[EM] Random ranking, & other bogies

[Blake Cretney]

On Wed, 2002-11-27 at 23:53, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> 
> 
> Matt--
> 
> You said that with wv, voters could have incentive to randomly rank
> candidates between whom they're indifferent, and you said that somehow
> that's a problem that could outweigh, for you, wv's advantages over
> margins.
> 
> But to whom is that a problem, if someone is strategically tempted
> to randomly rank some candidates between whom he's indifferent. Certainly it 
> isn't a serious problem to that voter, since by your
> assumption he doesn't care which of those wins. Is it a problem to another 
> voter? How?

As I recently mentioned, for those who want to read how I make the case
for margins, you can see the following page.

http://www.condorcet.org/rp/inc.shtml

> Blake says that it's dogmatic to say that majority rule is important.

Not necessarily.  If you believe that majority rule is important because
you have some argument to that effect, then that isn't dogmatic, and
that is in fact the position I take.  If, however, the belief is based
on the fact that that's what your teacher said in 6th grade, then I
consider it dogmatic.

I also think the postmodern approach of saying that all standards are
equally valid tends to lead to a kind of dogmatism, because it closes
down rational debate in favour of socially imposed opinion.  This is a
more subtle argument, but it has the same effect. 

> If Blake doesn't consider it an important standard, that doesn't mean
> Blake's wrong; anyone can have his own standards. But to many people
> majority rule is important. Blake suggests that it's arbitary to say
> that "majority" means a majority of the voters. But that's how it's
> always used, and it's the meaning that people consider important.

Majority always means more than half, but the question is, more than
half of what?  More than half of the people casting a ballot, more than
half of those expressing a preference between the candidates being
compared, or more than half of the electorate?  I choose the second one,
and this follows from my reasons for favouring majority rule in the
first place.  But if I had no reasons, I might pick something different.
 
> Of what relevance is a non-majority of people who don't even bother to
> vote? 

I hope that was a rhetorical question.

> But if few of those who voted consider a particular pairwise
> comparison important enough to vote on, that says something.

That's why I don't consider a vote of 3 to 1 to be as decisive as 100 to
50 (I know you don't either).

---
Blake Cretney (http://condorcet.org)


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