6 ms·

Yeah you're right that is weird especially that both agreed, are you sure they weren't trolling you? But I do agree with voting irrationally being a problem in

by xupybd 9y ago

Yeah you're right that is weird especially that both agreed, are you sure they weren't trolling you? But I do agree with voting irrationally being a problem in democracy. I just don't think it's only women that do that. I'd love it if, in order to vote, you had to name one policy position that the party you are voting for holds. I know we want everyone to vote so we can say participation is high but I'd rather only those interested enough to know what's going on voted.

woodman 9y ago
Lol, this is so incredible. You've essentially suggested the reintroduction of a voter literacy test... now consider the context of that suggestion.
- xupybd 9y ago
  To be honest I'd never heard about voter literacy tests. I'm not in the states so the context is not something I'm aware of. I know it creates more problems than it solves, I just wish people would take the time and effort to have an informed opinion before voting. Even if that informed opinion is opposed to mine. To split hairs you don't have to be literate to name a policy.
  - woodman 9y ago
    To mend hairs, literacy isn't the point - it is the fact that those who can't read (or name a policy) are ruled by those who can... they are disenfranchised. So let us shortcut all the bolt on solutions for ensuring a 100% informed voting body while avoiding disenfranchisement: you can't, it would be an attempt to maximize individual freedom within a collectivist system. If you aren't thrilled with the idea of idiots voting and having a negative influence on your life - get upset with the concept underlying voting, not the actual implementation details.
  - noobermin 9y ago
    There is a real issue these days (any days really) that involve a lack of awareness of history and our place in it. From the reason votes are private to the voting rights act to keynesian economics to why Nazism is actually bad, a lot of these "edgy" /pol/-tier ideas are crop up in an environment without input from history and why the systems we have are the way they are.
  - mikestew 9y ago
    I know it creates more problems than it solves It also strikes at the heart of what "citizen" means. See, here I thought just being a "citizen" was good enough to have the privilege to vote. But now I have to know how to read. Or name a policy. Or come up with the money to pay the poll tax. Or be a man. Or agree with you. No, the only requirement (in the U. S.) is to be a citizen and to be registered on the list of eligible voters. Anything else, history has taught us, is an attempt at voter suppression, i. e., keeping people we don't like from voting. And citizens come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and sometimes they're ignorant as fuck, but we let 'em vote anyway. Because the alternative is to eventually devolve back to only white guys voting, and only privileged ones at that. I just wish people would take the time and effort to have an informed opinion before voting. Even if that informed opinion is opposed to mine. That's not to say that I'm not in full-on agreement with you. But kind of like the ol' "better a 1000 guilty men go free than..." I'd rather a populace of ignorant voters cast their votes than suppress the vote of a single eligible person, no matter how ignorant, female, or brown they might be.
    - derefr 9y ago
      Why can't we just... force everyone to attain this "privilege", then? Like, you've already got a requirement in the US that everyone attend (public or private or home) school until they're ~16, right? So, what's wrong with requiring a civics curriculum as part of that, and then tying voting rights to a test of that civics curriculum? If people aren't passing, then they'd be temporarily disenfranchised, yes, but that'd be the government's fault/failing, not their own—and it would be up to the government to hunt them down and keep educating them until they do pass. Dragging people back (with compensation for their time) to get them qualified. Sort of like... jury duty. Admittedly, that sounds a bit dystopian. Don't imagine cops showing up at your doorstep; just imagine it like an unpaid parking ticket. Can't get your driver's license renewed until you re-take the course; get frequent calls hounding you; etc.
      - paulddraper 9y ago
        People graduate all the time who lack "basic" critical thinking. Is the outcome really that different than we have now?
averagewall 9y ago
There's already a self-selecting mechanism to eliminate most voters. It's called partisanship. Those people who vote for their favorite party no matter what cancel out each other's vote so they don't count. That leaves only the people who're making a decision each election that matter.
- Gormisdomai 9y ago
  This is a good joke, but please don't believe it's actually true. In application it's based on the false assumption that there are an equal amount of partisans on both sides.
  - averagewall 9y ago
    Considering that neither major party consistently dominates in the US, I have a feeling they do cancel out. That, or the deciding-each-election voters apply pressure against any long-lasting incumbent.
    - paulddraper 9y ago
      It's the latter. The politics of the parties have moved over the decades, usually further left.
    - geofft 9y ago
      They cancel out because the parties move towards the political positions that cause them to approach 50%. I had this realization after meeting a political strategist through a mutual friend and having a conversation with him about what he does, and then I felt stupid for not having realized it before. His job is, at a high level, to find areas where polling indicates that his party's support in a particular election is a little under 50%, and then find ways to get a few more people to vote. If they reach 50% + epsilon, he's succeeded. If they reach significantly over 50%, that effort is wasted; you win an election equally well with 51% or 90% of the vote, so as long as you have 50% + a comfortable margin of error, you might as well spend your time trying to win other districts. And then, of course, the other party is trying to do same thing. So a roughly 50/50 split in votes in a district, or in senators in Congress, or whatever, isn't indicative of an equal number of the voters being partisans of each party. You might have 10% partisans of one and 40% partisans of the other, which would cause the first party to run a centrist campaign/candidate to attract a lot of undecided voters and the second party to be willing to run a much less centrist/candidate. Essentially, as long as you have two political parties, you're basically never going to lose the partisans (they certainly won't vote for the other party, and an extremist third party will always sound like a spoiler), so once you've settled on two major parties, they'll end up getting about 50% of the vote, even as their actual political positions move. One way to avoid this problem would be to move to a non-first-past-the-post voting system, so a centrist third party (or one with orthogonal ideas) can successfully beat them both by attracting the non-partisans. Or, at the congressional level, move to a parliamentary system that requires forming coalition governments, which would enable something similar. But the US has neither of these.
noobermin 9y ago
We already had these, known as poll literacy tests. They were intended to weed out undesirable votes known to vote emotionally and irrationally. I hope the dark sarcasm isn't lost on readers of my comments.
- tynpeddler 9y ago
  Literacy tests are not what the person above you is talking about. Historically, literacy tests had nothing to do with literacy, they were exclusively for racist purposes, and to subjugate 'undesireables'. They were handed out at the (almost certainly racist) poller's discretion, and the tests themselves were worded so poorly that most of the questions had no single, correct answer. They were not real tests. Comparing literacy tests to the above poster's suggestion is like comparing aspirin to cyanide because they can both be put into a pill and swallowed. Over the past few years, we've seen numerous examples of the destruction that voters can create in democratic societies. Turkey is probably not a democracy any more, Russia definitely isn't. Brexit is probably due to a campaign that was based on out right lies. The notion that universal suffrage may not be the best system is no longer unreasonable. We certainly have lots of examples by now. What does it mean in a democracy if people are voting for options that they literally know nothing about? Here's an example of a voting test that I think would be totally fair. 3-6 months before the election, 20 multiple choice questions, and their answers, are released. The questions are all simple statement of facts. "What is the name of the person currently in such and such position." "What number amendment is quoted here". "If the president and vice president die, what is the name of the person who would assume the role of president." Then, when someone submits a ballot, they're handed 5 of these questions chosen at random, and they have to answer 4 correctly. The questions are all known ahead of time, so if there's a problem with one of them, everyone will know. If someone gets into the polling booth and can't answer these questions, then they don't know the most basic facts of our political system, and they didn't even bother to look them up even though they were explicitly told that they should know them. Universal suffrage was a huge improvement on the political systems that came before, but that doesn't mean there isn't a better way.
  - wils1245 9y ago
EGreg 9y ago
Why necessarily trolling? Here's Peter Thiel publicly saying the same thing: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5747079be4b03ede4413f6f5 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5747079be4b03ede4413f6f5 Remember in ancient Greece only rich landowners could vote.

by xupybd 9y ago

woodman 9y ago

Lol, this is so incredible. You've essentially suggested the reintroduction of a voter literacy test... now consider the context of that suggestion.

xupybd 9y ago
To be honest I'd never heard about voter literacy tests. I'm not in the states so the context is not something I'm aware of. I know it creates more problems than it solves, I just wish people would take the time and effort to have an informed opinion before voting. Even if that informed opinion is opposed to mine. To split hairs you don't have to be literate to name a policy.
- woodman 9y ago
  To mend hairs, literacy isn't the point - it is the fact that those who can't read (or name a policy) are ruled by those who can... they are disenfranchised. So let us shortcut all the bolt on solutions for ensuring a 100% informed voting body while avoiding disenfranchisement: you can't, it would be an attempt to maximize individual freedom within a collectivist system. If you aren't thrilled with the idea of idiots voting and having a negative influence on your life - get upset with the concept underlying voting, not the actual implementation details.
- noobermin 9y ago
  There is a real issue these days (any days really) that involve a lack of awareness of history and our place in it. From the reason votes are private to the voting rights act to keynesian economics to why Nazism is actually bad, a lot of these "edgy" /pol/-tier ideas are crop up in an environment without input from history and why the systems we have are the way they are.
- mikestew 9y ago
  I know it creates more problems than it solves It also strikes at the heart of what "citizen" means. See, here I thought just being a "citizen" was good enough to have the privilege to vote. But now I have to know how to read. Or name a policy. Or come up with the money to pay the poll tax. Or be a man. Or agree with you. No, the only requirement (in the U. S.) is to be a citizen and to be registered on the list of eligible voters. Anything else, history has taught us, is an attempt at voter suppression, i. e., keeping people we don't like from voting. And citizens come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and sometimes they're ignorant as fuck, but we let 'em vote anyway. Because the alternative is to eventually devolve back to only white guys voting, and only privileged ones at that. I just wish people would take the time and effort to have an informed opinion before voting. Even if that informed opinion is opposed to mine. That's not to say that I'm not in full-on agreement with you. But kind of like the ol' "better a 1000 guilty men go free than..." I'd rather a populace of ignorant voters cast their votes than suppress the vote of a single eligible person, no matter how ignorant, female, or brown they might be.
  - derefr 9y ago
    Why can't we just... force everyone to attain this "privilege", then? Like, you've already got a requirement in the US that everyone attend (public or private or home) school until they're ~16, right? So, what's wrong with requiring a civics curriculum as part of that, and then tying voting rights to a test of that civics curriculum? If people aren't passing, then they'd be temporarily disenfranchised, yes, but that'd be the government's fault/failing, not their own—and it would be up to the government to hunt them down and keep educating them until they do pass. Dragging people back (with compensation for their time) to get them qualified. Sort of like... jury duty. Admittedly, that sounds a bit dystopian. Don't imagine cops showing up at your doorstep; just imagine it like an unpaid parking ticket. Can't get your driver's license renewed until you re-take the course; get frequent calls hounding you; etc.
    - paulddraper 9y ago
      People graduate all the time who lack "basic" critical thinking. Is the outcome really that different than we have now?

averagewall 9y ago

There's already a self-selecting mechanism to eliminate most voters. It's called partisanship. Those people who vote for their favorite party no matter what cancel out each other's vote so they don't count. That leaves only the people who're making a decision each election that matter.

Gormisdomai 9y ago
This is a good joke, but please don't believe it's actually true. In application it's based on the false assumption that there are an equal amount of partisans on both sides.
- averagewall 9y ago
  Considering that neither major party consistently dominates in the US, I have a feeling they do cancel out. That, or the deciding-each-election voters apply pressure against any long-lasting incumbent.
  - paulddraper 9y ago
    It's the latter. The politics of the parties have moved over the decades, usually further left.
  - geofft 9y ago
    They cancel out because the parties move towards the political positions that cause them to approach 50%. I had this realization after meeting a political strategist through a mutual friend and having a conversation with him about what he does, and then I felt stupid for not having realized it before. His job is, at a high level, to find areas where polling indicates that his party's support in a particular election is a little under 50%, and then find ways to get a few more people to vote. If they reach 50% + epsilon, he's succeeded. If they reach significantly over 50%, that effort is wasted; you win an election equally well with 51% or 90% of the vote, so as long as you have 50% + a comfortable margin of error, you might as well spend your time trying to win other districts. And then, of course, the other party is trying to do same thing. So a roughly 50/50 split in votes in a district, or in senators in Congress, or whatever, isn't indicative of an equal number of the voters being partisans of each party. You might have 10% partisans of one and 40% partisans of the other, which would cause the first party to run a centrist campaign/candidate to attract a lot of undecided voters and the second party to be willing to run a much less centrist/candidate. Essentially, as long as you have two political parties, you're basically never going to lose the partisans (they certainly won't vote for the other party, and an extremist third party will always sound like a spoiler), so once you've settled on two major parties, they'll end up getting about 50% of the vote, even as their actual political positions move. One way to avoid this problem would be to move to a non-first-past-the-post voting system, so a centrist third party (or one with orthogonal ideas) can successfully beat them both by attracting the non-partisans. Or, at the congressional level, move to a parliamentary system that requires forming coalition governments, which would enable something similar. But the US has neither of these.

noobermin 9y ago

We already had these, known as poll literacy tests. They were intended to weed out undesirable votes known to vote emotionally and irrationally. I hope the dark sarcasm isn't lost on readers of my comments.

tynpeddler 9y ago
Literacy tests are not what the person above you is talking about. Historically, literacy tests had nothing to do with literacy, they were exclusively for racist purposes, and to subjugate 'undesireables'. They were handed out at the (almost certainly racist) poller's discretion, and the tests themselves were worded so poorly that most of the questions had no single, correct answer. They were not real tests. Comparing literacy tests to the above poster's suggestion is like comparing aspirin to cyanide because they can both be put into a pill and swallowed. Over the past few years, we've seen numerous examples of the destruction that voters can create in democratic societies. Turkey is probably not a democracy any more, Russia definitely isn't. Brexit is probably due to a campaign that was based on out right lies. The notion that universal suffrage may not be the best system is no longer unreasonable. We certainly have lots of examples by now. What does it mean in a democracy if people are voting for options that they literally know nothing about? Here's an example of a voting test that I think would be totally fair. 3-6 months before the election, 20 multiple choice questions, and their answers, are released. The questions are all simple statement of facts. "What is the name of the person currently in such and such position." "What number amendment is quoted here". "If the president and vice president die, what is the name of the person who would assume the role of president." Then, when someone submits a ballot, they're handed 5 of these questions chosen at random, and they have to answer 4 correctly. The questions are all known ahead of time, so if there's a problem with one of them, everyone will know. If someone gets into the polling booth and can't answer these questions, then they don't know the most basic facts of our political system, and they didn't even bother to look them up even though they were explicitly told that they should know them. Universal suffrage was a huge improvement on the political systems that came before, but that doesn't mean there isn't a better way.
- wils1245 9y ago

EGreg 9y ago

Why necessarily trolling? Here's Peter Thiel publicly saying the same thing: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5747079be4b03ede4413f6f5 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5747079be4b03ede4413f6f5 Remember in ancient Greece only rich landowners could vote.