[EM] Venzke's election simulations

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Jameson Quinn wrote:
> 
> I haven't seen anyone else argue this, but I've always found taxicab 
> distance more reasonable. Separate issue dimensions add linearly. If 
> somebody's going to put/take $3 in/from my left pocket and $4 in/from my 
> right pocket, that's a total of $7, not $5.

One could argue that L1 isn't quite it either, particularly if a 
candidate who can hold many opinions you agree with at once is of value 
in itself, by the reasoning that he can then argue from a point that 
takes all considerations into account.

In other words, if you think that the environment must be protected but 
you also think that the free market is pretty nice, you may prefer a 
candidate who agrees with you on both because you think that his 
environmental proposals will take the power of the market into account 
(e.g. Coasian measures), and thus work better.

Such a model would value combinations of desirable traits more than the 
sum of the utilities of those. It would be centrist seeking.

Incidentally, my simulator considers issues independently, so I suppose 
that in some way, you could call it Taxicab. It gives a voter's rating 
of a candidate one point for every binary opinion where the candidate 
and the voter agree.