[EM] reply to Heitzig criticzing range voting
Dave Ketchum
davek at clarityconnect.com
Mon Aug 29 18:17:03 PDT 2005
On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:22:59 +0200 Jobst Heitzig wrote:
> Hello Warren, again.
>
> You wrote:
>
>
>>--well, I really dislike that gimmick. It seems to me not to solve anything.
>>
>
> 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.
>
Elections should normally always complete without reruns, even if chance
is needed to resolve a tie (let those who like reruns amend the
definitions to get as many ties and reruns as please them).
As to the detail discussed above, bad luck can get a slate of candidates
that deserve it - so can stupidity in nominations and failure to properly
educate voters.
>
>>--Not so fast... I'm not letting you get away with that...
>>CRV recommends 99 for the best candidate, 0 for the worst,
>>which is fact is what any strategic voter would do anyhow...
>>(can interpolate between for the rest). That causes utilities to be much less of a fantasy.
>>In fact they are now quite real.
>>
>
> Why should that be the case? Can you explain to me the difference
> between assigning 64 or 65 points to the middle candidate?
>
>
>>I don't think you can object to them now,
>>
>
> You're wrong: I do :-)
>
>
>>or if you can, then I can also object to the idea that A>B when in fact A and B
>>are incomparable objects.
>>
>
> 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.
>
Huh? I keep promoting A=B for voters to be able to be neutral between a
pair. I choke on a ballot with contradictions such as A>B together with
A<B, for then we need a programmable definition as to the meaning to use
when counting ballots.
>
>>The only reason we can claim A>B is Util(A)>Util(B).
>>
>
> No, there is no such thing as Util(A) or Util(B).
>
>
>>[And claims that A=B are generically always a lie, so it bothers me when Condorcet
>>advocates enhance their methods by allowing A=B votes.
>>
>
> 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.
>
If you add new content to the language, such as A?B, then you owe
attending to this in the language definition. If the addition has REAL
value, fine - else let's try for understandable compact definitions.
>
>>--Well since you insist, I can answer the "why on earth" question using science:
>>A1: money is additive. Economists like using it as utility but I do not.
>>But it is anyhow well correlated and important, even to you...
>>
>
> 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.
> That's strange, isn't it?
>
>
>>So no, robust measures are not needed with honest voters. The problem is not
>>non-robustness. The problem is dishonest voters.
>>
>
> 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.
>
>
>>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.
>
> Yours, Jobst
--
davek at clarityconnect.com people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026
Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
If you want peace, work for justice.
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