4 ms·

I think it’s a serious stretch to try to connect risk-taking and voting. Kids and young adults do stupid stuff because they don’t have a good grasp of their own

I think it’s a serious stretch to try to connect risk-taking and voting. Kids and young adults do stupid stuff because they don’t have a good grasp of their own mortality and because they want the validation of their peers. Their internal risk/reward function isn’t calibrated quite right because they overvalue the reward of attention and/or undervalue the risk of injury or death which results in thrill/attention-seeking behavior. Since the voting booth is both boring and private I think it’s entirely outside the scope of the kids-take-stupid-risks conversation.

tpmx 6y ago
How about the ability to perform consequence-based thinking?
- Retric 6y ago
  The point of democracy isn’t to make the best choices, it’s to have the people in power try and appease as much of the population as possible. The fact 61 year olds vote while 16 year olds don’t shifts priorities away from a huge segment of the population. Worse, it likely biases short term thinking as many voters will be dead before the consequences of various choices show up.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Some fair points, but... do we really want political campaigns aimed at, say, 8-year-olds? They're stupid enough as it is when they're allegedly aimed at adults.
    - Retric 6y ago
      Dropping the voting age from 18 to say 12 only increases the voter population by ~9%. So, it’s wouldn’t significantly change how campaigns are run. But the nuances of what changes might be really interesting.
- kergonath 6y ago
  This is lacking in most of the adult population, anyway, and yet is not a reason to disenfranchise them. I am not necessarily for lowering the voting age, but this argument is not great. There is nothing magical about being 18 years old, and you’re not suddenly smarter than a year ago. Same for being 21, or whichever threshold you want.
jfrunyon 6y ago
> Their internal risk/reward function isn’t calibrated quite right What else is voting but deciding which party has the best risk/reward? ;)

tpmx 6y ago

How about the ability to perform consequence-based thinking?

Retric 6y ago
The point of democracy isn’t to make the best choices, it’s to have the people in power try and appease as much of the population as possible. The fact 61 year olds vote while 16 year olds don’t shifts priorities away from a huge segment of the population. Worse, it likely biases short term thinking as many voters will be dead before the consequences of various choices show up.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Some fair points, but... do we really want political campaigns aimed at, say, 8-year-olds? They're stupid enough as it is when they're allegedly aimed at adults.
  - Retric 6y ago
    Dropping the voting age from 18 to say 12 only increases the voter population by ~9%. So, it’s wouldn’t significantly change how campaigns are run. But the nuances of what changes might be really interesting.
kergonath 6y ago
This is lacking in most of the adult population, anyway, and yet is not a reason to disenfranchise them. I am not necessarily for lowering the voting age, but this argument is not great. There is nothing magical about being 18 years old, and you’re not suddenly smarter than a year ago. Same for being 21, or whichever threshold you want.

jfrunyon 6y ago

> Their internal risk/reward function isn’t calibrated quite right What else is voting but deciding which party has the best risk/reward? ;)