isn’t increasing the competence of the voter akin to increasing the competence of the official, by proxy? I’m pattern matching this to yet another push-pull compromise between the ends of the spectrum, with a strong lean toward technocracy’s side.
I’m assuming I’ll have to read Brennan for his response to the criticism that it was tried in u.s. and made a lot of people very upset / is widely regarded as a bad move.
I agree with Gerald Monroe about the overall implementation problems even if you assume it wouldn’t just be a proxy for race or class war (which I think is a hefty “if”).
Just doesn’t seem like “off the spectrum” thinking to me, though it may be the case that reading Brennan will improve my appreciation of the problem.
Implementation problems are definitely a problem with Brennan’s Knowledge Test To Vote idea and consist of two parts:
(1) getting the present voters to agree to it
(2) setting a test that is discriminatory in the right rather than the wrong ways.
One would hope a good answer to (2) would help with (1), though convincing people to give up the vote would be very hard.
I have been thinking a fair bit lately about the content of a Voting Test. Presumably one would want tests of knowledge that are proxies for being what Brennan calls a Vulcan—an informed
Non-partisan voter who considers things like evidence—rather than a Hooligan—informed partisan—or Hobbit—uninformed and nonpartisan. Brennan’s idea to test for basic knowledge about government is a good start—how does a bill become law, how do the different branches of government work, how much does your country spend on foreign aid as a percentage of government expenditures (the latter being something surveyed voters consistently and overwhelmingly get wrong).
I would add to such a test sections for basic probability, statistics, and economics as these are vital for understanding public policy issues. Anyone who thinks the difference between 2% annual GDP growth and 3% annual GDP growth is 1% has next to nothing to contribute to public discourse.
Anyone who thinks the difference between 2% annual GDP growth and 3% annual GDP growth is 1% has next to nothing to contribute to public discourse.
Lol there went most voters. When you say “what is the difference” your question appears to have 1 percent as the most probable correct answer as subtracting the quantities is the usual english meaning for “difference”.
As a difference between rates of growth, 3% is 1.5 greater than 2%. The question is a trick one and plays on public neglect of the nature of compounding growth.
Taking an economy of size 100 in Year Zero (Y0). At Y1:
2% growth yields an economy of size 102
3% growth yields an economy of size 103
Not very impressive.
But at Y10:
2% = 121.9
3% = 134.3
And at Y20:
2% = 148.6
3% = 180.6
All else being equal, you’re substantially better off with 3% growth than 2%, and increasingly better off over time. I believe we are better off with voters who understand that and elect politicians accordingly.
(The example comes from George Will, who in an EconTalk interview voiced his despair that “Washington is full of people who think the difference between 2% GDP growth per year and 3% GDP growth per year is only 1%”)
Sure. But you would need to have asked a question to test this, such as “after 5 years what will the size of the economy that grew at 3 percent be, versus 2 percent?
But yes basic competence is lacking. My biggest peeve is legislation that has a dollar amount not indexed to inflation. It’s basic math competence. You can argue all day about what a dollar quantity should be in order for the law to have the intended effect but if you write a law you need to at least make the quantities have the same meaning they did when the law passed.
isn’t increasing the competence of the voter akin to increasing the competence of the official, by proxy? I’m pattern matching this to yet another push-pull compromise between the ends of the spectrum, with a strong lean toward technocracy’s side.
I’m assuming I’ll have to read Brennan for his response to the criticism that it was tried in u.s. and made a lot of people very upset / is widely regarded as a bad move.
I agree with Gerald Monroe about the overall implementation problems even if you assume it wouldn’t just be a proxy for race or class war (which I think is a hefty “if”).
Just doesn’t seem like “off the spectrum” thinking to me, though it may be the case that reading Brennan will improve my appreciation of the problem.
Implementation problems are definitely a problem with Brennan’s Knowledge Test To Vote idea and consist of two parts:
(1) getting the present voters to agree to it (2) setting a test that is discriminatory in the right rather than the wrong ways.
One would hope a good answer to (2) would help with (1), though convincing people to give up the vote would be very hard.
I have been thinking a fair bit lately about the content of a Voting Test. Presumably one would want tests of knowledge that are proxies for being what Brennan calls a Vulcan—an informed Non-partisan voter who considers things like evidence—rather than a Hooligan—informed partisan—or Hobbit—uninformed and nonpartisan. Brennan’s idea to test for basic knowledge about government is a good start—how does a bill become law, how do the different branches of government work, how much does your country spend on foreign aid as a percentage of government expenditures (the latter being something surveyed voters consistently and overwhelmingly get wrong).
I would add to such a test sections for basic probability, statistics, and economics as these are vital for understanding public policy issues. Anyone who thinks the difference between 2% annual GDP growth and 3% annual GDP growth is 1% has next to nothing to contribute to public discourse.
Anyone who thinks the difference between 2% annual GDP growth and 3% annual GDP growth is 1% has next to nothing to contribute to public discourse.
Lol there went most voters. When you say “what is the difference” your question appears to have 1 percent as the most probable correct answer as subtracting the quantities is the usual english meaning for “difference”.
So what do you believe is the correct answer?
As a difference between rates of growth, 3% is 1.5 greater than 2%. The question is a trick one and plays on public neglect of the nature of compounding growth.
Taking an economy of size 100 in Year Zero (Y0). At Y1:
2% growth yields an economy of size 102 3% growth yields an economy of size 103
Not very impressive.
But at Y10:
2% = 121.9
3% = 134.3
And at Y20:
2% = 148.6
3% = 180.6
All else being equal, you’re substantially better off with 3% growth than 2%, and increasingly better off over time. I believe we are better off with voters who understand that and elect politicians accordingly.
(The example comes from George Will, who in an EconTalk interview voiced his despair that “Washington is full of people who think the difference between 2% GDP growth per year and 3% GDP growth per year is only 1%”)
Sure. But you would need to have asked a question to test this, such as “after 5 years what will the size of the economy that grew at 3 percent be, versus 2 percent?
But yes basic competence is lacking. My biggest peeve is legislation that has a dollar amount not indexed to inflation. It’s basic math competence. You can argue all day about what a dollar quantity should be in order for the law to have the intended effect but if you write a law you need to at least make the quantities have the same meaning they did when the law passed.