[EM] reply to Heitzig criticzing range voting

[Warren Smith]

>Do you suggest the election system should rather declare one of the
candidates which are not approved by anyone the winner than to demand a
new election because of lack of approved candidates. (I certainly don't
agree to that.)

--yes I do.  The job of a single-winner election system is to produce a single winner.
It is not to say "I refuse to do my job"  and then the voters try again.  Assuming
the voters produce the same votes for the same candidates (and why should they not?
can you produce examples from history when they have not?) the same thing then 
happens ad infinitum.  

> 1. Can you explain to me the difference
>between assigning 64 or 65 points to the middle candidate?
> 2...there is no such thing as Util(A) or Util(B).

--1. Why should anybody have to explain it?  Why should you have
to understand it?  Why should anybody have to feel they understand it?
2. There is such a thing.  I have explained how to try to define it in terms of
money, or brain chemicals, or neuron events.  The latter (or even the former)
may not be easily measureable. (And I did not claim it was.)  But what we definitely 
know is a false claim is that there "is no such thing."
3. Furthermore, some Condorcet advocates - including, I think, you recently,
go too far in trying to deny utility, and thus cause grevious harm to humanity.
For example, you recently stated that if 60 voters say A=60 B=40, while
the remainign 40 voters say A=0 B=100, then A should "obviously" win.
 3A. So for example, assuming these are honest voters, and 60% of society
   votes to have slavery, but 40% (the slaves) vote to end slavery,
   then according to you, slavery is best for society!  Wrong!
      I say, by denying the plain fact that utilities differ, you and your
      philosophy have just caused tremendous harm.
 3B. For another example: if "B" is the choice: "remove  $20 from 60 voters
   and give $100 to 40 voters" while "A" is "remove $100 from 40 and give $20 to 60"
   you would wrongly say A is superior.  But plainly, since we can now
   redistribute the money as a postprocessing step, we can see that B is
   superior.
4. My view: There is no question that utility exists, and there is no question
that we want to maximize it.   The problem is not utility, the problem is
dishonest (whether intentionally or unintentionally) voters who do not SAY their utility.
(The problem of dishonest voters then is faced by both Condorcet and range systems.)

I think you, when you unmuddle yourself, will concede that is the case...
then we can try to make further progress.

>Absolutely! I have often argued here that preferences are not linear and
that we should allow voters to express undecidedness when one of their
criteria says A>B and the other says B>A, instead of forcing them to
either vote A=B or weigh their criteria in this case.

In my view, when voter assigns equal ranks to two candidates, we should
not interpret this as a statement that both are equivalent but rather as
a statement that neither is preferred to the other. Writing "A=B" is
just a handy shortcut on this list, it could also be written "A?B" instead.

--I disagree.  A=B  and A?B  are two distinct concepts, and I can readily imagine
voting systems which try to act differently in these two cases, and I in fact
think they SHOULD act differently.  (In fact "range with blanks" is
such a system, although in a kind of reduced-strength way.)
Condorcet advocates who try to conflate the two are on dangerous ground.

>So you suggest that when candidate A gives $200000 to 1 voter and
nothing to the other 99 voters, but candidate B gives $1000 to each of
the 100 voters, then candidate A should be considered best for society.

--YES!!  (at least, if utility=money.)

>That's strange, isn't it?

--NO!!    And in fact the very fact that money is fungible  (I assume we both are
allowed to ignore, or have already factored in, inflation...) makes it quite 
clear A is better - if it were non-monetary utility this would be less clear.

>What is an honest voter with RV? I would like to honestly assign ratings
to candidates, but I seem to be too stupid for it, sorry.

--most people are not too stupid (or at least, do not think they are) and 
accomplish the task basically about as fast as they can write.
Furthermore, I think you are capable of estimating expected utility of
different choices on an arbitrary scale.  And if you are not, then you
should not be in any decision-making position, especially governmental
or corporate.  

For example, a decision faced by Bush soon after entering office was 
whether to change maximum-permitted-levels-of Arsenic-in-water standards.  Different
maximum arsenic levels lead to different amounts of cancer and health problems.
We could totally eliminate the health consequences by demanding "at most 1 atom As per
liter" but the cost would be enormous, and indeed if too much money
were devoted to this then lives would be lost for lack of money in other areas,
(for example mass starvation...)
There is an optimum choice utility-wise here.  Bush & the EPA basically attempted to find it,
and in my estimate (I checked the math) correctly, but they then were placed
under political pressure by Democrats and chose to make a revised (now wrong)
decision.

>> I often feel like there is some kind of drive to invent more complicated and crazier
> methods so you can get a PhD, which obstructs the more-deserved attention on the 
> simplest ones like range.

>I have a PhD already, thanks. And I guess there are better reasons for
developing election methods than for personal prestige.

--well, I was not necessarily saying that was your personal motivation.
But I do feel there is this pathology in the academic community - you are
not "allowed" to do something (or get credit for it) if it is "too simple."  
That can be a bad thing because in my opinion the most important things are
often the simplest.  

wds