[lichform]

The disdain and disgust impressed on the elderly in this issue in particular is distressing. Seeing people advocate for selective voting or implying that the younger persons' views are worth more because of their older countrymen's vicinity to expiration is personally upsetting as a self-loathing Millenial.

[mentalpiracy]

As another self-loathing millennial, it's also distressing to empirically see the detrimental effect of my elders making extremely poor choices that will fundamentally affect my life much more than theirs.

Nobody really wants to disenfranchise certain voters. But it doesn't mean that we aren't frustrated with their poor choices either.

[mikeash]

Well then, go vote. The reason old people get their way so much more is because they vote.

I heard a young lady interviewed on the BBC this morning, talking about how young people felt betrayed because this choice was made by people who wouldn't feel the negative consequences. When the interviewer pointed out that a lot of young people didn't vote, she blamed the negative nature of the campaigns for that, rather than acknowledging that maybe if people want a certain outcome they should vote that way.

It's the same situation in the US. The will of the people and the actions of the government don't line up all that well, and a lot of it is because young people don't vote. The government goes along with the will of the voters reasonably well.

I'm sure you vote, but a lot of people like you just stay home. If you don't want your elders making all the decisions, convince your cohorts to go have their say.

[cookiecaper]

This is a simple matter of disagreement. Your elders aren't "making extremely poor choices" in an objective sense. They're making the choice they believe is for the long-term interest of the country, just as you did. You should not assume idiocy or malice on the opposing side's part just because you lost. Informed, well-educated people can and do disagree. This must be valued and believed in a democratic society if it's not to tear itself apart.

If it were up to me, minimum voting age would be bumped to 30 and votes would become more valuable as people aged. Personal experience and history is nothing to sneeze at. The open disrespect to just dismiss this by-definition-wiser voting block as making "extremely poor choices" is very distasteful and short-sighted.

[vacri]

I'm 43, and I think the idea of no-votes-until-30 is a crazy idea. Yes, the young are less informed, but they're also more interested in finding alternatives. The old are incredibly conservative, and as proven in this referendum, more fearful of diversity. They don't want to deal with change, which is a bad thing in a world that constantly changes - for example, keep in mind that the internet is only 20 years old, as far as the public is concerned. Cut off the young, and you take away the meat of the progressives, and your society will stagnate. Wisdom is definitely important, but so is the will to enact change.

And if you want evidence that the old are just as susceptible to stupid politics, look to Fox News's target audience: the silver hair brigade. Or talkback radio. Wisdom in personal life (everybody has one) does not necessarily translate to wisdom in political life (where few actually do engage).

[cookiecaper]

>They don't want to deal with change

Brexit is a pretty massive governance change. Everyone blames old people for its success, so I'm not sure why the narrative is that "old people won't vote for changes". I think it's less that older people are hostile to change as much as they've seen enough political opportunists and fraudsters that they have some firmness to their opinion (and again, this is a good thing). As Brexit shows, older people often do support changes that they believe would be beneficial.

I know that my dad, for example, would really like to see some stuff change, even though he's a senior citizen. But he's not excited by Bernie Sanders.

>for example, keep in mind that the internet is only 20 years old, as far as the public is concerned.

I am 1000% behind the idea of changing the laws that govern intellectual property and internet access, but this is not an issue that's age-dependent. Few people in any age strata care or think about this because if their news sources have any vested interest, it's in keeping IP laws locked down as tightly as possible. You'll find near-universal praise for copyright among every age group, because the public is presented only one side of the copyright debate. Laws expanding IP rights and locking down tech access routinely pass with minimal debate or interest. The exception to this is the hacker subculture, where it's not really an age-dependent thing either. Some older persons involved in certain niche businesses may remember slightly-less-oppressive copyright regimes and want to go back to that.

>Cut off the young, and you take away the meat of the progressives, and your society will stagnate.

This is everyone else's complaint too, but it's begging the question. "Progressiveness" is not inherently correct. Social insistence on certain behavioral standards is good. We don't want to "progress" out of all of our values.

>And if you want evidence that the old are just as susceptible to stupid politics, look to Fox News's target audience: the silver hair brigade. Or talkback radio.

I know a lot of young people who are into Fox News and conservative talk radio. People consciously pick the news outlets that agree with them most often because it's more pleasant to listen to someone encourage your beliefs than discourage them. Conservative media is not specifically targeted at old people; it's targeted at all conservatives.

[vacri]

> Brexit is a pretty massive governance change.

The people voting for Brexit want to stop the changes their seeing to their country. Brexit itself is a massive governance change, but the people going for it see it as the option to stop the change they see in the streets around them.

> internet = copyright issues

Bollocks. If that's all you think the internet means to people, intellectual property, you need to open your eyes considerably wider.

> "Progressiveness" is not inherently correct.

Not inherently, but a) our societies are far wealthier (fiscally and socially) and far more equitable than ever before, largely due to progression, and b) the world changes anyway, and you have to adapt to change. If it weren't for progressiveness, we'd still have slaves, women wouldn't be able to vote (or work, really), Africa and Asia would still be colonised, anti-semitism would still be the norm of polite society, so on and so forth.

> I know a lot of young people who are into Fox News and conservative talk radio

'Target audience'. You can have a lot of other members in your audience.

[cookiecaper]

>The people voting for Brexit want to stop the changes their seeing to their country. Brexit itself is a massive governance change, but the people going for it see it as the option to stop the change they see in the streets around them.

I'm sure Brexit supporters would argue this is a mischaracterization, but even if it's true, it proves that they're not afraid of change per se. They're willing to make a massive change to the country's governmental structure and role in the region in order to prevent other changes that they perceive as negative from occurring. They simply have a different evaluation of the situation than yourself. This is called a "disagreement".

>Bollocks. If that's all you think the internet means to people, intellectual property, you need to open your eyes considerably wider.

I was addressing the major fields of law that impact the internet, which is a) tech access laws like the CFAA and b) copyright/IP law. I guess your comment here indicates that you were thinking along the lines of net neutrality (already the law) and municipal internet/increased ISP competition (which is a complex issue that varies by locality and doesn't really represent a major, large-scale legal conundrum; it's mostly just legwork and local politics to resolve). Everyone wants improvement in that area too, but to my mind, it's minimally important compared to tech access and intellectual property, and it's certainly much more fractured since it's highly dependent on local politics.

>our societies are far wealthier (fiscally and socially) and far more equitable than ever before, largely due to progression

This is a non-sequitr and far too airy to really rebut. To the extent that changes associated with socially progressive politics have been beneficial (and I would argue that such changes are scant), it's not due to the fact that the positions were supported by social progressives, but that the position was reasonable and important. You act like this is inherently the same thing, that anything under the banner of progressivism is automatically just and important. That doesn't make any sense, which is becoming increasingly obvious as progressives have begun to run out of reasonable things to protest.

>the world changes anyway, and you have to adapt to change

Sure, some things change, and many things don't change. People today are biologically very similar to people from 5k years ago; on an evolutionary timescale, that's a miniscule difference, so the things that were logical and biologically compatible 5k years ago are probably pretty similar today.

It's not that people are afraid of change itself; it's simply that people understand that changes aren't always for the better.

>If it weren't for progressiveness, we'd still have slaves, women wouldn't be able to vote (or work, really), Africa and Asia would still be colonised, anti-semitism would still be the norm of polite society, so on and so forth.

You've essentially redefined "progressive" as "positive" and saying "anything good is progressive". Your statements here are not remotely reflective of reality. Every positive change is not automatically the work of social progressives. Slavery in particular drew fire from people of all ages and economic classes; the lines were not what you're trying to imply here.

>'Target audience'. You can have a lot of other members in your audience.

Yeah, I addressed this. This is another issue with getting definitions backwards, something you seem to be doing a lot. Fox News's target audience is not "old people", it's "conservatives". There are a lot of conservatives in all age groups, despite the media's attempts to make them invisible. Old people are overwhelmingly conservative, not because they're afraid of change, but because they recognize a lot of the proposed changes are not beneficial.

This boils down to simple political disagreement, and you're trying to generalize it over every demographic that's more likely to belong to your political opponents. Many would call this "ageism"; may want to watch it before your progressive brethren catch wind.

[Malician]

You make a good point with your last paragraph: given the circumstances, if we held a vote on who should get to vote, the answer would not be one millenials would relish. Those calling for disenfranchisement of the elderly are not only morally wrong but would bring down the very system which protects young people.

I do think that it is possible for a reasonable person to call certain decisions bad, even if it's not entirely objective. The vast majority of the credentialed economic establishment believes that Brexit was a tragedy, so does the stock market, and so do most of those educated on international political relations who study the subject.

Of course, the rejection of the establishment by voters who are tired of having their will systematically ignored, mocked, and thwarted is the reason for Brexit, so for the Leave crowd that isn't much of a point.

[cookiecaper]

I agree with you, I hate seeing comments that are dismissive of those who actually have some experience under their belts and some personal history. You'd think that people who were living and capable of remembering a pre-EU UK would have a better perspective on this particular issue.

My personal opinion is that voting age is too young in most countries. It should be upped to 30.

[lichform]

But see this is the same issue, just in the opposite direction. I don't understand what relevance any of this identity politicking has to do with electorates.

The idea of "One Person, One Vote" and that no one's vote is inherently more valuable that another's, irregardless of that person's gender, age, class, sexuality, mental ability or what have you.

_Stupid_ people being able to vote is a feature. The young and inexperienced being able to vote is a feature. The crotchety old stubborn types being able to vote is a feature. None of these are bugs.

The question of the hour is "What can we do to create a more informed, civically responsible public". To this end my honest belief is to encourage people to stop watching network television and reading editorialized, propaganda clickbait articles from partisan online sources (Your Brietbarts and Salons and Voxes and Gawkers).

[cookiecaper]

I don't agree that allowing the young and inexperienced to vote is a feature. Inexperienced people make bad long-term decisions simply because they don't have the history to draw likely conclusions from. There's nothing wrong with that and there's nothing that can be done about it; it's simply a function of age, which no one can change.

It seems accepted that a baseline amount of experience should be necessary, which is why we have a minimum voting age in the first place. I believe that the baseline is too low (and that it was intentionally lowered to more easily allow charlatans to acquire power).

I agree that telecommunications, and especially television, have had a serious negative effect on the political discourse and that we need to devise a way to make people less vulnerable to them. Things were much different when you had to read someone's pamphlets and evaluate their proposals to decide if you supported them v. watching them wink at you on TV.

[fnovd]

What if your government voted for a lifetime stipend of $10000/month for everyone over 65, to be paid for by higher taxes on renters, students, and earners?

I think there is a breaking point where it is unacceptable to support the wants of an aging population over the future of the young, even by majority vote. However, I don't think the Brexit falls into that category.

[cookiecaper]

Here's the thing: old people don't vote for that kind of thing, at least not if they have children and grandchildren. They've invested decades of heavy personal sacrifice into building a future for their posterity. They're not going to counteract that lifelong goal and knowingly vote for something that will inflict real pain or hindrance on the generations they've parented.

Personally I believe the elderly make much better decisions when voting precisely because they have something that gives their votes far-reaching meaning. Young voters care primarily about getting what they want in the moment; any other interest may be considered out of goodwill, but it is intanigble, whereas people with children and grandchildren truly care about the long-term well-being of the nation, because they know their posterity is going to be living in it, most likely for hundreds of years.

[Malician]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh...

Even recently, 30% of older people support laws prohibiting black and white people from marrying each other. Only 4% of young people do. Twenty years ago, the vast majority of older people held those opinions(!) I think you'll find the same trends for many similar social issues.

[cookiecaper]

I really don't see what this has to do with what I said. You disagree with 30% of older people on a social topic, and therefore, they don't care about the future of the country that their children and grandchildren will most likely inhabit for many generations? What?

[thomasahle]

> elderly make much better decisions when voting precisely because they have something that gives their votes far-reaching meaning. Young voters care primarily about getting what they want in the moment.

I'd be more positive about of future if this were the case. Do you have any examples of where this has happened?

I always had the impression older people voted more conservatively, because they were tired of things changing, and mostly happy with their wealth and position in life.

[makomk]

Here's the thing: if you look at how the UK welfare system treats (say) the younger people who lose their jobs or suffer accidents or illness that stops them from working compared with how it treats the elderly, and pay attention to the politics behind it, or if you think about the emphasis on ensuring house price growth and who benefits, or... the comment you're replying to is an exaggeration of what already happens.

[cookiecaper]

The difference with state pensions, welfare, etc., is that it's getting back money that has been taken out of their earnings and promised to them for decades. I think that's an important distinction. In America, we do base the amount of Social Security you receive on the amount you paid in; it's supposed to be like a forced savings account.

When the youth pay in, it's not seen as "the youth are paying for my retirement", it's seen as "the youth are paying for their retirements; I already paid for mine over the last 50 years, and now I'm going to start using it."

That's all well and good but the problem now is that politicians have pillaged the welfare funds and the programs are insolvent. The welfare and pensions need to be phased out. Those who've paid in for 50 years should get what we have left. Those who've paid in for 5-10 years are probably going to have to be SOL. That's a matter of simple fairness; the funds have been robbed, and it makes sense that those with the least to lose should bear the brunt.

If the case be convincingly made that the younger generations are going to be grievously harmed by the continuation of welfare programs, I believe the parents of those generations would do what parents do and take it on the chin for the benefit of their posterity. But I don't believe that's necessary in this instance; we should be able to give a very respectable portion of the population the amount of money we've promised them.

One of the other benefits of age is that you eventually come to understand that even a significant monetary loss can be made up over time, and that setbacks aren't the end of the world. As such, it's much more logical to solve the insolvency issues by asking how much time the person has left to make up the loss. Those who've spent decades paying in should get their promised quantities since they have very little or no time available to make up the monetary hit, those who have the most time to make up the difference and have also spent the least time paying in should get nothing, and those in between should get in between. Then the unsustainable system that caused this mess in the first place has to be dismantled.

We shouldn't confuse an interest in the reasonable fulfillment of the state's decades-long promises with disregard for the children's interests at large.