Slashdot Mirror


More Millennials Would Give Up Voting Than Texting (nypost.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the New York Post: As the staggering national student loan debt tally sits at an all-time high of $1.33 trillion, according to the Department of Education, many millennials say they would go to extreme lengths to wipe their slate clean. According to a new survey from Credible, a personal finance website, 50 percent of all respondents (ages 18-34) said they would give up their right to vote during the next two presidential elections in order to never have to make another loan payment again.
Yet only 44% said they'd be willing to give up Uber and Lyft -- and only 13% said they'd be willing to give up texting.

18 of 350 comments (clear)

  1. Texting has a positive impact on their lives by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it's hard to think that way about voting. Our last election was Giant Douche vs a Turd Sandwich both of which were rammed down our throats.

    Thing is, you need to get people to show up to primaries, but it's hard enough to get them to mid terms. Voter suppression doesn't help matter either. I don't know about the rest of you folks but I waited 3 hours in line to vote for Bernie in my primary. That wasn't an accident. Nor was it because of overwhelming turnout.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  2. I'm surprised... by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm surprised that it's only 50%. Given that voter turnout in the average presidential election is only about 50-60% without extra incentives not to vote, it's hard to imagine that you couldn't come up with another 10% who would skip voting in exchange for a big pile of cash.

    --

    How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
  3. Re: Poor thought process by grasshoppa · · Score: 4, Funny

    They're unable to come to a logical conclusion.

    No shit, they got themselves saddled with crippling debt to begin with. I'll grant you, it's hardly fair to prey upon these kids, but they are adults technically. I wouldn't dream of depriving them of the consequences of their actions.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
  4. This points to one thing... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's the point of voting when the electoral college makes your vote irrelevant?

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:This points to one thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The states elect the president. Your state elected your candidate. Your candidate couldn't convince enough states.

      Your vote is only relevant in your state. How do you not understand this?

    2. Re: This points to one thing... by areusche · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The real and honest question here is why no one remembers the reasons for why we have an electoral system. This is an absolute failing of our education system and the thousands of teachers who teach civics. Seriously, our system of government isn't that complicated. You and every other citizen's vote goes towards telling a singular individual how to vote (the elector). The system was set up as a checks and balances system to keep the US policy from being dictated by people in large cities. A concern of the more rural colonists who signed up for this back in the 18th century. It's why America is a country that spans an entire continent and is a modern empire as opposed to Europe which is a has been in every sense of the phrase if not an outright vassal state.

    3. Re:This points to one thing... by jeff4747 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Electoral College is not the Senate. The intention was a pseudo-popular vote, because the number of Electoral College votes is primarily tied to the number of House seats. But we stopped expanding the House in the 1910s. So now the 750,000 people per House district in California have the same representation as the 500,000 people in Wyoming.

      That is not at all what was intended. What was intended was 100,000 people per House district. That would have resulted in an Electoral College that was far closer to the popular vote. Even if we had kept with the 200,000 people per district we had when the House stopped expanding, we would have had an Electoral College far closer to the popular vote.

  5. Re: Poor thought process by Monster_user · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I knew Trump would win, too many radio stations, church congregations, and family members of mine, all voting for Trump. What I have trouble imagining is Trump being a two term president. We're not even one year into his presidency and several people are already ready to jump ship from the Trump bandwagon. I'm not sure we can last four years, so I doubt he will be re-elected. The only reason Trump would be re-elected is if there seemed to be some "stragglers" in Washington who would be expected to quit their jobs if Trump was re-elected. That whole "drain the swamp, whatever the cost" thing.

  6. Re:Finally we get to the crux of the matter by JBMcB · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, a show of hands: in an age of gerrymandered, electoral colleged, voter suppressed, primary rigged, black box voting machine, foreign government influenced elections, where the guy who loses the vote gets to rule, who wouldn't give up their right to this meaningless exercise in exchange for the forgiveness of $100,000.00 in debt?

    On the other hand, pretty much nobody in the establishment wanted Trump to win, he spent a fraction of what Hilary spent on her campaign, and he won. Not saying he's a good candidate, but there isn't a 1:1 relationship between who the establishment wants, and who actually gets in.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
  7. I'm a Californian by Gavagai80 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My vote has never meant anything in presidential elections anyway, and never will. It only has half the theoretical electoral college weight of a voter in other states to begin with, and it's a single party state with a winner take all electoral vote system so there's never any doubt about the outcome. So I'll gladly give up that farce for $10, as long as I can continue voting on everything else.

    --
    This space intentionally left blank
  8. Re: Poor thought process by Octorian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And most people who are unsympathetic towards this likely got their education at a time when it was actually possible to do so without crippling debt, then entered a job market that provided them with more opportunities.

  9. Re: Poor thought process by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the Democrats put up another deeply-flawed and wholly unlikeable candidate again, I can see Trump winning a second term. This election was the Democrats' to lose, and they lost it with great aplomb. I've noticed one huge difference between Donald Trump and popular Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I think most people will agree that Trump is an ass, but unlike the Democrats (and a lot of Republicans for that matter, like John McCain), he doesn't regularly insult the voters. He will personally attack individuals, often in ways that are really tacky and immature, but I've never heard him say anything negative about the American people, not even subsets of Americans, like liberals. This is something the Democrats have clearly failed to learn, and a significant reason, I think, why people like Trump despite his flaws.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
  10. Re: Poor thought process by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If the Democrats put up another deeply-flawed and wholly unlikeable candidate again ...

    Can you name any prominent likable Democrats without deep flaws?

  11. Re: Poor thought process by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And most people who are unsympathetic towards this likely got their education at a time when it was actually possible to do so without crippling debt

    It is still possible. Go to a cheap community college for the first two years while living at home. Then transfer to a four year college for the final two years and either work part time, get a TEACH grant, or a military scholarship.

    Warning: May require work, commitment, and sacrifice.

  12. Vote local .... by King_TJ · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds like a lot of other Slashdot readers already get this, but the votes that matter most are for the people geographically closest to where you live.

    The people we voted in as our city council members and mayor have already made more decisions that impact my life than anything Trump has done.

    The President in America is only slightly less of a figurehead than than Queen of England, and that's been by design since the nation was founded. If you visit the Old Courthouse in Annapolis, MD - you can see the original letter General George Washington wrote when he declined the offer to become the first King of the USA, right after the Revolutionary War. He felt that control of the nation shouldn't be in the hands of just one individual like that, and just wanted to go back to farming his land. He wound up our first President, instead, by a unanimous vote.

    When you really look back at the claimed "big accomplishments" of past Presidents, much of it had more to do with advisors and other staff members putting the ideas forward and convincing the President to get behind them. Ronald Reagan's "trickle down economics" was a great example. He didn't come up with that idea himself. He wasn't even a Finance guy ... just a former Hollywood actor. In other cases, we don't really know if a President really had a plan themselves or not -- but we do know that many changes they make just get watered down or reversed within a decade's time. (President Clinton was famous for his "welfare to work" policy, where he mandated time limits on how long welfare could be collected. In the years that followed, the states slowly dismantled that with exceptions to rules and changes - so today, none of that has any effect on how the system works.) Obama's presidency made a lot of claims about improving our economic and employment conditions - yet historically, we know the economy is cyclical. If you have a boom, you have a bust that follows it, and vise-versa. Become a president when the economy is poor and just hang in there, and you'll eventually be able to take credit for the inevitable turn-around.

    I don't want to discount Presidential voting as irrelevant ... but choosing wisely in the Primaries is where you really get more control over who wins. By the time you're at the general election, you've literally got over a dozen contenders who didn't make it -- quite often for the wrong reasons. (Candidates with well known names often get automatic advantages over people nobody has heard of. And candidates pouring more money into trying to win the election can make some of the others look bad for just long enough to bump them out of the running. Reality might be that those "also rans" were actually more qualified candidates all along.)

  13. Re: Poor thought process by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't name a prominent likeable anything without deep flaws. Apart from Edinburgh Castle.

    On second thoughts, it's draughty as hell and it's in Scotland. Original motion stands.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  14. Re:Poor thought process by ChrisMaple · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Rights only exist as long as people protect them.

    One characteristic of rights is that they still exist in the absence of other people. Your right to free speech cannot be violated if there is nobody to violate it.

    In contrast, free medical care requires other people to provide it, therefor it is not a right.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  15. Re: Poor thought process by Xyrus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Trump doesn't insult broad swaths of Americans? He called New Hampshire a drug infested den. To the president of Mexico for fuck's sake.

    Trump is a sociopathic asshole who's only nice when it benefits HIM. He's been like this for at least the past 5 decades, and nothing will ever change that.

    --
    ~X~