Quote Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios View Post
Bums on seats. In other words because surveys do not confer a political seat, they can and will be ignored: specifically because in such a scenario the opinion of 18-25 year olds would not only be a minority opinion (by definition the 18-25 year olds are a small group relatively to those aged 25 and onwards) but also a minority opinion without political clout. There already is a strong tendency to ignore the younger members of society in favour of older generations.

Self interest changes over time, voting for your own self interest has been done since time immemorial. It's nothing to do with living in the basement of your mum, it's everything to do with a basic question: what's in it for me?
I'm not objecting to voting in self interest per se, but to voting selfishly--i.e. in your own self interest while spiting others.

I think it's legitimate to say that there is a loss involved with moving the age, but I have been making a case that the benefits outweigh that. Just as the benefits of having the voting age set at 18 outweigh the fact that middle schoolers are a minority with no political clout--even though they have specific issues regarding education affecting them in a big way.