[EM] Fw: Invitation to join politicians-and-polytopes

[Craig Carey]

I apologize for the length of this, and I write in defence of
  principle in voting theory. Once a method is derived from principle,
  then the principles can be given instead of the method to the voters,
  although the counters would always need the method (unless some
  computer program handled the implicit form). So Mr Petry failed
  to realize that it is very possibly ('probably', I presume) Condorcet
  that would be the more complex. ....

____________________________________________________________________

At 00:03 07.04.00 -0600, Norman Petry wrote:
 >Mr. Carey,
 >
 >I consider the creation of a second voting methods discussion list to be
 >pointless.
 >
If it is for research and the obtaining of knowledge [with or without
  imparting or at worst, "understanding"], a better argument would be
  required to have it ended. However, please do continue.


 >Rob Lanphier has always done an excellent job of maintaining the current
 >list.  It is working fine, and I don't see any obstacle to you posting
 >messages or responding to items of interest here, and ignoring those posts
 >which are irrelevant to your goals (that's what I do).
 >
 >I am not surprised that you have been unable to attract participants to your
 >new list, since I think most of the members of EM would share my sentiments.

Some of those thinking of joining have minds like ocean supertankers.

Mr Lanphier wrote he did not tend to the discussions in the list. I have
  no comment on that. I note to the list owner that I am defending
  mathematics (again).

Mr Catchpole dropped in a hint to the list about politeness, following
  a hint from me about truthfulness. Mr Petry might have innocently
  made an error of thinking that axiom based voting methods need be
  complex when finally out. I have no proof, just an 1995 approach at
  solving a 4 candidate equation.

...
 >single-winner method.  I think that attempting to fix the severe problems
 >inherent in AV is like trying to build a house on sand, so I have no desire
 >to pursue that particular dead-end with you.  This is particularly true if
 >the fixes you are attempting can only be described in mathematical terms.
 >Any method which cannot be described in a natural language to an informed
 >layman is also a dead-end.  ...

Fixing AV would not be "trying to build a house on sand". It is piecewise
  linear (not non-linear), and just some of the surfaces are in the wrong
  place. If a person knew how to fix it, they could have that all done by
  the time they had finished writing.

I made an attempted fix, named AV1, (by the typically sure to fail method
  of guessing [how was Schulze's method derived?]), and Mr Cretney found
  a numerical example essentially rejecting that guess. All that covered
  in its essence only 2 messages, and progress was made. I'll get around
  to promoting my list and then maybe a 9 year old boy in Ohio or
  somewhere might solve the problem and I could do the proof, unless
  Catchpole wants to do it.

Natural language seems to mean complexity. "Complexity" would be better
  if meant.

PS. to be dogmatic about the need to match your tone and texture of your
  explanations with political stupidity sounds like a little like a
  building plan to have high lords trapped often into disputes with
  common house builders over what to do with bent nails. Wouldn't it
  be as good to have the method perfect and based upon rules.

Couldn't it be mathematical so that politicians are criticised in their
  absence and given a pauper's explanation when actually met.

In any case, how would Mr Petry respond if entrapped in an argument
  saying that 98% of the blame for the badness of the method so criticised
  by an unknown advisor, lies with the theorists that devised and
  advocated the method, or the tester that tested them. Believing
  that politicians are dullards isn't helpful if they limit the
  discussion to matters of pure fact. They might think of that if you
  described how they could not comprehend the explanations.

The rejection of mathematics on grounds of political stupidity isn't
  one that university undergraduates would readily follow. It also does
  not seem to be an argument that can be sustained: There is always a
  chance that the politician might have a knowledge of mathematics.
  How do we fix those politicians Mr Petry?: they are living people;
  fix them before they say with a unfriendly comment: your explanation
  can be complex son, the government use mathematicians and it
  ordinarily uses scientific experts when deciding on matters of
  mundane science.

This is the only mathematics mailing list I have been a subscriber
  of where posters reject mathematics and refer vaguely to people.

What is the name of a politician that can't understand theories
  based on simple principles but is interested ad-hoc pairwise
  comparing methods that have no love for voters and their interests
  and would convey 'understanding' to them about the method and leave
  their interests as rigid dead stone cold Laplanders scattered
  over arctic snow. You wrote:

 >Any method which cannot be described in a natural language to an informed
 >layman is also a dead-end.  ...

The problem for laymen would be the content of the message. Suppose
  a politician could not understand: what would stop them asking
  questions until they did understand.

In a message I sent to this list in 1999, I wrote that a method ought
  be able to be implemented on a computer. Mr Petry has a test that
  would reject maybe a lot more:

 >                                                  I have no desire
 >to pursue that particular dead-end with you.  This is particularly true if
 >the fixes you are attempting can only be described in mathematical terms.

I guess the key word is the word desire. Maybe the message I write is
  a mistake. Still, this is likely no to be the last incident at this
  list where mathematics is found to be a non-essential item in the
  determinations on how to advance voting theory.



 >geometry) -- it is simply a tool that democracies can use for making
 >decisions.  Mystifying the decision making process by contriving a voting
 >method which almost no-one can understand is fundamentally undemocratic.
...

To state principles and derive a method is not to contrive a voting
  method. It makes the method follow the axioms/principles.

I shall consider the words "no-one" and put no weight on "mystifying".
Suppose we had 10 of the most intellectually lazy west African savages
  in a room all together comprising a test group of people about which
  "no-one" understood. They weren't all that democratic to start with
  but had hopes for a better society. If Gauss or Legendre or Hermite
  got a method that took a week to devise: it is essentially a
  "fundamentally undemocratic" method.

How many of the bushmen would need to understand: I presume you
  would have a committee to allow the facts pparticular to each
  particular instance to be taken into fullest consideration. For
  example: three were gunned down as escapee political prisoners on
  the far side of the river. Whether they would have been mystified
  in N.P.'s yr 2000 test for electoral method fixing may never be
  known or even guessed at.

Suppose the 10 gentlemen did not like maths, or suppose they were on
  the committee for the retention of the current head of state in
  perpetuity in the 90 year democracy.

Let us stop being so abstruse: can you name these politicians that
  wouldn't tolerate an axiomatic principled preferential voting theory.
  I guess you were stating what definitely did not interest you, but that
  would be no hindrance to listing names of politicians that need to have
  simple ad-hoc best effort methods lacking any black art in their
  origin.

A stupid Democrat perhaps?; a simple city councillor that agreed with
  the position of this mailing list: mathematical rigour has nearly no
  place in voting theory. The subcommittee for the assessing of fitness
  of politicians to understand printed algorithms, and accompanying
  stated principles (voting theories can be provided in two forms
  simultaneously: explicit algorithmic and a principled implicit form)...

...

 >superior to AV in terms of results, and many of these methods are very
 >simple to describe in ordinary, natural language, and therefore have some
 >hope of adoption.  One of the things I've been working on is a simulator to
 >empirically test a variety of proposed methods (I can send you a copy of
 >this if you like).  These simulations show that pairwise methods
 >substantially outperform all other single-winner methods under most
 >reasonable assumptions.  Furthermore, the better single-winner methods

[I recall the computer methods you used and I recall having thought them
  ratter arbitrary, with the results being close and emphasising the
  low value of such a treatment. Also I recall controversial presumptions
  about the worth of pairwise comparing. I am not aware that a candidate
  ought win when it pairwise beats all other candidates. It certainly
  could be true. But methods can't exactly be rejected on presumptions.]



 >Rob Lanphier has always done an excellent job of maintaining the current



It is with a small pleasure I had yet another chance to argue in
  defence of mathematics. It is peculiarly suitable at allowing
  the development of new preferential voting methods.