You're talking about living breathing humans. "extractive cost center" is a weird way to describe "person who paid social security their entire working life". You're not wrong about what you're saying but fuck can you act like there's real people involved here and not just numbers? Are retirees _really_ economic parasites?
Let's not forget that consumption is bringing in revenue to _someone_ which does provide value to the economy. Unbelievable
If you want to work on and solve big hairy problems, you can't get caught up in the weeds.
We can acknowledge the humanity of the humans who make up the constituent parts of the colossus while also saying that the colossus, the sum of those humans, is a potentially negative force on the stability and sustainability of the system.
Sure it's not the most humanizing but it is valuable to disassociate oneself from our human side in order to analyze inhuman systems. The perspective isn't without value, and GP wasn't implying it wasn't, but to take the time to elaborate the point going through the motions to emotional pad it would have been time wasted for most of us.
It's something I appreciate about this community, that we can express ourselves in such ways in order to convey a point without any fat on it. I still assume the person making the point understands that there the fat is there without needing to explicitly mention it. It's a sign of mature dialogue IMO.
Let's not forget that consumption is bringing in revenue to _someone_ which does provide value to the economy. Unbelievable