[EM] Approval Strategy for the Average Citizen

[Narins, Josh]

In numerous studies repeated at academic institutions around the world, coin
toss studies, even allowing for the highly contentious
"ignore-coin-if-you-want" option, resulted in lower test scores than for
those who actually studied.


-----Original Message-----
From: Forest Simmons [mailto:fsimmons at pcc.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 7:44 PM
To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
Subject: [EM] Approval Strategy for the Average Citizen


Pretend for a moment that you are an ordinary citizen with very little
knowledge of probability theory, and you are supposed to vote an approval
ballot.

There will be at least two candidates (favorite and worst) that you know
precisely how to categorize (approved and not approved, respectively).

After consulting friends and listening to experts (such as your favorite
candidate) whose political and/or mathematical judgment you trust, you
will have a good idea about how to categorize most of the rest of the
candidates.

Any remaining decisions can be decided with the flip of a coin.

In any case where you feel the coin gives you the wrong choice, just
ignore the coin and go with your gut feeling;  you are not honor bound to
abide by the decision of the coin :-)

This coin tossing strategy for making difficult yes/no decisions has been
around for a long time.  It is simply a device for accessing the wisdom of
your subconscious mind. Not that the coin magically gives you the right
answer, rather when it gives you the wrong answer, your subconscious
awareness is triggered and amplified by a sense of alarm that the wrong
decision is about to be implemented.

Forest




Forest

----
For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), 
please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the designated recipient(s) named above.  If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited.  This communication is for information purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or as a solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product, an official confirmation of any transaction, or as an official statement of Lehman Brothers.  Email transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free.  Therefore, we do not represent that this information is complete or accurate and it should not be relied upon as such.  All information is subject to change without notice.


----
For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), 
please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em