Basic principle?

[Mike Ositoff]

On Fri, 12 Jun 1998 Saari at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 98-06-12 06:42:47 EDT, Mike O writes:
> 
> > ...my
> >basic democratic principle that says "If a majority rank
> >A over B, then if we choose A or B, it should be A".
> 
> Part of the problem with these discussions is the variety of opinions held,
> without rigorous analysis.  The above is a commonly-held view, flawed in my
> opinion.  My argument against is a simple counter-example.
> 
> Suppose that 60% of the voters sincerely rate A as "excellent" and sincerely
> rate B as "very good".  The other 40% sincerely rate A as "awful" and
> sincerely rate B as "very good".
> 
> >From this very limited data, it APPEARS to me that B is a better group
> outcome.  Choice A leaves 40% of the group dissatisfied whereas choice B
> leaves every member reasonably content.  I personally would generally rather
> be content 100% of the time than only 60% of the time.  
> 
> Of course, others may have a different view.  And for *some* situations it is
> indeed better to select an "extreme excellent" choice that is intensely
> disliked by some. A robust voting system must allow for all possibilities.
> 
> But my point is: The assertion that a "basic democratic principle" must always
> select the candidate preferred by a majority - is merely that, an assertion.
> I do not believe it is a necessary or even useful component of a valid group
> decision-making method.
> 
> Mike Saari

Wrong. The desirability of majority rule isn't just an assertiion of
mine; it's a very widely-held standard.

While it's astonishing that you can say that you don't believe that
majorilty rule is a useful component of group decisionmaking, you
have a right to your standards too.

But where you go wrong is when you say that your standard is right,
and the one that most other people agree on is wrong.

There's plenty of room for relativism here. You & Don D. aren't
wrong to have the standards that you have. But let's hope that you
won't insist that everyone else is wrong for having different
standards.

***

As I told you a long time ago, on a different mailing list, 
if I were in that group choosing the ice-cream flavor, do 
you think that I'd be such a hard-ass bastard that I'd
insist on majority rule, and make those people eat a flavor
that they hate? No way. I agree that the considerate thing
to do is not to impose on people something that they hate.

But maybe you don't realize that this list has been mostly
discussing methods for public political elections. And most
people, rightly, highly value majority rule in public
political elections. I recently mentioned here that your
point system is like a mugger, forcing us to give up either
our chance to vote our favorite fully over everyone, or to
fully help our compromise beat our worst choice.

I don't know what country you're writing from, and I certainly
excuse you for not knowing about the voting problems in the
U.S. But here, the famous LO2E problem dominates & cowes
large numbers of voters, people who complain about the fact
that they have to makek the above-mentioned choice.

Let's not replace one mugger-voting-system with another.

Mike Ossipoff



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