Presumption of incompetence: man vs machine

Behind this messy argument is a deeper concern I have that we are doing a disservice to young people by presuming that they really do need more than a decade to learn advanced skills. We can subject young people to more intense education than we are now, and that they could have college-graduate level skills before they become 18 years old. Yet, we think that such an expectation is unwise as if it risks losing something more valuable. Perhaps we fear the young person’s loss to easy access to the presumption of innocence.

More thoughts on setting an age limit on voting in a Democracy

The point of setting a maximum age limit is to restore the approximate relative influence of young people that they enjoyed during the very successful years of US democracy during the 19th and early 20th century. The upper age limit must be low enough to exclude sufficient number of people from voting so that the younger voters can have an appropriate level of influence on voting and policy-making. According my calculations from census bureau data, about 32% of the population is over 55, but only 16% is over 65, and only 7% is over 75. The 55 year age limit results in a significant shift in voting power to young people. Setting the age at 65 is much less effective and by 75 there is hardly an affect at all. In terms of numbers, 55 works great as an upper voting age limit.

Modern era of longer lifespans exposes fatal flaw of democracy: the need to disenfranchise the old

Assuming that a democracy is strongest when the demographics of the eligible voters are younger, we can redefine the eligibility for voting rights from the current eligibility to all adults to a new eligibility of all young adults. In other words, we need disenfranchise adults after they reach a certain age. This mimics what nature did for us in the 19th century. Older adults will continue to enjoy long lifespans and pension-like benefits. They will lose the opportunity to vote after a certain age.

Cars and Internet

In the past couple years, there have been a conversation about a trend of declining interest in automobiles by the young adult generation.  I define young adults as ages between 18 and 34: what others have labeled as millennials.  Evidence of declining interest is the reduced occurrences per 1000 persons of car sales, car registrations,…

Healthcare and Education

Expanding my thinking about the impacts of current policies on the young adults, I see a pattern in both health care (in particular affordable care act) and education (in particular common core). By young adults, I’m using my own definition based on my own experience that the period of age between 19 and 34 are…