[EM] Center for Range Voting Formed

Rob Lanphier robla at robla.net
Thu Aug 11 14:23:05 PDT 2005


On Thu, 2005-08-11 at 15:17 -0500, Paul Kislanko wrote:
> Apologies to Rob.

No worries.

>  From the reading of what he wrote, it appeared he was
> attacking folks who supported Condorcet methods. Rob says I misunderstood
> what he wrote, so I apologize. But I STRONGLY urge advocates to write more
> clearly, because no matter how I parse what Rob said, it comes out as an
> attack against Condorcet and Condorcet advocates.

It's a critique of some Condorcet advocates, not an attack.  An attack
would be "Condorcet advocates are morons."  

> FWIW I am not an advocate of any method, just interested in understanding
> all of them. It's really hard, because people use undefined acronymns and
> write vauguely.

Can I count on you not to assume the worst next time, and simply ask for
clarification?  I try to write clearly, and know how to do it, but
writing crystal-clear prose is a lot of work that no one is paying me
for.  I'll be as clear as I can without spending an inordinate amount of
time, and hope that people ask if they are confused.   Sound fair?

Rob

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: election-methods-electorama.com-bounces at electorama.com 
> > [mailto:election-methods-electorama.com-bounces at electorama.com
> > ] On Behalf Of Rob Lanphier
> > Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 12:59 PM
> > To: Paul Kislanko
> > Cc: election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com; 'Warren Smith'
> > Subject: RE: [EM] Center for Range Voting Formed
> > 
> > On Thu, 2005-08-11 at 12:42 -0500, Paul Kislanko wrote:
> > > Rob, please lose the invective and the misleading statements:
> > 
> > invective?
> > 
> > > "Your tactic a very similar tactic to one used by many Condorcet
> > > advocates which I also object to.  Condorcet fails the "Independence
> > > from Irrelevant Alternatives" criterion (IIAC), made famous 
> > by Kenneth
> > > Arrow in his Nobel prize winning theorem.  Many Condorcet 
> > advocates have
> > > tried to dance around this issue by redefining IIAC to be 
> > "Local IIAC",
> > > and pointing out that some Condorcet methods pass "Local 
> > IIAC", /before/
> > > confessing that they fail IIAC as defined by Arrow."
> > > 
> > > Well, Arrow's Nobel Prize-winning theorem was that EVERY 
> > method MUST fail
> > > one of his four criteria. So Condorcet fails IIAC? 
> > Everybody knows it must
> > > fail one or another. 
> > 
> > No, they don't.  Everyone who knows Arrow's theorem does.  
> > Not everyone
> > knows Arrow's theorem, though.
> > 
> > > If the argument is that IIAC is more important than the 
> > other 3 criteria,
> > > please list the criteria that your favorite method 
> > (whatever it is) fails to
> > > satisfy, in the interest of your post's concern about other 
> > folks' failures
> > > to disclose everything.
> > 
> > Ummm....I'm a longtime Condorcet advocate.  Google 
> > "Condorcet's method"
> > and see what shows up at the top of the search results.
> > 
> > Rob
> > 
> > 
> > ----
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> > for list info
> > 
> 
> 
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