5 ms·

It would be very interesting to see a breakdown of voting by age. Environmental destruction has a much greater impact to the young.

denimnerd42 5y ago
That may be true but would the transition imposed by the extreme measures required end up wrecking the current young? Telling the young they can't fly anymore when they're older as I've heard on here a million times is probably not going to get you votes. But that's just a stupid simple example, I can't really fathom how more complex laws will change the world.
monk_e_boy 5y ago
Votes need change from INT to FLOAT, so old people get 0.75 of a vote and young people get 1.5 ... because <lots of reasons> [edit] downvotes! Why? Is it a crazy idea that young people should have more of a say about their future than old people? Where I live the old generation are fucking over the young generation in a big way.
- bitL 5y ago
  Why not the opposite? "Hey, I've seen everything!" vs "Hey, that's what I was told on TV!"
- gshixman 5y ago
  It's downvoted because it is obviously ageist... Depersoning people by age is no different than depersoning by race or gender.
  - tzs 5y ago
    > Depersoning people by age is no different than depersoning by race or gender. Those aren't really comparable. If I have a "no black people" rule or a "no men" rule, some people are permanently excluded and some people are permanently included. Those rules each filter everybody into two permanent classes each that they can never leave. A "no people under age X" or "no people over age X" rule does not do this. Yes, it does filter everyone in to one of two classes, but any given individual starts in one class and then after a set time switches to the other class.
    - gshixman 5y ago
      >If I have a "no black people" rule or a "no men" rule, some people are permanently excluded and some people are permanently included. The problem is bigotry is usually based on an immutable feature. While gender is becoming changeable to certain degrees, age and race are not, one can't de-age a person or change their race on a whim. Additionally, claiming that because someone's older disqualifies them from having a full vote in society opens the floodgate every other manner of depersoning seen in human history over the last 200-500 years.
- version_five 5y ago
  I agree with you (in principle) and I've thought about this before. It's a challenge of democracy that those with a conflict of interest get just as much say as those that have to directly bear the long term consequences of something. With the particular example of older people, demographic changes mean that the balance of power is becoming more concentrated amongst the aged. Realistically, I see no fair way to start disenfranchising people. The best we can hope for is to think about what constitutional controls we have to protect people generally from a tyranny of the majority, and consider if there are additional ones needed to account for demographic majorities. Getting anything passed is another story...
- bprieto 5y ago
  You are just a step away from defending that votes from people that own land should count more than votes from all the rest. There are lots of reasons for that too: they are more invested in the territory, they pay more taxes on that land, they produce the food that the rest need to eat... But around a hundred years ago, most democracies decided that every person should have a vote, and that all votes should count the same. Including men who don't own land, women, people of color, poor people, uneducated people and young people. And I think that, although it might seem worrisome that so many idiots vote against my personal preferences, it's better that way. Because the alternative of having an elite that consider themselves better than the rest always ends in justifying killing all who don't agree or who don't offer enough value.
- tzs 5y ago
  Knowing HN, it would not surprise me if the downvotes are because you used FLOAT rather than DECIMAL. As far as the actual idea goes, better would be to (1) make it finer gained, and to (2) make it depend on the issue being voted upon. Maybe something like this (numbers for illustration only--much more thought would need to go into determining the right numbers): (1) If the life expectancy for an average voter of your age is at least 30 years, your vote weight is 1.00. (2) If your life expectancy is not at least 30 years, your vote weight decreases as a function of how much under 30 years it is, reaching a minimum of 0.25 at 10 years life expectancy and then staying at 0.25 for the rest of your actual life, unless #3 applies. (3) If a particular issue will likely have major short term consequences, your vote weight is based on the percentage of that short term that occurs within your life expectancy. If I'm only expected to live 10 more years and we're voting on something that is going to seriously affect people for much much longer than that, it seems only fair that the people who are going to be more affected should have more say than me. That's what #2 is trying to cover. #3 is to protect people against front loaded projects. Say the vote is on building something that will take 10 years to build and then have a major impact for the next century, and construction is going to be paid for by a 10 year tax increase. People with 10 year life expectancy would only get a 0.25 vote under #2, but they would be fully hit by the taxes in this case, and see none of the benefit, so they should have more say. #3 in this case would supersede #2 and give them a 1.00 vote.

denimnerd42 5y ago

That may be true but would the transition imposed by the extreme measures required end up wrecking the current young? Telling the young they can't fly anymore when they're older as I've heard on here a million times is probably not going to get you votes. But that's just a stupid simple example, I can't really fathom how more complex laws will change the world.

monk_e_boy 5y ago

Votes need change from INT to FLOAT, so old people get 0.75 of a vote and young people get 1.5 ... because <lots of reasons> [edit] downvotes! Why? Is it a crazy idea that young people should have more of a say about their future than old people? Where I live the old generation are fucking over the young generation in a big way.

bitL 5y ago
Why not the opposite? "Hey, I've seen everything!" vs "Hey, that's what I was told on TV!"
gshixman 5y ago
It's downvoted because it is obviously ageist... Depersoning people by age is no different than depersoning by race or gender.
- tzs 5y ago
  > Depersoning people by age is no different than depersoning by race or gender. Those aren't really comparable. If I have a "no black people" rule or a "no men" rule, some people are permanently excluded and some people are permanently included. Those rules each filter everybody into two permanent classes each that they can never leave. A "no people under age X" or "no people over age X" rule does not do this. Yes, it does filter everyone in to one of two classes, but any given individual starts in one class and then after a set time switches to the other class.
  - gshixman 5y ago
    >If I have a "no black people" rule or a "no men" rule, some people are permanently excluded and some people are permanently included. The problem is bigotry is usually based on an immutable feature. While gender is becoming changeable to certain degrees, age and race are not, one can't de-age a person or change their race on a whim. Additionally, claiming that because someone's older disqualifies them from having a full vote in society opens the floodgate every other manner of depersoning seen in human history over the last 200-500 years.
version_five 5y ago
I agree with you (in principle) and I've thought about this before. It's a challenge of democracy that those with a conflict of interest get just as much say as those that have to directly bear the long term consequences of something. With the particular example of older people, demographic changes mean that the balance of power is becoming more concentrated amongst the aged. Realistically, I see no fair way to start disenfranchising people. The best we can hope for is to think about what constitutional controls we have to protect people generally from a tyranny of the majority, and consider if there are additional ones needed to account for demographic majorities. Getting anything passed is another story...
bprieto 5y ago
You are just a step away from defending that votes from people that own land should count more than votes from all the rest. There are lots of reasons for that too: they are more invested in the territory, they pay more taxes on that land, they produce the food that the rest need to eat... But around a hundred years ago, most democracies decided that every person should have a vote, and that all votes should count the same. Including men who don't own land, women, people of color, poor people, uneducated people and young people. And I think that, although it might seem worrisome that so many idiots vote against my personal preferences, it's better that way. Because the alternative of having an elite that consider themselves better than the rest always ends in justifying killing all who don't agree or who don't offer enough value.
tzs 5y ago
Knowing HN, it would not surprise me if the downvotes are because you used FLOAT rather than DECIMAL. As far as the actual idea goes, better would be to (1) make it finer gained, and to (2) make it depend on the issue being voted upon. Maybe something like this (numbers for illustration only--much more thought would need to go into determining the right numbers): (1) If the life expectancy for an average voter of your age is at least 30 years, your vote weight is 1.00. (2) If your life expectancy is not at least 30 years, your vote weight decreases as a function of how much under 30 years it is, reaching a minimum of 0.25 at 10 years life expectancy and then staying at 0.25 for the rest of your actual life, unless #3 applies. (3) If a particular issue will likely have major short term consequences, your vote weight is based on the percentage of that short term that occurs within your life expectancy. If I'm only expected to live 10 more years and we're voting on something that is going to seriously affect people for much much longer than that, it seems only fair that the people who are going to be more affected should have more say than me. That's what #2 is trying to cover. #3 is to protect people against front loaded projects. Say the vote is on building something that will take 10 years to build and then have a major impact for the next century, and construction is going to be paid for by a 10 year tax increase. People with 10 year life expectancy would only get a 0.25 vote under #2, but they would be fully hit by the taxes in this case, and see none of the benefit, so they should have more say. #3 in this case would supersede #2 and give them a 1.00 vote.