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SaidAchmiz comments on Arguments Against Speciesism - LessWrong
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To go further in this vein: the smart teenager might realize that if only smart teenagers were allowed to vote, they would never have the numbers to influence the political state of affairs in their preferred direction; but if all teenagers were allowed to vote, the majority of them would vote in directions not aligned with the interests of the smart teenagers; therefore the smart teenagers would gain nothing from having voting rights, either way.
That's when you meet the venous valve: using the same argument, a smart adult might object to adults having voting rights, no?
The argument doesn't just require that someone think they're in a category containing a lot of bad voters. The argument requires that they think they're in a category with voters who are comparatively bad, in contrast to people who are outside the category. A lot of smart adults would say "most voters are stupid". But not very many would say "most voters like me are particularly stupid".
That entirely depends on what the category of "voters like me" is - the category that may lose their votes. Very old people, mentally ill people, low IQ people, illiterate people, people with drug addictions... Within such category, an exceptionally (for the category) smart person may well think most other people "like them" are particularly stupid.
Yes indeed. Of course, note that the argument does not apply to only smart adults having voting rights.
Things also change if we think that "smart adults" are a less monolithic bloc of interests than "smart teenagers", which, it seems to me, is the case.
"Might"?
Well, if only smart teenagers were allowed to vote, they would be able to influence politics the same as any other minority--they can have an influence at the margins proportional to their size. The problem is that there's no good way to say that only smart teenagers can vote just like there's no good way to say that only smart adults can vote.