Elon Musk, of his various unconventional and controversial policy preferences, seems to have added a new one to his list: limiting voting to parents. The father of 10 responded to a Twitter user on Saturday who commented on Musk’s affirmation that “the childless have little stakes in the future” by saying, “Democracy is probably unworkable long term without limiting suffrage to parents. Helps solve the procreation problem, too.”
…oddball backdoor to a return to limiting suffrage to landowners? or maybe just billionaires? really can’t wrap one’s old mind around what “procreation problems” this will solve or how. (still think there’s merit to a reverse lottery billionaire tax: once a year, with great fanfare, a wheel of fortune marked with every billionaire is spun by the head of the IRS and the ‘winner’ has to pay a one time tax of 50% of estimated worth. and lest that seem onerous, any billionaire would likely remain a billionaire)
He’s deep in the longtermist ideology, where anything you do must be measured against the hypothetical galaxy-spanning human civilisation of the far future, and therefore we need to breed lots of “elite” humans to ensure they outnumber the “suboptimal” ones. No prizes for guessing who he considers to be elite
Musk hasn’t shown any indication he cares about the lives of the descendants he already has.
At least one of his children changed their surname as soon as they were legally able to do so because they want nothing to do with him, even if that means walking away from an inheritance that could potentially run into the Billions.
Last time I checked humans regularly live upwards of 80 years and policies and laws created by people they elect can affect themselves (and people they care about) for decades. It’s good to be considerate of the far future (and I wish more people would think in those terms) but politics also affect the here and now. People suffering and struggling and just trying to live in our society today.
Indeed young adults, though often childless, have more stake in the future than senior citizens. They also tend not to love the fascist party, to the point where many have been asking to take away their votes.
Longtermists worry about the far future so that they can ignore the near future. Climate change, for instance, is only a problem if it threatens to make humans extinct. Likewise genocide is no biggie, because no existing nation, ethnic group, language, religion, etc, is going to last forever.
Honestly longtermists worry about themselves, with a rhetorical slight-of-hand to count themselves as trillions of people. Just keep imagining more until you get what you want, and no, other possible futures don’t count.
This comic is a joke, but the last panel is also the entire ideology.
Next step: the amount of votes you have depends on the amount of kids you have. They, of course, won’t have a vote even after they turn 18, if they don’t have children of their own.
Clearly, the more children you have, the more land you should get from the Federal Govt. Unless you’re a woman, or a PoC, or native, or gay, or trans, or anyone who isn’t Elon Musk…
