[EM] 3 questions for Markus

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Markus said:

>You wrote (20 Sep 2000):
> > Even if that's true, that other criterion isn't saying the same
> > thing. It could be used to test for my criteria, but its value
> > would only be indirect, as a way of testing for the criteria that
> > say what I want to say. It would obscure the purpose of
> > the criterion.
>
>You can use your lesser-of-two-evils concept as a heuristic to explain
>your criteria,

You're too kind.

>But I
>am very sceptical when you use your lesser-of-two-evils concept
>itself as an "academic criterion."

You're "skeptical", but you can't show that the defensive strategy
criteria, as written, have ambiguity or contradiction, or false
assumptions, or any other genuine problem. You expect people to accept
"I'm skeptical" as an argument?

"Academic criterion"? If you think I called the defensive strategy
criteria "academic criteria", would you  be so kind as to re-post the
posting(s) in which I said that? I've always made it clear that
the academics seem quite uninterested in the lesser-of-2-evils problem, so 
it's odd that you'd say that I called those criteria
"academic criteria".


> > I don't know whether you have an additional way to make
> > the Condorcet Criterion or your Beatpath GMC apply to all
> > methods. I don't know if you have a way of doing that without
> > mentioning sincere preferences. If you do, I just haven't heard it
> > yet.
>
>To circumvent this problem it is sufficient to presume that the
>voters always cast their full (not necessarily sincere) vNM
>utilities on the ballots.

That's funny--I didn't notice that stipulation in your definition of
Beatpath GMC. Additionally, you say that you don't want me to mention
voters' sincere preferences among candidates, but you want to
refer to their sincere preferences among lotteries? :-) You're violating
your own request for criteria that say nothing about voters other
than their actual cast ballots.

You say that it should be presumed (but not said in your wording?)
that voters cast their full (not necessarily sincere) vNM utilities.
What does it mean to cast utilities? Would it be too much to ask
that you tell us a precise & complete wording for what you now
say is your definition for Beatpath GMC?

Preferably a definition that is useful and complies with your
own request that the only thing the criterion refers to about
voters is their actual cast ballots.

Because, now you seem to be saying that you define BGMC in terms
of voters valuations of the candidates--their (insincere?) vNM
utilities for the candidates. I doubt that it will be possible to
know what you're talking about till you actually post a precise
& complete definition of what you now think you mean by
Beatpath GMC.

In fact, if you consider the Condorcet Criterion important, then
how would you define that, precisely, completely, & usefully?

>
>In so far as BC doesn't take into consideration whether the
>considered pairwise majorities are absolute or relative majorities,
>I don't see any connection between BC and your majority defensive
>strategy criteria.

...other than the fact that I demonstrated on this list that any
method that meets BC meets all 4 of the majority defensive strategy
criteria :-)  It's in the February archives, from the time when I
first rejoined this list. Check it out.

>
>******
>
>You wrote (20 Sep 2000):
> > I should add that, though the definiton that I posted for
> > Participation says nothing about sincere preferences, the
> > Participation definition that you stated stipulates sincere voting
> > and the worsening of the outcomes with respect to the voter's
> > sincere preferences. So you don't do a good job of abiding by
> > your own rule.
>
>I wrote (9 Dec 1998):
> > Participation Criterion: Suppose, that candidate X is elected.
> > Then an additional voter, who strictly prefers candidate X to
> > candidate Y, must not make Y win the election.

So you're saying that you didn't mean what you said? You said "prefers"
, but you meant "Votes X over Y"? Say what you mean.

>The itention of the participation criterion is to say that
>a voter must not be punished for showing up and voting
>sincerely. But the participation criterion itself is
>defined only on the actually casted ballots.

Likewise for my wording of Participation. Different criteria are
about different things. The defensive strategy are about need for
insincere voting.

>
>Similarly you can use sincere preferences to explain the
>intention of your lesser-of-two-evils criteria. But the
>exact definitions of your lesser-of-two-evils criteria
>should work only on the actually casted ballots.

Unlike your Beatpath GMC definition, which you now say refers
to voters valuations of the candidates--their (not necessarily
sincere) vNM utilities for the candidates :-)

Well, you see now, this is the part that isn't clear: Why should
criteria be based only on actually cast ballots? I've asked you
to justify that statement, you haven't, and now I again ask you
to. Why shouldn't a criterion mention sincere preferences?

Are you aware that your new, vaguely-referred-to meaning for BGMC
refers to voters valuations of the candidates, in the form of
vNM utilities?

Since the criteria are about avoiding need for insincere voting, to
the extent possible, it isn't at all clear why you think they should
be worded without mentioning sincere preferences.

I do use a "heuristic" with FBC. The brief, precise wording doesn't
make it so obvious what its purpose is, and so I say something about
that before & after I write the exact wording. Sometimes I don't
even use the precise wording, but merely say "With Approval no one
ever has incentive to dump their favorite, and that can't be said for
any other method." But the precise wording is available upon request.

But you have yet to justify your request for wording that doesn't mention 
sincere preferences, when sincere vs insincere voting is the
central point of the criteria.

> > But even if those other criteria could be written,
> > it isn't clear what you think that would mean about criteria that
> > mention sincere preferences. You didn't say they aren't valid,
> > because you know that wouldn't be so. You didn't say they're
> > not clearly-defined, though you unsuccessfully tried to show that
> > 2 of them were. So far, all we have is that you don't want to
> > discuss them. Suit yourself. We can assume, then, that you've
> > said the worst that you can about the defensive strategy criteria.
>
>In your website at http://home.pacbell.net/paielli/voting, four of
>the five criteria that you use to promote Condorcet methods are
>based on your lesser-of-two-evils concept.

Correct.

>You promote the Condorcet
>methods in such a way that the reader gets the impression that if
>he doesn't consider your lesser-of-two-evils concept to be important
>then Condorcet methods are worthless.

Sorry, but it isn't my responsibility to advocate methods using
criteria that are important to other people, but not to me. I invite
you to promote the Condorcet versions (or BeatpathWinner) using
criteria that are important to you.

>You don't consider this to
>be a problem because you consider it to be obvious that everybody
>who values majority rule also values your lesser-of-two-evils
>concept.

Well, that isn't what I've said. I said that the LO2E problem and
majority rule are concerns of so many people that I call them the
"main standards". Yes, I admit that my criteria are based on the
main standards, and measure for those standards.

>But I don't see any reason for your optimism.

As I told Blake: Pick up any U.S. newspaper, and read, in the
editorials, the letters to the editor, or the articles, various
claims that we should abandon Nader and vote for Gore in order
to beat Bush. I'm not sure what you mean by "optimism". I merely
say that I've written criteria about conerns that are very
widespread, that are nearly universal among American progressives,
and which thoroughly dominate their voting.

>
>Actually, to my opinion, the currently discussed Condorcet methods
>are very good methods compared to the non-Condorcet methods even if
>the reader doesn't consider your lesser-of-two-evils concept to be
>important. But he will never know that because you spend four fifths
>of your time with your lesser-of-two-evils concept.

Then I hope you are out there advocating for the Condorcet versions
based on criteria that are important to _you_.  I'm sorry, but I ask more of 
a voting
system than you do. But, if you're going to use the Condorcet
Criterion & Beatpath GMC, I hope that you'll define them a lot
better than they've been defined so far.

> > By the way, you've been hopping from one criticism attempt
> > to another. When one fails, you try another.  You seem to be
> > desparately trying everything. You want to find fault with
> > those criteris so badly that it really shows.
>
>A few years ago I proposed beat-path GMC as an alternative
>wording for your lesser-of-two-evils criteria. Beat-path GMC
>has the advantage that it is defined only on the actually
>casted ballots

Wrong. Your vaguely-referred-to new meaning for Beatpath GMC
refers also to voters valuations of the candidates, in the form
of their (not necessarily sincere) vNM utilities for the candidates.

>so that it is significantly more simple to
>check whether a given election method meets beat-path GMC
>than to check whether it meets your lesser-of-two-evils
>criteria.

Not until you tell a precise & complete wording for what you now
say is what your definitiion of Beatpath GMC.

And in my previous letter I asked you to justify your claim that
Beatpath GMC is an alternative wording for LO2E criteria.
It certainly doesn't say anything about LO2E. Maybe you mean that
compliance with BGMC implies compliance with criteria that
do say something about LO2E. But you still haven't said what
criteria those would be. SFC, GSFC, WDSC & SDSC? If so, you
haven't demonstrated it.

Even if you show that BGMC compliance implies compliance with those
4 criteria, there are 2 reasons why I don't accept BGMC as a
substitute: 1) I like to use criteria that actually say something
about avoiding insincere voting. You can use a separate heuristic
if you want to. 2) To meet the majority defensive strategy criteria,
it isn't necessary to meet BGMC. To meet BC, it isn't necessary to
meet BGMC. You haven't justified the need for BGMC.

>
>But very recently (e.g. in your 4 June 2000 mail, in
>Steve's 2 June 2000 mail or in Steve's 26 Feb 2000 mail)
>you rejected beat-path GMC as "overly strong." Therefore
>--even if you don't want to define in your website at
>http://home.pacbell.net/paielli/voting your lesser-of-two-evils
>criteria in such a way that they depend only on the actually
>casted ballots-- it would be very advantageous for the
>discussion in this mailing list if you could define your
>lesser-of-two-evils criteria in such a way that they depend
>only on the actually casted ballots.

Again, you still haven't told us why it would be more advantageous
if I "defined [my] criteria" in a way so that all they say about
voters is their actual cast ballots. For one thing, you have yet
to post a precise, complete wording of Beatpath GMC that complies
with that request. And by the way, what you mean is that you
want equivalent criteria that are worded as you request, not
different wordings of the same criteria.

Why would that be more advantageous. And, if so, why have you now
vaguely suggested that you now would define Beatpath GMC in terms
of voters valuations of the candidates?

>Then the participants of
>this mailing list can see in how far beat-path GMC is "overly
>strong" compared to your lesser-of-two-evils criteria.

It's overly strong, but not usefully strong (if "strong" just means
difficult to comply with), if methods that meet the 4 defensive
strategy criteria fail Beatpath GMC. Unless of course you tell
what criteria with obvious LO2E relevance are met only by
methods that meet BGMC.

>And
>they can also see more clearly e.g. why compliance with BC
>means compliance with SFC, GSFC, WDSC and SDSC as you suggest
>in your recent mails.

As I said, I demonstrated that here, and it's in the February
archieves of EM.

>I have proposed beat-path GMC as an alternative wording for your
>lesser-of-two-evils criteria that has the same intention and that
>is defined only on the actually casted ballots.

Wrong. The new meaning for BGMC that you've now vaguely alluded to
refers to voters' valuations of the candidates--their
(not necessarily sincere) vNM utilities. That's more than only
their cast ballots.

Also, you say that BGMC has the intention to deal with LO2E, but
you still haven't demonstrated that it does.


>So if you really
>want to discuss the lesser-of-two-evils criteria defined only on the
>actually casted ballots, then you have every possibility to do so.

I'll discuss my criteria. If you can find genuine problems with
them, tell us.

As I said, your vague reference to a new meaning for BGMC now
refers to voters' valuations of the candidates, and no just their
actual cast ballots.

But let's discuss your Beatpath GMC too. Will you post a
precise & complete wording for what you now say is what you
mean by Beatpath GMC?

>
>You claim that beat-path GMC was too strong compared to your
>lesser-of-two-evils criteria. But actually beat-path GMC is
>significantly weaker that GMC that you have proposed until
>very recently (until Feb 2000?).

Are you saying that I proposed the use of GMC as late as Feb 2000?
What's the latest such advocacy of GMC by me that you can find
in the archives? It wasn't Feb 2000, or anything close to that,
was it.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at 
http://profiles.msn.com.