[extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence

[Adrian Tymes]

--- rick <aperick at centurytel.net> wrote:
> Adrian Tymes wrote:
> >It is trivial to prove this is logically
> inconsistent,
> unless by "qualified to vote" you mean "qualified to
> vote for whoever the males would vote for" or
> something like that.  A candidate who, for instance,
> advocated treating women as property would get a
> fewer
> votes from women used to freedom than from men used
> to
> freedom.  Therefore, disallowing females from voting
> would make the election of such candidates more
> likely, and the set of all females is not entirely a
> random sample with respect to the set of all human
> beings.
> 
> Trivial is it? Your proof seems to rest on just one
> ridiculous
> assumption -- you seem to have a horrible opinion of
> men in general:
> implying that men in general wish to mistreat women.

No, I'm just implying that there are more men who wish
to mistreat women than women who wish to mistreat
women.  I suspect that statement is likely to be
accepted as likely true with little question.  I'm
saying nothing about the motives of the rest of the
population, or about the raw proportion: even a
difference as minor as .11% versus .10% would suffice,
so long as the fraction is enough to account for one
full person.  In fact, the logic would also hold true
even if it were the other way - that is, if there were
more women who wish to mistreat women than men who
wish to mistreat women.  All that is needed is a
difference, any difference, no matter the size so long
as it is not exactly zero.

> And that women, on
> the other hand, are saintly in general.

Nope.  You can apply the reverse easily - there are
more women who wish to mistreat men than men who wish
to mistreat men - and the proof still holds true.

All I'm saying is, one can construct certain cases
where the average male vote and the average female
vote would differ, therefore the average female vote
and the average male vote are not exactly identical in
all conceivable cases, therefore justifying denying
the vote to all females (or to all males) based on
logic which assumes that they are always identical is
invalid.  The specific example I chose was one that, I
suspect, most people will see has actually come up in
real elections with respect to this issue.