[EM] Approval and '1 person/1 vote'

[Alex Small]

Adam Tarr said:
> *** You can only vote at most once for the winning candidate. ***

As much as I applaud this excellent defense of approval, there's one basic
problem:  The phrase "one person/one vote" means different things to
different people.  Even the most lucid argument will not convince a person
that "Method X satisfies property Y" when the person making the argument
and the person hearing the argument have different definitions for Y.

The only worthwhile argument is over which criterion going by the name
"1p1v" is more socially desirable.  It's like an election with two
candidates named John Smith:  There's no point arguing over "Who is John
Smith?" because they both are.  The only question is which John Smith will
make a better elected official.

A funnier analogy is this:  In college, I once told somebody "My cousin is
a slut."  Another student overheard this and said "No she's not!"  I said
"What do you mean?  You don't know her."  The other student said "Just
because your cousin <deleted because this is a family list> doesn't mean
she's a slut."

Finally, after ten minutes of intense debate (I was procrastinating from
writing a term paper) I discovered that my fellow student had a different
definition of the word "slut" that restricted the term to prostitutes.  My
cousin has many flaws, but prostitution isn't one of them.  So, the
argument ended.

The moral of the story is this:  Arguments over which definition is
correct are pointless.  The only valid arguments are (1) which one defines
something more relevant?  and (2) My cousin is definitely a slut ;)



Alex


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