It’s not logically consistent to believe that for all ages X people of age X are worse voters than average. There must be at least one age where the people of that age are better than average—it’s a logical necessity, because of how averages work!
I think you are confusing “most other voters my age are stupid” (which people can and do say at any age) and “most other voters in my group are particularly stupid, compared to the average voter”.
Actually, I was trying to make a joke, on the basis that the quoted section seems to imply the former.
Clearly I failed.
As an aside, have you considered applying that argument to other groups that were once disenfranchised? I’m not going to say it’s wrong, but that particular exercise certainly produces a worrying number of parrallels (similar to applying spaciest arguments to racist ones, as per the parent article.)
have you considered applying that argument to other groups that were once disenfranchised?
The argument is that a smart person in such a group would agree that the rest of them are too stupid to vote. It doesn’t apply to other disenfranchised groups until they actually would believe this too. I doubt that the other groups you are referring to would believe this.
I was thinking of women. Y’know, back in Ye Olden Days.
In general, I think, there is a tendency not to disenfranchise groups even if they are in some sense “below average”, because, y’know, representation be good. Again, imagine the racist pointing out that n**s have, on average, less education than we* do. Or maybe your model of Terrible People is less convincing than mine?
*he’s a racist, he aint talking to Them, he’s talking to Us White Guys.
It’s not logically consistent to believe that for all ages X people of age X are worse voters than average. There must be at least one age where the people of that age are better than average—it’s a logical necessity, because of how averages work!
I think you are confusing “most other voters my age are stupid” (which people can and do say at any age) and “most other voters in my group are particularly stupid, compared to the average voter”.
Actually, I was trying to make a joke, on the basis that the quoted section seems to imply the former.
Clearly I failed.
As an aside, have you considered applying that argument to other groups that were once disenfranchised? I’m not going to say it’s wrong, but that particular exercise certainly produces a worrying number of parrallels (similar to applying spaciest arguments to racist ones, as per the parent article.)
The argument is that a smart person in such a group would agree that the rest of them are too stupid to vote. It doesn’t apply to other disenfranchised groups until they actually would believe this too. I doubt that the other groups you are referring to would believe this.
I was thinking of women. Y’know, back in Ye Olden Days.
In general, I think, there is a tendency not to disenfranchise groups even if they are in some sense “below average”, because, y’know, representation be good. Again, imagine the racist pointing out that n**s have, on average, less education than we* do. Or maybe your model of Terrible People is less convincing than mine?
*he’s a racist, he aint talking to Them, he’s talking to Us White Guys.