I don’t quite understand why reforming the actual system, and moving away from first-past-the-post, isn’t higher on everyone’s list.
It feels like we don’t have a functioning democracy in the U.K., and that gets in the way of pretty much everything else.
terminalshort 6 hours ago [-]
Because the party in power feels like they can win > 50% of the 16-17 year old vote and therefore it is an advantage to them. They do not feel that moving away from FPP is an advantage to them. Functioning democracy is not their goal. Staying in power is.
plantain 6 hours ago [-]
Nonsense. Labour (largely) supported ditching first past the post in the referendum. The opposition/conservative party campaigned against it.
robin_reala 6 hours ago [-]
Every time Labour gets into power, FPTP reformation is mysteriously never considered.
mytailorisrich 6 hours ago [-]
Labour has an overwhelming majority in Parliament right now despite a relatively poor share of the vote because of FPTP.
As long as Reform UK splits the Tory vote FPTP will continue to be in Labour's interests.
In fact, at the moment moving away from FPTP would mostly benefit Reform UK and the Lib Dems, possibly the Tories, too as this point.
leereeves 6 hours ago [-]
Labour was out of power at the time, and Conservatives were in power, so that's not a counterexample.
noja 6 hours ago [-]
I think the very idea that a single party would encompass a voter's entire set of beliefs is ridiculous and antiquated.
plantain 6 hours ago [-]
They had a referendum on it in 2011 and decided to keep FPTP. You can lead the horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
roenxi 6 hours ago [-]
The article suggests that the people in charge of the system want children to be more involved in making political decisions. This signals a lot about what is happening in elite circles.
If that is the nature of the atmosphere then I doubt many important people are going to put their head above the parapet and call for reforms in the direction of adults getting better political expression. The power holders don't think that is favourable to them.
bell-cot 7 hours ago [-]
The current first-past-the-post system works quite well, for those who have the power to change the system.
Vs. - in the last U.K. election, which party was the most vocal about that first-past-the-post system needing replacement? What % of the votes were cast for them?
d1sxeyes 6 hours ago [-]
This was relatively recently floated (2011) and thrown out to referendum (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternat...), where it was watered down to Alternative Vote rather than full PR and eventually rejected. Obviously none of these 16 year olds would have been old enough to vote in the referendum (or indeed have been born when it took place).
~One thing to bear in mind is that FPTP limits the influence of “extreme” parties on elections (see UKIP’s vote share in 2015), but at the expense of requiring more mainstream parties to pander to those voters to avoid splitting the vote share. Jury is still out I think on what’s “best” here and probably depends on what “best” means to the person forming an opinion.~
Edit: turns out the above is at best contested, at worst disproven.
pjc50 4 hours ago [-]
It was a huge mess; basically the only people properly backing it were the Lib Dems, Labour were not out there in favor of it and in any case the media (overwhelmingly Tory) were against it. Just as with Brexit. The UK is basically not to be trusted with referendums.
The weird thing is how many different election systems are in use in the UK depending on what the politics of each devolved assembly is "supposed to be".
d1sxeyes 2 hours ago [-]
Tell me about it. The whole thing was basically a bone thrown to Nick Clegg to entice the Lib Dems into the coalition. As far as I can tell, this neutered referendum was the only thing the Lib Dems got out of the coalition government, and even that wasn’t the PR referendum they pushed during the election campaign.
I lived in his constituency at the time and I am ashamed to admit I voted for him. It’s a travesty to see what has happened since (not just the whole coalition thing, his work with Meta too).
roenxi 6 hours ago [-]
FPTP tends to be the system that most reliably favours extreme candidates [0] - everything else promotes candidates who are most in tune community norms. Candidates who don't align with any of the voters tend not to get in under any fundamentally democratic system - someone who is willing to do what they're promising but more in tune with the voters have an easy time against that sort of candidate.
Although just from browsing the UKs AV proposal it does look like it'd be similar to IRV which has some wild results in certain tight races. Although I personally think that is fine; a little randomness is good for the system.
Interesting, I previously understood this as an established fact, but turns out there are some very convincing arguments that show that I am wrong on this. Thank you for the challenge and correction.
aqme28 6 hours ago [-]
That's a lot harder than changing a number by 2
mytailorisrich 6 hours ago [-]
Lowering the voting age is a purely tactical move by Labour because they think that it will favour them.
beck5 6 hours ago [-]
So 16 year olds are wise enough to vote, but not fully leave education, buy alcohol, drive a car, join the army and get married without your parents consent, the lists goes on.
robin_reala 6 hours ago [-]
There’s no one list. For all the things you mentioned, they are allowed to drive tractors or quads, get married with your parents’ consent, have kids, etc.
alasdairking 4 hours ago [-]
You now have to 18 to marry. The age of consent remains sixteen. So having a baby is fine, but so long as you are not married.
Nobody actually provides permission to have kids. That could happen as soon as it's biologically possible.
d1sxeyes 6 hours ago [-]
Also you can join the army at 16 with parental consent.
gchamonlive 6 hours ago [-]
Why do you think you need to have all civil liberties before being allowed to vote? Does it make you a better voter if you can leave school, drink alcohol, drive a car, join the army and get married without your parents consent? This is absurd.
chrisandchris 4 hours ago [-]
IMHO, it is all about right and duties.
So you're allowed to vote, but you don't need to pay your taxes. You're still considered a child regarding justice law, but considered adult regarding voting?
So basically you're not allowed to camp somewhere without the consent of your parents but you're "suddenly old enough" to judge about some laws?
I think the consensus is missing if voting is permitted by 16, but everything else stays the same.
_Algernon_ 1 hours ago [-]
If you have sufficient income or wealth at 16 you do have to pay taxes. It just happens that most 16 year olds don't have sufficient wealth or income to pay taxes. There is very little difference in terms of duties of a 16 year old and an unemployed adult who does get to vote.
Phil_Latio 5 hours ago [-]
Somewhere one has to draw the line, or you can go down to voting power for toddlers. And the best and obvious line was to treat an adult human as a "full" citizen with all the rights and duties.
So how far down in age would you go and why would you stop at that age?
lantry 5 hours ago [-]
Oh no not the slippery slope! I think 16 sounds good. I would not let anyone younger than 16 vote, because it's against the law.
_Algernon_ 1 hours ago [-]
I'd argue earliest age at which you can be drafted minus maximum term length (ie. 5 years in the UK) sounds good as a general rule. Otherwise people can get drafted by a government they didn't have a say in electing.
I'd also argue that there should be no lower age limit for voting for people with taxable income. No taxation without representation.
swat535 3 hours ago [-]
Voting has a major impact on a nation's future.
I don't think children should have a say in the matter, they lack the critical thinking skills that adults do, which is why we limit their freedoms.
Granted, most adults also lack deep critical thinking skills but they have more capable brains than children.
Further, children are easier to manipulate than adults, which is very dangerous when it comes to something as critical as voting.
gchamonlive 3 hours ago [-]
When it was the last time we had an actual issue where 16yo voting had direct measurable negative impact on something in real life? I think it's as other said, we have to draw a line, and I think it's reasonable to debate this because maybe each nation prepares their kids differently so one nations 16yo isn't another, this way there isn't a universal rule. But arguing that you have to discuss ALL the other civil liberties before discussing 16yo voting rights is absurd because there is no connection between drinking and voting and all else.
pjc50 4 hours ago [-]
> Does it make you a better voter if you can leave school, drink alcohol, drive a car
I don't think we're being ambitious enough here. I should be able to vote while drink-driving.
rpcorb 4 hours ago [-]
Of course it makes you a better voter. Because you have skin in the game.
What's absurd is allowing a minor to vote.
burgerone 6 hours ago [-]
Social media will have a greater effect on votes than ever before
Urahandystar 6 hours ago [-]
I think were past that point with boomers, If anything this generation will be much more wise to the tricks than any that came before it.
giantg2 6 hours ago [-]
We can hope, but tif we look at hospitalizations for social media challenges, the demographics don't support your theory.
_heimdall 6 hours ago [-]
At least with alcohol, there are chemical factors at play that have less to do with how wise a person is.
kubb 6 hours ago [-]
Now they can vote to give themselves the ability to do that.
Jach 1 hours ago [-]
And even vote to lower the age even further. Isn't voting fun!
nerdjon 5 hours ago [-]
We can try to argue all day along about whether or not someone 16 actually knows enough about what is going on to vote. But that completely falls apart when you can talk to many adults and they don't know either (see reactions to US election).
I think this also makes sense, I know when I was younger I was extremely frustrated to see adults making really bad decisions for my country that will have a much longer impact on my life than it will on theirs.
I think a minimum age makes sense, I don't think someone in elementary has any point in voting since most likely they would just do what their parents told them. But by 16 you are generally making your own decisions, your figuring out your adult plans, and not following everything your parents say.
like_any_other 5 hours ago [-]
> But that completely falls apart when you can talk to many adults and they don't know either
What all these "well adults are dumb too!" arguments ignore is that, those adults were even dumber when they were 2 (or 5, compared to the original voting age of 21) years younger.
nerdjon 5 hours ago [-]
Were they though?
At least when you are forced to be in school you are in an environment to likely absorb... something. We regularly kept up with current events in school.
I know many adults that have basically zero idea what is going on in the world.
Also I should note that I did not claim anything about intelligence, but just an awareness of what is going on and the impact of it.
I would possibly even argue that a 16 year old being in school likely has a fresher recollection of history than many adults. I mean how many adults remember all of the math they learned compared to 16 year olds.
msgodel 3 hours ago [-]
Ah ... something. Where would we be without something?
like_any_other 6 hours ago [-]
Lowering it to 16 is a good start, but really it should be lowered to 0. Otherwise, how will those aged 0-15, "without a voice", prevent the older voters from confiscating all their possessions, sending them to work in the mines, and harvesting their organs once they're used up?
Honestly I'm surprised this hasn't happened already, given how they "have no voice"..
techterrier 6 hours ago [-]
while it seems a bit daft to me, in practical terms i dont think many of these kids are going to turn out
hagbard_c 4 hours ago [-]
They can be made to turn out easily as children around that age - yes, children, teenage children but still children - are highly susceptible to group pressure. I do wonder whether the Labour leaders who thought this would help them win the next election have had a look at the results of many of those school polls which do not paint a rosy picture for old stodgy parties like Labour. It is far more likely for someone like Farage to benefit from 16yo boys being able to vote and whatever radical leftie - no name comes to mind which is a problem for the political left in the UK - to gain votes from 16yo girls.
like_any_other 6 hours ago [-]
The article doesn't feature even a single opinion opposed to lowering the voting age. Interesting. I guess the British public unanimously supports this change?
leereeves 6 hours ago [-]
The article does include at least one opinion opposed to lowering the voting age:
> However, Conservative shadow minister Paul Holmes said the government's position was "hopelessly confused".
> "Why does this government think a 16-year-old can vote but not be allowed to buy a lottery ticket, an alcoholic drink, marry, or go to war, or even stand in the elections they're voting in?" he asked in the Commons.
Why would you need to add bank cards when you cana already request a voter certified ID?
_rpxpx 6 hours ago [-]
Good. Given Keir Starmer's abysmal behaviour, this is about the only chance there is of keeping a Tory/Reform coalition out at the next election. I would like to see voting age capped also, at 70. Increasingly senile and racist pensioners in comfortable homes are dominating British politics with horrific consequences.
hagbard_c 4 hours ago [-]
Ehhh so Starmer being a doddering idiot should be countered with keeping those who want to topple him from doing so? That does not make sense, does it? Whither democracy when those who 'vote wrong' can simply be labelled 'senile and racist' or similar and kept from casting their vote?
leke 6 hours ago [-]
This is going to push the legalize cannabis movement forward by 2 years.
ggm 6 hours ago [-]
I think this is necessary but I also think it's not sufficient: FPTP has to go, it's a cancer on British elections and maintained by leftists who believe in the potential for an enduring super majority which cannot be demonstrated to exist: the socialist democracies of Europe with complex coalitions may appear weak but have enduring qualities a British house of commons cannot demonstrate.
That, and finishing reform of the lords. And separating the English parliament from a federal parliament over the separate nations in the federation.
bigfudge 6 hours ago [-]
Let’s see how well Germany deals with afd in the next 10 years before getting too complacent about European consensus politics.
netbioserror 6 hours ago [-]
Horrific idea. Those paying into the system should have the strongest stake, not those with elementary ideas and no stake at all (or worse, those dependent upon the system's rewards).
jackvalentine 6 hours ago [-]
Time to cancel the right to vote for anyone 70+ then right? They don’t really have much of a stake in the outcome anymore.
rpcorb 4 hours ago [-]
Why don't they have a stake in the outcome anymore?
rwmj 3 hours ago [-]
Because they won't be around for much longer, so they won't pay many taxes compared to someone aged 16.
(For the record: Devil's advocate take. I think this whole idea of voting in proportion to your monetary value is ridiculous.)
netbioserror 5 hours ago [-]
If you're implying that money printing significantly benefits the generation which instates it and bankrupts everyone who comes after, then I agree. And democracies have a long history of relying on debasement to fund their excesses, a significant factor in their implosions.
johneth 3 hours ago [-]
16-year-olds do pay into the system. Some may have jobs or apprenticeships that pay them, for which they're directly taxed. Some may have started their own business, which will pay tax. All will pay VAT when they buy products and services.
_heimdall 6 hours ago [-]
What do you mean by "strongest stake" here?
Those paying the most already are more invested in the outcomes of the country, do you mean their vote should count for more or less based on how much they pay in taxes?
sethammons 6 hours ago [-]
I'd be interested in a system where you can gain additional voting power based on $stake. Everyone gets a vote, but based on $criteria, you gain additional votes.
Youth and parents get an extra vote on school stuff. Those whose education or career are related to a field get an extra vote. In some cases, you may hold 5x the voting power of someone who is removed and unfamiliar with a topic.
No idea if anything like that has been explored.
_heimdall 5 hours ago [-]
I'd hate to see that system implemented. The point of every person getting one vote is to even the playing field. Everyone living under that authority's rule should have an equal say in who runs that authority.
Allowing people to have more or less say based on stake would lead to a spiral. Those in charge take care of the people they care about, those people would continue to elect the same politicians, and everyone else would be left aside while power (and stake) consolidates.
sethammons 2 hours ago [-]
Graduated income taxes level the playing field; wouldn't a graduated voting system level the playing field?
Why should someone who knows nothing of field have a say in laws that over represents their knowledge and stake?
I don't think my vote for what you feed your kids should count the same as your vote on what you feed your kids.
The worry about votes and power collecting is sane. It happens already through propaganda and ill informed (usually due to low perceived stakes) voters. We need a system that counters the negative effects if low informed masses.
netbioserror 5 hours ago [-]
It's simply unwise to distribute power, however minute, to those who don't yet know where their food comes from.
_heimdall 4 hours ago [-]
I would argue that a majority of the voting population in the west doesn't know where their food comes from.
optimalsolver 6 hours ago [-]
So just men of property, right? Preferably also only direct descendants of Magna Carta signatories.
Ekaros 6 hours ago [-]
Net tax payers in past parliament. Receive private pension or public health care or use some public service. Well you are out of voter pool. Corporate handouts should also be counted. Own stock in company that gets some public funds and that is counted against you.
hermannj314 6 hours ago [-]
The essence of Democracy is voting for a bond measure whose principal you'll never live long enough to see paid down.
Children voting will ruin the grift.
_Algernon_ 6 hours ago [-]
One argument for lowering voting age is given by selectorate theory. Basically it argues that higher coalition size (the number of people that participate in decision making) is what causes democracy to benefit the masses. Because parties compete for votes, they are forced to distribute societal goods back to a large portion of the population instead of only distributing it to their cronies. Arguably the quality of voting in terms decision making is secondary, if it matters at all. By this theory, lowering voting age is a boon to democracy.
> Arguably the quality of voting in terms decision making is secondary, if it matters at all.
It doesn't matter who we vote for, as long as we vote? What a bad joke. By this theory, all foreign interference, propaganda, education, control of the news, etc.. are completely irrelevant, nothing we should be concerned about at all. Just vote and it'll be fine!
_Algernon_ 6 hours ago [-]
>It doesn't matter who we vote for, as long as we vote?
More that voting egotistically (in contrast to trying to predict what is best for society as a whole) is sufficient to create the incentives that benefit the many, as long as the number of voters makes up a high enough share of the population.
giantg2 6 hours ago [-]
Adding 2 additional years of people won't make enough of a difference for that theory. The truth is, one party is pushing for this because they stand to benefit from it because it will slightly bump up their support numbers.
leereeves 6 hours ago [-]
This seems relevant:
"It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet."
"The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so."
"In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part."
I would like to link this "under 25 are babies who are too young to do anything" thread to yesterday's "why is nobody having children any more, especially young people" thread.
leereeves 2 hours ago [-]
I'm certainly not saying "under 25 are babies who are too young to do anything", but in response, I would point out that if adults weren't working so hard to prevent it, a lot more young people would have babies by 16.
Sharlin 6 hours ago [-]
> "In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part."
This is a ridiculous claim. If you believe children think at all, they do it with the prefrontal cortex, just like every other mammal.
leereeves 6 hours ago [-]
Emotional decision making, even against reason and willpower, definitely exists. Whether you call it "thinking" is just semantics.
Sharlin 5 hours ago [-]
I know. The point was the ridiculous claim that adults think with brain part X but teens instead do it with Y. The amygdala is not going to do your math homework, that's for sure. And adults, obviously, are nowhere near free from emotional decision-making.
leereeves 2 hours ago [-]
You seem to be saying it's a "ridiculous claim" because you're limiting the word "think" to math homework. The article is using "think" in a broader sense that includes decision making, a process that involves the limbic system and other primitive parts of the brain.
It's certainly true that those parts of the brain continue to influence decision making in adults. Nonetheless, research has shown that those parts of the brain are far more influential in teens.
bigfudge 6 hours ago [-]
Should we include an equivalent analysis of the declines in cognitive function after 70. In my experience they are much more marked than any deficits teenagers may have.
_heimdall 6 hours ago [-]
Why not go further and also consider the cognitive implications of being ill, depressed, obese, stressed, parent of a newborn, or any other condition that could have short or long term implications on mental sharpness?
I really hate when these ideas come of that effectively boil down to creating some kind of litmus test for who can be "trusted" to vote. We have an age limit, maybe the UK wants a lower limit, but at least that's a pretty simple and clear line to be drawn.
NoGravitas 5 hours ago [-]
Although with the current generation of over 70s, that's complicated by their intake of tetraethyl lead.
pjc50 4 hours ago [-]
It's important to note the current discourse that Biden (82) is far too old and in a cognitive decline, while Trump (79) has a state of health that is beyond question.
robin_reala 6 hours ago [-]
So… block people below 25 from anything that requires good judgement like choice of intoxicants, driving, operating heavy machinery, joining the military, having children, getting married?
Or accept that growing up is part of life, and that there are short term consequences of political choice too that groups of people are currently denied?
shakna 6 hours ago [-]
Since when have the ramifications of political choice ever been "short term"?
Liz Truss was only PM for 49 days. How much impact on the economy did she have?
robin_reala 6 hours ago [-]
“The U.K.’s stock and bond markets have shed at least $500 billion in value since Liz Truss was formally appointed to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister on Sept. 5.”
It's an oversimplification to be sure, but based on solid science. There's no hard line "with seemingly magical properties" at 25, but there are enormous changes between 16ish and 25ish. The author you cited agrees, on the same site, in a different article:
> A growing body of research strongly suggests that brain development continues well into people’s 20s and beyond. ... There is strong scientific consensus that people’s decision-making abilities can evolve between their early and late 20s
That's a good followup article, but it doesn't really contradict anything and the myth is still a myth. So no, it is not based on solid science, and the whole framing should be discarded because it will just be used to rescue the hard line oversimplification. (fMRI research by itself is also not solid science; it can definitely be a useful tool and can support things, especially if paired with other behavioral and developmental science, but it has many flaws with methodology in interpreting data as well as often being statistically underpowered. At least the papers themselves are typically better than press in using appropriately uncertain language. e.g. an imaging study mentioned in the article found huge variation in actual age with a "maturation index", showing 8-12 year olds can have the same maturity as 25-30 year olds, the r^2 for their asymptotic growth curve was only 0.555.)
Some things that are better supported by multiple lines of scientific research, to quote two consecutive bits from the second article: "young people’s general cognitive skills, including their ability to reason, don’t change much after the age of 14 or so." "What does change with age is the ability to reason while distracted; emotions and peer pressure are more likely to hamper decision making in teens and early twentysomethings." These things are really outside of the pop idea of "your brain isn't fully developed until 25".
leereeves 2 hours ago [-]
> Some things that are better supported by multiple lines of scientific research, to quote two consecutive bits from the second article: "young people’s general cognitive skills, including their ability to reason, don’t change much after the age of 14 or so." "What does change with age is the ability to reason while distracted; emotions and peer pressure are more likely to hamper decision making in teens and early twentysomethings."
Yeah, that's pretty much saying the same thing I posted.
"Young people’s general cognitive skills" (SAT and ACT scores) develop early and "don’t change much after the age of 14 or so."
"What does change with age is the ability to reason while distracted; emotions and peer pressure are more likely to hamper decision making." In other words, "Good judgment isn’t something [teens] can excel in, at least not yet."
By the way, I don't know if you noticed, but what I posted wasn't a popsci article, it was from Stanford Children's Health.
Jach 2 hours ago [-]
No, I really don't think it's accurate to say that the line about peer pressure and emotional distraction having more of an impact on teens than adults, which is grounded in research on risk-reward behavior in presence of peers, is just "in other words" the same as the claim about teens not being able to excel in good judgment. That's a huge leap and not supported. Teens can and often do exercise good judgment, including in high-stakes or emotionally charged situations. They often fail, too, but so do adults, even sometimes adults who "excel" at it. A key phrase in the Slate quote is "more likely to hamper" -- this is important and careful wording, because context matters, both in teens and adults. Sometimes a specific context (like presence of peers) matters a lot more in teens.
Yes, I did notice the source, and I found that more unfortunate because it's using Stanford's name to peddle crap. It might not be a literal popsci magazine piece, but it's peddling the same popsci flavored falsehood about how the brain isn't "fully developed" until age 25 or so and it follows the same popsci tropes of grossly oversimplifying, exaggerating, and using science words to sound legitimate while discouraging actual scientific inquiry. The article's actual audience is layman parents, not even the general public, and clueless ones at that if they need to be reminded about things like "become familiar with things that are important to your teens". As another example, its claim of saying "Adults think with the prefrontal cortex ... Teens process information with the amygdala" is not just grossly oversimplifying, it's just wrong. Both use both. It's just a very bad article.
leereeves 1 hours ago [-]
> It's just a very bad article.
I think you're taking it far too literally (do you also complain that the 2D illustration of gravity wells is inaccurate?), but I don't care to argue about it all day. Take it up with Stanford.
_Algernon_ 6 hours ago [-]
The lack of maturity also needs to be stacked up against the stake youth has in the future. Why should a 90-year old with little stake in the future be allowed to vote while young people who will live for another 70 years be at the mercy of that 90-year old's voting?
I think there is a good argument to be made that young people are the biggest stakeholders in our future, and should have a say.
anonymous_sorry 6 hours ago [-]
If adults thought completely rationally they wouldn't vote at all, since the chance of their single vote making any difference is insignificant.
Or even if they did, the amount of effort they'd put in researching, considering and modelling the potential outcomes would would be commensurate to the impact they would expect their vote to have. I suspect for a good chunk of adult voters, this is in fact the case.
So it's not obvious to me that including more voters whose decision-making is more emotional will necessarily produce worse outcomes. It's conceivable it'll produce better outcomes.
Edit: I'm being downvoted. To be clear, I'm an ardent democrat, but the idea that people vote analytically and rationally doesn't make sense for the above reason. The most informed voters are, in my experience, often highly emotional.
roenxi 6 hours ago [-]
If adults were rational they'd use their communication skills to form broad coalitions to make sure that policies they like get put in place. Which is largely what happens.
> Or even if they did, the amount of effort they'd put in...
This is actually quite an interesting area if you look into the game theory of making choices in a group setting. Strong strategies typically often don't involve doing much research, but they are rather frustrating for the people who take an interest in politics. Real-world behaviours are arguably quite reasonable on this front too, although they are limited by the ability of the average person to reason their way through the policy suggestions being made by though leaders.
Although I do agree that more voters isn't better. There is a certain level of objective correctness in political decisions if we admit basic ideas like "policies should be tested to see whether they achieve the goals that they were intended to" as a measure of success and the point should be to design systems that optimise on it to some degree.
anonymous_sorry 6 hours ago [-]
> If adults were rational they'd use their communication skills to form broad coalitions
Yes. And in detail, with this model of a rational electorate, skilled influencers put the effort in to devise a policy platform and convince others that it is good for them. The majority pick a platform that they are convinced by.
It's worth it for the influencers, because they have an outsized impact. It's worth it for everyone else only if choosing a coalition is very low-effort. Or if they are entertained by the influencers.
Again, I'm an ardent democrat. I'm just pointing out the flaws in any argument that assumes rational voters are a good thing - because it's rational to not waste much time on voting. Instead, democracy works best when voters feel an arguably irrational sense of duty and civic pride.
roenxi 5 hours ago [-]
> ...because it's rational to not waste much time on voting...
But that wouldn't be rational. The rational approach is to vote when you are in (or plausibly in, or plausibly going to eventually be in) the majority coalition. The hyper-rational equilibrium is politicians do exactly what a majority coalition of voters want and no-one bothers to vote, but once the politicians start becoming flawed or preferences change over time the equilibrium shifts quite rapidly to a rational voter base forming large coalitions that turn up to vote.
It isn't rational to vote if for people who aren't affiliated with a coalition to some degree (and never will be) but people like that are basically a political non-factor anyway and are probably legitimately wasting their time when they vote because there is no policy formula available that they want to support, by definition.
anonymous_sorry 4 hours ago [-]
When I enter the polling booth, I never expect to effect the result, whether my coalition has a chance of winning or not. That is, I do not expect a candidate in any constituency I am voting in to win by exactly one vote (or tie and thereby have a 50:50 chance of winning by drawing lots). I think such an occurrence is exceedingly unlikely.
A rational anaylsis would therefore conclude I'm wasting my time and energy even just walking to the polling station, let alone keeping up with political developments through the intervening months and years. As you say, in a hyper-rational world turnout would be way lower - whether it would oscillate and overcorrect as you suggest, or reach a stable equilibrium, I'm not sure.
But whatever my motivation for voting and trying to stay informed, I do not believe it is primarily rational. It's probably some mixture of duty, diversionary entertainment, and ritual. If lowering the voting age to 16 could help inculcate that sense of duty and better establish that ritual, that would be a pretty convincing reason to do it in my opinion.
poszlem 7 hours ago [-]
Absolutely shameful reform, the only reason it's happening is because Labour holds a majority in that age bracket. This will backfire spectacularly once the younger generation flips to some kind of tik-tok popular right wing strongman.
skissane 6 hours ago [-]
A radical proposal: there is no minimum voting age, but to enrol to vote you must pass a civics exam-so a 12 year old who passes the exam can vote, but a 50 year old who fails it (or refuses to sit it) can’t.
I really doubt this proposal would ever actually be implemented, but still it is an interesting idea to ponder-in the abstract it seems fairer than a semi-arbitrary cutoff based on chronological age
whoisyc 13 minutes ago [-]
Given how the UK works, chances are sooner or later they will only teach the answer to the exam in “public”[1] schools.
Reminds me of Philip k Dick's story The Pre-persons.
sparkie 6 hours ago [-]
That just gives power to whoever administers the civics exams - which would obviously be a government controlled body.
Better idea should just be that you should be a taxpayer to vote. No tax = no vote. Why should people who aren't contributing decide how to spend the money of those contributing?
A 16 year old who works has a bigger stake than a 21 year old jobless bum stuck in their parents home smoking weed and playing vidya games.
fsflover 4 hours ago [-]
> which would obviously be a government controlled body
It could be an NGO obeying the people, not govenment.
robin_reala 6 hours ago [-]
Explain why you think it’s shameful?
poszlem 6 hours ago [-]
Because this only happens because of the misguided belief that young people will always vote Labour. It's nothing more than age-based gerrymandering to manipulate voting outcomes.
nicoburns 6 hours ago [-]
> it's happening is because Labour holds a majority in that age bracket
Probably true. But IMO it's a good thing regardless. The impact of this is fundamentally pro-democracy above anything else.
6LLvveMx2koXfwn 6 hours ago [-]
Isn't it because if you're old enough to die for your country you're old enough to vote for the people putting you in jeopardy?
harvey9 6 hours ago [-]
The British military doesn't put under 18s in combat roles.
poszlem 6 hours ago [-]
But 16 is not enough to die for your country. 16 year olds can join the military (only with parental consent btw.) but cannot be deployed to combat zones until they are 18.
bell-cot 6 hours ago [-]
If reform could only be done when it was disadvantageous to the party in power, then how much reform would ever be done?
giingyui 6 hours ago [-]
This is precisely what happened in Argentina.
People cry about gerrymandering all day here and then downvote your comment.
MrBuddyCasino 6 hours ago [-]
This is exactly it. The young men are already becoming more conservative for obvious reasons, the women however are drifting towards the extreme left.
gmac 6 hours ago [-]
The obvious reasons being what?
To the extent this is true, I would phrase it the other way: women are becoming less conservative, while young men are drifting towards the extreme right.
MrBuddyCasino 6 hours ago [-]
Just because everyone around you (which is academia) thinks this, doesn't mean its true. Because the data says the complete opposite: men drift towards the center/right, women to the extreme left.
Data by "German General Social Survey", Infratest/Dimap (an established and respected polling institute):
I have plenty of right-wing economist colleagues, thanks. And these data are for Germany, while we’re commenting on a thread about the UK.
I suspect this is also a hard thing to ‘prove’ with data, since it’s importantly about a shift in how people label left/centre/right. (No left-wing parties I know of are currently suggesting returning income tax rates on the rich anywhere near to historically normal levels, for example).
It's hard to know what to make of this without a better understanding of the methodology. But the supposed leftward shift of men and women in the UK is kind of hard to square with an increasing vote share for the hard-right morons of Reform UK.
MrBuddyCasino 5 hours ago [-]
> I have plenty of right-wing economist colleagues, thanks.
Can you name one?
> I suspect this is also a hard thing to ‘prove’ with data, since it’s importantly about a shift in how people label left/centre/right.
This is rather easy to prove with data: which type of concrete policies are they in support of (as opposed to some label, or party name or whatever, which might change its "content" over time). As a matter of fact, this being done and the trends hold.
bigfudge 6 hours ago [-]
We should be clear that what is today termed extreme left in the uk and us is I) historically pretty centrist and ii) pretty normal in most of Europe.
It’s the right that are shifting, not the left.
gmac 6 hours ago [-]
Fully agree. The extreme left barely exists in the UK, Labour are perhaps a little right of centre, and the extreme right is all too well—funded and high-profile.
gmac 6 hours ago [-]
(Thought I was adding this to my previous post, but in fact I was replying). I think part of the mechanism here is the normalisation of Trump. An authoritarian/trending fascist US President is continuously reported as mostly business-as-usual, and this inevitably shifts the discourse rightwards.
MrBuddyCasino 6 hours ago [-]
According to a Prognos poll, 46% of the 16-17 year old women in Germany would vote for Die Linke, which is the successor party of the communist SED of DDR fame.
It feels like we don’t have a functioning democracy in the U.K., and that gets in the way of pretty much everything else.
As long as Reform UK splits the Tory vote FPTP will continue to be in Labour's interests.
In fact, at the moment moving away from FPTP would mostly benefit Reform UK and the Lib Dems, possibly the Tories, too as this point.
If that is the nature of the atmosphere then I doubt many important people are going to put their head above the parapet and call for reforms in the direction of adults getting better political expression. The power holders don't think that is favourable to them.
Vs. - in the last U.K. election, which party was the most vocal about that first-past-the-post system needing replacement? What % of the votes were cast for them?
~One thing to bear in mind is that FPTP limits the influence of “extreme” parties on elections (see UKIP’s vote share in 2015), but at the expense of requiring more mainstream parties to pander to those voters to avoid splitting the vote share. Jury is still out I think on what’s “best” here and probably depends on what “best” means to the person forming an opinion.~
Edit: turns out the above is at best contested, at worst disproven.
The weird thing is how many different election systems are in use in the UK depending on what the politics of each devolved assembly is "supposed to be".
I lived in his constituency at the time and I am ashamed to admit I voted for him. It’s a travesty to see what has happened since (not just the whole coalition thing, his work with Meta too).
Although just from browsing the UKs AV proposal it does look like it'd be similar to IRV which has some wild results in certain tight races. Although I personally think that is fine; a little randomness is good for the system.
[0] http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/legal-age-of-marriage-in-...
So you're allowed to vote, but you don't need to pay your taxes. You're still considered a child regarding justice law, but considered adult regarding voting?
So basically you're not allowed to camp somewhere without the consent of your parents but you're "suddenly old enough" to judge about some laws?
I think the consensus is missing if voting is permitted by 16, but everything else stays the same.
So how far down in age would you go and why would you stop at that age?
I'd also argue that there should be no lower age limit for voting for people with taxable income. No taxation without representation.
I don't think children should have a say in the matter, they lack the critical thinking skills that adults do, which is why we limit their freedoms.
Granted, most adults also lack deep critical thinking skills but they have more capable brains than children.
Further, children are easier to manipulate than adults, which is very dangerous when it comes to something as critical as voting.
I don't think we're being ambitious enough here. I should be able to vote while drink-driving.
What's absurd is allowing a minor to vote.
I think this also makes sense, I know when I was younger I was extremely frustrated to see adults making really bad decisions for my country that will have a much longer impact on my life than it will on theirs.
I think a minimum age makes sense, I don't think someone in elementary has any point in voting since most likely they would just do what their parents told them. But by 16 you are generally making your own decisions, your figuring out your adult plans, and not following everything your parents say.
What all these "well adults are dumb too!" arguments ignore is that, those adults were even dumber when they were 2 (or 5, compared to the original voting age of 21) years younger.
At least when you are forced to be in school you are in an environment to likely absorb... something. We regularly kept up with current events in school.
I know many adults that have basically zero idea what is going on in the world.
Also I should note that I did not claim anything about intelligence, but just an awareness of what is going on and the impact of it.
I would possibly even argue that a 16 year old being in school likely has a fresher recollection of history than many adults. I mean how many adults remember all of the math they learned compared to 16 year olds.
Honestly I'm surprised this hasn't happened already, given how they "have no voice"..
> However, Conservative shadow minister Paul Holmes said the government's position was "hopelessly confused".
> "Why does this government think a 16-year-old can vote but not be allowed to buy a lottery ticket, an alcoholic drink, marry, or go to war, or even stand in the elections they're voting in?" he asked in the Commons.
That, and finishing reform of the lords. And separating the English parliament from a federal parliament over the separate nations in the federation.
(For the record: Devil's advocate take. I think this whole idea of voting in proportion to your monetary value is ridiculous.)
Those paying the most already are more invested in the outcomes of the country, do you mean their vote should count for more or less based on how much they pay in taxes?
Youth and parents get an extra vote on school stuff. Those whose education or career are related to a field get an extra vote. In some cases, you may hold 5x the voting power of someone who is removed and unfamiliar with a topic.
No idea if anything like that has been explored.
Allowing people to have more or less say based on stake would lead to a spiral. Those in charge take care of the people they care about, those people would continue to elect the same politicians, and everyone else would be left aside while power (and stake) consolidates.
Why should someone who knows nothing of field have a say in laws that over represents their knowledge and stake?
I don't think my vote for what you feed your kids should count the same as your vote on what you feed your kids.
The worry about votes and power collecting is sane. It happens already through propaganda and ill informed (usually due to low perceived stakes) voters. We need a system that counters the negative effects if low informed masses.
Children voting will ruin the grift.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectorate_theory
It doesn't matter who we vote for, as long as we vote? What a bad joke. By this theory, all foreign interference, propaganda, education, control of the news, etc.. are completely irrelevant, nothing we should be concerned about at all. Just vote and it'll be fine!
More that voting egotistically (in contrast to trying to predict what is best for society as a whole) is sufficient to create the incentives that benefit the many, as long as the number of voters makes up a high enough share of the population.
"It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet."
"The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so."
"In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part."
https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=unders...
This is a ridiculous claim. If you believe children think at all, they do it with the prefrontal cortex, just like every other mammal.
It's certainly true that those parts of the brain continue to influence decision making in adults. Nonetheless, research has shown that those parts of the brain are far more influential in teens.
I really hate when these ideas come of that effectively boil down to creating some kind of litmus test for who can be "trusted" to vote. We have an age limit, maybe the UK wants a lower limit, but at least that's a pretty simple and clear line to be drawn.
Or accept that growing up is part of life, and that there are short term consequences of political choice too that groups of people are currently denied?
Liz Truss was only PM for 49 days. How much impact on the economy did she have?
https://fortune.com/europe/2022/09/27/uk-stock-bond-markets-...
The article was published 22 days into her tenue.
> A growing body of research strongly suggests that brain development continues well into people’s 20s and beyond. ... There is strong scientific consensus that people’s decision-making abilities can evolve between their early and late 20s
https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/teen-brains-neuroscienc...
Some things that are better supported by multiple lines of scientific research, to quote two consecutive bits from the second article: "young people’s general cognitive skills, including their ability to reason, don’t change much after the age of 14 or so." "What does change with age is the ability to reason while distracted; emotions and peer pressure are more likely to hamper decision making in teens and early twentysomethings." These things are really outside of the pop idea of "your brain isn't fully developed until 25".
Yeah, that's pretty much saying the same thing I posted.
"Young people’s general cognitive skills" (SAT and ACT scores) develop early and "don’t change much after the age of 14 or so."
"What does change with age is the ability to reason while distracted; emotions and peer pressure are more likely to hamper decision making." In other words, "Good judgment isn’t something [teens] can excel in, at least not yet."
By the way, I don't know if you noticed, but what I posted wasn't a popsci article, it was from Stanford Children's Health.
Yes, I did notice the source, and I found that more unfortunate because it's using Stanford's name to peddle crap. It might not be a literal popsci magazine piece, but it's peddling the same popsci flavored falsehood about how the brain isn't "fully developed" until age 25 or so and it follows the same popsci tropes of grossly oversimplifying, exaggerating, and using science words to sound legitimate while discouraging actual scientific inquiry. The article's actual audience is layman parents, not even the general public, and clueless ones at that if they need to be reminded about things like "become familiar with things that are important to your teens". As another example, its claim of saying "Adults think with the prefrontal cortex ... Teens process information with the amygdala" is not just grossly oversimplifying, it's just wrong. Both use both. It's just a very bad article.
I think you're taking it far too literally (do you also complain that the 2D illustration of gravity wells is inaccurate?), but I don't care to argue about it all day. Take it up with Stanford.
I think there is a good argument to be made that young people are the biggest stakeholders in our future, and should have a say.
Or even if they did, the amount of effort they'd put in researching, considering and modelling the potential outcomes would would be commensurate to the impact they would expect their vote to have. I suspect for a good chunk of adult voters, this is in fact the case.
So it's not obvious to me that including more voters whose decision-making is more emotional will necessarily produce worse outcomes. It's conceivable it'll produce better outcomes.
Edit: I'm being downvoted. To be clear, I'm an ardent democrat, but the idea that people vote analytically and rationally doesn't make sense for the above reason. The most informed voters are, in my experience, often highly emotional.
> Or even if they did, the amount of effort they'd put in...
This is actually quite an interesting area if you look into the game theory of making choices in a group setting. Strong strategies typically often don't involve doing much research, but they are rather frustrating for the people who take an interest in politics. Real-world behaviours are arguably quite reasonable on this front too, although they are limited by the ability of the average person to reason their way through the policy suggestions being made by though leaders.
Although I do agree that more voters isn't better. There is a certain level of objective correctness in political decisions if we admit basic ideas like "policies should be tested to see whether they achieve the goals that they were intended to" as a measure of success and the point should be to design systems that optimise on it to some degree.
Yes. And in detail, with this model of a rational electorate, skilled influencers put the effort in to devise a policy platform and convince others that it is good for them. The majority pick a platform that they are convinced by.
It's worth it for the influencers, because they have an outsized impact. It's worth it for everyone else only if choosing a coalition is very low-effort. Or if they are entertained by the influencers.
Again, I'm an ardent democrat. I'm just pointing out the flaws in any argument that assumes rational voters are a good thing - because it's rational to not waste much time on voting. Instead, democracy works best when voters feel an arguably irrational sense of duty and civic pride.
But that wouldn't be rational. The rational approach is to vote when you are in (or plausibly in, or plausibly going to eventually be in) the majority coalition. The hyper-rational equilibrium is politicians do exactly what a majority coalition of voters want and no-one bothers to vote, but once the politicians start becoming flawed or preferences change over time the equilibrium shifts quite rapidly to a rational voter base forming large coalitions that turn up to vote.
It isn't rational to vote if for people who aren't affiliated with a coalition to some degree (and never will be) but people like that are basically a political non-factor anyway and are probably legitimately wasting their time when they vote because there is no policy formula available that they want to support, by definition.
A rational anaylsis would therefore conclude I'm wasting my time and energy even just walking to the polling station, let alone keeping up with political developments through the intervening months and years. As you say, in a hyper-rational world turnout would be way lower - whether it would oscillate and overcorrect as you suggest, or reach a stable equilibrium, I'm not sure.
But whatever my motivation for voting and trying to stay informed, I do not believe it is primarily rational. It's probably some mixture of duty, diversionary entertainment, and ritual. If lowering the voting age to 16 could help inculcate that sense of duty and better establish that ritual, that would be a pretty convincing reason to do it in my opinion.
I really doubt this proposal would ever actually be implemented, but still it is an interesting idea to ponder-in the abstract it seems fairer than a semi-arbitrary cutoff based on chronological age
[1] They are actually private and selective.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/voting-literacy-test
Better idea should just be that you should be a taxpayer to vote. No tax = no vote. Why should people who aren't contributing decide how to spend the money of those contributing?
A 16 year old who works has a bigger stake than a 21 year old jobless bum stuck in their parents home smoking weed and playing vidya games.
It could be an NGO obeying the people, not govenment.
Probably true. But IMO it's a good thing regardless. The impact of this is fundamentally pro-democracy above anything else.
People cry about gerrymandering all day here and then downvote your comment.
To the extent this is true, I would phrase it the other way: women are becoming less conservative, while young men are drifting towards the extreme right.
Data by "German General Social Survey", Infratest/Dimap (an established and respected polling institute):
https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/ftc...
I suspect this is also a hard thing to ‘prove’ with data, since it’s importantly about a shift in how people label left/centre/right. (No left-wing parties I know of are currently suggesting returning income tax rates on the rich anywhere near to historically normal levels, for example).
https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/ftc...
Can you name one?
> I suspect this is also a hard thing to ‘prove’ with data, since it’s importantly about a shift in how people label left/centre/right.
This is rather easy to prove with data: which type of concrete policies are they in support of (as opposed to some label, or party name or whatever, which might change its "content" over time). As a matter of fact, this being done and the trends hold.
It’s the right that are shifting, not the left.
And before you ask, yes this contains source references, very easy to check: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GvfUGidXAAAXbIr?format=jpg&name=...