Exactly. Many techies avoid politics and activism or fail to learn the skills to do it well. The learned helplessness leads to becoming the low-hanging fruit.

The solution isn't to get involved in politics, it's to put an end to this "if you haven't died by the age of 18, you get to cast a vote". At least a four year requirement of a four year STEM degree at an accredited university should prevent people who aren't used to dealing with facts from getting us all killed.

Democracy is a great idea so long as you limit whom you consider "the people".

You are clearly on the wrong website.

Given the number of people employed in our industry without a university degree — many of whom are leaders in their subject matter area — i think your proposal is not just obviously discriminatory, but spitting into the wind of a gale of contrary evidence.

Get out, see the world, go talk to people in places and industries where a university education isn't paramount, and then tell me again that they should be denied a right to vote.

Just throwing this out there but..... you. Clearly your elitism knows no bounds.

Technically, SS/Medicare/Medicaid are raised and funded on their own taxes, separate from the discretionary budget. (You can see "income tax", "FICA" and "medicare/medicaid" on your tax bill).

When people talk about the deficit, they're typically talking about the operating budget deficit, which is only funded from income tax and runs on a separate budget from the SS and medicare/medicaid administrations. So it doesn't really make sense to advocate cutting entitlements to address the deficit, they have problems too but they're separate problems.