Reasons not to lower the voting age to 16

I got jaded while obtaining my degrees and seeing the sheer incompetence within universities.

Also, climate change has to do with taxes, direct and indirect taxation is a major form of combating or funding efforts against climate change.

Military hawkishness has to do with taxes, how else is it funded?

Nuclear negotiations have to do with taxes as they often involve tariffs on other countries goods, a form of taxation.

Gay marriage does not involve taxation, but numerous other social policies do, such as access to aboration in the form of government funded abortion clinics.

Pretty well every single thing the government does involves taxes as it comes at price and that price is a direct or indirect tax.

Harambe wrote:

asdfasdfasdfasdf wrote:

The value of an education happens after the education is complete. People going to college are by definition ignorant.

But 18 year olds today are more educated than 25 year olds a few generations ago. Think of all the knowledge we have discovered since then. Someone graduating high school in 1940 knew very little about DNA.

If we take education into account then we should phase out voters after the average education passes them by. This would disenfranchise many older people. Careful what you folks wish for.

Debatable, 18 year olds 25 years ago didn’t think women could have penises

Harambe wrote:

Free_the_thigh wrote:

This 100%

If teachers were more conservative, and therefore kids were more conservative, it would be the republicans putting this forward and the Democrats opposing

I disagree. Is there any evidence high school teachers drive kids political views? I'd be the overwhelming influence is their parents and teachers have little impact. Besides 16 year old bleeding-hearts and 75 year old racists should cancel each other out -- why does only one get to vote.

I would say elementary teachers are also a major driver, not just high school teachers.

If parents were the overwhelming influence, then kids political views would more closely match the parents than the teachers.

Look at climate change, your opinion aside, the views on it are fairly split amongst the adult population. Teachers fall heavily to one side, surprise surprise, their students also fall heavily to that side.

Harambe wrote:

asdfasdfasdfasdf wrote:

The value of an education happens after the education is complete. People going to college are by definition ignorant.

But 18 year olds today are more educated than 25 year olds a few generations ago. Think of all the knowledge we have discovered since then. Someone graduating high school in 1940 knew very little about DNA.

If we take education into account then we should phase out voters after the average education passes them by. This would disenfranchise many older people. Careful what you folks wish for.

then tie it to education level. that's a different argument. we're going in circles.

I had always thought that this would be a conservative issue. It is legal to work at 16. So, 16 and 17 year olds are paying taxes without having the right to vote. Also, most 16 & 17 year olds are in fairly conservative families as people in their late 40s through 50s tend to migrate to the right. Parents have a lot of influence on how their kids vote and could boost conservative turnout by making their kids vote for Republican candidates. I almost voted for John Anderson when I voted in my first presidential election because that is who my mom supported (still not sure why, but the parental influence is significant).

I actually think that the voting age should be lowered because there is such a huge deficit in what kids know about civics these days. I am always suspicious about claims that the current generation of kids are so much worse about this that and the other thing. However, with civics, I think there is substantial evidence that kids do not have a clue how their government works and what is going on. I think this is due to the influence of testing on curriculum from elementary school all the way through high school. Too much time is spent on learning how to answer trick questions and too little time is spent learning about social studies, history and government. If 16 & 17 year olds could vote, there would suddenly be tremendous pressure on school boards to push a lot more civics in the class room.

asdfasdfasdfasdf wrote:

The value of an education happens after the education is complete. People going to college are by definition ignorant.

That's simply false. Education happens throughout college, it isn't a destination that is suddenly arrived at upon graduation. Everyone is, by definition, ignorant.

I think you are viewing education as job training. It isn't. If you take an ethics class, you are almost certainly better at ethical deliberations than you were before taking the class. You don't need to get out in the "real world" for that effect to happen. In fact, I'd argue that most real world experience is not that useful in the voting booth.

Free_the_thigh wrote:

I got jaded while obtaining my degrees and seeing the sheer incompetence within universities.

Also, climate change has to do with taxes, direct and indirect taxation is a major form of combating or funding efforts against climate change.

Military hawkishness has to do with taxes, how else is it funded?

Nuclear negotiations have to do with taxes as they often involve tariffs on other countries goods, a form of taxation.

Gay marriage does not involve taxation, but numerous other social policies do, such as access to aboration in the form of government funded abortion clinics.

Pretty well every single thing the government does involves taxes as it comes at price and that price is a direct or indirect tax.

I'm always skeptical of people who talk about rampant incompetency within universities. Either you went to bad universities or you are simply wrong. That's not to say there are no incompetent people in good universities, but most professors are professionals at the fields they teach. How a person who is not a professional can say all of those professionals are incompetent is beyond me.

I wasn't trying to say there is no aspect of climate change, military, nuclear negotiations etc. that are related to taxes. I am saying that significant portions of these issues are relevant to a person who pays no taxes. We all have to live in this world, so climate change is a major issue even for people who don't pay taxes. Ditto for the other issues.

Precious Roy wrote:

Too much time is spent on learning how to answer trick questions

That's simply not true. I am not necessarily a big fan of the level of testing that takes place, but the idea that "teaching to the test" mostly consists of learning to answer trick questions is way off.

killermike wrote:

asdfasdfasdfasdf wrote:

The value of an education happens after the education is complete. People going to college are by definition ignorant.

That's simply false. Education happens throughout college, it isn't a destination that is suddenly arrived at upon graduation. Everyone is, by definition, ignorant.

I think you are viewing education as job training. It isn't. If you take an ethics class, you are almost certainly better at ethical deliberations than you were before taking the class. You don't need to get out in the "real world" for that effect to happen. In fact, I'd argue that most real world experience is not that useful in the voting booth.

I'm just telling you why people don't value the thoughts and opinions of someone in college. You don't have to like my argument, but the facts remains that education without an application is for better or worse less valuable than education with an application. Being able to think abstractly is important, but if the abstractions are feminist theory or marxism one can't expect for your ideas to be well received.

Are you in college?

It would be a huge boon to the left.

Winston Churchill said it best "If you're 20 and not a liberal you have no heart. If you're 40 and not conservative you have no brain."

I don't think anything prohibits a state from allowing 16 year olds from voting.

The 26th amendment states:

“The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.”

So, you can't prevent an 18 year old from voting.

But nothing says you must prevent a 16 year old from voting.

You said those things have “absolutely nothing to do with personal income taxes”, they clearly do.

I think Nassim Taleb summed up the incompetence of universities best with his phrase “intellectual-yet-idiot”. Sure the people in those institutions may be intellectuals, yet they are still complete idiots. That goes for lots of the students coming out of those institutions too.

I am a recent grad though, and I get the feeling it has gotten far worse over the last few years in ways someone who graduated 10 years ago couldn’t understand.

Free_the_thigh wrote:

Look at climate change, your opinion aside, the views on it are fairly split amongst the adult population. Teachers fall heavily to one side, surprise surprise, their students also fall heavily to that side.

That's because the evidence is on one side.

Education is more likely to make people liberal because more education makes people more liberal. That isn't an indication that there is a bias. When things like climate change, which are objective, demonstrable issues, make up part of the political divide, simply learning more facts about the world is likely to push someone left.

killermike wrote:

Free_the_thigh wrote:

Look at climate change, your opinion aside, the views on it are fairly split amongst the adult population. Teachers fall heavily to one side, surprise surprise, their students also fall heavily to that side.

That's because the evidence is on one side.

Education is more likely to make people liberal because more education makes people more liberal. That isn't an indication that there is a bias. When things like climate change, which are objective, demonstrable issues, make up part of the political divide, simply learning more facts about the world is likely to push someone left.

Is it a fact that climate change can and should be subverted and that humanity is heading for a globally catastrophic event? I was significantly more liberal in undergrad than in grad school.

sickkkkk wrote:

I'm just telling you why people don't value the thoughts and opinions of someone in college. You don't have to like my argument, but the facts remains that education without an application is for better or worse less valuable than education with an application. Being able to think abstractly is important, but if the abstractions are feminist theory or marxism one can't expect for your ideas to be well received.

Are you in college?

You are going back-and-forth between "people won't receive your ideas" and "your ideas are less valuable." There is an important difference. We aren't really debating what the general population believes about the value of idea, so how one's ideas are received isn't pertinent.

In terms of voting, I don't see how knowledge about feminist theory or Marxism are less relevant than knowledge about "applicable" topics like IT. The question here is whether the jobs an average 20-year-old is going to work will somehow make them a better voter. I don't see how that's possible, but I can see how gaining more knowledge in college could.

No, I'm 34 and haven't been in college in years.

there's some correlation between them we don't need to split hairs on this

killermike wrote:

In terms of voting, I don't see how knowledge about feminist theory or Marxism are less relevant than knowledge about "applicable" topics like IT. The question here is whether the jobs an average 20-year-old is going to work will somehow make them a better voter. I don't see how that's possible, but I can see how gaining more knowledge in college could.

Knowledge about something and indoctrination into are completely different things. Does someone who has read 1000x books on marxist theory and none on conservative economics have a good grasp on reality?

I'm saying that the relevance of those topics to a person in college has nothing to do with taxes. They have plenty of skin in the game whether they pay taxes or not.

Taleb was wrong. Plain and simple. I would respond by saying it is often difficult for people of a given level of intelligence to recognize more intelligent people. That so many normal folks walking around on the street think real experts who have both extremely high IQs and high-level, relevant education don't know any more about technical topics than themselves is disturbing.

Too many "normal folks" rely on common sense, and common sense is often at odds with actual findings in various fields.

killermike wrote:

Free_the_thigh wrote:

Look at climate change, your opinion aside, the views on it are fairly split amongst the adult population. Teachers fall heavily to one side, surprise surprise, their students also fall heavily to that side.

That's because the evidence is on one side.

Education is more likely to make people liberal because more education makes people more liberal. That isn't an indication that there is a bias. When things like climate change, which are objective, demonstrable issues, make up part of the political divide, simply learning more facts about the world is likely to push someone left.

Lol

The fact that the climate changes is a fact nobody debates that, what response, if any, we should have is far from an objective fact.

Even the democrats disagree about the appropriate response.