[EM] Replying to Richard re: his Margins argument

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Richard said:

Something I like about margins, and that is also relevant to the concerns
of a voting public. Mike had stated he prefers a method that overrules
fewer voters. My illustration relates overruling to a distance on the
diagram. The distance Mike chooses to measure is much farther than the
true distance involved in dropping a defeat. To drop a defeat, you only
need to move it as far as the tie line. Mike would move it all the way to 
the
no-winning-votes line, which gives a distorted measure of the amount
of overruling that takes place.

I reply:

In other words, Richard's whole argument about overruling has to
do with his diagram. Yes, Richard, the diagram is only an illustration
of the relations that are diagrammed.

On overruling, my point has been that if A beats B, then it isn't
possible for the voting system to overrule the B>A voters, because they're 
already overruled by the more numerous A>B voters. The voting
system didn't overrule them. They just lost. So when we don't drop
the A>B defeat, we aren't overruling anyone. If we drop the A>B defeat,
we're overruling all the A>B voters.

You be the judge then--which interpretation of what overruling means
make more sense?

But I also clarified that overruling isn't my main concern. I'm
more concerned about the lesser-of-2-evils problem, and majority rule.
Margins, as I said, erases majority information, and its violations
that I posted, with the examples, demonstrate its easy tendency to
retain the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

Richard quotes me:

Now Anthony says "It had nothing to do with what voters want."
Yes, Anthony, that was my point. You've gotten it right again. Very
good.

Richard says:

Mike has taken Anthony out of context here. Anthony was referring to
Mike's statement about margins looking "nice on a certain diagram"
when he made that statement.

I reply:

Can Anthony & Richard ever let that diagram statement rest??

Richard continues:

Mike's original approach to criticising
my illustration was to trivialize it. So Mike's original criticism was
not really about voter concerns, was it?

I reply:

Sure it was. It was about the fact that your arguments are
quite irrelevant to voter concerns.

Richard continues:

Personally I think this matter has been beaten to death already

I reply:

And yet you & Anthony can't seem to let go of it.

Richard continues:

Clearly there are
differences of opinion. Mike is more concerned about protecting
the sincere CW than about voter overruling. For me the priorities are
reversed.

I reply:

Protecting a sincere CW is important to me. That goal can be regarded
as an extension of the Condorcet Criterion, which is widely accepted,
but which, to me, isn't worth much by itself.

But surely I've sufficiently repeated what's important to me: Getting
rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem, and protecting majority rule.

Richard continues:

Based on my different priorities I rate margins somewhat
higher than winning votes. In spite of what Mike said in an earlier
post, I never contradicted him on the possibility of strategic collapse
in margins. I do think collapse and reversal are high-risk strategies
(done to increase chances of best-case utility while at the same time
making the worst case more likely, without necessarily achieving an
overall increase in utility expectation), so they probably won't be
as prevalent as Mike thinks.

I reply:

As I said, truncation has been common in every rank-balloting that
I've participated in.

My Margins order-reversal example, the 201,200,100 example, shows how
ridiculously easy successful order-reversal is in Margins. So don't
be so sure no one will find that out. As I said, I myself would often
be taking advantage of that easy opportunity, and advising others to
do the same. Risk? Not so great in Margins. And not everyone finds a
significant merit difference among their disliked candidates anyway,
and so, for many, there couldn't be significant risk.

But if I haven't said this I should have: The defensive strategy
criteria don't stipulate offensive strategy in their premise.
SFC & GSFC only stipulate _no_ falsification. There's nothing about
the defensive strategy criteria that would make them only apply when
there's offensive strategy. Margins can fail those criteria even
when there's no offensive strategy. My Margins failure examples can
be described, without changing the rankings, in a way that has no
offensive strategy.

Order-reversal or truncation against a sincere CW is one interpretation
of examples in which Margins fails the defensive strategy criteria,
but the criteria aren't specifically about offensive strategy, and
those Margins failure examples can be described and explained with
no mention of offensive strategy.

Richard continues:

Besides, I don't elevate these problems
to the same level of importance Mike does.

I reply:

Fine, your standards are different, and you are _not_ wrong because
your standards don't relate to the things that are important to voters.

Richard continues:

Approval or any form of Condorcet will be so much better than the
silly IRV or Borda alternatives to single-mark Plurality, and the
differences between various forms of Condorcet are small compared
to the differences between Approval or Condorcet and the silly
methods. Those who agree on this point should at least unite behind
any wasted "reform" effort such as IRV.


I reply:

But, if you want to really get rid of the strategy problem that
now makes millions of people dump their favorite, then you don't
want Margins; and the merit difference between Margins & wv is
not small. I consider Approval to be about as good as wv.

Mike Ossipoff

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