And then rather than say, well, we're already in a massive debt and deficit, and we voted for all of this, and we refuse to protest the massive accumulation of debt and deficits.
So then it's wrong for us to drop hypertaxes on the young in order to get our own benefits.
I mean, we've all heard of or imagined or seen the sort of tragic tale of the drug addict who's so desperate for a fix that he smashes open his daughter's piggyback, takes out the scant money there and goes hunting for his drug of choice.
That's appalling, right?
But that's kind of the situation.
It's kind of the situation.
I mean, imagine an old person who refused to restrain his spending, ends up half a million or a million dollars in debt, right?
And then goes and steals from his children to pay off his debt.
In particular, when his children kept telling him, stop getting into so much debt.
It's going to end badly.
It's wrong.
It's bad.
Blah, blah, blah.
I mean, we would consider that pretty monstrous.
If there was some older person, he got into a gambling debt and he had to go to his kids and say, you need to sell your condo to pay my debt because I can't pay my debt.
I mean, if you heard that story, if you heard that story, what would you say?
I mean, if someone called into my show and said, I kept telling my dad not to gamble, not to overspend, not to go into so much debt, and now he's in debt and he's demanding that I sell my condo and sell my car and take the bus and rent in order to pay off his debt.
And I'd say, gosh, that's terrible.
He must be horribly in debt.
They say, well, no, no, he's got over a million dollars in assets.
Be like, well, what?
Hang on.
He's got a million dollars in assets, but in order to pay his debt, you have to sell your house and your condo.
Why doesn't he just sell his, why doesn't he just sell his house?
Or why doesn't he just dip into his savings to pay off his debt?
No, no, no, right.
But that's the situation is that you've got the wealthiest generation in human history demanding that a far less wealthy generation pay for their end of life when the youngest generation is just starting out.
And then that kills the birth rate and so on, right?
You know, most boomers have enough money to fund part of their retirement.
So they could survive with a reduction in benefits.
But they won't.
And boomers say, well, I paid into the system.
And it's like, but you were told that the system was corrupt from the 60s onwards.
And you told me, if I didn't study for my test and I failed and I lost a year of my life, well, that's just consequentialism, even though I was a kid and even though I was in a crazy household where studying was virtually impossible.
And if you are a boomer, could you honestly say, can you honestly say, look, we had no idea that there was a national debt, like not the first freaking clue.
You know, we're not psychic.
You know, this is like trying to leave read the Epstein files, right?
They're not available.
So the boomers who watch TV and read the newspaper and so on, were the boomers aware of the national debt, of the deficits, of the unfunded liabilities?
Well, sure, they were.
Of course they were.
Everybody knows about the national debt.
I knew about it.
My friends and I were laughing about the possibility of ever getting our pensions when we were in grade eight.
So at the age of 12, we knew.
I'm not saying everyone in the class knew, but at least half just laughed at it.
So if the 12-year-old can figure out it's a scam, maybe the 40-year-old can figure it out too.
So if they say, well, I paid into it, it's like paid into what?
You gave your money to the government, which you were told from the 60s onward was corrupt and nefarious.
So you gave your money to the government, and then you demanded a lot of services, a lot of government spending that you didn't want to pay for.
So if you demand a lot of goods and services that you don't want to pay for, the inevitable result is debt.
If I have $1,000 and I order $5,000 worth of things on Amazon, then I'm minus $4,000.
I'm in debt.
I have to borrow to pay the extra.
It's not complicated.
So if you want $10 trillion worth of services from the government, but the government only collects $8 trillion in taxes, or whatever, right?
Then you're minus $2 trillion.
It's not complicated.
And I just had a conversation with the MMT guys.
So I know they have a different take.
I'm just talking about the general, I mean, MMT only came in sort of 2010 post, right?
So I'm talking about the general boomer understanding of taxes and debts and deficit and unfunded liabilities.
So the unfunded liabilities in America are 10 to 15 times the size of the entire economy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you wanted a bunch of monopolistic government unions.
And so what happened?
Well, when the governments can't pay the wage requirements or the wage demands of the unions, what they do is they just kick the can down the road by offering them a whole bunch of retirement benefits that are paid for by people after they're long out of the office and long debt, right?
So you wanted all these things, right?
You wanted the government to do a whole bunch of stuff, but you didn't want to pay the taxes for it.
And so we have debt.
And part of the reason why you accumulated all your money and resources and assets, oh, boomers, is because the government paid for a bunch of stuff that you didn't have to pay for.
And therefore, part of the money that you accumulated was debt-based.
I mean, a simple example would be that if you vote for socialized medicine, then your medical bills go down considerably because, yeah, I mean, you're paying taxes, but not enough to cover the whole system.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be in debt, right?
Wouldn't there would be no deficits.
So you get a lot of subsidized, which is partially free healthcare.
And therefore, you can save more money.
So part of the assets that you have is based upon the national debt.
So what is the responsible thing to do?
The responsible thing to do is to say, okay, look, we're the older generation.
We had 40 years to, we had 50 years to vote or whatever.
And this is what we voted for.
And it's not worked out.
So let's have a rational conversation about what we can cut for what we take out.
And let's make some sacrifices.
And in particular, when the young people under COVID are supposed to sacrifice a year or two of their lives and half their educational achievements and not have any proms or sports or theater or dances or gatherings or anything like hang out with friends.
So if young people are supposed to sacrifice massive developmental and social milestones, then the old can't say, well, we just don't recognize the value of sacrifice.
Because the young were sacrificed for giving a couple of extra months of life, potentially to some boomers or old people who were already living with four comorbidities and had an average death rate from COVID that was longer than the average lifespan or the death span of the country as a whole.
So when the boomers demand everyone else make sacrifices because of COVID and the young have to take this vaccine, even though the young are not really threatened by COVID at all, face almost no risk from COVID.
Well, you got to take it because otherwise you'll spread, even though it wasn't tested for spreading transmission.
So when the old people querulously demand that the young people sacrifice, then the old people are recognizing the value and virtue of sacrifice.
So when the young people say, listen, we can't afford these taxes, you're going to have to loosen up control over the economy and you're going to have to give us the opportunity to get into some housing and stuff.
And if the old people say, well, we're not willing to sacrifice anything, well, that's a problem.
Then that's hypocrisy, right?
That's hypocrisy.
And the last thing I'll sort of say about this, and I'd love to get your thoughts on it, but the last thing I'll say about this is that it would actually be super healthy if the boomers were to get less, fewer subsidies in their old age, because then they couldn't live these lives of splendid, vainglorious isolation, but they would actually have to sit down with their kids and say, listen, kids, I'm going to need your help.
I might need to move in and maybe I can't afford this on my own.
And then the kids would say, well, we don't want you to.
And they'd say, well, why not?
It's like, well, you know, we're not that close.
You spent a lot of time and money on your own.
You didn't really take much interest in your grandkids.
And you put me in daycare.
And you could try and break through that sort of shell of avoidance and narcissism that characterizes a lot of the boomers.
And you could actually have some healthy conversations in families.
I mean, it would be great.
I mean, painful, I get, but, you know, so what, right?
I mean, it's painful for kids to be denied their childhood for the sake of boomer hypochondria, but apparently that was really good and valuable and important.
So pain and sacrifice is really good.
But of course, if it's only good for everyone else and always bad for you, then you can be morally held to account.
So yeah, I would love it if the boomers had fewer subsidized resources and had to have more honest conversations with family members and actually take some responsibility.
It would be really healthy for them.
I mean, they'd end up much happier.
I mean, it would be tough, but, you know, that's fine.
I mean, it was tough to grow up with the boomers in charge.
Well, I guess to some degree, it was the greatest generation.
The younger, the younger were boomers.
But yeah, it's been tough to grow up with boomers in charge, and they've been fine with that.
So it should be fine the other way.
And of course, if they're not willing to do that, then they lose all moral authority.
Because if you only inflict moral rules that you'd never accept yourself, then you're just a complete hypocrite.
And I don't think there should be any sympathy for anything you have or want going forward.
So I'd love to know what you think.
Freedomander.com slash tonight to help out.
Take care, my friend.
Love you.
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