[EM] Blake takes the low road

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Apr 2001):
> For another thing, Markus had been exhibiting some of Don Davison's
> traits, repeating arguments that I'd questioned, instead of answering
> my simple question. On one occasion that was about his claim that
> it isn't true that the usual Condorcet Criterion definitions are
> either met by Plurality, or by nothing.  To bring that out, I'd
> asked about his Beatpath GMC in that regard. He started describing
> a new way of applying criteria, and I asked him if, thereby,
> Plurality meets Beatpath GMC & Condorcet's Criterion. No answer.
> I asked him if he uses different rules for applying criteria to
> different methods. No answer, just repetition of the arguments that
> I'd questioned.

I suggested that all methods and all criteria should be defined
on the (not necessarily sincerely) reported von Neumann-Morgenstern
utilities of the voters and that the used election method takes
from these reported utilities that information that it needs to
calculate the winner. This is a widely used concept to compare
election methods that were otherwise defined on different inputs.
>From the mathematical point of view it is virtually impossible to
compare methods that cannot be applied to the same input.

I explained why plurality violates the Condorcet criterion and
beat-path GMC. But then you began to bombard me with insults and
unwarranted attacks. You wrote that this concept was "dishonest,"
"sloppy," "shabby," "bizarre," "funky," "absurd," "faulty," "silly,"
"incorrect," "incomplete," "incoherent," "poor," "pointless,"
"contradictory," "undefined," "odd," "vague" and "useless"
"garbage" and "mumbojumbo" and that those who use this concept were
"barking," "confused" and "desparately hopping" "fruitcakes" and
"head-up-the-ass academics." In so far as your mails contained only
insults and no new questions or new arguments, there was no need for
me to reply.

By the way: Very recently Rob LeGrand simulated utilities and
applied different election methods to these utilities. You didn't
have any problems understanding his simulations. Why do you have
problems when I suggest this but not when Rob LeGrand suggests this?

******

You wrote (17 Apr 2001):
> And before that, it was about his attempts to find fault with
> some of my & Steve's criteria. I admit that I became impatient with
> his fallacious arguments, his claims that WDSC is ambiguous, when
> the only ambiguity was in Markus's notion of what it means to pass
> a criterion.

Your definition of WDSC looked as follows:
> If a majority of all the voters prefer A to B, then they should
> have a way of voting that will ensure that B cannot win, without
> any member of that majority voting a less-liked candidate over a
> more-liked candidate.

Does that mean?:

   If a majority of the voters strictly prefers A to B then
   --independently on how the other voters vote-- there is always a
   way of voting such that B doesn't win, without any member of that
   majority voting a less-liked candidate over a more-liked candidate.

Or does that mean?:

   If a majority of the voters strictly prefers A to B then
   there is always a way of voting such that --independently on how
   the other voters vote-- B doesn't win, without any member of that
   majority voting a less-liked candidate over a more-liked candidate.

Markus Schulze