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thow-01187 | 4 years ago

Unfortunately, low fertility rate is not a one-time problem of boomer generation followed by a stable plateau. It leads to a perpetual spiral of gerontocracy, high dependency ratios, under-investments and general vitality being sapped out of the populace. It's no coincidence that Italy and Japan, once vigorous and creative, are not exactly bursting with enthusiasm in the past ~20-30 years

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simonh|4 years ago

I understand japan isn't as exciting as it used to be, but they still have a pretty dynamic and influential popular culture. I understand their working population is declining relative to retirees, but eventually those old people will start to die. Anyway, its not as if this will be some sort of old people zombie apocalypse.

atom_arranger|4 years ago

Random idea:

What if the votes of each age group were weighted to account for the size of that group, e.g. making the votes of 18-20 have the same weight as the votes of 40-42, even if there may be more people in the 40-42 group.

This would prevent an aging population from giving too many benefits to older age groups, and would encourage policies that consider long term impacts more.

namarie|4 years ago

> What if the votes of each age group were weighted

Because the principle of "one person, one vote" is widely (and correctly IMO) accepted.

benrbray|4 years ago

You don't need to weight the groups, since everyone experiences all ages (not counting early death).

My proposal is: Multiply the number of house reps and senators by ten (for instance). Each representative now represents a district / state as well as a decade of life (for instance). When voting for an age-graded role, your vote only counts towards the decade of life that you're currently in. You can only run for a position that matches your age range.

This would have a number of advantages: Disrupt two-party dynamics. Increase granularity of representation. It's harder for older folks to take younger folks hostage. Younger folks will feel more enthusiastic about voting for someone who actually represents them.

Probably, you'd want to fiddle with the numbers based on age demographics. 7-year intervals is probably the right number, with a big bucket for people over a certain age. (So, 18, 25, 32, 39, 46, 53, 60, 67, 74+) might be right.