fp.

A Modest Proposal: Allow different tax rates for taxpayers who could vote, but don't. Perhaps if the pain was more personal, then few people would regularly vote straight-ticket for the Apathetic Party?

XorNot•31m ago

That's just mandatory voting.

The fine for not voting in Australia is about $30.

This is...nothing in the grand scheme of things.

But it's enough.

And you don't even have to vote: you have to turn up, that's it.

FireBeyond•15m ago

Yeah, I've lived in Australia and the US. The fine isn't big, the attempts at suppressing voter turnout or inconvenience aren't there, and the privacy of the ballot box means that even if you turn up, and put a ballot in the box, no-one's stopping you writing "You all suck" and not casting any preferences.

ungreased0675•16m ago

Term limits would fix it

tsunamifury•9m ago

This is likely the worst issue humanity will be facing over the next 50 years, even more than climate change.

An increasingly old demographic will sabatoge the future of humanity as they drain enormous resources and abuse democratic processes to reroute resources to their preservation of life over young people and familes.

Young people and families will choke to death under the strain of elders who demand unlimited services, money, support while outvoting them, staying in jobs and houses and giving little to nothing back to society.

Innovation will grind to a halt, families will continue to shrink, work hours will get longer and longer as taxes get higher and higher to pay for and increasingly super old leadership and voting base.

Society will begin to lose hope to solve problems like going into space or fixing climate change as increasingly the elderly population will obsess over themselves and continued life.

It is one of the hardest moral problems we will face in our era.