It would also require huge administrative efforts to test 18-year-olds for competence. So we simply don’t, and let them vote anyway. It’s not clear to me that letting all 12-year-olds vote is so much terribly worse.
A randomly chosen 18-year-old is more likely than a randomly chosen 12-year-old to be ready to vote—though I agree that age isn’t necessarily the best cheap proxy for that. (What about possession of a high-school diploma?)
we don’t take away the vote from … all people with IQ below 60
A randomly chosen 18-year-old is more likely than a randomly chosen 12-year-old to be ready to vote
That’s the same problem under a different name. What does “ready to vote” mean?
What about possession of a high-school diploma?
That excludes some people of all ages, but it still also excludes all people younger than 16-17 or so. You get a high school diploma more for X years of attendance than for any particular exam scores. There’s no way for HJPEV to get one until he’s old enough to have spent enough time in a high school.
we don’t take away the vote from … all people with IQ below 60
Many would argue we should.
We should be clear on what we’re trying to optimize. If it’s “voting for the right people”, then it would be best to restrict voting rights to a very few people who know who would be right—myself and enough friends whom I trust to introduce the necessary diversity and make sure we don’t overlook anything.
If on the other hand it’s a moral ideal of letting everyone ruled by a government, give their consent to the government—then we should give the vote to anyone capable of informed consent, which surely includes people much younger than 18.
If it’s “voting for the right people”, then it would be best to restrict voting rights to a very few people who know who would be right—myself and enough friends whom I trust to introduce the necessary diversity and make sure we don’t overlook anything.
Yes, that would probably have better results, but mine is a better Schelling point, and hence more likely to be achieved in practice, short of a coup d’état. :-)
If it’s “voting for the right people”, then it would be best to restrict voting rights to a very few people who know who would be right—myself and enough friends whom I trust to introduce the necessary diversity and make sure we don’t overlook anything.
I think it works out better if you ignore your own political affiliations, which makes sense because mindkilling.
Even ignoring affiliations, if I really believe I can make better voting choices than the average vote of minority X, then optimizing purely for voting outcomes means not giving the vote to minority X. And there are in fact minorities where almost all of the majority believes this, such as, indeed, children. (I do not believe this with respect to children, but I believe that most other adults do.)
Well, you want larger margins of error when setting up a near-singleton than while using it, because if you set it up correctly then it’ll hopefully catch your errors when attempting to use it. Case in point: FAI.
EDIT: If someone is downvoting this whole discussion, could they comment with the issue? Because I really have no idea why so I can’t adjust my behaviour.
A randomly chosen 18-year-old is more likely than a randomly chosen 12-year-old to be ready to vote—though I agree that age isn’t necessarily the best cheap proxy for that. (What about possession of a high-school diploma?)
Many would argue we should.
That’s the same problem under a different name. What does “ready to vote” mean?
That excludes some people of all ages, but it still also excludes all people younger than 16-17 or so. You get a high school diploma more for X years of attendance than for any particular exam scores. There’s no way for HJPEV to get one until he’s old enough to have spent enough time in a high school.
We should be clear on what we’re trying to optimize. If it’s “voting for the right people”, then it would be best to restrict voting rights to a very few people who know who would be right—myself and enough friends whom I trust to introduce the necessary diversity and make sure we don’t overlook anything.
If on the other hand it’s a moral ideal of letting everyone ruled by a government, give their consent to the government—then we should give the vote to anyone capable of informed consent, which surely includes people much younger than 18.
Yes, that would probably have better results, but mine is a better Schelling point, and hence more likely to be achieved in practice, short of a coup d’état. :-)
I think it works out better if you ignore your own political affiliations, which makes sense because mindkilling.
Even ignoring affiliations, if I really believe I can make better voting choices than the average vote of minority X, then optimizing purely for voting outcomes means not giving the vote to minority X. And there are in fact minorities where almost all of the majority believes this, such as, indeed, children. (I do not believe this with respect to children, but I believe that most other adults do.)
Ah, but everyone thinks they know better … or something … I dunno :p
That’s just like saying “never act on your beliefs because you might be wrong”.
To be fair, that’s truer in politics than, say, physics.
Well, you want larger margins of error when setting up a near-singleton than while using it, because if you set it up correctly then it’ll hopefully catch your errors when attempting to use it. Case in point: FAI.
EDIT: If someone is downvoting this whole discussion, could they comment with the issue? Because I really have no idea why so I can’t adjust my behaviour.