I call that a strawman, as a person who is paralized from the neck down is very unlikely to confront an attacking bear. That person has other worries than escaping a bear attack.
I don’t think you understand what my argument is, or what portion of your statements a given portion of my argument is arguing against.
You were saying that measurements of cognitive function are relevant to the question of whether demographics affect political craziness, in the specific sense of whether a relatively aged population will have more political craziness.
I’ve made multiple arguments against the original question. But in pointing out that people with high cognitive function can also have high political craziness, my argument was that measuring cognitive function doesn’t tell us much of anything about political craziness. This can be true whether or not age affects political craziness, yes; but in making that specific argument I wasn’t even addressing that, I was only addressing, at that specific point, whether measuring cognitive function is a useful way to answer the question.
There are calculators available. Here’s one set to the current population and a fertility rate of 1.8:
https://ile.github.io/population-calculator/#human_age=80&title=&birth_rate=1.8&birth_age=21&immigration=0&start_pop=8100000000×pan=200&start_year=2024&pyramid=flat
It hits 6B about 92 years from now. You can play around with different numbers to see how they affect things.
The results are dependent on several things like human lifespan and the current population distribution, and that changes over time, so there’s no way to have total confidence in the results. Also, this calculator doesn’t seem to take early deaths into account: 2.0 gives zero growth, but normally a number of 2.1-2.2 is considered flat to account for women that die before reproductive age. So 1.8 is really equivalent to about 1.9. But it’s a reasonable ballpark.
And likewise, a one legged man is probably not going to take part in an ass-kicking contest. Never-the-less, if he was then he would be one busy guy.
Saying that there are examples that go against the rule doesn’t say anything about whether the rule holds or not.
If the majority of people are smart and crazy then, yes, it doesn’t matter how capable people are because the majority rules in a voting system.
But the definition of smart is “one half of not average” and the definition of crazy is “functioning in a way that is not average”. Whether we assume that those two things go hand and hand with one another or are layered out across society with no correlation, either way you’re ending up with a minority.
Yes, there are smart-crazy people. Good for them. We’re not talking about individuals, we’re talking about society. Anecdote is not data. If you can demonstrate that smart-crazies are the norm, then you’ve got a point. But, as said, by definition they must be a minority.
Cognitive performance across society can be high and it can be low, compared to some baseline, and in both examples there can be people who are smart-crazies. Pointing out that they can exist doesn’t change anything.
Huh?
For at least the third time: high cognitive performance doesn’t prevent (or cause) political craziness. Therefore, you can’t measure political craziness by measuring cognitive performance. Not in individuals, and not in groups.
It’s been a fun and ignorance fighting thread, but the OP’s case is in tatters. Its burden of proof is quite high. If you’re going to advocate disenfranchisement, you not only have to show a relationship between age and madness, you have to show a really really strong relationship.
I think belief in Bigfoot is a decent proxy. Disappointingly to me, there appears to be no relationship with age. There is a relationship with education, but not not the overwhelming one that you would need to consider disenfranchisement. High school dropouts had 27% belief while those with Masters degrees or above were 11%. Disenfranchise the dropouts, and you’re committing an injustice on three quarters of the group, for a CCRP (cray-cray reduction percentage) of only 16 points.
Similarly, it’s not sufficient to show cognitive decline above the age of 70 (or 26). The effect has to be really large.
There might be a case for voters having the option of passing their vote over to a trusted party, but then you run smack into Dunning-Krueger issues (in addition to practical ones, wholly irrelevant to this late-night gabfest).
Ok, let’s see how much time we have to work with before humans reach extinction. Ludicrously assume South Korea’s 2021 fertility rate of 0.81 in perpetuity. Zero immigration. 8.1 billion people. First birth at age 21. Average human age of 82 (that’s what the label is: I assume it’s life expectancy).
Assume a conservative estimate of minimum viable population of 10,000. We would hit that in 360 years. Raise fertility to Italian levels of 1.2 and we have 600 years. Still plenty of time.
What about technological collapse? Nobody wants to give up their iPhone after all. That requires a higher population base, but it also implies some pretty off the charts increases in wages (and declines in natural resource factor costs) as productivity goes through the roof. Wake me up when we see even a hint of that.
Incidentally, if you’re really concerned about this, consult with a demographic literature review, which I was able to find upthread. Here’s a salient quote, emphasis added:
To explain why the empirical relationship between women’s labor force participation and fertility has not just flattened, but entirely reverted, research has taken directions that go beyond the first-generation models. A general theme in this new literature is that the compatibility of family and career has become a key determinant of fertility in high-income economies. Where the two are easy to combine, many women have both a career and multiple children, resulting in high fertility and high female labor force participation. When career and family goals are in conflict, fewer women work and fewer babies are born. We point out four factors that help mothers combine a career with a larger family: the availability of public childcare and other supportive family policies; greater contributions from fathers in providing childcare; social norms in favor of working mothers; and flexible labor markets. We outline how new-generation models take these factors into account and thereby help explain the new facts concerning fertility behavior in high-income countries.
It’s an interesting article. Fun chart:
Admittedly a lot of it (all of it?) is driven by Spain and Portugal.
Careful and vetted observers are unanimous: large swathes of US voting public are utterly fruit loops. But what is to be done? I would advocate a surgical approach, but until scientists locate the cray-cray center of the brain, that’s not a viable option. Demographic approaches have been considered and rejected upthread. So we need to consider wilder measures.
Kevin Drum documents the increase in US polarization and rage during the 21st century, measures it with polling over time, considers 3 or 4 possible explanations, and reports that Fox News Primetime viewership is the only thing that really matches up well.
When it debuted in 1996, Fox News was an afterthought in Republican politics. But after switching to a more hardline conservatism in the late ’90s it quickly attracted viewership from more than a third of all Republicans by the early 2000s. And as anyone who’s watched Fox knows, its fundamental message is rage at what liberals are doing to our country. Over the years the specific message has changed with the times—from terrorism to open borders to Benghazi to Christian cake bakers to critical race theory—but it’s always about what liberal politicians are doing to cripple America, usually with a large dose of thinly veiled racism to give it emotional heft. If you listen to this on a daily basis, is it any wonder that your trust in government would plummet? …
Fox News isn’t really a news outlet. You can be a conservative journalist, but if you are a journalist at all you pursue scoops: Hannity in contrast doesn’t report on the wild things Trump says to him over the phone, even when the topic is insurrection. Fox News’ product is reassurance, not explanation. They do have some vulnerabilities: their business relies on people who never watch their show. About two dollars per month in cable fees is passed on to Fox News. So cut the cable. And as a general strategy try everything.