About 15 years ago there was some interest in putting in some wind towers in the township I lived in. People were talking about stray electricity killing their livestock. Never mind the several dozen towers already installed 3 miles away.

▲ joe_mamba 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>People were talking about stray electricity killing their livestock.

That's why I think voting shouldn't be a universal right to everyone, but a privilege you gain after clearing certain bars, one of them being basic education and an IQ test.

Giving every dumbass the same voting power as an academic, to grind national development to a halt and make life shit for everyone else just because they don't understand 5th grade physics, is a recipe for disaster and we're living proof of it.

If you ever worked in public rations and interacted with the gen-pop off the street on a regular basis, you'd see my point eye-to-eye. The masses are too stupid to be entrusted with national decisions, and the only reason they are allowed to, is because they are easily manipulated into voting the way the elites want them to, because they're stupid.

It's exactly why Plato opposed democracy arguing the same faults.

  >Plato argued that democracy gives power to the masses (the demos), who are often ignorant, emotional, and easily manipulated by skilled speakers (rhetoricians and demagogues).

Indisputable fact.

  >Plato believed that ruling is a skill that requires deep knowledge, wisdom, and training in philosophy — not something that should be decided by majority vote or popularity.

Indisputable fact.

  >He famously compared democracy to a ship where the sailors (citizens) vote on navigation, instead of letting the trained captain (philosopher) steer. The result, according to him, is chaos.

Indisputable fact.

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tardedmeme 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

it's a nice idea but you know they used to have this, and the test was basically just a list of things white people were more likely to know

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joe_mamba 4 hours ago | parent [-]

IDK, I'm not from a country that did stuff like that, so don't try to pin some original sin from the US history on me. I'm from a pretty homogenous country with no racial issues.

Now are you saying only whites will be able to understand 5th grade physics and nobody else? Or that whites can't be stupid too?

Personally I don't care about your skin color, or other factors, if you're THAT stupid, I don't want you deciding the future of our country, period, since you're putting everyone in danger.

If you can't pass 5th grade physics, you're not fit to be voting on the country's nuclear energy policy, simple.

	▲	infecto 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You could replace skin color with any attribute and it will probably happen. You can see it play out across the world time and time again, in any type of downturn or bad luck people on average find it easier to blame another group than themself. Take this a step forward and you get momentum to carve requirements that would exclude that group. Oh you want to participate in voting? You need to be able to list the Qur’anic commandments to be able to vote or whatever your flavor of restriction is.
	▲	nancyminusone 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		No, they are saying that your so-called idea has already been tried, but what actually happened was that <insert majority> who already had control set it up so <insert majority> could vote easily while <insert minority> could not. Could be race, could be something else. There is no such thing as an "objective test" for your case, because someone somewhere would need to determine it is objective. Who verifies that person, and who verifies the people who verify them?
	▲	infecto 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> IDK, I'm not from a country that did stuff like that, so don't try to pin some original sin from the US history on me. I'm from a pretty homogenous country with no racial issues. Also going back on this comment. What country are you from? I have always found that the US gets the short stick when in reality these problems have happened everywhere. Usually the countries that think they have no problems are because they are homogenous.
	▲	vrganj 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The concern isn't that only whites will be smart enough. The concern is that the current power structure will use this as a convenient way to bias the voter pool in its favor through strategic selection of questions.

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infecto 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s like communism or anarchocapitlism, it works on paper but hard in practice. Preventing voting is a nice idea but really hard to get right because humans are messy animals.

The world is messy and one of the reasons I am such a believer in markets on average is because they help align outcomes in the world we live in.

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pstuart 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree with the complaint but have yet to see a mechanism that is free of abuse and disenfranchisement.

People are stupid and vote with their emotions or what the pastor told them to. It would be lovely to ensure that votes came from well informed voters.