Category: Existentialism

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Life Expectancy and Weighted Voting

Today, as with all election days, I waited in line and internally judged all the decrepit husks of barely-living people around me and wondered why they should have a hand in forming government policy when they probably wouldn’t live through the term. Many of them couldn’t walk, hell-several of them couldn’t even breathe on their own without compressed oxygen. Yet they get a say in how future generations will live.

Why? I don’t presume to know, so I’ll defer to a historical political precedent for a reference point: age requirements for political offices. Specifically, the POTUS, which maintains a minimum age of 35. Apparently when this rule was enacted, it was done so on the grounds that an unquantifiable degree of experience that could only be obtained through living long enough should be in the candidate’s background.

Conversely, while minimum age requirements remain in effect, maximum age restrictions for political office remain primarily absent. Apart from the fact that people eventually die.

So I’m going to call out a number of inferred points:

  • Life experience is needed to make good political decisions
  • 18 is the minimum age requirement to officially make any political decisions
  • 18 is therefore the publicly-accepted minimum life experience requirement for politics
  • 35 is the minimum age requirement to hold the office of the US Presidency
  • 35 is therefore the minimum age requirement to officially make political decisions of the greatest import
  • 43 is the age at which a president will enter the last year of a second-term presidency (assuming they’re sequential, which they usually are)
  • 43 is therefore the maximum age at which we expect the president to be fully competent to make the most important political decisions
  • Death is the ultimate limiter for making any political decisions
  • 79 is the current American life expectancy

Therefore 18 to 79 is the age range in which we can make political decisions, with 35 being the age at which we are qualified to make the most important political decisions.

Next point to consider: does this mean that 35 to 79 is the period in which we are fully suited to making the most important political decisions? Cognitively-speaking, the jury is out on that. Without citing specific sources, I’ll say that from the studies I’ve seen reported, peak intelligence occurs earlier in life, with some mental decline thereafter, but long term memory stays intact and contributes to total intelligence until dementia sets in. So rather than argue for a specific age limit on voting or holding office, which no one has agreed on yet, I’ll make a simpler point:

  • Who is most impacted by our voting decisions?

Or rather: younger people have to live longer with a political decision unless a future vote changes the policy.

More pragmatically: if we all vote in our own self-interest, we have less time to benefit from doing so as we get older, and any such policies enacted in this space of time will be of greater impact to those who are younger. Once we hit the age of average life expectancy, it’s a crapshoot how long we’ll live to see the results of how we vote.

Now to the point. I will offer a final formula that weighs an individual’s vote based on age, with the following criteria (that’s right-it’s a Quantitative Philosophy post!):

  • 18 and under: static weight of 0% since you can’t legally vote yet.
  • 18-35: increasing weight to account for increasing experience, culminating in a maximum weight of 100% at age 35, the age we decided as a country that you have sufficient life experience to hold the highest political office and make the most impactful decisions.
  • 35-43: the tenure period for a sequential two-term presidency, which assumes this is the age range during which someone is most qualified to make the most impactful political decisions-therefore a static weight of 100%.
  • 43-79: decreasing weight to account for the decrease in time that we have left alive, corresponding to how many years we potentially have left to live under any new political policy changes.
  • 80+: static weight of 50%. At this point you’re still entitled to vote, but the uncertainty of living to see the impact of your voting should greatly limit how much your vote counts.

Formula (in Excel format, because I work in finance and that’s the format I know):

For: age = X

=IF(X<18,0,IF(X>79,50,IF(X<35,100*(X+35)/70,IF(AND(X>=35,X<=43),100,100*1/((X+35)/70)))))

I’m 39 and my vote should count as 100% of one vote (for now). The kid in highschool gets counted as 76% of a vote. A new retiree is counted as 69% of a vote. And that old geezer on oxygen and living on Medicare and Social Security gets counted as a half vote.

Live in the present and shape the future, but then abdicate it to those who follow.

(Oh, and no one’s using abortion as birth control…whatever the fuck that means.)

–Simon

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Twisted Metal Black

I reached into my pants and pulled it out. Gripping it firmly, I held it out to the her. She wanted it.

Then she motioned to the contactless tap to pay terminal in front of her. I obliged, bringing my Amazon Prime credit card into RFID range, completing my transaction at Whole Foods and earning 5% back.

It was the first new credit card I had applied to in years, solely on the grounds of the Amazon and Whole Foods rewards rate. It was enough, I had decided, to offset my harsh judgment of private labels, as was the Lowe’s credit card. Unlike the Lowe’s card, however, the Amazon card is a cool steel-grey black and laminated metal. It seemed odd, considering the modern switch to pay methods that induce less physical stress on the material, or no need at all for the physical card itself, for a bank to choose a more durable construction.

The industry shift of course was a direct result of the first metal card, the Amex Centurian card–that invite-only heavy black metal card with no spending limit; mentioned in rap songs and business executive stories involving consort services and cocaine. I admit that I haven’t tried to buy either with my Amazon card, but I’m just not feeling like a badass when I drop down my own heavy metal card.

I was outdone from the start anyway. At a family gathering, my sister-in-law produced her expired Venture card, equally as amused at its metallic nature. But it seems there’s no standard, as her card was significantly heavier. She lamented on how she was to dispose of it – a conundrum I hadn’t yet considered, as my own card was still valid. Up for the challenge, and confident in my beefy commercial-grade shredder at home, I offered to dispose of it for her.

The machine kicked to life and gave it a solid effort, then jammed. I had to employ vice grips and a prybar to, thankfully, save my shredder.

Banks now say to not use shredders. Don’t ignore this advice.

My next attempt what somewhat less graceful: a propane torch.

Cough cough.

That worked, but couldn’t have been very good for me to inhale burning plastic fumes. I suppose I could have used my metal shears, but that strikes me as a little too much effort to forever scatter the printed numbers. So I checked some bank websites for official instructions, and they say to mail the card back to them. That’s even sillier than making a metal card in the first place.

I’m open to other suggestions, but all the disposal methods I can think of involve more work than a shredder. I guess that’s the price we have to pay for trying to feel like millionaires.

–Simon

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Ignis

A golden spire
In a time most dire
And the land is wreathed in fire

And the sky rains ash
On the populated trash

And we choke on soiled air
But no one seems to care

Because the fight is here inside
And we could have stopped the tide

But now already set in motion
In the land and in the ocean

A species will retire everywhere

–Simon

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Luck X6

The first time I found a 5-leaf clover, I was pretty excited.

Luck

I’ve since found a number of them.

Still, it’s cool every time. And I’ve certainly had my share of financial luck over the years. But if the wealthy elites throughout history have taught me anything, it’s that one can never have enough! Behold:

10 5-leaf clovers!
All from this lucky patch. Maybe there’s some uranium down there I could mine.

That means, I get a 10% raise. Or a 50% raise! Or maybe I start earning 10X my current salary! Or one of those stupid mutual funds I keep buying starts paying off?

Whatever the outcome, I’m looking forward to it!

…although, I’ve also learned from history’s elites that violent ends come to those with too much. So maybe I should keep my hopes reasonable. I’ll settle for the $10MM yacht, thank you.

–Simon

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Albatross Lodge

Of the expectations forced onto able-bodied men of my particular culture, few have been so consistently invoked as that of obligatory free labor. Actually, that’s not so unique to my own culture. That’s been a rather ubiquitous theme amongst the anthropology courses I’ve taken. The exploitation of this sect of society does tend to cause those within it to wonder of what its membership’s “privilege” objectively entails. Granted there may be some benefits to being a man, but remember that it’s still other men in positions of power and influence that subjugate the younger men, so it’s not as if Manhood as a whole is a close-knit brotherhood where we conspire to hold domain over women.

Then of course, there’s voluntary obligatory servitude. I might not want to rub my wife’s foot, but if it hurts I should help. I guess. Because, social contracts and such.

And with that perfect segue, let’s talk about the cottage!

Cottage Fish

Which I have now named Albatross Lodge. A master of literary subtlety, am I.

May my winded introduction provide the context:

A new kitchen counter install was required.
And with that comes everything but the kitchen sink…
And plumbing.
And stairs. And Liz’s uncle Dave didn’t even throw things or insult my intelligence. It wasn’t like working on the house with my dad at all.

Will the albatross bring about my downfall until at last, like lead, it falls into the…lake? Or is it at present alive and a symbol of good fortune? I would hazard to guess that as long as the aforementioned social sect maintains it, it will remain the latter. And so, the willing obligatory servitude will continue to pay forward its benefaction, and as the complicated metaphor for which I’ve waxed prosaic stands, it shall so remain Albatross Lodge.

–Simon