[EM] Re: Mike: Misunderstanding

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

James--

You say:

	You've misunderstood me. I'm not saying that margins and winning votes
will ever produce worse results than IRV with respect to expressed
preferences. What I'm worried about is the possibility of their producing
worse results than IRV with respect to sincere preferences.
	Obviously ranked pairs(margins) will never violate the Smith set defined
by the votes, but it may well violate the sincere Smith set (as any method
might). Obviously ranked pairs(margins) will never elect the last choice
of 90% of the voters as expressed on the ballots, but I've described
scenarios where it could elect the sincere last choice of 90% of the
voters. One of my open questions is whether WV is capable of doing
anything similar.

I reply:

You say that you're concerned about violations involving prefereces, rather 
than votes. The CW involves preferences, not votes. Majority wishes involves 
preferences, not votes. So I repeat what I already said: You can't elect a 
Condorcet loser without failing to elect a CW if there is one. You can't 
elect someone over whom everyone prefers someone else without violatinlg 
majority wishes. So, as I said, electing CWs and abiding by majorilty wishes 
cover your concerns.

If you were a gossip-columnist, and wv were a movie actor, what you're doing 
would be called "inuendo".

	This is what I mean when I say that Marge and Waverly are gentle if not
provoked. If votes are sincere, then of course they'll give you a good
result (in their better versions). But I want to know what kinds of bad
results (with respect to sincere preferences) might happen as a result of
strategy, and how likely those bad results are. So what I'm saying is that
some Condorcet methods might be capable of giving worse results (with
respect to sincere preferences) under strategic conditions than IRV can
give under any conditions.
	I'm not making any conclusions about WV yet. I'm just telling you what
I'm interested in studying.

I reply:

If you have, or later have, an example in which wv gives a result more 
undesirable than IRV can give, then post it. Until then, however, this is as 
if someone posted flyers all around your place of work, saying "Is James 
really a _________?, even though we don't have proof yet?" [fill in whatever 
kind of especially despicable criminal you want to].

Anyway, as I said, you seem obsessed with bottom-end concerns. Strategy 
problems involve
top end considerations such as electing a CW or not violating majority 
wishes.

Mike Ossipoff

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