You could also make the counterargument that older voters are wiser and have more experience and can make more sound decisions about the future of their country and should therefore have a heavier influence.
I personally think you should be able to vote on an issue in proportion to how much you care about it, but I'm not sure about the best way to go about that. One idea I've read about is to sell votes starting at $1 and the price of your next vote (you can vote as many times as you want) increases by the square of the total votes purchased (i.e. $1, $4, $9...) so that by the 100th vote you'd have to spend $10,000. But that wouldn't be a popular idea as it allows the mega rich to buy lots of votes.
This is really interesting. I do fear it'll cause exhaustion techniques.
This may not happen in isolated experiments, but if you build a political system on that concept, let it run for decades, in a world where a political decision can shift tens of billions of dollars (e.g. a fiscal change for banks, an environmental law for the dairy industry, etc), you'll see the system get gamed.
e.g. say I propose 100 bs bills to repeal gay marriage and abortion rights. I expect to lose, but opponents expend all their credits. Then I propose a law banning muslims and mexicans and put all my credits behind it. The end result is they get to keep what they had, status quo, and I get to pass something ridiculous.
Of course it works both ways, but my point is that you're creating a system where volume of bills is a strategy. And strategic, efficient use of credits, starts to matter. Such that I may choose NOT to vote for something I care about, because that credit has a premium on an even more important bill I fear might be proposed, which I absolutely have to put my weight behind. And an incentive not to vote doesn't sound like a system we should work towards.
At the end of the day, making something scarce like you propose does two things; 1) it makes things more efficient and meaningful, you don't play around with scarce things. That's great. But 2) It puts a cap on it, it's limited in amount, and in the context of exercising your vote, voicing your opinion, that's probably not something we should cap for people.
We already have this with financing campaigns (credits being money, which is both scarce and to some extent capped for campaign contributions), but I don't think it's ultimately (although super interesting) the right thing to do for the actual act of voting.
The particular strategy that you propose for gaming the system assumes that voting events are scattered throughout a term (I assume there is some period or term after which everyone's 100 votes are replenished?) rather than all being on the same day. If this is the case then another problem is the privacy issue that arises when the state has to track how many votes each citizen has left.
Both problems are solved if there is a single event each term, where you get a single ballot containing all the questions for that term and get to fill in at most N bubbles on the ballot, with zero or more for each question.
Such a system probably still has undesirable properties, though I'm struggling to contrive a good example of one at the moment.
That would just give more influence to people with more money. We have enough of that as it is and I don't think it's a good thing.
And as a counterargument to older people being wiser older people tend to get very nostalgic about the old day and selectively remembering only the good things so I wouldn't trust the judgement of a random older person more.
I think the idea that you should be able to vote on an issue according to how much you care about it tries to fend off one problem (uninformed people vote carelessly) but creates many more. For example: How should I know in advance how important an issue will be to me in comparison to votes that nobody even thinks about right now? And is somebody who is really angry about immigration into their country really going to investigate the problem thoroughly (because they "care so much") or simply voting based on their gut?
From my perspective there are so many problems with referendums that it might not be possible to find a solution at all. They have become a way to destabilize the current government although those are the elected officials. And still, in a general election there would probably be a support for the established parties in Britain. This shows to me an unsolvable discrepancy between referendums and elections.
> You could also make the counterargument that older voters are wiser and have more experience and can make more sound decisions about the future of their country and should therefore have a heavier influence.
Yes, but it's a different argument for a different system or principle.
i.e., the democratic principle is that one can influence the governance of oneself, whether directly or indirectly, you vote on the governance of the society you live in. Rule of the people.
In line with that principle is his suggestion to weight vote by age. i.e., as a proxy for the duration or degree to which you'll live in said society under any given proposed policy, is heavier for young people than old people, simply because young people live longer in these societies under these policies, on average. Such that these people who live 'more' under this policy, could be argued to deserve a bigger influence. In the same way that I as a European can't and shouldn't be able to vote on US domestic policy because I don't live there, and in the same way there've been (pipedream) ideas for the world to receive a minor vote in US (foreign) policy, because they're subjected to it so much. It's all in line with democratic principles.
Your argument is a valid one, too, but it's linked on another principle, a more technocratic one i.e. those who are educated ought to govern. That's not a very democratic principle (although I'm not ruling it out on that basis, democracy is imo the least worst system, not a system to be blindly put on a permanent pedestal).
By and large I think people tend to favour the former (democratic) over the latter (technocratic) principle. And within that context, a minor degree of age-weighing makes some sense, on paper.
In practice it's hard to execute, easy to abuse, and merely captures a democratic proxy. i.e. you don't get to weigh in young people who die early, who migrate, and if you do weigh things, how much would young people get a bonus for, 5%? 10%? It becomes an impossible political game that I don't think makes sense in the real world, but it's interesting nonetheless.
Paying for votes I think is a terrible idea by the way. About making the proportion of caring matter, I think you may realise there's already something basic like that, which is deciding whether to vote or not in the first place. We've seen time and time again, votes going differently from the polls, because people who got approached on the phone had an opinion but couldn't care enough to exercise it with effort by voting.
> I personally think you should be able to vote on an issue in proportion to how much you care about it
You already are. Care enough and you can join grass roots movements who are trying to influence the population to vote a certain way. Afaik, the Brexiters were a grass root campaign and they managed to multiply their votes by convincing the public to vote to leave.
"You could also make the counterargument that older voters are wiser and have more experience and can make more sound decisions about the future of their country and should therefore have a heavier influence."
Well the issue is the younger voters tend to be the most idealistic while at the same time being the most unrealistic. As in, they haven't been around long enough to understand the different between what politicians say and what they are saying.
I am going to go with the older generations simply remembering how much the United Kingdom worked to free the continent during two major wars. That is a lot of emotional background that only the most current generation doesn't really have.
The real truth is no one knows exactly what is going to happen. Oh sure there are predictions of doom and gloom, but a lot of this is related to big financial players not liking the public to have a voice. Never underestimate the vested interest in those profiting off the current setup.
We must also remember to not lambast the other side, neither side can claim to be a bastion of clear thinking and undisputed intelligence.
> I am going to go with the older generations simply remembering how much the United Kingdom worked to free the continent during two major wars. That is a lot of emotional background that only the most current generation doesn't really have.
Anyone old enough to remember the war (at all) would be in their 70s-80s now. It's sad but I think there won't be any WWII veterans left soon.
It's surprising how far some idealism can get us, though. Let's not forget that it's exactly that older generation that build the EU on the ruins of the wars they fought.
I'm wondering if the EU isn't suffering from its own success. It modeled the free trade/free movement/peaceful cooperation at a time at which none of these things were common. That style of negotiation and cooperation then became common internationally, so that nowadays, it appears to make little difference if, say, Croatia is part of the EU or not.
- The UK contributes, but also receives from the EU. The net is a 7 billion pound a year (136m, not 350m, a week) contribution to the EU.
Blatant lie there.
- Leave camp has consistently said the money will go to the NHS. Hours after the campaign, the most prominent leader of the leave camp has said this was a mistake and is not actually the case. Anyone who isn't naive recognises this is a deliberate lie, if you'd have asked him 24 hours ago he'd have said it goes to the NHS, nothing changed since then accept the fact people can't vote anymore, so it makes no sense to keep lying.
- The aforementioned 7 billion is on an economy of 1.85 trillion pounds, or 0.38% of GDP. Now recognise that 50% of the UK's exports go towards the EU.
The notion that the economic benefit of saving this 0.38% in contributions and losing prime access to the world's biggest market is a good economic deal is silly. The net benefit of contributions and membership is positive, so the UK isn't losing money or sending money because of its membership, let alone anywhere near 350m a week.
I can see a case in which they have some sort of moral claim to control spending, but that is limited, as one example, by the fact that a government decides a lot more than spending.
It's also a bad idea when you want to make good (as in maximize individual happiness) decisions, since the "10%" who'd end up with 90% of the political power have neither the knowledge nor (in some cases) the interest to help a majority of society.
Even they would actually not have to gain much from controlling spending (except by lowering taxes) as the super-richs' happiness is more or less independent of gov spending: private schools, private jets, private healthcare.
Oh, it's also a completely stupid & undemocratic idea, which led to my glib initial criticism.
In an indirect way that happens in some politics. Parties and political figures need funding, they get that funding from organisations and individuals with deep pockets. Even if politicians argue that their policies aren't influenced by donations, donors aren't going to fund someone who promotes policies which the donors don't agree with. And given how expensive it is to run an election campaign, politicians with unpopular policies a (amongst the wealthy and big businesses) will either risk exposure due to poor funding, thus potentially lose votes, or "soften" their policies to appeal to the deeper pockets. Either scenario results in a subtle bias towards big money.
I wouldn't like to speculate on how significant this bias might be though, nor would I know how to level that particular playing field. Maybe everyone donates into a central pot and campaigners all get an equal share of the pot?
I did ponder over this myself in recent weeks. I wondered whether there should be a age limit on votes, whether votes should be weighted, and even wondered whether there should be a quick multiple choice test that you have to pass before voting. Unfortunately the first two points go against the point of democracy - even if it might feel unfair to those are the greatest impacted by large demographics of people who are least affected but have strong opinions.
The entrance exam idea is a little more complex though. The idea came about because I was frustrated by the number of people I'd spoken to who voted for a particular campaign while admitting they didn't really follow the campaign but just wanted "change". I saw it with a lot of UKIP supporters who hadn't read their manifesto. I also saw it with the EU referendum with friends that were unaware of any of the "Brexit" arguments but voted out anyway. I think it's weird - in fact borderline dangerous - to use ones vote to decide on a topic which one has intentionally chosen not to educate one's self on. However how do you test that one is informed without biasing the ballot? I think that could be an impossible challenge - and even if it was possible, it would be too easy to abuse at some point further down the line. So that eliminates that possibility as well.
Giving everyone an equal vote is the fundamental principle of democracy. And as much as we might complain about biases from specific demographics skewing the outcome, be that the older generation, younger generation, politically literate, racist, socialist, or whatever; we just have to live with the results. After all, as much as I might disagree with some agendas, there's others I agree with which I'm sure other demographics detest on principles that are as reasoned as the arguments I consider to be true. Such is the nature of individuals.
Every voter is required to write a test on the matter being voted on. And then their vote is weighted on the marks they got for the test.
That way people who have no idea what they are voting for have little say in the matter. And the people who really care about the issues will make sure they know how their vote will affect things, and they get a greater say in the matter.
And how do you grade the test? Certainly if there was objective criteria for what would happen in this case (In/Out), there'd be no need for a vote at all!
On top of that, why shouldn't someone be able to vote on the basis of purely not wanting to be in the EU? Or voting with someone based on their perceived moral value? Or any other criteria?
I'm hardly pro-democracy, but this doesn't seem like a democratic solution.
> And how do you grade the test? Certainly if there was objective criteria...
It would have to be on whatever objective facts are available. But in situations like this that could be rather difficult.
> on the basis of purely not wanting to be in the EU?
IMHO making big decisions based purely on your feelings is always a bad idea.
> but this doesn't seem like a democratic solution
It's not democratic at all. But I'm just throwing around ideas for interest's sake. Until a provably better system comes around, I'd choose to live in a democratic country.
I'm not mocking you - just disagreeing with one of your premises.
While I doubt anyone will ever produce a concrete proposal for a testing system that is not too problematic for me to support it, I am not dismayed in the least by the prospect of losing voters who are not willing to invest the mental energy required by a 20-minute test on the topic of the vote.
You seem to assume that a reduction in voter turnout is unconditionally bad. I disagree.
So if you are 20, then this decision is going to affect you for the most of your working life, and you can't change it for at least a couple decades? What sort of solution is this?
Prediction: two years of negotiations, followed by another referendum resulting in a 55:45 REMAIN, rendering the same day's Scottish independence referendum moot, slightly embarrassing everyone who spent hours debating that referendum's wording.
That point was debated a bit around the Quebec independence referendum as well. Is a 51% vote enough of a mandate to leave? If so, would a 51% vote in the other direction a few years later be enough of a mandate to rejoin? You have a weird unstable situation if support really is close to exactly evenly divided, and stays that way. The pure majoritarian outcome would be that you oscillate between trying to leave and trying to join every few years, vaguely like what happened in Greece 100 years ago when they voted in a referendum to abolish, then reinstate, then abolish, then reinstate the monarchy, the pro- and anti-monarchist forces holding a new referendum every time it looked like public opinion was trending back in their direction. In practice it seems then the really big power comes in choosing when/whether to hold a referendum, e.g. if the Quebec referendum had come out 51-49% in favor of leave, independent Quebec would probably avoid as much as possible allowing a "rejoin Canada" referendum to ever be held, lest it come out 51-49% in the other direction.
Probably some mathematical voting theory person has formalized this kind of question in terms of something like sampling and stable outcomes, but I'm not quite sure what keywords to look for there.
The last time there was a referendum on EU membership was in 1975, and the result was overwhelmingly in favour of staying in, so many of those older voters who voted for Brexit must have changed their minds.
Well, it wasn't the EU right? It was the European Communities (EC), aka "Common market". This was a pretty different and more modest institution back in '75, I think.
There was a huge propaganda machine going on targeted to the youth to tell how awesome the EU is. I dont think taking this numbers now says actually that much.
The assumption here is that the Brexit will be bad for the UK. What if it winds up being good for the UK? The EU has had some serious near-meltdowns. In particular the issue with Greek bailouts and the conflict with germany comes to mind. Why would you want to be part of an organization where you could wind up being the next germany - let alone an organization where there's a structure where 1) such an irresponsible mismanagement of funds is not firewalled and 2) a tax compliant region (like the UK or Germany) has to pay for the sins of a country where paying taxes is a joke?
It's up 9% from where it was in February of this year. Surely the immediate market reaction to a huge political change is not a good indicator of anything.
you're right. the UK is not part of the Euro, but by continuing to be in the EU, they would have been shoehorned in, and it would have been more inevitable.
>I don't see how trade tariffs (which the UK will now have to negotiate) will be a good thing for the UK.
Just set up free trade zones. Unless the EU will be a bunch of un-self-intereseted dicks with a chip on their shoulder and for no other reason than spite exclude the UK from free trade networks.
the UK is not part of the Euro, but by continuing to be in the EU, they would have been shoehorned in, and it would have been more inevitable.
I see absolutely no evidence of that. There has been no indication, and recent EU negotiations indicate, that there was negligible chance of the UK ever joining the Euro.
Turns out that, with regards to the Southern European bailouts, that didn't matter. Even with a deal in place to protect against being part of bailouts, the UK was still asked to pay £850 million towards the last Greek bailout.
"Britain will be liable for close to £1 billion of emergency loans to Greece, it can be revealed, after Jean-Claude Juncker tore up a “black and white” deal to protect UK taxpayers from Eurozone bailouts."
"Britain pays around 14 per cent of the EU budget – meaning that lending Greece 8.6 billion euros would leave UK taxpayers exposed to the tune of around £850 million. The risk of default is high.
Yet Mr Cameron secured a binding written agreement with his counterparts at a Brussels summit in December 2010, explicitly prohibiting such a deal.
In exchange for British consent to treaty change to create the ESM, the text of the deal stated that the EFSM would not be used again to bailout Eurozone members."
The fact that young voters overwhelmingly decided they wanted to stay in has nothing to do with whether or not it's a good thing - it's merely a statement that, as usual for this country, young voters seem to be at odds with everyone else.
There's a huge generational gap - probably larger than that in the US even. Many younger voters are far further left than the country as a whole, and concepts like equality, human rights and social justice are a huge part of our politics.
There's a strong belief that the reasons for leaving the EU are, aside from kicking the Polish out, to start attacking the human rights, equality, worker protection, and welfare laws and procedures that were only implemented because we were forced to.
First sentence in the article: "Younger voters will be the losers from today's historic vote to leave the EU after polls repeatedly showed they back Remain" (emphasis mine)
Yes, younger voters lost. That's quite clear. We didn't get what we voted for. And thus we have no control over our future.
Additionally, leaving the EU, if we're correct in our beliefs, damages our country far more than any economic crisis would. An economic crisis means people have less to spend, and might struggle to find work for a few years. A change in how our country approaches various things that we consider to be rights? That could have effects lasting the next 50 years.
I'm just going to say while clearly there is a problem with a small but not insignificant minority of racists hijacking political agendas in the UK (but what country doesn't have that) - I don't see how being a part of the EU has a realistically significant effect an agenda of "social justice". That's an awfully weak crutch you're leaning on.
Basically, as much as the Tories are attempting to dismantle as many of the systems that reduce inequality as possible, we currently have a strong body of law based primarily on EU Directives and ECHR judgements which provides a minimal amount of protection to some of the worst-off.[0]
Leaving the EU means that the former are now subject to direct attack, and the latter's meaning and intent might reasonably be bent to breaking point - people seem to conflate the EU and the European Council a lot, and that confusion may allow our Government to get away with a lot given that people will argue that they voted for less international oversight and more ability to decide for ourselves. Being part of the EU was a bit of a legal buffer.
[0] Particularly interesting to me personally, much all our trans-related law is heavily influenced by the EU (although in Scotland, our Government has taken transgender protections to heart, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland it's not quite so rosy).
Isn't the ECHR is distinct from the EU, I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think leaving the EU changes the UK's relationship with the ECHR (Iceland and Switzerland and Norway, which are not in the EU are in the ECHR).
Yes, technically - the ECHR uses the European Council as its enforcement arm. The European Council is separate from the EU. This isn't particularly widely understood, which is what's going to cause the issues - if people believe that they voted to be apart from the rest of Europe politically, the idea that we still have to adhere to judgements from a court that is not a part of the UK justice system is going to be unpalatable to many, whether they actually voted for that or not.
The result of that is going to be pressure on politicians to see how much the Government can get away with ignoring or only partially implementing ECHR judgements. Given that the only thing the European Council can actually do is put political pressure on us, it's possible that the Government might have a lot of leeway.
Additionally, both the Conservatives and UKIP agree on wanting to step away from the ECHR (and thus the European Council) entirely, with the Conservatives wanting to implement our own Bill of Rights to be implemented by British courts.
It might end up being good for the UK, but to be honest no-one knows, and it'll probably take at least 5 years to get back to some level of stability, and then another 5 before the effects really show themselves.
Or they aren't old enough to be cynical yet? I'm 34 now and very pleased to see this change. Yet 10 years ago I was opposite.
And on immigration -- the big topic -- as I see more an more things happen, I grow more and more skeptical that countries can sustain huge influxes while maintaining standards. I find this is true, even though I've been directly hurt by immigration law (my wife was denied US status and overstayed a bit; my daughter was indirectly killed by us having to go back to a bad country with poor healthcare). So I'd benefit personally from lax immigration laws, yet I can see it not working out overall.
Younger people seem more optimistic and more likely to find these views to be "bigoted" or terrible. I made the same accusations at that age.
Edit: If we want to help people in countries that are not doing well (many of them), importing people wholesale isn't the approach. Otherwise we'd just move everyone to the US and immediately solve world war, hunger, etc.
If they're not running their own countries well, then better countries should step in and run it for them. If your neighbor comes over claiming his house is too dirty to live in, you should go over and help him clean, not give him your room. National pride aside, I'd bet a lot of countries would welcome becoming a UK, Canada, US, or EU colony. It's not like it's a rule that colonies have to be exploitative.
The only problem is that a de-facto condition of being part of the EEA (free access to the single market) is the acceptance of unlimited immigration from/to the EU.
People seem to think this vote is the final word but my understanding is that it isn't legally binding and the final decision is up to elected politicians. That's why you saw the prime minister say he would resign. He supported staying and by him resigning new elections will be held.
The PM resigning does not result in new elections. The Conservative party will vote on a new leader and that person will become the new PM until 2020. (As things stand).
Yes that's right. It's not legally binding and the whole exit process only starts when the government invokes article 50 of the EU treaty, which is the exit process and lasts 2 years.
Cameron (the PM) talked about not invoking article 50 straight away, so maybe there's a glimmer of hope for us that voted to stay in that we still have time for further discussions.
Isn't this totally anti-democracy? Despite it not being legally binding, it seems totally in contrary to the people's will. I don't understand positively talking about going opposite of what people voted for.
It seems especially odd since it's usually the Leave side that's accused of being fascist.
Or is the idea to do more polling until a favourable outcome is received?
While I agree with what you say, there is very little of what I consider democracy involved in our media manipulated first past the post system. When the winning side basically backed out of their promises within hours of the result is it really democratic?
Nice spin in the title, under the huge assumption that voting preferences stay fixed over a lifetime. Or we could simply read the results as a confirmation to the old adage:
"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain."
Young voters will grow old, get wiser, and possibly want Brexit more than they did in their youth.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 35.1 ms ] threadObviously this is not a solution. People will say it's unfair. Others will try to influence the younger voters like never before. etc.
Anyone else have any other intersting ideas for this problem?
I personally think you should be able to vote on an issue in proportion to how much you care about it, but I'm not sure about the best way to go about that. One idea I've read about is to sell votes starting at $1 and the price of your next vote (you can vote as many times as you want) increases by the square of the total votes purchased (i.e. $1, $4, $9...) so that by the 100th vote you'd have to spend $10,000. But that wouldn't be a popular idea as it allows the mega rich to buy lots of votes.
I've done this to help elicit requirements from stakeholders and it works really well
This may not happen in isolated experiments, but if you build a political system on that concept, let it run for decades, in a world where a political decision can shift tens of billions of dollars (e.g. a fiscal change for banks, an environmental law for the dairy industry, etc), you'll see the system get gamed.
e.g. say I propose 100 bs bills to repeal gay marriage and abortion rights. I expect to lose, but opponents expend all their credits. Then I propose a law banning muslims and mexicans and put all my credits behind it. The end result is they get to keep what they had, status quo, and I get to pass something ridiculous.
Of course it works both ways, but my point is that you're creating a system where volume of bills is a strategy. And strategic, efficient use of credits, starts to matter. Such that I may choose NOT to vote for something I care about, because that credit has a premium on an even more important bill I fear might be proposed, which I absolutely have to put my weight behind. And an incentive not to vote doesn't sound like a system we should work towards.
At the end of the day, making something scarce like you propose does two things; 1) it makes things more efficient and meaningful, you don't play around with scarce things. That's great. But 2) It puts a cap on it, it's limited in amount, and in the context of exercising your vote, voicing your opinion, that's probably not something we should cap for people.
We already have this with financing campaigns (credits being money, which is both scarce and to some extent capped for campaign contributions), but I don't think it's ultimately (although super interesting) the right thing to do for the actual act of voting.
The particular strategy that you propose for gaming the system assumes that voting events are scattered throughout a term (I assume there is some period or term after which everyone's 100 votes are replenished?) rather than all being on the same day. If this is the case then another problem is the privacy issue that arises when the state has to track how many votes each citizen has left.
Both problems are solved if there is a single event each term, where you get a single ballot containing all the questions for that term and get to fill in at most N bubbles on the ballot, with zero or more for each question.
Such a system probably still has undesirable properties, though I'm struggling to contrive a good example of one at the moment.
And as a counterargument to older people being wiser older people tend to get very nostalgic about the old day and selectively remembering only the good things so I wouldn't trust the judgement of a random older person more.
From my perspective there are so many problems with referendums that it might not be possible to find a solution at all. They have become a way to destabilize the current government although those are the elected officials. And still, in a general election there would probably be a support for the established parties in Britain. This shows to me an unsolvable discrepancy between referendums and elections.
Yes, but it's a different argument for a different system or principle.
i.e., the democratic principle is that one can influence the governance of oneself, whether directly or indirectly, you vote on the governance of the society you live in. Rule of the people.
In line with that principle is his suggestion to weight vote by age. i.e., as a proxy for the duration or degree to which you'll live in said society under any given proposed policy, is heavier for young people than old people, simply because young people live longer in these societies under these policies, on average. Such that these people who live 'more' under this policy, could be argued to deserve a bigger influence. In the same way that I as a European can't and shouldn't be able to vote on US domestic policy because I don't live there, and in the same way there've been (pipedream) ideas for the world to receive a minor vote in US (foreign) policy, because they're subjected to it so much. It's all in line with democratic principles.
Your argument is a valid one, too, but it's linked on another principle, a more technocratic one i.e. those who are educated ought to govern. That's not a very democratic principle (although I'm not ruling it out on that basis, democracy is imo the least worst system, not a system to be blindly put on a permanent pedestal).
By and large I think people tend to favour the former (democratic) over the latter (technocratic) principle. And within that context, a minor degree of age-weighing makes some sense, on paper.
In practice it's hard to execute, easy to abuse, and merely captures a democratic proxy. i.e. you don't get to weigh in young people who die early, who migrate, and if you do weigh things, how much would young people get a bonus for, 5%? 10%? It becomes an impossible political game that I don't think makes sense in the real world, but it's interesting nonetheless.
Paying for votes I think is a terrible idea by the way. About making the proportion of caring matter, I think you may realise there's already something basic like that, which is deciding whether to vote or not in the first place. We've seen time and time again, votes going differently from the polls, because people who got approached on the phone had an opinion but couldn't care enough to exercise it with effort by voting.
You already are. Care enough and you can join grass roots movements who are trying to influence the population to vote a certain way. Afaik, the Brexiters were a grass root campaign and they managed to multiply their votes by convincing the public to vote to leave.
Proven to be false with the result of this vote.
I am going to go with the older generations simply remembering how much the United Kingdom worked to free the continent during two major wars. That is a lot of emotional background that only the most current generation doesn't really have.
The real truth is no one knows exactly what is going to happen. Oh sure there are predictions of doom and gloom, but a lot of this is related to big financial players not liking the public to have a voice. Never underestimate the vested interest in those profiting off the current setup.
We must also remember to not lambast the other side, neither side can claim to be a bastion of clear thinking and undisputed intelligence.
Anyone old enough to remember the war (at all) would be in their 70s-80s now. It's sad but I think there won't be any WWII veterans left soon.
I'm wondering if the EU isn't suffering from its own success. It modeled the free trade/free movement/peaceful cooperation at a time at which none of these things were common. That style of negotiation and cooperation then became common internationally, so that nowadays, it appears to make little difference if, say, Croatia is part of the EU or not.
Unlike older people, who appear to believe the £350million a week lie?
- The UK contributes, but also receives from the EU. The net is a 7 billion pound a year (136m, not 350m, a week) contribution to the EU.
Blatant lie there.
- Leave camp has consistently said the money will go to the NHS. Hours after the campaign, the most prominent leader of the leave camp has said this was a mistake and is not actually the case. Anyone who isn't naive recognises this is a deliberate lie, if you'd have asked him 24 hours ago he'd have said it goes to the NHS, nothing changed since then accept the fact people can't vote anymore, so it makes no sense to keep lying.
- The aforementioned 7 billion is on an economy of 1.85 trillion pounds, or 0.38% of GDP. Now recognise that 50% of the UK's exports go towards the EU.
The notion that the economic benefit of saving this 0.38% in contributions and losing prime access to the world's biggest market is a good economic deal is silly. The net benefit of contributions and membership is positive, so the UK isn't losing money or sending money because of its membership, let alone anywhere near 350m a week.
In theory those who provide most money can decide the most how is it going to be spent.
In practice I'm assuming taxes provide funds only for a very small part of a country spendings.
It's also a bad idea when you want to make good (as in maximize individual happiness) decisions, since the "10%" who'd end up with 90% of the political power have neither the knowledge nor (in some cases) the interest to help a majority of society.
Even they would actually not have to gain much from controlling spending (except by lowering taxes) as the super-richs' happiness is more or less independent of gov spending: private schools, private jets, private healthcare.
Oh, it's also a completely stupid & undemocratic idea, which led to my glib initial criticism.
I wouldn't like to speculate on how significant this bias might be though, nor would I know how to level that particular playing field. Maybe everyone donates into a central pot and campaigners all get an equal share of the pot?
The entrance exam idea is a little more complex though. The idea came about because I was frustrated by the number of people I'd spoken to who voted for a particular campaign while admitting they didn't really follow the campaign but just wanted "change". I saw it with a lot of UKIP supporters who hadn't read their manifesto. I also saw it with the EU referendum with friends that were unaware of any of the "Brexit" arguments but voted out anyway. I think it's weird - in fact borderline dangerous - to use ones vote to decide on a topic which one has intentionally chosen not to educate one's self on. However how do you test that one is informed without biasing the ballot? I think that could be an impossible challenge - and even if it was possible, it would be too easy to abuse at some point further down the line. So that eliminates that possibility as well.
Giving everyone an equal vote is the fundamental principle of democracy. And as much as we might complain about biases from specific demographics skewing the outcome, be that the older generation, younger generation, politically literate, racist, socialist, or whatever; we just have to live with the results. After all, as much as I might disagree with some agendas, there's others I agree with which I'm sure other demographics detest on principles that are as reasoned as the arguments I consider to be true. Such is the nature of individuals.
Every voter is required to write a test on the matter being voted on. And then their vote is weighted on the marks they got for the test.
That way people who have no idea what they are voting for have little say in the matter. And the people who really care about the issues will make sure they know how their vote will affect things, and they get a greater say in the matter.
On top of that, why shouldn't someone be able to vote on the basis of purely not wanting to be in the EU? Or voting with someone based on their perceived moral value? Or any other criteria?
I'm hardly pro-democracy, but this doesn't seem like a democratic solution.
It would have to be on whatever objective facts are available. But in situations like this that could be rather difficult.
> on the basis of purely not wanting to be in the EU?
IMHO making big decisions based purely on your feelings is always a bad idea.
> but this doesn't seem like a democratic solution
It's not democratic at all. But I'm just throwing around ideas for interest's sake. Until a provably better system comes around, I'd choose to live in a democratic country.
Meaning less people would show up to vote due to the time/effort.
While I doubt anyone will ever produce a concrete proposal for a testing system that is not too problematic for me to support it, I am not dismayed in the least by the prospect of losing voters who are not willing to invest the mental energy required by a 20-minute test on the topic of the vote.
You seem to assume that a reduction in voter turnout is unconditionally bad. I disagree.
That said, I like the idea of rethinking the way voting is done, in order to counter uninformed/populist trends. Such suggestions have been discussed in more detail here: https://outlookzen.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/reinventing-demo...
Probably some mathematical voting theory person has formalized this kind of question in terms of something like sampling and stable outcomes, but I'm not quite sure what keywords to look for there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Communities
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/24/ftse-100-an...
https://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&q=ftse+250
It's up 9% from where it was in February of this year. Surely the immediate market reaction to a huge political change is not a good indicator of anything.
I don't see how trade tariffs (which the UK will now have to negotiate) will be a good thing for the UK.
>I don't see how trade tariffs (which the UK will now have to negotiate) will be a good thing for the UK.
Just set up free trade zones. Unless the EU will be a bunch of un-self-intereseted dicks with a chip on their shoulder and for no other reason than spite exclude the UK from free trade networks.
I see absolutely no evidence of that. There has been no indication, and recent EU negotiations indicate, that there was negligible chance of the UK ever joining the Euro.
Turns out that, with regards to the Southern European bailouts, that didn't matter. Even with a deal in place to protect against being part of bailouts, the UK was still asked to pay £850 million towards the last Greek bailout.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/15/european-co...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36456277
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11737286/EU-dem...
"Britain will be liable for close to £1 billion of emergency loans to Greece, it can be revealed, after Jean-Claude Juncker tore up a “black and white” deal to protect UK taxpayers from Eurozone bailouts."
"Britain pays around 14 per cent of the EU budget – meaning that lending Greece 8.6 billion euros would leave UK taxpayers exposed to the tune of around £850 million. The risk of default is high. Yet Mr Cameron secured a binding written agreement with his counterparts at a Brussels summit in December 2010, explicitly prohibiting such a deal. In exchange for British consent to treaty change to create the ESM, the text of the deal stated that the EFSM would not be used again to bailout Eurozone members."
There's a huge generational gap - probably larger than that in the US even. Many younger voters are far further left than the country as a whole, and concepts like equality, human rights and social justice are a huge part of our politics.
There's a strong belief that the reasons for leaving the EU are, aside from kicking the Polish out, to start attacking the human rights, equality, worker protection, and welfare laws and procedures that were only implemented because we were forced to.
Additionally, leaving the EU, if we're correct in our beliefs, damages our country far more than any economic crisis would. An economic crisis means people have less to spend, and might struggle to find work for a few years. A change in how our country approaches various things that we consider to be rights? That could have effects lasting the next 50 years.
Leaving the EU means that the former are now subject to direct attack, and the latter's meaning and intent might reasonably be bent to breaking point - people seem to conflate the EU and the European Council a lot, and that confusion may allow our Government to get away with a lot given that people will argue that they voted for less international oversight and more ability to decide for ourselves. Being part of the EU was a bit of a legal buffer.
[0] Particularly interesting to me personally, much all our trans-related law is heavily influenced by the EU (although in Scotland, our Government has taken transgender protections to heart, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland it's not quite so rosy).
The result of that is going to be pressure on politicians to see how much the Government can get away with ignoring or only partially implementing ECHR judgements. Given that the only thing the European Council can actually do is put political pressure on us, it's possible that the Government might have a lot of leeway.
Additionally, both the Conservatives and UKIP agree on wanting to step away from the ECHR (and thus the European Council) entirely, with the Conservatives wanting to implement our own Bill of Rights to be implemented by British courts.
And on immigration -- the big topic -- as I see more an more things happen, I grow more and more skeptical that countries can sustain huge influxes while maintaining standards. I find this is true, even though I've been directly hurt by immigration law (my wife was denied US status and overstayed a bit; my daughter was indirectly killed by us having to go back to a bad country with poor healthcare). So I'd benefit personally from lax immigration laws, yet I can see it not working out overall.
Younger people seem more optimistic and more likely to find these views to be "bigoted" or terrible. I made the same accusations at that age.
Edit: If we want to help people in countries that are not doing well (many of them), importing people wholesale isn't the approach. Otherwise we'd just move everyone to the US and immediately solve world war, hunger, etc.
If they're not running their own countries well, then better countries should step in and run it for them. If your neighbor comes over claiming his house is too dirty to live in, you should go over and help him clean, not give him your room. National pride aside, I'd bet a lot of countries would welcome becoming a UK, Canada, US, or EU colony. It's not like it's a rule that colonies have to be exploitative.
Cameron (the PM) talked about not invoking article 50 straight away, so maybe there's a glimmer of hope for us that voted to stay in that we still have time for further discussions.
It seems especially odd since it's usually the Leave side that's accused of being fascist.
Or is the idea to do more polling until a favourable outcome is received?
i wonder how many of those 4% will even be alive + not senile by the time this plays out.
Cameron possibly just wants to avoid the clusterfuck of the next two years. Along the lines of Boris made this bed, let him sleep in it.
EDIT: And he's not resigning as a politician (which would trigger a by-election for his seat), he's only resigning as PM.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/24/who-will-be-our-n...
The UK votes for constituency members of parliament, not a prime minister.
"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain."
Young voters will grow old, get wiser, and possibly want Brexit more than they did in their youth.
Now get off my lawn.