B>A=C & B>C>A

[Mike Ositoff]

I
I misquoted Blake's example, the one in this message's
subject line.

He'd said that B>A=C is insincere if done to keep A from
winning due to order-reversal. Maybe, but as a voter
I wouldn't vote:

1. B
2. A & C

I'd just vote:

1. B

So I'm not making an insincere statement about A & C; I'm
just not including them. This isn't just a semantic point;
defensive truncation doesn't have the ways of backfiring
& giving away the election that are had by the
insincere upranking that I call "drastic defensive strategy".

And I question whether B>C>A is sincere in the sense in which
we've been using the word. You like A's policies better than
those of C, but you rank C over A to defeat the A voters'
order-reversal. You dislike the A voters for what they're
trying to do, but it seems to be reaching a bit to say that
you're sincerely ranking C over A, when you'd be better off
if A won rather than C.

***

Anyway, again, insincere upranking can give elections away,
and, in any case, who says that the B votes know which extreme
candidate they need to use that strategy against. When, in
Votes-Against, the B voters make it publicly known that they
aren't voting a 2nd choice, no one will try order-reversal.
When the B voters' intended strategy in Margins leaks out,
it will be pounced on, and the B voters will be taken advantage
of by the C voters. Unless of course they're above the
use of strategy, an assumption that we don't usually make
here.

Mike