[EM] Yet another IRV problem

[Forest Simmons]

On Wed, 16 May 2001, Anthony Simmons wrote:

<snip>

> It's all a big mystery to most people.

That turned on a light for me. It suddenly dawned on me that the reason
that all of those FairVote people I talked to prefer IRV over any other
method (or suggested modification of IRV) is that they made a mental
investment in understanding IRV, which was an agonizing process. When they
finally were able to hold the IRV process in their brains long enough for
it to make sense, they had some sense of relief that they would never have
to think that hard about anything for the rest of their lives.

Hence their leader's remark that he prefers IRV over all other methods,
even if supposedly superior methods were to become politically viable in
the future.

In spite of my attempts to explain other methods and their advantages, he
seemed to completely tune out during all examples and explanations. Not
once did he ask an intelligent question or make any kind of remark to
indicate that he understood the relative merits of an alternate method
even when applied to a specific example. 

I think he and others like him believe that they already did the required
amount of thinking, and (thank goodness) Arrow's Impossibility Theorem is
a universal excuse from further thought.

Forest