4 ms·

People who don't own significant amount of property (say, sufficient to provide rent above poverty threshold), shouldn't vote, because their votes are irrespons

People who don't own significant amount of property (say, sufficient to provide rent above poverty threshold), shouldn't vote, because their votes are irresponsible by definition, and they are too easy to manipulate Can you back that statement up with data?

ianai 9y ago
I’m hoping I read that wrong because it sure sounds tyrannical.
- aaronbrethorst 9y ago
  Sure sounds like late 18th century America to me. https://a.s.kqed.net/pdf/education/digitalmedia/us-voting-rights-timeline.pdf https://a.s.kqed.net/pdf/education/digitalmedia/us-voting-ri... (Which is terrible, to be clear. I support making Election Day a national holiday and probably enfranchising 16 year olds.) Edit: anovikov, you keep getting flagged and I have a question for you: I am genuinely curious as to whether you actually believe this, or if you’re trying to make a Swiftian ‘eat the poor’ commentary. I cannot tell and would love to know.
  - nosuchthing 9y ago
    Election day on a Tuesday is INSANE. It almost seems like that is designed to prevent the working class from voting.
    - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
      I don’t know if that’s the explicit aim, but it certainly has that effect. I’m grateful that I live in Washington, where we get our ballots a couple weeks before Election Day, which gives us a chance to do proper due diligence and return our ballots via mail. Return rates still aren’t high enough, but at least it’s not because people are prevented from making it to their polling place because of other obligations. One step at a time...
    - lgregg 9y ago
      It is insane. You would think with our technical advancement as a country that we would be able to vote remotely and also obtain good information about candidates and their policies.
      - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
        Washington state has figured this out. I think Oregon has too.
  - anovikov 9y ago
    Yes late 18th century America sounds about right. Of course i don't mean slavery or racism, i just mean that people who don't own property, shouldn't vote. Universal suffrage is a Commie invention, they invented it exactly to crush capitalist societies, because they knew a democratic society with universal suffrage is doomed. Only way to make it survive long term is something like Putinism: keep the elections, but make them irrelevant, and let the wealthy people still decide things in the close circle.
  - anovikov 9y ago
    Don't get me wrong: i won't be happy with 0.001% ruling over me. This is the case in Russia, and i left it. But i am fine with anywhere from 1% to 10% ruling over me. These will be better voters than the average Joes. It's not OK that propaganda trickery, playing on people's instincts and knowledge of psychological crowd behavior laws is what defines election outcomes. Elections should not be like clicking on Facebook ads. Or only ways to save Western societies would be adopting some like of Putinism when elections are kept but made irrelevant. Just imagine that Zuck may just decide who will the next President be, by slight adjustments to Facebook feed algorithms? Who can blame him, it is a private business after all right? With people with no property and nothing to lose, who kill their time on nonsense jobs browsing facebook, voting (and they actively vote!), this may very well be possible. 50 years ago when the U.S. was a wide middle class society with most people having something like a career and some property, and feeling that they have a good future which can be optimised by choosing their leaders wisely, and technology of TV manipulation was in its infancy, it may have worked better. But today in the world of mass precariat, who have no good future and know it (and any politician promising them one is a liar), and with whole generation of best engineers and data scientists spent years perfecting mass manipulation through mining people brains, i just can't see it working anymore. It is a threat to itself.
- mdekkers 9y ago
  Agreed. OP is probably talking about the Chinese model
anovikov 9y ago
It is so hard to see that people who are dependent on social assistance will vote for nothing but more social assistance, dragging whole society into the hole? To me, Chinese model sounds optimal: make strict, public, rarely changing rules of who can get suffrage, which may be a combination of education, income, wealth, and some other (say criminal record) requirements, in part replaceable by one another. 6% of adult population being voters, like in China, is quite enough. People who are funding the government (bulk of taxes are paid by a few percent of people), people who are moving the society forward, should vote - average people who don't have either capacity, or need to see the big picture and who are totally dependent on institutions they don't even understand, on their well-being, are at best a clutter, at worst a tool in the hands of enemies.
- aaronbrethorst 9y ago
  China is a kleptocracy. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/26/wen-jiabao-wealth-new-york-times https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/26/wen-jiabao-wea...
  - justinzollars 9y ago
    China slipped from Autocracy to Dictatorship last weekend: https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737517-it-bet-china-would-head-towards-democracy-and-market-economy-gamble-has-failed-how https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737517-it-bet-china...
    - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
      We should be careful, or the United States will too. https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/970090357441613824 https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/970090357441613824
  - igravious 9y ago
    Wow, could people who are flagging and deading @anovikov's posts please stop. You may _disagree_ with what they have to say but they are not being impolite or abusive. I get that their position is extremely illeberal in these times but that is no grounds whatsoever to pile on and and flag and downvote. Doing so means it is hard to reply to them. If you disagree, reply, and give your reasons. Reserve downvoting and flagging for Reddit type meme humour, abusive comments, comments which spread fake news or conspiracies, pointless humour, off-topic comments, those sorts of things. Just because you disagree with someone is no grounds to downvote them. Think about what that means, please. Let's keep the level of discourse on HN elevated. Thank you. @dang or another moderator: would it be possible to unflag anovikov's posts here to allow discourse to happen or is that sort of thing not done?

ianai 9y ago

I’m hoping I read that wrong because it sure sounds tyrannical.

aaronbrethorst 9y ago
Sure sounds like late 18th century America to me. https://a.s.kqed.net/pdf/education/digitalmedia/us-voting-rights-timeline.pdf https://a.s.kqed.net/pdf/education/digitalmedia/us-voting-ri... (Which is terrible, to be clear. I support making Election Day a national holiday and probably enfranchising 16 year olds.) Edit: anovikov, you keep getting flagged and I have a question for you: I am genuinely curious as to whether you actually believe this, or if you’re trying to make a Swiftian ‘eat the poor’ commentary. I cannot tell and would love to know.
- nosuchthing 9y ago
  Election day on a Tuesday is INSANE. It almost seems like that is designed to prevent the working class from voting.
  - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
    I don’t know if that’s the explicit aim, but it certainly has that effect. I’m grateful that I live in Washington, where we get our ballots a couple weeks before Election Day, which gives us a chance to do proper due diligence and return our ballots via mail. Return rates still aren’t high enough, but at least it’s not because people are prevented from making it to their polling place because of other obligations. One step at a time...
  - lgregg 9y ago
    It is insane. You would think with our technical advancement as a country that we would be able to vote remotely and also obtain good information about candidates and their policies.
    - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
      Washington state has figured this out. I think Oregon has too.
- anovikov 9y ago
  Yes late 18th century America sounds about right. Of course i don't mean slavery or racism, i just mean that people who don't own property, shouldn't vote. Universal suffrage is a Commie invention, they invented it exactly to crush capitalist societies, because they knew a democratic society with universal suffrage is doomed. Only way to make it survive long term is something like Putinism: keep the elections, but make them irrelevant, and let the wealthy people still decide things in the close circle.
- anovikov 9y ago
  Don't get me wrong: i won't be happy with 0.001% ruling over me. This is the case in Russia, and i left it. But i am fine with anywhere from 1% to 10% ruling over me. These will be better voters than the average Joes. It's not OK that propaganda trickery, playing on people's instincts and knowledge of psychological crowd behavior laws is what defines election outcomes. Elections should not be like clicking on Facebook ads. Or only ways to save Western societies would be adopting some like of Putinism when elections are kept but made irrelevant. Just imagine that Zuck may just decide who will the next President be, by slight adjustments to Facebook feed algorithms? Who can blame him, it is a private business after all right? With people with no property and nothing to lose, who kill their time on nonsense jobs browsing facebook, voting (and they actively vote!), this may very well be possible. 50 years ago when the U.S. was a wide middle class society with most people having something like a career and some property, and feeling that they have a good future which can be optimised by choosing their leaders wisely, and technology of TV manipulation was in its infancy, it may have worked better. But today in the world of mass precariat, who have no good future and know it (and any politician promising them one is a liar), and with whole generation of best engineers and data scientists spent years perfecting mass manipulation through mining people brains, i just can't see it working anymore. It is a threat to itself.
mdekkers 9y ago
Agreed. OP is probably talking about the Chinese model

anovikov 9y ago

It is so hard to see that people who are dependent on social assistance will vote for nothing but more social assistance, dragging whole society into the hole? To me, Chinese model sounds optimal: make strict, public, rarely changing rules of who can get suffrage, which may be a combination of education, income, wealth, and some other (say criminal record) requirements, in part replaceable by one another. 6% of adult population being voters, like in China, is quite enough. People who are funding the government (bulk of taxes are paid by a few percent of people), people who are moving the society forward, should vote - average people who don't have either capacity, or need to see the big picture and who are totally dependent on institutions they don't even understand, on their well-being, are at best a clutter, at worst a tool in the hands of enemies.

aaronbrethorst 9y ago
China is a kleptocracy. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/26/wen-jiabao-wealth-new-york-times https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/26/wen-jiabao-wea...
- justinzollars 9y ago
  China slipped from Autocracy to Dictatorship last weekend: https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737517-it-bet-china-would-head-towards-democracy-and-market-economy-gamble-has-failed-how https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737517-it-bet-china...
  - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
    We should be careful, or the United States will too. https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/970090357441613824 https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/970090357441613824
- igravious 9y ago
  Wow, could people who are flagging and deading @anovikov's posts please stop. You may _disagree_ with what they have to say but they are not being impolite or abusive. I get that their position is extremely illeberal in these times but that is no grounds whatsoever to pile on and and flag and downvote. Doing so means it is hard to reply to them. If you disagree, reply, and give your reasons. Reserve downvoting and flagging for Reddit type meme humour, abusive comments, comments which spread fake news or conspiracies, pointless humour, off-topic comments, those sorts of things. Just because you disagree with someone is no grounds to downvote them. Think about what that means, please. Let's keep the level of discourse on HN elevated. Thank you. @dang or another moderator: would it be possible to unflag anovikov's posts here to allow discourse to happen or is that sort of thing not done?