Oh, these poor people. These poor, poor people.
Universal suffrage in the age of social media is a recipe for disaster. Look what’s happening to these poor people who could have had good, normal lives in olden times and now they have their already tiny brains eaten completely.
Robert Heinlein proposed in his novel Starship Troopers that people should have to earn the right to vote through national service. The idea is that unless you volunteer to put your life on the line, you have no skin in the game.
When I was young I read a lot of science fiction; Heinlein often had some of the most interesting ideas
Raymond R
That’s a great idea, actually.
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methylethyl
Some of his writing is humour; some is insight. He does both very, very well ;-D
“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is…and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be…and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart…no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn’t matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them.”
“have to earn the right to vote through national service”
Earning the right to vote through some kind of national service is not the worst idea I’ve ever heard. But doesn’t tying that to the military give governments incentives to start military conflicts?
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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