4 ms·

Seems cool, not sure if I want a bunch of 150 year olds voting (relatively, that would be like people born in 1870 voting today, 5 years after slavery ended).

Jtsummers 5y ago
Setting aside other common issues like senility with age which could impact a person's competency to vote, do you hold a similar prejudice for people born before desegregation of schools and other institutions?
everdrive 5y ago
Along those lines: given how quickly things change these days, I can imagine that living to 120 would be quite bewildering, even if you you could be healthy and mentally coherent at 100. I don't think it would be uniquely bad for old people to vote though, plenty of brand new ideas are terrible too.
Buttons840 5y ago
I have two thoughts on this: - old people should have less voting power bacause they wont live to see the results of their votes - old people should have more voting power because they are older and have seen more of history I guess they balance out and everyone gets an equal vote.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  But most people's account of any national, state, or city history for any event whatsoever cannot beat a quick search on Wikipedia. I'm not sure how much value there is in informal recollections of past events. Have you ever heard a great retelling of history? It always seems to come from those who have invested Serious Effort to master a historical narrative, especially when they work with a community of fellow peers.
  - nimbleal 5y ago
    Surely the whole of the human experience is, in the end, “informal recollections of past events”? What tells you more about poverty — learning that an individual lives on less than a dollar a day or, say, spending 24 hours without food and shelter? I would argue that the experience of lived history and the “facts” of history cannot be separated, and both must be equally valued.
    - threatofrain 5y ago
      The "whole of human experience" is a formal concept, since you surely don't believe any of us can informally experience it. Societies formalize it by collecting data and debating theories. And big human stories are the ones which are difficult to intuit. There are those who do nothing more than collect information on homeless people, documenting them for various organizations or gov't agencies, sometimes paid. They are doing the fundamental work of demonstrating a phenomena whose scale would otherwise be belittled or denied. Some would say SF is actually pretty nice, with only a small homeless population. When experiences disagree with each other, how should we move forward with discussion? With personal experience or with data?
  - whiddershins 5y ago
    It’s not about specific historical events and narratives. It’s about the general tendencies of humans, patterns, that you start to be able to perceive when you live a lot of life.
    - threatofrain 5y ago
      A story of history, humans, patterns on race and class, told without any mastery of any specifics in history? I mean, sure, but I'd just call that canned gossip. And don't we All have something to say about human sexuality?
  - cglace 5y ago
    Yeah, why ask the person who was in WWII what it was like. Just jump on wikipedia and it'll be like your on Omaha beach.
- u9rptDjqLl0Pdcz 5y ago
  Older people have more children and grandchildren that will live with the results of their voting.
whiddershins 5y ago
This is dismissive of gained wisdom over time, and probably the most unapologetic generalization about a group I’ve read recently. My guess is having lots of older voters would make it so people stop falling for the same scams over and over, and are less prone to hysteria. If that were the case, governance should improve dramatically.
- csa 5y ago
  > My guess is having lots of older voters would make it so people stop falling for the same scams over and over, and are less prone to hysteria. A major part of Fox News’ business model is built around creating FUD amongst senior citizens. They seem to be very successful at it.
  - junon 5y ago
    I don't think age has anything to do with it, and Fox News has plenty of younger viewers as well. I think education, ideology, and sensationalism have more (everything?) to do with it.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
      According to POS: https://pos.org/whos-watching-a-look-at-the-demographics-of-cable-news-channel-watchers/ https://pos.org/whos-watching-a-look-at-the-demographics-of-... The only big difference between Fox and other networks is that they have way less college educated viewers as a percentage of total viewers. Not sure how good of a source that is, though. There's several (not great) sources online I can see that say the average FOX News viewer is >65. I also see that the average CNN & MSNBC viewer is >59. But according to that POS survey, only 20% of viewers are >65 - which must mean a significant portion of their viewers are REALLY old like 80+ (or the surveys are just bad). 538 gives POS an A- for polls: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/public-opinion-strategies/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/public... - which is pretty good. So who knows?
      - junon 5y ago
jazzkingrt 5y ago
This raises an interesting point. I think we already live with this kind of tension much more than in the past, as made clear by the voting patterns of young vs old. Sharing a country with people of such different values is hard. Particularly when the older generation is always the shrinking demographic and feels its way of life is at risk. What can alleviate this? More federalism? More geographic clustering by age? A culture that puts empathy over shame?
u9rptDjqLl0Pdcz 5y ago
Not sure I want 18 year olds voting either.
tmp231 5y ago
On the contrary, we could finally raise the voting age to 60.

Jtsummers 5y ago

Setting aside other common issues like senility with age which could impact a person's competency to vote, do you hold a similar prejudice for people born before desegregation of schools and other institutions?

everdrive 5y ago

Along those lines: given how quickly things change these days, I can imagine that living to 120 would be quite bewildering, even if you you could be healthy and mentally coherent at 100. I don't think it would be uniquely bad for old people to vote though, plenty of brand new ideas are terrible too.

Buttons840 5y ago

I have two thoughts on this: - old people should have less voting power bacause they wont live to see the results of their votes - old people should have more voting power because they are older and have seen more of history I guess they balance out and everyone gets an equal vote.

threatofrain 5y ago
But most people's account of any national, state, or city history for any event whatsoever cannot beat a quick search on Wikipedia. I'm not sure how much value there is in informal recollections of past events. Have you ever heard a great retelling of history? It always seems to come from those who have invested Serious Effort to master a historical narrative, especially when they work with a community of fellow peers.
- nimbleal 5y ago
  Surely the whole of the human experience is, in the end, “informal recollections of past events”? What tells you more about poverty — learning that an individual lives on less than a dollar a day or, say, spending 24 hours without food and shelter? I would argue that the experience of lived history and the “facts” of history cannot be separated, and both must be equally valued.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    The "whole of human experience" is a formal concept, since you surely don't believe any of us can informally experience it. Societies formalize it by collecting data and debating theories. And big human stories are the ones which are difficult to intuit. There are those who do nothing more than collect information on homeless people, documenting them for various organizations or gov't agencies, sometimes paid. They are doing the fundamental work of demonstrating a phenomena whose scale would otherwise be belittled or denied. Some would say SF is actually pretty nice, with only a small homeless population. When experiences disagree with each other, how should we move forward with discussion? With personal experience or with data?
- whiddershins 5y ago
  It’s not about specific historical events and narratives. It’s about the general tendencies of humans, patterns, that you start to be able to perceive when you live a lot of life.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    A story of history, humans, patterns on race and class, told without any mastery of any specifics in history? I mean, sure, but I'd just call that canned gossip. And don't we All have something to say about human sexuality?
- cglace 5y ago
  Yeah, why ask the person who was in WWII what it was like. Just jump on wikipedia and it'll be like your on Omaha beach.
u9rptDjqLl0Pdcz 5y ago
Older people have more children and grandchildren that will live with the results of their voting.

whiddershins 5y ago

This is dismissive of gained wisdom over time, and probably the most unapologetic generalization about a group I’ve read recently. My guess is having lots of older voters would make it so people stop falling for the same scams over and over, and are less prone to hysteria. If that were the case, governance should improve dramatically.

csa 5y ago
> My guess is having lots of older voters would make it so people stop falling for the same scams over and over, and are less prone to hysteria. A major part of Fox News’ business model is built around creating FUD amongst senior citizens. They seem to be very successful at it.
- junon 5y ago
  I don't think age has anything to do with it, and Fox News has plenty of younger viewers as well. I think education, ideology, and sensationalism have more (everything?) to do with it.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    According to POS: https://pos.org/whos-watching-a-look-at-the-demographics-of-cable-news-channel-watchers/ https://pos.org/whos-watching-a-look-at-the-demographics-of-... The only big difference between Fox and other networks is that they have way less college educated viewers as a percentage of total viewers. Not sure how good of a source that is, though. There's several (not great) sources online I can see that say the average FOX News viewer is >65. I also see that the average CNN & MSNBC viewer is >59. But according to that POS survey, only 20% of viewers are >65 - which must mean a significant portion of their viewers are REALLY old like 80+ (or the surveys are just bad). 538 gives POS an A- for polls: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/public-opinion-strategies/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/public... - which is pretty good. So who knows?
    - junon 5y ago

jazzkingrt 5y ago

This raises an interesting point. I think we already live with this kind of tension much more than in the past, as made clear by the voting patterns of young vs old. Sharing a country with people of such different values is hard. Particularly when the older generation is always the shrinking demographic and feels its way of life is at risk. What can alleviate this? More federalism? More geographic clustering by age? A culture that puts empathy over shame?

u9rptDjqLl0Pdcz 5y ago

Not sure I want 18 year olds voting either.

tmp231 5y ago

On the contrary, we could finally raise the voting age to 60.