Let’s see. Homeowner, taxpayer, responsible parent, multiple degrees, writer, artist, musician, passionate advocate of political awareness and critical thinking.
ISTM I’m right in the OP’s wheelhouse…and yet, I might take that offer. Mind you, the waiting list for Timbers season tickets is like seven years long now, so it might be more of a motivation for me. But still.
I don’t think the intersection of “people who shouldn’t vote” and “people who like sportball” is particularly large.
By tax on people who are bad at math logic – trade your vote to enter a lottery?
A positive outcome is one in which the greatest amount of happiness and satisfaction is achieved in a group. This is utilitarian thinking. You should accept my definition because it is my term, and I define my own terms. This is debate 101.
Even if you could somehow figure out a way to determine which individuals are capable of good governing, I’d argue it would be a bad idea to give them exclusive control of the government. Because you’d still have the issue of where their interests lie.
Any government answers to the people who have power over it. If you have an intellectual elite that holds all political power, you’re going to end up with a government that places the interests of that elite ahead of the interests of everyone else.
That’s the reason democracy works better than other systems. It gives the broadest spectrum of people power over the government so the government has to serve a broad spectrum of people.
So I like our system. The general population has power through the voting process so the government has to answer to us. But we choose representatives - hopefully, those individuals who are capable of good governing - to run the government.
How do you address the organ donor scenario?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m generally a utilitarian myself. I feel it’s the best working system for ethics we’ve come up with. But I regard it the way I regard democracy as the best working system for government we’ve come up with and capitalism as the best working system for economics we’ve come up with. They’re the best systems we’ve got but none of them are perfect.
This is not a utopia I’m proposing; Just something better than we have now. Ben Carson’s vote would probably count, but plenty of irrational votes would be taken away also.
I don’t want to get too specific about who would make the cut, and who wouldn’t. All that needs to be acknowledged is that some personalities rely more heavily on emotions and traditions to make judgements. Taking more of these votes away would probably result in more rational votes being cast.
Also, Noam Chomsky probably still wouldn’t choose to vote.
Keep in mind that the loudest views often come from from the fringes. Sensationalism sells, and you won’t here many moderate opinions. These famous people that keep getting mentioned still only get one vote.
Noam Chompsky is a rational-minded thinker. That does not mean he comes to rational conclusions, but he does prefer to think in abstractions. He would probably get a vote, but it’s still just one vote.
Which, I think, inherently leads to a situation where “gridlock” is likely to occur. One might even consider it to be not a bug but a feature of a government accountable to so many different people/powers.
But, are the monarch and aristos to be chosen for intellectual qualities as defined by the OP? Historically, I think, most such have been the sort who, to the contrary, “put more value on emotional reasoning, common-sense, and traditional beliefs.” Understandably so, since monarchy and aristocracy are fundamentally traditional things.
So, basically, you want people who think like you think? Or at least what you imagine is an idealized version of how you think?
I don’t think the government needs to change, I think the culture of America needs to change. We need to stop voting for politicians who are anti-science, anti-evidence, or anti-intellectual. We shouldn’t mandate intellectuals* in public office, but that should be our ultimate goal.
I don’t see them having worse gridlocks than the ones we have in America. We shut down the government for 16 days over Obamacare.
Ah, then, you don’t want philosopher-kings, you want Technocracy!
Plenty of intellectuals have little experience dealing with “real world” problems, and consequently, they come up with ideas that sound great on paper, but don’t work in practice.
College professors are notorious for this. Never in a million years would I want economic decisions affecting me to be made by some tenured professor who has never had to worry about job security.
I would prefer to leave the means in the hands of the experts—people who have knowledge of the specific issues involved—and give everyone input into the ends. I have my doubts as to whether general-purpose “intellectuals” have any special handle on either of these.
Ah, but how do you define “happiness”? What do you do when one desired thing directly conflicts with another (e.g. liberty vs. safety vs. prosperity)? What about when one group’s happiness or well-being conflicts with another’s? What about the fundamental disagreement between those who believe government should be directly responsible for as much “happiness” as possible and those who believe government should leave people free to pursue their own happiness?
The greatest satisfaction and happiness for the greatest number of people.
That’s the pitch, but most people don’t accept the system and it’s decisions; Rather they tolerate them if things are going well enough for them. There is still rioting in democracies when conditions have gotten poor enough. This points to general welfare, instead of having a stake, as the reason people can go on about their lives after they don’t get their way.
I’m not sure what you mean by an abstract definition. If personalities are real, then they are measurable. We may lack the tools and science to adequately measure them now, however.
Also, no one is talking about excluding for lack of property, nor is it comparable to my argument. This reeks of an association fallacy in an otherwise thoughtful post.
Aside from threat of fines and jail time; Yea, no one has any obligation to follow the law.
Again, it’s about personality; Not intelligence and education level (although rational personalities tend to score higher in academics). You can find these people scattered throughout all demographics. What decisions would only benefit themselves?
He’s already making that decision for you. The only difference is so are many other people in addition to him.
You want to a propose a system where only a subset of the adult population gets to vote, but you “don’t want to get too specific about who would make the cut”? You’ve gotta be kidding… :rolleyes:
So, what is the process by which the chosen few are chosen? Who decides what process is to be used?
And how do you transition from democracy to aristocracy? People aren’t going to vote away their right to vote.