All Proposals May be Jokes

[donald at mich.com]

Greetings to members of the [EM] list,

Steve wrote:>
>Please include a :-) smiley in your joke proposals.  Some readers'
>time is valuable enough they'd appreciate an obvious clue that a
>message can be safely skipped.
>
>Better yet: include the smiley, or the word Humor, at the beginning
>of the Subject line so recipients can avoid those messages entirely
>if they want.
>
>---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)

Dear Steve,

     You wrong me!  I am only trying to help you pairwise guys see the
error of your ways - I pray for you.

     My proposals are no more a joke than the proposals of anyone on this
list - did I hit a bone? In one of my two proposals I started with the
Condorcet example - I subtracted any duplicate Vote-Sums - and I added the
remaining Vote-Sums of all the pairings together. I offered this as another
single winner method - where is the joke you talk about? True, I did not
mention that the results would be the same as the results from Approval
Voting. I omitted the connection on purpose because it is best that each
pairwise guy see the revelation themselves - do not call this a joke - I
was going for "See The Light." I was leaving it to the expert minds of the
pairwise guys to be able to see that they may not be wearing any clothes.
     It is not important how many persons were able to see the "joke as you
say" in my presentation. What is the revelation is that anyone anytime can
make up some new election method. ANYBODY! - even you - or Mike - anyone -
just add something here - divide or subtract one thing there and presto you
have a method - but you may not have any justification for doing what you
are doing. It can be done now - it will be done in the future - and it has
been done many time in years past - one time by a man named Condorcet.
     In conclusion I say this: If the concept of Condorcet is valid it will
prevail in spite of anything I may say.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I have a bone to pick with you:

     Do not blame me for losses of membership on the ER list. You forget
that I raised this point before you published the single winner report. I
said that there may be a loss in ER membership. Give blame where blame is
due. Some of the blame goes to the report and the balance of the blame goes
to the pairwise guys that took the debate to the ER list. I WAS NOT IN THAT
DONNYBROOK!

     So we did have a loss in the ER list and now you are doing damage
control. You are trying to shift the blame and retreat by saying ". . your
tie is out soldier". You are faulting my one short message dealing with
Conclusive Majority - which is not an election method - it is a reform - so
I put it in the ER list. There is no construction needed on the concept -
people are either in favor of it or not in favor of it.
     Besides - it is not my job to keep track of Tom.

Donald,