UK politics, Truss me, I really am that mental.

[Spockydog]

Just because we are so shit, doesn't make children fit to govern. 

[Heartofice]

Replacing one bad thing with another bad thing doesn't seem a logical step. It's the sort of boomer logic I'm sure Mormont is trying to get away from. 

Plus, speak for yourself. Many of the problems of the system have affected me and I'm in my 40s! It's not like I've found it easy to get a job, found it easy to get on the property ladder, or any of the big issues affecting society in the last few years. 

You don't need to be 18 to see the problems in the system, in fact you will probably be far more aware of them from your own life experience than an 18 year old, whose main experience of the world comes through their phone. 

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

Just because we are so shit, doesn't make children fit to govern. 

For Christ's sake. It's not like they are governing as POTUS or the UK PM. They have a single seat on a local city council for one ward of Peterborough City. 

[mormont]

4 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Just because we are so shit, doesn't make children fit to govern. 

Adults. 18 year olds are adults. 

There's no better example of what I'm talking about than the reflexive infantilisation of 18 year olds by people who would not have stood for the same attitude when they were 18. 

Also, do I not recall approving remarks from you about Mhairi Black, who was all of 20 when she was elected? Do the two years really make that much of a difference?

[Spockydog]

After some thought, two words have forced me to completely reverse my position.

Greta. Thunberg.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, mormont said:

Also, do I not recall approving remarks from you about Mhairi Black, who was all of 20 when she was elected? Do the two years really make that much of a difference?

Yeah good example of someone I would not want in charge of the country. Thanks for bringing her up.

Edit. Oops, I'm thinking of Nadia Whittome for some reason. 

Edited May 3 by Heartofice

[BigFatCoward]

Ì don't think I've ever read something so naive in my entire life. What preposterous horseshit. 

The desire to change things doesn't give you the ability to do so. Even if you are 100% right in identifying what the problems are. 

Also, she doesn't seem the type who has experienced the gut wrenching hopelessness of the youth of today. If it has to be an 18 year old I want them from a shithole estate in Tottenham. 

Edited May 3 by BigFatCoward

[mormont]

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Ì don't think I've ever read something so naive in my entire life. What preposterous horseshit. 

The desire to change things doesn't give you the ability to do so. Even if you are 100% right in identifying what the problems are. 

Also, she doesn't seem the type who has experienced the gut wrenching hopelessness of the youth of today. If it has to be an 18 year old I want them from a shithole estate in Tottenham. 

Naive is the one thing I am not, when it comes to 18 year olds and politics. I've run student elections for almost all my adult life. My student officers walk into committees full of middle aged professionals: lecturers, lawyers, accountants, doctors. And they make their case, and often as not, they do a better job of it than those professionals. They improve the university. They have the ability and the desire to effect meaningful change in their community - not just the student community, but the wider community. Not to be too sappy, but it's actually inspiring. Do some of them fuck it up? Sure. But on the whole, I rate my student officers higher than my local councillors. And that's not naivete, that's the voice of experience.

[BigFatCoward]

That is not remotely your bias showing through and is strong empiric evidence. I'm utterly convinced. 

 

[lacuna]

I could be wrong, but you two probably encounter two vastly different breeds of 18-year-olds in your respective lines of work. Pretty much the opposite ends of the same bell curve.

Edited May 3 by lacuna
clarity

[mormont]

Probably. But the sort of 18 year old who wants to sit on a local council is the sort I encounter, not the sort BFG encounters.

That said, in an ideal world, we'd see 18-25 year olds from all sorts of backgrounds standing for election. It's never going to happen, but it would be a good thing if it did.

[BigFatCoward]

26 minutes ago, lacuna said:

I could be wrong, but you two probably encounter two vastly different breeds of 18-year-olds in your respective lines of work. Pretty much the opposite ends of the same bell curve.

I've met 18-21 year olds that could barely function as human beings. Now they are commanders and deputy commisioners. It's not that 18 year old can't do a better job than grown ups, it's that the best grown up is better than the best 18 year old by a factor of 10. 

Idealism is great, youthful enthusiasm has its place in driving policy, but it doesn't get shit done. 

Also the notion that student politics and actual politics are remotely similar, come on. 

Edited May 3 by BigFatCoward

[Bironic]

I agree that having some life experience (also outside of politics etc.) is generally a good thing. Still my experience is that we underestimate the youth, especially the current youth seem to be more  positively engaged with society in many ways than my own was. The fact that they are vastly underrepresented in basically all leadership positions, while the guys in those positions are mostly older (40-100) and/or male and still we are here we are with all our problems, the fact that we do have an aging population, makes me shift to the position that we should encourage participation of younger generations in the political sphere.

As a side note one of the oldest written documents (I think in sumerian or akkadian, ca 4000 years old) says something along the lines: the youth of today is reprehensible and fucked up, our future is doomed... (I don't recall the actual words but you get the general gist).

And yes there are also obviously young people that are trash, age is not a general sign of quality (l mean Trump and Bernie Sanders are basically the same age)

[DanteGabriel]

43 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

It's not that 18 year old can't do a better job than grown ups, it's that the best grown up is better than the best 18 year old by a factor of 10. 

Politics doesn't attract the best grown-ups, though, does it? Your current government couldn't get one soul into heaven if they pooled all their good deeds together (not that those abysmal shitheels could actually pool something together).

So why not put some faith in young, energetic people who might actually believe in public service?

Edited May 3 by DanteGabriel

[HexMachina]

some 18 year Olds are likely good candidates. Some aren't. The same way some 35 or 40 or 60 year Olds may be. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of such a blanket statement about a demographic, but certainly age alone shouldn't be an immediate disqualifier

[Heartofice]

One of the most obvious flaws of most modern politicians is that they have very little real world experience. They have never had a proper job, never had to deal with any of the problems your average person has gone through.

A sensible solution to that would be to try and elect people with more real world experience.

Or you could take the opposite, bizarro approach and say ‘nah fuck it’ and go all in on zero life experience and put a bunch of kids in charge instead. Just 100% nihilistic anarchy! How bad could it be?

[DMC]

I think the age minimums the US has at the federal level here are just fine - 25 for House, 30 for Senate, 35 for POTUS.  Kinda remarkable these were established 235 years ago and still pretty much work.

However, it seems this is like a city council seat, no?  In that case I wouldn’t have a problem with an 18 year old.  Those jobs are hardly full time anyway.

Whereas holding federal office, if an 18 to 24 year wanted to run I would advise them to focus on getting an education during those years and perhaps apprenticing/working on campaigns first.  Not because they can’t conceivably be “better” than older officeholders, but just because they should want to ensure they are as prepared as possible before standing for public office.

[Bironic]

24 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

One of the most obvious flaws of most modern politicians is that they have very little real world experience. They have never had a proper job, never had to deal with any of the problems your average person has gone through.

A sensible solution to that would be to try and elect people with more real world experience.

I agree with you. The problem with that approach is that people who don't have real world experience have a much better chance to run for office and get elected. Across all western nations politicians are often a) relatives of other politicians or b) have a significantly higher income and wealth than the average population they are supposed to represent, or c) both. Thus limiting the "real world experience" they could possibly have. It's easy to run for office if your father is a wealthy lawyer, less so if he's a poor builder...

The ancient Greeks considered political systems with elected offices as Oligarchies, and only considered those with offices chosen by lot as democracies. Obviously the ancient greek political systems were very different from our modern world, but still I do think they have a point.

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

I think the age minimums the US has at the federal level here are just fine - 25 for House, 30 for Senate, 35 for POTUS.  Kinda remarkable these were established 235 years ago and still pretty much work.

Does it still work, or does it work now? I mean, I agree it’s perfect now but what was the life expectancy 235 years ago? Here it says it was 39,4 years. If that site is even remotely close to the mark, then by the time you were allowed to run for president you were about to croak! 

[DMC]

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

Does it still work, or does it work now? I mean, I agree it’s perfect now but what was the life expectancy 235 years ago? Here it says it was 39,4 years. If that site is even remotely close to the mark, then by the time you were allowed to run for president you were about to croak! 

We’ve had this discussion before (on this board, not you and me), but life expectancy rates during that time period are heavily skewed by infant/child mortality.  Usually, if you made it to adulthood you had a good opportunity to live a fairly long life.  Hell, just look at how old plenty of founding fathers lived to.