Elon Musk supports eliminating voting rights for people without children
3 years ago by mainaccount to c/politics
Yeah but they are still having kids lol that's just what they want
To think that not so long ago, this authoritarian, grifting man-child was hailed as the real-life Tony Stark. If the mask slips any further, even his remaining fanboys are going to find it difficult to defend him.
I don't think he has near as many fanboys as the musk circlejerkers on reddit always made it out to seem. I barely ever see anyone genuinely fanboy him anymore, at most many are neutral to him while still thinking he's an idiot.
I think reddit (and social media in general) just has a habit of giving megaphones to "the other side", no matter how small it actually is, so they can have someone to appear to argue against so it doesn't look like they're yelling at a wall.
Not enough people point out he has bot farms at this disposal.
Old news, predates Twitter. His popularity is wildly over estimated. It's inflated. It's fake. Always was meme.
I love the smell of painful truth in the morning.
I always assumed this was the case. One of the richest men in the world with an ego this fragile would definitely have his own propaganda campaign.
Interesting that by killing twitter and with Reddit dying off, he’s robbing himself of the ability to spin anything that’s said about him.
It feels like we’re minutes away from most of the content on the internet being generated by AI and most of it being consumed by bots.
I'm a big fan of SpaceX. I think they are doing amazing things that will make space allot more accessible. That being said he's definitely a douche.
SpaceX is successful because he lets Gwynne Shotwell take charge and run the company while he soaks up the praise. And even then, SpaceX has big problems. When Starship destroyed its launchpad (rumored to be due to Musk's interference, big surprise), it sent debris everywhere, particulate matter across a wildlife preserve and started a brush fire there. It also reached a nearby town. It was an environmental disaster and it's barely been discussed.
The FAA did say they need to address it for future launches. I think a small fire is an acceptable cost for progress. Starship could do for space what the caravel did for the oceans.
Musk was never a decent guy.
I remember back in like 2018 and 2019 I pegged him as either Stark, early on, or Lex Luthor. Either way, he was an asshole, with the only concept of philanthropy being what he could gain from it.
Turns out I gave him way too much credit in both cases, he isn't even close to their intellects.
You're telling me the billionaire whose family fortune came from apartheid emerald mines is a total cunt?
I'm shocked! Shocked! ... Well, not that shocked.
Ah yes, “I don’t want to say gay and intersex people shouldn’t be allowed to vote, but I do want it to happen.”
Anyways I’m sterile and drive the most fuel efficient vehicle practical, don’t eat meat, and have made other sacrifices for future generations to have a habitable planet. Musky here has a private jet and at least one of his kids hates him
This may come as a shock to him, but a gay person can have children.
Gay parenting rights were a hard fought battle and are currently being eroded in some places like Florida and Italy.
Not if he has anything to say about it.
How about we stop caring what that clown has to say?
I find it especially egregious the people who (rightfully) bash him, but continue to support his products such as Twitter and Tesla. Stop supporting him. Especially on Twitter. Advertisers have fled the platform. Some users have as well. If even 1/2 the people who claim to hate the guy just stopped using Twitter, the entire platform would collapse. Instead you people prop up that site by going to it.
People whine about how shitty the API has become and how shitty tech support is and how there's no one to talk to when they run into bugs - yet they keep paying Musk $42,000 a month for that privilege.
Elon Musk probably also supports eliminating voting rights for people without a blue check
Service Guarantees Citizenship!
IM DOING MY PART
For the same reason the opinion of someone like Rupert Murdoch matters. Its not about their viewpoint directly as an individual, its the fact they control massive platforms that can and do sway public opinions.
In murdochs case he's had an influential impact on British politics over the last 40 years and has used his media empire to act as a king maker.
Musk isn't as savvy or as intelligent as Murdoch but that doesn't mean is influential position should be ignored.
I think eliminating voting rights for citizens without children is a fascist policy. Fascism is about enforcing a "correct" or "natural" hierarchy in society. Historically this has usually been about race, but has also included other factors (for example, disabled people were the first group targeted for extermination by the Nazis). For some of us, not having kids is a choice (and imo a valid one that shouldn't be punished by the state). But this sounds like an easy way to discriminate against same-sex couples, and all fascist systems have a history of doing that.
I personally find Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco a good read. Fascism is really hard to pin down because it's quite a wide category due to the different tendencies in history.
It's a fair question, but you're probably getting downvoted because you "feel like people are really throwing that term around a lot and it’s kind of concerning". People are throwing the term around a lot because of all the fascism, and the fact that you find the term more concerning than the actual fascism is a bad look.
They took our ability to have children through monetary strain, caused by corporate greed, now they think we should lose voting rights lol...
Elon to Twitter execs - "Don't you guys wanna get off with me? Just follow my lead guys, we're gonna get off together."
At this point I have finally realised that Elon Musk is an attention-seeking cunt and we should probably start to just ignore him, at least for a while.
However, I've got some ideas! Instead of people without children, how about we restrict the vote to the children themselves? How does that sound, Elon? Nobody over 20 should get a vote because they only have... pthh, I dunno, a few decades, 90 years at most left on this planet, so fuck them. Am I right? Maybe we could give everyone a voting point for every year they have left assuming an average lifespan of 75 years - perhaps women could have more points as they generally live longer. That would be fair, no? We should also completely take money out of politics and stop billionaires and large corporations from undermining democracy too! Don't you think that's a great idea?
Plus, I know some SHITTY parents who don’t consider their kids much at all. Why don’t we limit the vote to good parents who can prove they love their children by sacrificing themselves for their kids in a simulated environment? I mean, this is the future! VR voting compassion-for-your-children tests. Elon loooves futurestuff
I don't want people to ignore him. I want him in the news every day, pissing people off and agitating the masses.
Every time Musk opens his mouth the screams "eat the rich!" get louder. Why on Earth would I want that to stop?
Him constantly being in the news is like a significantly less annoying version of Trump, so I'd like to ignore him at least :) When Trump stopped being president it was like someone finally figured out how to stop a car alarm that had been going off outside my window for four years.
I hope we get to the eat the rich part before they have armies of security robots controlled by extremely advanced AI :)
Trump is the president this country deserves, and I mean that in the worst way possible.
When will Elon eventually or slowly fade out of popular media and when he's alienated everyone around him he can go away and live as a recluse. He can be the next Howard Hughes, living in a dark casino hotel room wearing Kleenex boxes on his feet.
Ideally less of a casino hotel room and more a hole in the floor
Welcome to the rise of aggressively pro-natalism billionaires, because it's 2023 and we're not imploding fast enough.
Remember, you won't have a seat on the transport to Mars. And if you ever get there, it will be to work the mines.
I played that video game. I'm signing up with the mercs in that case.
Are you thinking of the Red Faction series?
I support eating the rich; one bite at a time.
Tiny bite Elon
I disagree with his fundamental premise that people with children can see the interests of society better.
I don't have children, but I have heard from every possible source that once you have children they become your world.
How is a person expected to reason clearly about the interest of millions of people when they are running an ancient biological program focused on the interests of a tiny family unit?
edit: I once saw the argument that having family doens't make you a better person. Having family makes you a ruthless user and taker on behalf of your family. Most of the stories you hear of people giving in to corruption, happen because those people can't afford to lose their jobs, because they have mouths to feed. Once you have kids, you must choose whether you value your kids over your civic responsibility, or vice-versa.
People with children won't have the time to research issues too deeply, and they will be sleep deprived for several years.
They make better sheep.
There are plenty of people with children who vote against their children's best interests.
Edit: misread your disagree as agree
I really hope this guy loses everything one day.
Considering that he doesn't give a shit about his own children, this is typical Musk-Irony (tm)
Are people still listening to that idiot? Like, why though?
A guy with three passports for three different countries should take his wildly out-of-touch idiocy and fuck off.
Yeah, only the desperate, finantially dependent on shitty jobs to feed their youngling should vote. Only them and the wealthy people that provide said shitty jobs. That will surely save what little democracy is left. You know what? People that make as much money as Musk should not be allowed to vote or to donate in order to influence campaings. These dudes have no real nationality, they are not tied anywhere and don’t have the best interest of any nation at heart. Billionaires are practically a walking, talking, foreign power operating within your country’s borders with almost total impunity. A self-deluded eugenecist foreign power at that.
It's been the same since the beginning. Thomas Jefferson complained about them too.
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
He has a trans daughter who hates him. She disowned him and legally changed her last name when she became an adult.
I can't imagine how terrible a father he has to be in order to turn down inheriting part of the richest man in the world's fortune.
Given that this is what her mom has to say about Elon it’s not surprising at all
Thank you for sharing that link. That was a very interesting read!
Glad to share it. I first read it years ago and it’s what made me dislike him in the first place. I know too many men in tech who act exactly that way and treat their wives like consolation prizes.
Immediately read this headline and thought "Next, only married people should be having kids so realistically only the husband needs to vote since his wife should align with him". Followed by some good ol SA-style apartheid for the minorities.
"Turns out non-landowners don't have much stake in the future"
Not surprising anymore. The guy (like his father) has a insane breeding fetish. And never forget that his father groomed his own adopted daughter (that he know since she was a child) and has two kids with her 🤮.
This last couple years has done a great job of exposing the Musk family weird breeder kink.
He doesn't even do the work himself for THAT, He uses artificial insemination.
I mean, technically he does some amount of work…
Probably a milking situation where he just has to sit back and come up with more dumb shit to say on Twitter
what an image
It's generally just beneficial for ultra high tax rates as wealth goes up. That's what actually incentivizes "trickle down economics". As the uber wealthy approach the tax limit it stops making sense for them to horde the wealth. And, instead of letting the tax man get it most of them decide to put their money back into the businesses or charities or whatever.
More realistically you can make more tax brackets for levels of income higher than $500k. Cash income regularly exceeds this for CEOs.
You can also pass laws restricting how much can be paid out in ways other than cash both in value and percentage of shares. Or increase capital gains tax further past certain limits (this has already happened in 2013). Or have a graduated tax on loans taken against certain collateral (like stocks, bonds).
The laws themselves can get a bit complicated but such is law. There are plenty of ways to make sure the rich pay their fair share. They just don't want us doing it.
why republicans always find a way to deny voting for some random group?
in this case i don't even think it's representative of the average republican since he's got like 9 children and probably thinks himself the second coming of jesus kkkrist who will bring humanity to a new life in free speech mars
Maybe we should take away his rights too since he doesn't actually take care of his kids.
It's crazy to me that we live in a world where money and celebrity implies influence, and credentials don't mean much on a general public stage. This man can tweet something insane and its taken as a serious discussion point.
Given that money can buy influence, it is a legitimate risk to society, I get that. But how crazy is that as a concept?
You don't need to watch the first one to enjoy the second. And honestly, they're both great fun and well worth paying a few bucks for. The movie makers clearly poured a hell of a lot of love into the craft.
Always use a vpn if torrenting in a jurisdiction that cares about piracy
Here you go:
Knives Out
Glass Onion
(I didn't actually like the first and didn't bother with the second but I was just watching something else on there and thought I'd check if they had those films too)
No! Adding it to the watchlist, thanks!
How crazy is it that people feel completely comfortable with it being true?
The reality is the complete opposite since they've proven themselves to be enemies of the well being of the general populace.
Exactly.
At the end of the day people like him are allowed to have so much influence because of regulations (or lack there of). Tax them, hold them accountable legally, something.
Republicans want us to return to America of the 1950s. Fine. Let's have the tax rate of the 1950s and Elon pays 91%. So do Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, etc.
It's as much a function of human evolution as it is of how our society functions. And hell, isn't that dependent on human evolution too?
We evolved to survive, not to run a society. We've done pretty well overall despite that problem, but the wheels are coming off.
Humans have evolved to be social cooperative creatures not greedy selfish hoarders, and it is only in the last few thousand years, a blip in human history, that these systems developed by, and that only reward, greed and selfishness, have been around.
Don't let these systems and the people who benefit from them (and those who have been propagandised to believe they benefit from it but really don't) fool you in to thinking any of this is natural.
From what I've been learning about human history, your first paragraph does seem to be the case. However, we didn't have near the same numbers then as we do now. It's the scarily, or appearance thereof, that causes the selfishness in my opinion.
It’s the scarily, or appearance thereof, that causes the selfishness in my opinion.
Assuming you mean scarcity, you've almost hit a big nail on the head there - capitalism deliberately creates artificial scarcity, and the belief that it is inevitable (and in a way, it is, when living under a system that aims for infinite growth in a finite world with finite resources), however post-scarcity is already entirely possible today, especially with the growth of automation, if only the worlds resources were managed and distributed with society's well being in mind, instead of profit.
Convincing those of us the greedy and selfish exploit, who are trapped in their system with no way out, that we are in fact the greedy and selfish ones (for wanting our basic needs met, not private jets and mega yachts) who are to blame for all of our, and humanity's, ills, not them, who are literally raking in and hoarding all of the world's resources while being the biggest contributors to its destruction, is one of capitalism's nastiest and most effective lies, because in the world they've created, where greed and selfishness are not only rewarded, but necessary, it's almost impossible to prove wrong.
But it is wrong, and completely unnatural, and a better way of life absolutely is possible, it just requires those with all the power and money to not hold all the power and money anymore, and they'd rather destroy the planet and the rest of us with it, than do that, which means it's up to us to make that choice for them, or go down with them.
From what I've been learning about human history, your first paragraph does seem to be the case. However, we didn't have near the same numbers then as we do now. It's the scarily, or appearance thereof, that causes the selfishness in my opinion.
He's so damn creepy. First the pedo thing, then the breeding thing, now this. I'm beginning to think Musk is the pedophile.
There's a reason Elon Musk thinks like that. Apparently his father's current wife is elon's step sister. Apparently he groomed her from a young age to be a future wife. And this is not something unique with elon's father. His whole breeding kink also comes from his sicko father. The reason he thinks everyone else is fucked up is because he is.
Not saying he isn't, because we know he's a sex offender, but I think the breeding thing is more about Great Replacement, which really boils down to racist megalomania.
No idea why people are still buying cars that this guy makes.
Despite being an early investor, there is no way in fuck I would but a Tesla. There are some good ideas in there but it is held back by shit quality control, using owners as alpha testers, and a fuck ton of hubris from the guy at the top.
Mostly because they're cheap.
You have a funny idea of cheap.
Tesla doubles discounts on Model 3 cars in US inventory
Facing economic headwinds, mounting competition and rising production, Tesla this year has aggressively cut vehicle prices in many countries and is resorting to the traditional automakers' tactic of offering incentives to clear inventory, analysts said.
From your article:
In California, a Model 3 variant in inventory was priced at $42,060,
I and my sub-$25,000 car stand by my previous statement.
in eastern europe for the cost of a single model 3, around 50k euros, you could get 3 actual nice entry level cars. People buy them as a status symbol and because they are impressed by a different approach, because they are bored of the german industry sitting on their laurels not progressing. Musks name has very little do to with this phenomenon and I don't know if anyone(here) over 30 who doesn't go on reddit has an opinion of him at all.
People forget a huge side of this as well. It's not just being financial able to have kids but physically able. More and more people now days are seeking fertility treatment and having fertility issues. According to elon, those people would not have the right to vote.
People who go to college and then university and then intern somewhere to get a junior position and then a senior position are in their mid 30s when they're in a stable enough position to plan for kids.
By contrast, a lot of people who are happy with a high school degree have kids before they're 20.
This is not a value judgment, but separating people by when they're having kids segments the population of into very distinct strata.
It's not hard to guess why a billionaire who's running a right-wing social media platform would prefer a certain demographic.
We waited until our 30s to have a child for a lot of reasons, and I'm glad we did it. We were more financially secure and had sowed our wild oats, so we were also not likely to go out and party. Elon was already financially secure when he had is first child. He has no idea how much a child costs in terms of money and in terms of what sort of life you want to live for most people.
I also doubt he's done much child-raising, either. People of his social class don't tend to be very involved with their kids, probably because they don't have to be. Honestly I don't blame them for that, but I do with they'd STFU about what all of us peons should be doing.
I like how he's burning bridge after bridge with everyone. No one would want to associate with him, and everything he touches turns to shit. Sure he can enjoy his money, but to an extent he's kinda screwed his venture start-up goodwill for life.
Most of the rights after the first 10 are 100% alienable in a naturalist sense. A man in the jungle will speak freely and associate voluntarily... A man in the jungle has a right to not be lorded over for more than 8 years by one individual (a la 25A, for instance)...? The verbiage becomes meaningless.
Uh if a jungle cat wants you to shut the fuck up then your inalienable right to free speech won't protect you lol
Eh, I could try my primal scream :] Even empty-handed, I'd fight. And you would too!
Sure! But if you have to fight for a right it's not really inalienable, is it?
The US Bill of Rights only includes the first 10 amendments, so the 25A isn't included. It also doesn't itself contain "unalienable", that being only in the Declaration of Independence, and in the discussions around the proposal of the amendments.
While the whole unalienable rights of all people that we're just stating as one country rather seems like Enlightenment ridiculousness and extremely pretentious, and I've certainly seen interpretations that are extremely hegemonic, such as arguing that the US Bill of Rights applies to all countries, it doesn't include later amendments.
A man of civics :] Very cool.
I agree with pretentiousness-- They were trying really hard. By and large I like that, the big ideals. The unavoidable glaring problem is the paradox of freedom AND governance. Like, even lawless pirates begged the question; 'What do we do with a drunken sailor?'. Its not trivial.
Wait till he finds out, that parents are an ethnically much more diverse group than the general public.
I don't know about the person you replied to, but he's definitely a racist.
Yeah he definitely injected a massive stream of hassle and bullshit into the life of that kid whose name can't even be spelled.
What is a more clear signal of narcissistic parenting than a child being given a novelty name?
Does this apply to boomers who no longer have kids that are under the age of 18? You mean they still get to vote? Then fuck off Elon no one wants to buy your stupid tesla coils.
How about instead we eliminate the voting rights (and eligibility to hold office or judgeships) of those who are within 10 years of their life expectancy? Childless middle-aged adults have a lot more stake in the state of the world they are going to be living in for the next 40-50 years than the old farts who are about to die.
What a huge shift from the real life Iron Man 10 years ago to some I don’t know what to say…
There is a limited amount of time you can maintain that profile without making things. 10 years ago people didn't know he lied most of the time but now we know because nothing he ever promises comes true.
Also he got super duper divorced. He is the most divorced anyone has ever been.
Remind me why this man hasn't been arrested and investigated by multiple alphabet agencies by now?
Because the justice system has been entirely corrupted to serve the interests of wealth.
I think the literal opposite is true.
"In 2021, women in households with an income below the poverty threshold had the highest birth rate at 72 births per 1,000 women."
I think it has more to do with the massive reduction in the reserve labor army in the last few years due to people dying of and becoming disabled by COVID. The remaining labor force is smaller and is therefore better able to negotiate higher wages and better working conditions, while employers are left scrambling to fill empty positions, especially in industries that have historically been awful to work in like retail and food service. Forcing and coercing reproduction will lead to an increased reserve labor army, reduce the power of workers collectively and individually, and reduce the number of workers who are able to participate in disruptive organization (ie unionization) purely due to a lack of surplus time and resources. It also has the effect of oppressing those of us labeled "women" due to our bodies being the means of reproduction, which is a win for the right wing in particular both economically and ideologically.
Hey why stop there? Let's also not allow voting for people that have been disowned by their kids like musk has. And no voting for religious people who think earth is just a pit stop before heaven/hell so there's no need to improve life on earth at all.
Just because he can't seem to have enough kids who hate him doesn't mean everyone does.
Oh, he's a piece of shit, alright. What where we thinking, holding this dude up as some kind of visionary?
Who is “we”. There are many who could Musk’s bullshit from day one. But I’m glad more people are coming around to seeing this asshole in his true light.
Is this guy literally having a psychosis?
His actions lately (I say lately, loosely) have been absolutely batshit bonkers.
I'm enjoying the show none the less
Grimes is pretty unappealing too, so maybe all of his children's mothers are similarly unappealing.
It's weird that America still discriminates against its citizens based on the country of their birth, something they can't control.
Countries in the Americas are actually pretty unique in that most of them follow jus soli, where citizenship is granted just by being born in that country. The "old world" mostly uses jus sanguinis where citizenship is determined by family lineage, although some countries grant exceptions.
There's a lot to be said about the treatment of immigrants in various communities throughout many of these countries, but the issue you're raising here seems to be a consequence of a pretty decent policy.
Who would have the power to stop Elon Musk from running for President?
Presidents are also not supposed to be actively running their businesses while also being President. But Trump brazenly didn't even pretend to not be running his companies while in office. Nobody could stop him.
So if Elon Musk was like "I'm running for President" at what point does someone have the power to stop him? Who has the power to stop him from taking the office if he wins? It seems like a lot of those things we learned were impervious norms were really just impotent words that have no actual enforcement system behind them. And Republicans love breaking such norms.
I'll also point out that according to rightwing folklore, we already had an illegitimate African president who served two terms. I think Republicans would run Elon just to troll.
What about spoiled billionaires who's children despise him?
I support trebucheing this guy into the sun.
me too
He can even do it himself when he blasts off to Mars!! JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY
The sun is in a different direction than Mars though. Both require escaping Earth orbit and and entering solar orbit. From there, to get to Mars you need to raise your orbit relative to the Earth. To get to the sun you need to lower your orbit relative to the earth.
I saw this news elsewhere and was about to click the link but then saw that it redirected to twitter and just bailed out there. That’s the whole point, to make insane claims to drive traffic to his failing platform. Just going to ignore it and continue to vote with 0 children thanks
Elon should try this at home in South Africa instead, go back to SA Elon you scumbag.
Oh, he's a piece of shit, alright. What where we thinking, holding this dude up as some kind of visionary?
They can pry it from my cold dead fingers
Every time he opens his mouth he manages to satirise himself again... He wasn't supposed to be real but some newspaper cartoonist was experimenting line Doctor Frankenstein with lightening and Bam! There were are, we're stuck with him and his sink
Point would be that if you have kids you have skin in the game and would make more responsible choices with your vote. Same has been said about military service, which also makes a lot of sense. Not practically, of course, but the point highlights the fact that we could have people who are unqualified to make decisions, even if its electing officials, making decisions that impact everyone, including and maybe more importantly, the generations to come.
In a true democracy there is no mechanism for qualifiying or handling quality control for the voting population, and so for elected officials and their policies. This is why we are a democratic republic, and Elon is just saying if you're going to be involved in electing officials you should have skin in the game.
We already have requirements to voting and if you think about it, they are in the same spirit.
Oh, he's a piece of shit, alright. What where we thinking, holding this dude up as some kind of visionary?
Don't non-parents have more stake in the future than parents? Parents always need immediate help, they don't care about the long term consequences, that will be faced in 10, 25, 50 years.
As a parent, I sure as hell care about what my daughter will face in the future. So I absolutely have a stake in the future. Do I have more of a stake than non-parents? I don't care to speculate. But that has nothing to do with who should have the right to vote.
No way, it wasn't until after I had my kid that I really started ***seriously ***thinking about how shit would be 80+ years in the future after I was dead. Like maybe I had some passing thoughts about the future before that but it was always very theoretical and not a concrete thing to consider.
What about 15-20 years from now? Most parents I know are just struggling to get through the week and want any help they possibly can.
I've heard people make this kind of argument before: 'People with children are actively invested in the future of the nation. People without children are on a 100year free-trial.'
Its not unthinkable, tbh.
I have kids but this is such a dumb take. Some of the worst people that don’t give a shit about anything or anyone other than themselves have a kids. It’s not hard. The barrier to entry is super low.
On the other hand, some of the most genuinely thoughtful and kind people in the world have no kids whether by choice or otherwise.
This would be a horrible way to do things.
Fair enough. Its not my position, either... However this is the logic for the idea. Seemingly nobody even tried to rationalize this in-thread, lol. Its literally not-un-thinkable :p
Lol, if you insist :p I take it you've never tried a Steelman?
It's pretty damn unthinkable when it excludes most gay people.
True, but it also disquifies the incels. Probably balanced ;]
No. No it is not balanced. It is a blatant attack on gay people by a bigot.
Theres a lot of people that dont have kids. Theres a lot of kids looking for adoption... If the law is applied evenly then I see no conflict.
How dare people criticize someone who wants to take voting rights away from a huge percentage of the population!
It's an academic exercise discussing the democratic system and how most voters are not looking at the long-term health of the country that they are leaving to their children or the children of others. I find nothing objectionable to Elon expressing his opinion, which by the way was very short and to the point. What's more concerning is how people get so riled up about these things and talking about Elon and how much they dislike him. The masses are being entertained and you are all falling for the bait.
It’s an objectively fascist belief to hold, there’s no need to tie it to the rest of Musks bullshit, because it’s disgusting enough on its own.
I don't think that viewing the world through the else of "racist or not" is necessarily the best way to approach a thought experiment. There is an old, perpetually mis-attributed quote along the lines of "it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it".
I happen to take personal objection with the notion that felons can't vote in the USA. It provides a path to disenfranchise undesirable votes by perhaps abusing the law, or creating laws specifically to diminish the voting capacity of groups. I think that's "facist", but simply applying that label without a good faith explanation towards that "what" and "why" doesn't lead to anyone learning anything about anything.
I've heard support of adding upper age limits on legislators under the justification of "they'll be dead before they ever feel the results of their bad decisions". I don't see that argument as fundamentally different.
To be clear, I am not in favour of anyone's vote getting taken away.
But I AM in favour of grown up discussions about how as a species, our ability to transform the earth has reached a point that our decisions can echo so far into the future, so far past our own lifespans, that it's become way too easy to let future generations hold the bag.
We already see it financially. The boomers policy absolutely pulled the ladder up behind them buttfucking millenials and genz.
The headline isn't"you must have children to vote", thats controversial and a bait solution.
Don't fall for it. accept and consider the actually existant issue that the incentive model for legislation who's effects push past the lifetime of decisioning stakeholders is broken... Because it is.
"A society is great when old men plant trees under who's shade they will never sit."
How do we make THAT happen?
There’s hundreds of years of experimentation with different democratic formations. We have pretty solid data on what does and doesn’t work. Put simply, the entire system we have works exactly as intended. Minority rule by private property holders and owners of capital is expressly the intended outcome of our system. If you want better outcomes, you need a system predicated on creating those outcomes, not one predicated on ensuring elite rule in perpetuity. We’ve reformed the system hundreds of times, we‘be got to accept at some point that you can’t reform a system away from the very thing it was built to ensure.
I could get into a discussion about alternative and significantly more equitable and representative forms of organization, but that’s not what Musk is doing here. He’s doing, as he always does, the work of the far right while masking his intentions behind bullshit transparent “I’m just asking questions” shtick that I don’t understand how anyone ever fell for in the first place, much less how people buy it now.
If the system is working as intended, but giving minority rule to large businesses interests, then I think we all agree that discussing alternatives is appropriate, no?
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need to involve Musk in this conversation at all. You don't. I'm not.
So, it sounds like we agree: our system has flaws. There aren't features in place that incentivise things like, not causing the planet to be uninhabitable in say, 150 years (when we're all dead anyway so not OUR problem).
So, what would you do? I'm sincerely asking in good faith. You have a soapbox and I'm listening.
What I find disgusting is not anybody’s expressed opinion on anything no matter how objectionable I may find it. What I do find disgusting is a political system that no longer works for the greater good of the society as a whole. The voting system is there to give the voting public the illusion that they hold the keys to change. Government and its servants for the lost part can disregard those votes. What matters is $$$ and how these $$$ can affect elections by a voting public that for the most part is uninformed and falls easily for simple slogans that the $$$ get repeated often enough till people believe them to represent the truth.
And somehow restricting the right to vote even further towards those with a material interest towards maintaining the system as is, while disenfranchising those most negatively effected by the system, will lead to better outcomes for those disenfranchised and disaffected groups?
Well first this is never going to happen so the whole issues is academic. I would argue that it would not push the power to those with $$. The current system does that beautifully. You want the system of voting as watered down and in the hands of as many people as possible for $$ to have the highest impact on the outcome.
Owning a significant component of public discourse and actively pushing ideological viewpoints using it is politics. The only difference between that and being a politician is that you can't vote him out.
When you own more than most people alive collectively, it makes sense that your actions are under extra scrutiny.
Owning a significant component of public discourse and actively pushing ideological viewpoints using it is politics. The only difference between that and being a politician is that you can’t vote him out.
This is more correct than I'd like to admin, fuck.
When he wants to take away my voting rights because I dont' have any kids, he's talking politics. Have you never seen a person able to buy a Congressman who doesn't like your existence???
You don't need to be one when you can buy them.
Because billionaires influence politics... Unfortunately.
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I support eliminating billionaires.
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