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> but it can be an issue if a particular demographic, particularly one that might have the least direct motivation to vote for policies aimed at long-term syste

> but it can be an issue if a particular demographic, particularly one that might have the least direct motivation to vote for policies aimed at long-term system wide improvements, has outsized representation that's democracy working as intendend. Besides: don't underestimate the fact that older people have much more motivation than adults, because they are at rest, they can think about the past, they actually have a past to think about and can draw conclusions on what their generation did and what the results were and how that affects the people they love and are worried about, particularly their nephews, who represent the real "new hope" for them. Most elderly were too busy working and taking care of their families when they were younger to focus on the long term results of their actions. While younger people lack either the motivation, the experience or the tools to make such an analysis. > that way the fact that there might be many more 65-70yos vs 20-25yos wouldn't affect the outcome You are assuming that all the old people vote against the interests of the 20-25 years old people and vice versa, but actually it's very far from the truth. The tension between equal representation and fairness of the outcome has been studied for a long time. See the Arrow impossibility theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...

wizofaus 3y ago
> You are assuming that all the old people vote against the interests of the 20-25 years old people Not at all - but we already accept that the fact there are so many more voters in concentrated in a few cities that a pure one-person-one-vote system would lead to virtually no representation of voters in sparsely populated areas. If the age pyramid were even more extreme (e.g. 5 or 6 times as many voters between 60 and 65 than there were between 20 and 25) I'd say we'd have little choice but to consider some sort of age-bracket based voting system. As it happens apparently the historical trend of voters becoming significantly more conservative as they age seems like it might be breaking down anyway, and the concentration of voters in the "boomer" bracket is a somewhat temporary thing, so there's probably not enough justification for overhauling our electoral systems simply to counter the current demographic distribution, however I do think we're unnecessarily reluctant to at least seriously debate and ideally trial different electoral systems rather than assume what was put in place hundreds of years ago is still the best we can do in this day and age.
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  > Not at all - but we already accept that the fact there are so many more voters in concentrated in a few cities that a pure one-person-one-vote system would lead to virtually no representation of voters in sparsely populated areas. We do not accept the pure one-person-one-vote system because we live in representative democracies, were the elected represent a community. We solve the problem by designing dynamic voting areas of varying dimenions containing more or less the same population, so any representative is the spokeperson of the same amount of people (more or less). At least that's what we do here in Europe AFAIK. > If the age pyramid were even more extreme (e.g. 5 or 6 times as many voters between 60 and 65 than there were between 20 and 25) I'd say we'd have little choice but to consider some sort of age-bracket based voting system. You are saying that you don't like democracy then. Which is an argument, we can discuss about it, but, for the sake of the argument, in Russia there are 86 men every 100 women. In that case what should we do? Limit the representation of women? What about people with disabilities, should we create a "people with no disabilities bracket"? How should we address the fact that the majority of the population has received no form of higher education, they are ill-educated if not uneducated hence they lack the tools to make an informed decision to the detriment of the entire society? etc. etc. > As it happens apparently the historical trend of voters becoming significantly more conservative as they age That's a cool quote, but it's never been proven. The word you're looking for is not conservative, but prudent. Anyway, if we look at the voters now in Europe, where I am from, we can clearly see that the far right is very popular among young people, they are having good if not extremely good outcomes in many countries (Germany, Sweden, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Poland). It never happened before the last generation had the right to vote. In my country, Italy, the far right is the preferred choice among people < 25 years old and women, while people over 65 have voted in majority for the left and are progressive. What should we do about it in your opinion?
  - wizofaus 3y ago
    > You are saying that you don't like democracy then "Democracy" says nothing about ensuring every single vote counts equally. While I am inherently skeptical of systems that decide some votes are worth more than others, personally, the idea that my vote should count for more when I'm part of a smaller but younger demographic bracket and less when I'm older and part of a bigger bracket doesn't bother me too much. Whether it would actually produce a better result is almost impossible to know. > In my country, Italy, the far right is the preferred choice among people < 25 years old and women, while people over 65 have voted in majority for the left and are progressive. That's certainly quite interesting, and different from the pattern I'm aware of occurring elsewhere, and it would be fascinating to do a deeper dive into why that might be. It certainly suggests to me that whatever the "left" in your country is offering, younger voters are not seeing it as representing the policies they feel the country needs over the coming decades. Though I did just come across an article that suggested this trend is possibly because younger voters in Europe have no first-hand knowledge of how awful things became under far-right leaders in the early 20th century. Or perhaps because they've seen first hand that welfare-state-type policies associated with left have benefited older generations far more than themselves.

wizofaus 3y ago

> You are assuming that all the old people vote against the interests of the 20-25 years old people Not at all - but we already accept that the fact there are so many more voters in concentrated in a few cities that a pure one-person-one-vote system would lead to virtually no representation of voters in sparsely populated areas. If the age pyramid were even more extreme (e.g. 5 or 6 times as many voters between 60 and 65 than there were between 20 and 25) I'd say we'd have little choice but to consider some sort of age-bracket based voting system. As it happens apparently the historical trend of voters becoming significantly more conservative as they age seems like it might be breaking down anyway, and the concentration of voters in the "boomer" bracket is a somewhat temporary thing, so there's probably not enough justification for overhauling our electoral systems simply to counter the current demographic distribution, however I do think we're unnecessarily reluctant to at least seriously debate and ideally trial different electoral systems rather than assume what was put in place hundreds of years ago is still the best we can do in this day and age.

peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> Not at all - but we already accept that the fact there are so many more voters in concentrated in a few cities that a pure one-person-one-vote system would lead to virtually no representation of voters in sparsely populated areas. We do not accept the pure one-person-one-vote system because we live in representative democracies, were the elected represent a community. We solve the problem by designing dynamic voting areas of varying dimenions containing more or less the same population, so any representative is the spokeperson of the same amount of people (more or less). At least that's what we do here in Europe AFAIK. > If the age pyramid were even more extreme (e.g. 5 or 6 times as many voters between 60 and 65 than there were between 20 and 25) I'd say we'd have little choice but to consider some sort of age-bracket based voting system. You are saying that you don't like democracy then. Which is an argument, we can discuss about it, but, for the sake of the argument, in Russia there are 86 men every 100 women. In that case what should we do? Limit the representation of women? What about people with disabilities, should we create a "people with no disabilities bracket"? How should we address the fact that the majority of the population has received no form of higher education, they are ill-educated if not uneducated hence they lack the tools to make an informed decision to the detriment of the entire society? etc. etc. > As it happens apparently the historical trend of voters becoming significantly more conservative as they age That's a cool quote, but it's never been proven. The word you're looking for is not conservative, but prudent. Anyway, if we look at the voters now in Europe, where I am from, we can clearly see that the far right is very popular among young people, they are having good if not extremely good outcomes in many countries (Germany, Sweden, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Poland). It never happened before the last generation had the right to vote. In my country, Italy, the far right is the preferred choice among people < 25 years old and women, while people over 65 have voted in majority for the left and are progressive. What should we do about it in your opinion?
- wizofaus 3y ago
  > You are saying that you don't like democracy then "Democracy" says nothing about ensuring every single vote counts equally. While I am inherently skeptical of systems that decide some votes are worth more than others, personally, the idea that my vote should count for more when I'm part of a smaller but younger demographic bracket and less when I'm older and part of a bigger bracket doesn't bother me too much. Whether it would actually produce a better result is almost impossible to know. > In my country, Italy, the far right is the preferred choice among people < 25 years old and women, while people over 65 have voted in majority for the left and are progressive. That's certainly quite interesting, and different from the pattern I'm aware of occurring elsewhere, and it would be fascinating to do a deeper dive into why that might be. It certainly suggests to me that whatever the "left" in your country is offering, younger voters are not seeing it as representing the policies they feel the country needs over the coming decades. Though I did just come across an article that suggested this trend is possibly because younger voters in Europe have no first-hand knowledge of how awful things became under far-right leaders in the early 20th century. Or perhaps because they've seen first hand that welfare-state-type policies associated with left have benefited older generations far more than themselves.