Jeremiah

Of the 67 top research universities in the US, 62 have baby boomer presidents, 3 are silent generation and only 2 are Gen X.

Today, the median age of these 67 university presidents is 65 years old, and this is very different from the recent past.

Only 30 years ago, in 1990, the median age of these same university presidents was a much lower 52 years old.

The older generation did not completely refuse to give up power, and therefore, much greater generational diversity was to be found in university leadership.

Given historical trends, you would expect to see much more Gen X leaders in Congress, as presidents, or even as business owners, than you do today.

Scott writes, So do we want affirmative action for the young?

Why is this better than other forms of affirmative action?

It doesn't seem like a mystery why institutions would hire older leaders.

They have more experience.

Probably in the past, this was kept in check by the tendency of old people to die or forcibly retire due to poor health at a young age, plus a shortage of old people since each generation was larger than the last.

People have this sense that boomers are being evil and selfish by not retiring so that young people can get more of the good jobs.

Why is this a more natural way to think of things than white people being evil and selfish by not voluntarily underemploying themselves so black people can get more of the good jobs?

Much of anti-boomerism seems to be about how boomers are selfish because they're taking up resources, and those resources could go to young people instead.

But every group is taking up resources that could go to other groups.

This only justifies anti-boomerism if you start with the assumption that old people are less worthy of having good things than young people.

And so if you can't redistribute old people's resources to young people, then this is prima facie unfair.

I think there are some weak arguments for why it's better for young people to have resources than old people, but these don't seem strong enough to justify the level of boomer hatred and I'd like to see people make them explicit.

Charles UF writes, quote, This is weapons-grade overthinking and a by-product of the constant demands for evidence and sources that are a strong norm in certain discussion circles.

For better insight, read the Twitter link from the OP again.

I didn't scroll for hours on this link, but I didn't see any charts or stats like this post focuses on and only a few references to economics.