[extropy-chat] Enlightenment and the election

Hal Finney hal at finney.org
Wed Nov 10 00:49:40 UTC 2004


Brent Neal writes:
> If you aren't literate, you don't deserve to vote. Sorry. That might
> be heresy here, but I am a firm believer that the right to vote is one
> that should be earned. If you are not able to fill out a ballot, one can
> only assume that you are also not capable of gathering enough information
> on your own to make an informed choice and the use of that capability is
> the responsibility that balances the right. However much you rant, rave,
> and wail about how some of us exercise those critical thinking skills,
> any republic or democracy requires the exercise thereof for stability.

I suggest that a good way to think about this is to imagine that in the
future you will be able to move to a space station or virtual world, where
the different worlds have different forms of government.  Ask yourself
whether you would rather move to a station where everyone could vote
irregardless of ability or knowledge, vs a station where voters had to
pass some kind of test.  You'd choose based on which system seemed to
produce the most favorable results.

This kind of approach bypasses arguments based on natural rights by
allowing people to focus on which systems would produce outcomes they
prefer.  Hopefully in the future we will have enough diversity that
people will be able to voluntarily choose their form of government in
some way along these lines.

Hal



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