[EM] Re: majority rule, mutinous pirates, and voter strategy

[Juho Laatu]

Hello James,

Sorry about causing some gray hair to you. I think the problem is that 
we drove into two alternative tracks in the discussion and my text, 
when trying to address both of these, was not clear. I hope this mail 
improves the situation a bit.

The two tracks that I see are one where we talk about dynamics of 
sequential mutinies and how the voters may stop the process already 
before the first mutiny when they see the votes and understand the 
rules of the game, and another one where we try to do the decision just 
once and then live with the result until the next election day (few 
years ahead).

I re-read my mail and noted that I had at least made quite bad use of 
term "first mutiny" since that term has a meaning in the first track 
but I used it also in the framework of the second track. Maybe I should 
talk separately abouth these two tracks to avoid any further confusion 
caused by handling both phenomena and criteria simultaneously.


First track related comments:

I think your conclusions on the first track made all the sense, so 
let's consider them agreed.

I identified also some possible additional scenarios:
- An alternative model where the cost of mutiny is low and therefore 
mutinies could continue forever (instead of stopping when pirates 
understand that the cost of mutinies is too high). Accepting one of the 
Smith candidates to take permanent lead may thus be more painful than 
"sharing the leadership" by making continuous mutinies.
- B and C could join forces and make just one revolution where A would 
be changed to C (202 against 101) and stop there. This case I mentioned 
also in the previous mail. Revolution of two Smith set members against 
X would be also possible (202 against 201). A could also try to make a 
deal with C in order to avoid revolution. But C would become the 
captain if it made a deal with B instead. Knowing this, A could make a 
deal with B, make a revolution against herself, and let B be the 
captain.


Second track relatd comments:

In track two one should maybe talk more about mutiny against elected 
captain's initiatives instead of talking about replacing the captain 
herself. In politics the next elections typically come after a fixed 
amount of time. The winner must thus start working with all the voters 
and try to make the best of what trust and support she has.

Let's say that X is the captain. She makes an "X style" proposal. A 
makes an "A style" counter proposal. 201 pirates support proposal "X" 
but 202 pirates support proposal "A". Let's assume that X is a good 
speaker (or has a musket) and can convince few additional pirates to 
vote for the proposal (note close links to "additional votes", that 
were however defined to come from outside of the current crew of 403 
pirates). Majority achieved. Job well done.

Captain A would have more problems driving her policy through since C 
could always make counter proposals that would be supported 202 against 
101 and A would need better speaking skills than X (or a cannon).

I used the pirate example here but also the RSTZ example could be used. 
Any key observations?


Other comments:

On Mar 18, 2005, at 10:10, James Green-Armytage wrote:

> 	I'm not talking about knowing it in advance, I'm talking about 
> knowing it
> after the votes have been cast.

Sorry, I mixed voting and mutinies and your intentions here.

>> I think it is a mathematical fact that if mutiny resistance is 
>> accepted
>> by a country as the target of the election, one must elect the
>> Condorcet loser in some cases.
>
> 	You can only say that if you totally ignore my argument.

Or alternatively made a mess of the two different tracks. Please 
condsider this theory (and MinMax (margins) as the solution) in light 
of track two.


Best Regards,
Juho



ANNEX 1: The pirate example.

101: a>b>x>c
101: b>c>x>a
101: c>a>x>b
100: x


ANNEX 2: The RSTZ example.

	Preferences:
35: R>S>T>Z
33: S>T>R>Z
32: T>R>S>Z
71: Z>R=S=T
	Pairwise comparisons:
R>S 67-33
S>T 68-32
T>R 65-35
R>Z 100-71
S>Z 100-71
T>Z 100-71