[EM] Responses to some of Forest's ideas

[Forest Simmons]

I have been in some of these consensus decision making seances.

When there is no consensus (100 percent approval) the group members try to
understand and deal with the concerns of those who are holding out.  If
efforts at assuaging the concerns of the holdouts don't win them over,
then compromises are made by the super satisfied, and so forth, until a
decision that everyone can live with is found.

It seems to me that Approval is the method that most directly tries to
answer the question of which candidate is most likely to be the end result
of a consensus process, short of going through the tedious consensus
process itself. 

A majority is not by itself a consensus, yet a candidate with majority
first preference support is automatically a Condorcet Winner.  There may
be another candidate who is more of a consensus candidate. 

On the other hand, the candidate with the most sincere approval is
arguably the candidate with the most potential for eventually reaching 100
percent consent.

If the League of Women Voters knew about this feature of Approval, perhaps
they would be willing to consider it as an alternative to IRV.

Forest

On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Bart Ingles wrote:

> I basically agree with the following, but question whether there is a
> real answer to which candidate (A or B) should be the winner.  B is more
> of a consensus candidate (depending on the relative strength of '>>'
> versus '>').
> 
> The general US population may well favor A, after having been taught
> erroneously that democracy means 'majority rule' (whatever that is). 
> But indigenous Americans have traditionally used consensus within tribal
> councils, as do the League of Women Voters in their consensus meetings. 
> Apparently neither of these groups trust formal voting procedures enough
> to use them in this setting.  All the more ironic given the name of the
> latter group.
> 
> 
> 
> Forest Simmons wrote:
> > 
> > As usual we rely on Craig to come up with all of the interesting examples.
> > 
> > I'm willing to bend my stance a little on the basis of comments and
> > examples from Rob, Craig, and Demo, as well as my belief in Universal
> > Approval as a good standard.
> > 
> > The examples and discussion around them show that deciding an approval
> > cutoff can be an exasperating experience, especially if we just know the
> > utilities but don't know how the voter feels about the candidates.
> > 
> > Demorep's method would take some of the pressure off for getting the
> > approval cutoff just right. A non-sophisticated voter might appreciate
> > this feature, as Rob and others have argued in different words.
> > 
> > And as I mentioned before, the general population would probably agree
> > that the winner in the (zero-info) example below should be the CW, and not
> > the Approval winner:
> > 
> > 55 A > B >> C
> > 35 C > B >> A
> > 10 C > A >> B
> > 
> > Universal and Dyadic Approval also give the win to A, but just barely, so
> > I would agree as well, on the basis of my favorite methods.
> > 
> > But playing the devil's advocate for a minute, I will state the case for
> > B:
> > 
> > Let's use Demorep's definition of a yes vote as our definition of
> > approval.  A voter is supposed to approve a candidate if that candidate is
> > "tolerable."
> > 
> > In the above example B is intolerable or totally unacceptable to only ten
> > of the voters.
> > 
> > At what cost do we go from candidate B to candidate A?
> > 
> > The cost is a net increase of 25 in the number of voters that have to be
> > represented by someone totally unacceptable to them. Now 35 voters are
> > represented by someone intolerable to them.
> > 
> > What do we have on the positive side to balance out this distressing
> > change of fortune?
> > 
> > Well, now 55 of the voters that would have been represented by a merely
> > tolerable candidate get to have someone they like better, someone that
> > will better cater to their interests.
> > 
> > The additional luxury of the 55 compensates for the abject misery of the
> > 25 dropouts.
> > 
> > This might make sense in a society where the benefits get spread around
> > evenly "from each according to his abilities and to each according to his
> > needs" but in a society of "every man for himself" this is a cause of
> > concern.
> > 
> > The fallacy of Expected or Average Utility as a measure of aggregate
> > utility is the assumption that one man's gain can compensate for an equal
> > loss by another man.  It might work in some utopia, but not in any country
> > or state that I know of (where the only form of welfare without stigma is
> > the giant corporation feeding at the public trough).
> > 
> > This is why I suggest filtering the sincere utilities through the square
> > root function (for example) before adding them to get aggregate social
> > utility in future simulations.
> > 
> > One more argument in favor of the sincere zero-info approval winner B:
> > 
> > Democracy implies "consent of the governed."
> > 
> > Which of the candidates A or B would govern with the consent of more of
> > the voters?
> > 
> > I submit that the members of the A faction could consent to B as their
> > governor without too much difficulty, but how could the 35 members of the
> > CB faction consent to someone that they find totally intolerable and
> > unacceptable?
> > 
> > For the 55 first faction supporters to willingly use their majority status
> > for personal gain while forcing 25 additional citizens into abject misery
> > would require either a callous lack of compassion or an arrogant
> > paternalistic attitude of, "We know what's better for them than they do."
> > 
> > So either the greed or the arrogance of 55 percent deprives the body
> > politic from being governed by maximum consent.  Approval = Potential for
> > Consent.
> > 
> > In summary, we don't have to argue for adoption of Approval over Condorcet
> > only on the basis of simplicity, Favorite Betrayal Criterion, etc.
> > Approval gives more hope than any other (multi-candidate single winner)
> > method to the disenfranchised minority against the "tyranny of the
> > majority."
> > 
> > Forest
> 
>