As I understand it, this is supposed to be one of the things government is for—to coordinate spending when trying to do these things privately would suffer from a free rider problem. I try not to talk about politics on here—mind-killer and all that—but one way to address this would be to try to improve the rationality of voters. I increasingly believe that preparing people to be participants in a democracy should be the primary function of schools.
Does a concept of “less rational people” even have any sense
And most likely it would be highly damaging, I don’t have any evidence with me but I’m willing to bet real money on prediction market for that, that in cases where some class of people are excluded from voting (vote rarely like young people, or don’t matter much due to the way votes are counted), their interests are seriously underrepresented in government decisions, relative to interests of classes of people who are voting a lot, in a way that matters (old people, regional interests in first past the post systems).
If you found a way to identify less rational people that didn’t exclude any groups that were identifiable enough for government policy to discriminate against them, it could work, but that sounds hard.
Limiting the franchise sounds tough but there are some obvious ways to reduce the number of less rational people who are voluntarily choosing to vote: reduce the number of get-out-the-vote campaigns, specifically those that mindlessly repeat slogans about voting, and focus more on campaigns with a rational explanations of why people ought to vote
Of course… perhaps get-out-the-vote campaigns tend to have more of an impact in demographics that vote less on average, like young people, so they might have other beneficial effects in that way (and given that probably the portion of potential voters who aren’t swayed by mindlessly spouting slogans about voting is vanishingly small, this would probably dramatically outweigh any effects of them on voter rationality). Still, it’s a thought. Get-out-the-vote campaigns just seem INCREDIBLY weird to me.
Get out the vote campaigns are often just excuses to get out the vote for groups that are likely to vote according to the organizer, if for no other reason than that a particular neighborhood might be inclined to vote one way.
As I understand it, this is supposed to be one of the things government is for—to coordinate spending when trying to do these things privately would suffer from a free rider problem. I try not to talk about politics on here—mind-killer and all that—but one way to address this would be to try to improve the rationality of voters. I increasingly believe that preparing people to be participants in a democracy should be the primary function of schools.
Couldn’t you greatly increase voter rationality much faster and cheaper by limiting the franchise or encouraging less rational people not to vote?
Does a concept of “less rational people” even have any sense
And most likely it would be highly damaging, I don’t have any evidence with me but I’m willing to bet real money on prediction market for that, that in cases where some class of people are excluded from voting (vote rarely like young people, or don’t matter much due to the way votes are counted), their interests are seriously underrepresented in government decisions, relative to interests of classes of people who are voting a lot, in a way that matters (old people, regional interests in first past the post systems).
If you found a way to identify less rational people that didn’t exclude any groups that were identifiable enough for government policy to discriminate against them, it could work, but that sounds hard.
Limiting the franchise sounds tough but there are some obvious ways to reduce the number of less rational people who are voluntarily choosing to vote: reduce the number of get-out-the-vote campaigns, specifically those that mindlessly repeat slogans about voting, and focus more on campaigns with a rational explanations of why people ought to vote Of course… perhaps get-out-the-vote campaigns tend to have more of an impact in demographics that vote less on average, like young people, so they might have other beneficial effects in that way (and given that probably the portion of potential voters who aren’t swayed by mindlessly spouting slogans about voting is vanishingly small, this would probably dramatically outweigh any effects of them on voter rationality). Still, it’s a thought. Get-out-the-vote campaigns just seem INCREDIBLY weird to me.
Get out the vote campaigns are often just excuses to get out the vote for groups that are likely to vote according to the organizer, if for no other reason than that a particular neighborhood might be inclined to vote one way.
There aren’t enough of them. Obvious problems would result.
Rationality should be the primary purpose of schools. You get the other as a side-effect.
Rationality should be the primary purpose of schools. You get the other as a side-effect.