Children should have the right to vote

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This text is part of: "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak (2017)

Impassive childhood

One of the most detrimental factors in child development is the approach of the education system, and society in general, to systematically eradicate all forms of natural motivation. Each time a child develops a "wrong kind" of passion, it is quickly nipped in the bud. If you dream to be a rock star, or a new Messi, or the winner of videogame olympics, you will often hear "don't waste your time".

I heard it from my mom too. While using SuperMemo on paper, I heard: "Don't waste your life. Nobody learns languages like this", and I was 23 at the time! Luckily, I did not care about my sweet mom's opinion. Today, she looks down from among the stars and is proud to see half a billion people learn like this.

If we keep killing passions, we will keep churning masses of unhappy members of society, who are tired of life before they graduate.

Child autonomy

Children should have an unquestionable right to decide how to learn and what to learn. This is a natural right that comes from the brain design. If we keep imposing knowledge, we will keep getting back failure. If we allow of free learning, we will be amazed by the societal transformation. All skeptics should learn about the experience of democratic schools or the experience of unschoolers.

That right to autonomy and self-determination should extend to the right to vote. Opponents of child's rights will question the practice on the grounds of brain immaturity and insufficient knowledge: "if adults can make stupid voting decisions, imagine what would happen if kids were given this weapon". On the exact same grounds, we might give up democracy because an average man in the streets knows little of climate change, his own constitution, or the rules of economics. Adults make stupid decisions in elections around the world, but freedom improves those decisions. We do not deprive the elderly even though cognitive decline may be as bad as slow development. In case of kids, we can solve the immaturity problem instantly by making the child vote separate and non-binding (at first).

We will never know how smart the baby vote is until we try it out. Naturally, a vote should never be compulsory. As most things in life, coercion leads to absurd outcomes.

Years of education correlate with wisdom in democratic decisions. The credit goes to brains, not to schools. It is not that those years of learning have a tangible impact on wisdom. It is that the smartest, the most autonomous, and the most persistent kids stand the best chance to survive many years of schooling. Occasional dropout cases like that of Bill Gates do not change the equation.

Kids may not be very interested in political fights at the top, and asking them questions about politics would only invite authoritarian pressure from parents. However, kids would definitely be highly interested in matters of their schooling and child's rights in general. The experience of democratic schools shows that the rules of democracy are highly formative and highly motivational. There is no better way to learn democracy than by starting early and starting in a system where a vote has a genuine power.

Children should have the right to vote because self-determination is an essential human right

Mandatory schooling

Imagine what if we asked kids today: should the school be compulsory?", or "should we penalize kids for not attending school?". The usual reaction from adults is: "This is preposterous! It is obvious they would vote for freedom". I say "duh". Isn't the whole democracy about freedom? If schools claim to be so essential for human development, let schools demonstrate their efficiency. Let them motivate kids to vote the "right way". Let them use threats and grade incentives, or just knowledge and honesty. Let them compete for the young voter. I say: snowball's chance in hell. Kids will choose schooling only if the school environment becomes more attractive that other options for learning. Today, schools care about test results, not their own attractiveness, let alone the provided level of learntropy.

See: Compulsory schooling must end

Panacea: Freedom and knowledge

The list of reasons why kids should not vote reminds me the list of reasons for which adults cast a dumb vote. We all know that if we deleted a substantial portion of the dumb vote, Brexit referendum would came out differently. Yet we do not intend to penalize people for being dumb. Especially that one man's stupidity, is another man's original solution. Kids at school, by virtue of cramming what they cram at the moment, may turn out more competent about an issue of interest (e.g. climate change). Those individual bias vectors might actually add up to the wisdom of the crowds. If not today, perhaps in the next generation. If not, it is still about human rights anyway. The safest solution for efficient democracy is human intellectual diversity and free learning. Best learning comes from natural motivation, and democratic power leads to democratic wisdom.

True high-quality knowledge is gold again.

Further reading

  • Let them vote (in the US, "At first, the vote was only extended to white land-owning men" [...] "It was not until 1920 that the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, and not until the Civil Rights Movement that many Black Americans could meaningfully exercise their voting rights"



For more texts on memory, learning, sleep, creativity, and problem solving, see Super Memory Guru