[EM] Responses to some of Forest's ideas

[Richard Moore]

Blake Cretney wrote:

> On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 19:21:43 -0700
> Richard Moore <rmoore4 at home.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>One thing to remember is that no election method can 
>>distinguish between the case where A and C are extremists 
>>and B is a moderate compromise (the electorate being highly 
>>polarized), and the case where A and C are the moderate 
>>representatives of opposing viewpoints and B is the village 
>>idiot with 8 close friends or relatives.
>>
> 
> That is true, as long as either
> a)  The two moderate groups prefer the village idiot to the other
> side.
> b)  They don't prefer the village idiot, but vote as if they do.


I was referring to Forest's example which I'll repeat again 
here:

45 A >> B > C
45 C >> B > A
2 C > A >> B
4 B > A >> C
4 B > C >> A

There aren't really any "moderate groups" since the A voters 
could range from moderate to extreme left and the C voters
could range from moderate to extreme right. But the two 
large factions in this example do prefer the VI to the other 
extreme (I'm assuming Forest has given sincere preferences, 
although all he specified was that it was zero-info). So 
Blake's (a) condition is met.

> If a is true, then maybe he isn't such an idiot.


Well, I must admit "village idiot" is a bit of a hyperbole. 
What I mean is that the vast majority might perceive this 
candidate to be an ineffective leader. Many people might 
prefer an ineffective leader to an effective one whom they 
perceive to be leading the village in the wrong direction.

Since the method can't tell if B is a village idiot or not, 
it's up to the people, but if the method allows a low 
utility candidate (CW or not) to win, then the people might 
not always be able to send that message via that method. Or 
for the reason I gave above, they don't want to send that 
message badly enough. That was the point Forest was making. 
My point is that a method that screens out low-SU candidates 
may also (at times) allow a compromise candidate to be 
neglected. However, I believe that will only happen if the 
electorate is highly polarized, so it may be a worthwhile 
trade-off.

> If b is true, at
> least the idiot is representative.


LOL!


Richard