[EM] How Academics Have it Backwards

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

You might say that you've heard some academic author say that
it's good to avoid need for defensive strategy. But, when Markus
asks if I can name an acadamic who's said that, I have to say
"Not off hand". I can name Markus, however--he expressed the wish
of ensuring that sincere voting won't be punished. As I told
Markus, I feel sure that some professors, if cornered, would
have to agree that that sounds like a good goal.

But what we usually hear is that any insincere voting is
"manipulation", a bad thing, an effort to cheat the voting
system. And, according to this doctrine, methods are spoken of
according to how vulnerable to manipulation they are.

With millions of voters strategically forced to vote insincerely,
the academics seem to be uninterested in the goal of reducing that
need for insincerity, and insist on recognizing only the
following problem with insincerity: It's a manipulation attempt'
that shouldn't succeed. If it can succeed, then the method is
vulnerable to strategy.

So if you're someone who likes Nader best, but you're going to
vote for Gore as a lesser-evil, you're a scheming manipulator,
and if you succeed in avoiding the election of your last choice,
you've manipulated the method and shown that Plurality is
vulnerable to manipulation.

Now do you see why I said "Heads up the ass"?

Markus is very upset with me for my heresy of wanting to protect
an insincere voter--even it it's only by protecting him from his
need for insincerity!

Is Plurality bad because "manipulation" by lesser-of-2-evils
voters can succeed in defeating their last choice? Or is Plurality
good because they can suffer by giving away their favorite's win
when they try to manipulate the election in that way?

Now you know why I said those guys aren't within hailing distance
of real voters and their practical concerns.

Oh, one more thing--Academics rarely acknowledge that it might
be that everyone won't rank all of the candidates, even though
truncation can be observed in every rank balloting.

Catchy's professors out to lunch? You be the judge.

I seem to have stirred up lots of anger among some defenders of
dogma.

Mike Ossipoff

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