8 ms·

How about we try to get to the core issues of this systemic risk of authoritarianism and repression, and look at: Ageism: Why can't younger people vote? Becaus

How about we try to get to the core issues of this systemic risk of authoritarianism and repression, and look at: Ageism: Why can't younger people vote? Because they don't have valid opinions? Some adults don't have valid opinions. This seems to affect our dramatically in our modern era, as many of our older folks are still around and skewing the generational differences towards conservatism. Classism: Why do we feel it necessary to have a political class at all? Bush Sr., Mr. Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, (Ms. Clinton?). To me, it feels weird even asking these people to have differing views. They're all apart of the council on foreign relations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_Council_on_Foreign_Relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_Council_on_Fore...). Control+F either Clinton or Bush. This in my opinion, is why we won't change any neo-con/neo-lib policies anytime soon. Expect less worker rights, more outsourcing, more free trade, more deficits, and more protection of institutions deemed too big to fail (impossible in classical capitalism but not the crony kind). Apathy: The US has killed many people in Iraq since 2003. If you crunch one version of account, it works out to 16 people every day, for 20 years. Yet most Americans are more concerned with their own internal matters. This seems like it could be extended to anything being committed outside of the US to other humans, including torture, enslavement, anything. The American people have already shown that if their bellies are full, then it doesn't matter how many people their government kills. How can anyone fix this? Anyway, this to me seems like the major hurdles we all need to get over...

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- tokenizer 13y ago
  Incidentally, I'm sure Men had many reasons why Women wouldn't have been good voters before 1918. Too bad we actually have to allow them to do so before we can actually make assumptions on how they'd act. /s
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    And women, too... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_United_States#Opposition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_Unite...
- yesbabyyes 13y ago
  As opposed to...? I agree with tokenizer. When it comes to many of my family and friends, I would trust them as 15-year-olds before many people I have met, who are trusted to vote today. I'll grant you that many kids will squander their vote, perhaps vote without having given it enough thought. Many will vote as their parents. But again, this is different from adults how? The age-boundary seems silly. At 35, I look back upon myself at 20, 25, and 30 years old. In many ways, I think I was foolish then. Perhaps in ten years, I will look back at this comment and lament my foolish thoughts. So how can we draw the boundary at the age of eighteen? Or any age? I say, let anybody who can cast their own vote by themselves do so.
rwmj 13y ago
Why can't younger people vote? I think this breaks into two separate questions: Why don't younger people vote very much and what can we do to encourage that. And, why do we stop 16 year olds from voting? Here is one Labour policy I'm very much in favour of: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-party-adopts-votes-for-16yearolds-8773407.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-party-a... Why do we feel it necessary to have a political class at all? More generally, why do we have representative democracy at all? We have the internet. It's now technically possible for everyone to vote on every issue, or even to have everyone collaborate on drafting new laws.
- guerrilla 13y ago
  > We have the internet About that... say some of us did set up a usable and scalable direct democracy mechanism on the Internet. Say we get the massive user-base this deserves for some currently existing nation. Imagine for some random piece of psuedolegislation, we got some law passed in said system such that it succeeds with an unprecedented turnout and majority lead. At what point does that stop being just a petition but the actual law. A near impossible feat, but when military turnout reaches a certain percentage, I think at some point we have something going. More realistically, why not create the software and infrastructure and start pitching this to some cities, counties, maybe even states/provinces to start doing this? It could at least be informative and entertaining. More practicalaly, the biggest issue I see is in the security of it. How could identity be handled? Integrity? etc, etc. #trust I say, let's get started anyway. We'll probably want to have some failure under our belt anyway by the time there's a real demand (assuming I'm psychic ;) I think my point is, it's up to us. We are the people.
  - return0 13y ago
    Security depends on people's willingness to participate. Democracies have solved these issues with primitive means in the past. It certainly can be done, would be an interesting experiment to say the least.
  - yesbabyyes 13y ago
    People are working on this. See for instance Aktiv Demokrati in Sweden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktiv_Demokrati http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktiv_Demokrati The basic idea is that each person has a vote, and all matters should be resolved by a public vote. Since not everybody may have time and resources to vote responsibly in every matter, the vote can be delegated to someone else. It is easy to imagine how every person could delegate his or her vote to different people in different matters. Going down this road, sometime you have to consider the question of actual motions and matters to vote upon. Who drafts these? Well, it should be the people who suggests questions to vote upon, and the people who decides which questions are most important -- by voting on them. Then, the people should discuss the matter. Each person can voice their opinion, but also vote on the opinions of others. After a good discussion, with many arguments back and forth, it is time to vote. But, alas! The matter has already been resolved. The most popular arguments have surfaced to the top, with the corresponding caveats and so on. This discussion is the perfect basis for drafting whatever law or resolving whatever matter was under question. Now, this all sounds very similar to Reddit, or Hacker News. Basically, this is how the political process would work. Note that not all of what I have discussed here is a part of Aktiv Demokrati or their system. It's more of a summary of my own thoughts on the matter.
hammerzeit 13y ago
On the ageism question, 18 is the general age where we welcome people into American society as adults -- not just voting but also army service and criminal liability. I'm not opposed to moving the voting age earlier but it should be in conjunction with those other responsibilities. You're kind of begging the question on the other two -- you've assumed your hypotheses, making it hard to disentangle. For example, you're assuming Americans haven't confronted the fact that war kills lots of people -- I don't know that's clearly the case. You're right on the cliff of using the word "sheeple." One thing I will question -- are populist governments (which you seem to desire) really a solution to the issues of authoritarianism and repression? A movement that seems to have contempt for as many people as the populist movement does seems like it could easily degenerate into its own tyranny and purging.
- _delirium 13y ago
  The alignment of the two ages is actually pretty recent, at least in the US. Traditionally, military conscription age was 18, while voting was 21. It was moved (in 1971) due to agitation from people who argued that it was unethical to conscript people to die for their country, but not trust the same people to vote for their leaders. But that's merely an argument for why voting age should be <= conscription age, not necessarily an argument that it should be ==.
  - nooneelse 13y ago
    I think it a pretty good argument that the voting age should be less than the conscription age by enough that the person conscription has had a chance to participate in the voting that led to the government which is conscripting them. It sets the order of events more in line with a hypothetical ideal social contract to which one agrees by one's actions and then owes such a high price to.
hammerzeit 13y ago
On the ageism question, 18 is the general age where we welcome people into American society as adults -- not just voting but also army service and criminal liability. I'm not opposed to moving the voting age earlier but it should be in conjunction with those other responsibilities. You're kind of begging the question on the other two -- you've assumed your hypotheses, making it hard to disentangle. For example, you're assuming Americans haven't confronted the fact that war kills lots of people -- I don't know that's clearly the case. You're right on the cliff of using the word "sheeple." One thing I will question -- are populist governments (which you seem to desire) really a solution to the issues of authoritarianism and repression? A movement that seems to have contempt for as many people as the populist movement does seems like it could easily degenerate into its own tyranny and purging.
mseebach 13y ago
> Why can't younger people vote? Because they don't have valid opinions? Because society has a long-standing agreement that a phase of life called "childhood" exists, during which an individual is not fully developed and can't be trusted to make decisions about his or her future. It may be somewhat arbitrarily defined at 18, but I don't see why people who need to be protected against entering into contracts as well as receiving a slew of rights and protections can be expected to have meaningful input into the management of their country. Someone who can't even join the military could vote to send their older fellow countrymen into war. I find the idea that the voting age can be lower than the age of majority very strange, and I have strong doubts that the age of majority should be lowered to 16 - on account of protecting childhood. > This seems to affect our dramatically in our modern era, as many of our older folks are still around and skewing the generational differences towards conservatism. Wait, what. You meant to come out against ageism, then you criticize old people for voting "wrong"? All in all, if you take a step back from you criticisms, there's a common point: Legitimacy. Submitting a ballot every few years is a very weak foundation for a government as sprawling and powerful as most modern and western ones. Fiddling the knobs of who can vote does little more than shift the balance of power inside the political class.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  > Wait, what. You meant to come out against ageism, then you criticize old people for voting "wrong"? No, I'm simply pointing out that in this day and age, we have more older people voicing their opinion. This leads to policies that favor this group and disadvantages other groups (youth). I think Thomas Jefferson had much to say on the tyranny of one generation to the next. > All in all, if you take a step back from you criticisms, there's a common point: Legitimacy. Submitting a ballot every few years is a very weak foundation for a government as sprawling and powerful as most modern and western ones. Fiddling the knobs of who can vote does little more than shift the balance of power inside the political class. Agreed. However youth suffrage is an important topic. You say that society needs to protect childhood, but to me, it seems like they're protecting them from their own opinions and values... Like the article mentions.
- sophacles 13y ago
  Even if we grant the notion of childhood as valid (one which I agree with, but am open to other models - the idea that one turns 18 and is suddenly a different person has weird impacts), we are seeing a systemic erosion of the notion. One which makes the GP's question valid. I mean that the very idea of 18 == adulthood is going away. For instance, more and more people over the age of 13 but under the age of 18 are being prosecuted as adults in criminal cases. Zero tolerance policies for kids of all ages are assuming that they are capable of making choices with life altering consequences, but only in negative ways. So for some actions - adult understanding of the world is assumed much younger than the age of 18. On the other hand, we are seeing the infantilization of people older than 18 - drinking age is 21, car rental 25, college policies are becoming more and more like those of high-school, college campus law enforcement is becoming less and less tolerant of "young people behavior" (e.g. parties and festivals). It is a weird set of standards that sends a strange message. Those that conform well are placed in a class that can fully enjoy the rewards of membership eventually, and those that don't or make mistakes are placed in a different class, one with many restrictions. Basically I'm saying that while the notions of adulthood and childhood aren't bad, the implementation brings them into question.
onebaddude 13y ago
>They're all apart of the council on foreign relations... This in my opinion, is why we won't change... So was Carl Sagan, Angelina Jolie, Paul Krugman, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, Aaron Ross Sorkin, etc etc. The CFR is a collection of influential Americans who meet to discuss and influence policy on the gamut of topics. It isn't a place where the Illuminati lizard-people meet to perform occult rituals and determine how to enslave the population of the earth, despite how the interwebs tries to paint that picture. It's hard to say they have any specific agenda when you actually read some of the (vast amounts) of work they produce. You are welcome to disagree with their policies, but don't act like they're some powerful entity that's ruining the world. It's incredibly naive. >Expect less worker rights, more outsourcing, more free trade, more deficits So, on the one hand you criticize others for apathy, but on the other you criticize outsourcing, which moves jobs into the capable hands of the denizens of other, poorer countries, rather than hording them in your own country; free trade, which is hugely beneficial to everyone involved, always, provided everyone actually practices it; and (I assume governmental) deficits. Why are there high deficits, currently? Oh yeah, social safety net. Should we get rid of that? My point is, these subjects (even TBTF) aren't black and white.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  > Why are there high deficits, currently? Oh yeah, social safety net. Yes, because it's definitely not military and espionage expenditure or subsidies for corporations. > My point is, these subjects (even TBTF) aren't black and white. While I agree with you B&W point, I feel like too big to fail is a failure in management of the economy. To let companies become so big as to effect the entire economy so negatively if they fail is disastrous. The government is propping up/keeping afloat monopolies. In my opinion, The US is at 0% interest rates, is still in a recession, and can't possibly do anything else in regards to inflationary measures (printing money) without the negative affect on it's position as the world reserve currency. http://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0?t=13m36s http://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0?t=13m36s <- Notice how the US is on target for a depression according to many economists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMHmTyJXcy0&feature=c4-overview&list=UUIjuLiLHdFxYtFmWlbTGQRQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMHmTyJXcy0&feature=c4-overvi... <- Here's a great talk regarding quantum easing and how unless the government can start more drastic measures, the economy will tank. I'd like to heard your defense for the status quo, and also how you believe that social safety nets created in the 40's has anything to do with our crises of 2008.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

tokenizer 13y ago
Incidentally, I'm sure Men had many reasons why Women wouldn't have been good voters before 1918. Too bad we actually have to allow them to do so before we can actually make assumptions on how they'd act. /s
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  And women, too... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_United_States#Opposition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_Unite...
yesbabyyes 13y ago
As opposed to...? I agree with tokenizer. When it comes to many of my family and friends, I would trust them as 15-year-olds before many people I have met, who are trusted to vote today. I'll grant you that many kids will squander their vote, perhaps vote without having given it enough thought. Many will vote as their parents. But again, this is different from adults how? The age-boundary seems silly. At 35, I look back upon myself at 20, 25, and 30 years old. In many ways, I think I was foolish then. Perhaps in ten years, I will look back at this comment and lament my foolish thoughts. So how can we draw the boundary at the age of eighteen? Or any age? I say, let anybody who can cast their own vote by themselves do so.

rwmj 13y ago

Why can't younger people vote? I think this breaks into two separate questions: Why don't younger people vote very much and what can we do to encourage that. And, why do we stop 16 year olds from voting? Here is one Labour policy I'm very much in favour of: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-party-adopts-votes-for-16yearolds-8773407.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-party-a... Why do we feel it necessary to have a political class at all? More generally, why do we have representative democracy at all? We have the internet. It's now technically possible for everyone to vote on every issue, or even to have everyone collaborate on drafting new laws.

guerrilla 13y ago
> We have the internet About that... say some of us did set up a usable and scalable direct democracy mechanism on the Internet. Say we get the massive user-base this deserves for some currently existing nation. Imagine for some random piece of psuedolegislation, we got some law passed in said system such that it succeeds with an unprecedented turnout and majority lead. At what point does that stop being just a petition but the actual law. A near impossible feat, but when military turnout reaches a certain percentage, I think at some point we have something going. More realistically, why not create the software and infrastructure and start pitching this to some cities, counties, maybe even states/provinces to start doing this? It could at least be informative and entertaining. More practicalaly, the biggest issue I see is in the security of it. How could identity be handled? Integrity? etc, etc. #trust I say, let's get started anyway. We'll probably want to have some failure under our belt anyway by the time there's a real demand (assuming I'm psychic ;) I think my point is, it's up to us. We are the people.
- return0 13y ago
  Security depends on people's willingness to participate. Democracies have solved these issues with primitive means in the past. It certainly can be done, would be an interesting experiment to say the least.
- yesbabyyes 13y ago
  People are working on this. See for instance Aktiv Demokrati in Sweden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktiv_Demokrati http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktiv_Demokrati The basic idea is that each person has a vote, and all matters should be resolved by a public vote. Since not everybody may have time and resources to vote responsibly in every matter, the vote can be delegated to someone else. It is easy to imagine how every person could delegate his or her vote to different people in different matters. Going down this road, sometime you have to consider the question of actual motions and matters to vote upon. Who drafts these? Well, it should be the people who suggests questions to vote upon, and the people who decides which questions are most important -- by voting on them. Then, the people should discuss the matter. Each person can voice their opinion, but also vote on the opinions of others. After a good discussion, with many arguments back and forth, it is time to vote. But, alas! The matter has already been resolved. The most popular arguments have surfaced to the top, with the corresponding caveats and so on. This discussion is the perfect basis for drafting whatever law or resolving whatever matter was under question. Now, this all sounds very similar to Reddit, or Hacker News. Basically, this is how the political process would work. Note that not all of what I have discussed here is a part of Aktiv Demokrati or their system. It's more of a summary of my own thoughts on the matter.

hammerzeit 13y ago

On the ageism question, 18 is the general age where we welcome people into American society as adults -- not just voting but also army service and criminal liability. I'm not opposed to moving the voting age earlier but it should be in conjunction with those other responsibilities. You're kind of begging the question on the other two -- you've assumed your hypotheses, making it hard to disentangle. For example, you're assuming Americans haven't confronted the fact that war kills lots of people -- I don't know that's clearly the case. You're right on the cliff of using the word "sheeple." One thing I will question -- are populist governments (which you seem to desire) really a solution to the issues of authoritarianism and repression? A movement that seems to have contempt for as many people as the populist movement does seems like it could easily degenerate into its own tyranny and purging.

_delirium 13y ago
The alignment of the two ages is actually pretty recent, at least in the US. Traditionally, military conscription age was 18, while voting was 21. It was moved (in 1971) due to agitation from people who argued that it was unethical to conscript people to die for their country, but not trust the same people to vote for their leaders. But that's merely an argument for why voting age should be <= conscription age, not necessarily an argument that it should be ==.
- nooneelse 13y ago
  I think it a pretty good argument that the voting age should be less than the conscription age by enough that the person conscription has had a chance to participate in the voting that led to the government which is conscripting them. It sets the order of events more in line with a hypothetical ideal social contract to which one agrees by one's actions and then owes such a high price to.

hammerzeit 13y ago

mseebach 13y ago

> Why can't younger people vote? Because they don't have valid opinions? Because society has a long-standing agreement that a phase of life called "childhood" exists, during which an individual is not fully developed and can't be trusted to make decisions about his or her future. It may be somewhat arbitrarily defined at 18, but I don't see why people who need to be protected against entering into contracts as well as receiving a slew of rights and protections can be expected to have meaningful input into the management of their country. Someone who can't even join the military could vote to send their older fellow countrymen into war. I find the idea that the voting age can be lower than the age of majority very strange, and I have strong doubts that the age of majority should be lowered to 16 - on account of protecting childhood. > This seems to affect our dramatically in our modern era, as many of our older folks are still around and skewing the generational differences towards conservatism. Wait, what. You meant to come out against ageism, then you criticize old people for voting "wrong"? All in all, if you take a step back from you criticisms, there's a common point: Legitimacy. Submitting a ballot every few years is a very weak foundation for a government as sprawling and powerful as most modern and western ones. Fiddling the knobs of who can vote does little more than shift the balance of power inside the political class.

tokenizer 13y ago
> Wait, what. You meant to come out against ageism, then you criticize old people for voting "wrong"? No, I'm simply pointing out that in this day and age, we have more older people voicing their opinion. This leads to policies that favor this group and disadvantages other groups (youth). I think Thomas Jefferson had much to say on the tyranny of one generation to the next. > All in all, if you take a step back from you criticisms, there's a common point: Legitimacy. Submitting a ballot every few years is a very weak foundation for a government as sprawling and powerful as most modern and western ones. Fiddling the knobs of who can vote does little more than shift the balance of power inside the political class. Agreed. However youth suffrage is an important topic. You say that society needs to protect childhood, but to me, it seems like they're protecting them from their own opinions and values... Like the article mentions.
sophacles 13y ago
Even if we grant the notion of childhood as valid (one which I agree with, but am open to other models - the idea that one turns 18 and is suddenly a different person has weird impacts), we are seeing a systemic erosion of the notion. One which makes the GP's question valid. I mean that the very idea of 18 == adulthood is going away. For instance, more and more people over the age of 13 but under the age of 18 are being prosecuted as adults in criminal cases. Zero tolerance policies for kids of all ages are assuming that they are capable of making choices with life altering consequences, but only in negative ways. So for some actions - adult understanding of the world is assumed much younger than the age of 18. On the other hand, we are seeing the infantilization of people older than 18 - drinking age is 21, car rental 25, college policies are becoming more and more like those of high-school, college campus law enforcement is becoming less and less tolerant of "young people behavior" (e.g. parties and festivals). It is a weird set of standards that sends a strange message. Those that conform well are placed in a class that can fully enjoy the rewards of membership eventually, and those that don't or make mistakes are placed in a different class, one with many restrictions. Basically I'm saying that while the notions of adulthood and childhood aren't bad, the implementation brings them into question.

onebaddude 13y ago

>They're all apart of the council on foreign relations... This in my opinion, is why we won't change... So was Carl Sagan, Angelina Jolie, Paul Krugman, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, Aaron Ross Sorkin, etc etc. The CFR is a collection of influential Americans who meet to discuss and influence policy on the gamut of topics. It isn't a place where the Illuminati lizard-people meet to perform occult rituals and determine how to enslave the population of the earth, despite how the interwebs tries to paint that picture. It's hard to say they have any specific agenda when you actually read some of the (vast amounts) of work they produce. You are welcome to disagree with their policies, but don't act like they're some powerful entity that's ruining the world. It's incredibly naive. >Expect less worker rights, more outsourcing, more free trade, more deficits So, on the one hand you criticize others for apathy, but on the other you criticize outsourcing, which moves jobs into the capable hands of the denizens of other, poorer countries, rather than hording them in your own country; free trade, which is hugely beneficial to everyone involved, always, provided everyone actually practices it; and (I assume governmental) deficits. Why are there high deficits, currently? Oh yeah, social safety net. Should we get rid of that? My point is, these subjects (even TBTF) aren't black and white.

tokenizer 13y ago
> Why are there high deficits, currently? Oh yeah, social safety net. Yes, because it's definitely not military and espionage expenditure or subsidies for corporations. > My point is, these subjects (even TBTF) aren't black and white. While I agree with you B&W point, I feel like too big to fail is a failure in management of the economy. To let companies become so big as to effect the entire economy so negatively if they fail is disastrous. The government is propping up/keeping afloat monopolies. In my opinion, The US is at 0% interest rates, is still in a recession, and can't possibly do anything else in regards to inflationary measures (printing money) without the negative affect on it's position as the world reserve currency. http://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0?t=13m36s http://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0?t=13m36s <- Notice how the US is on target for a depression according to many economists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMHmTyJXcy0&feature=c4-overview&list=UUIjuLiLHdFxYtFmWlbTGQRQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMHmTyJXcy0&feature=c4-overvi... <- Here's a great talk regarding quantum easing and how unless the government can start more drastic measures, the economy will tank. I'd like to heard your defense for the status quo, and also how you believe that social safety nets created in the 40's has anything to do with our crises of 2008.