[EM] range voting fix try #2 by Rob Brown

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 03:40 AM 12/11/2005, rob brown wrote:
>On 12/10/05, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>
>There is an assumption on the part of some EM people that recommended
>voting strategy is that course of action which will maximize the
>possibility of election of one's favorite, or, if not that, then
>one's next favorite, etc.
>
>However, in my view, an intelligent voter is one who recognizes the
>importance of broad consent to government. The goal of elections is
>*not* to choose the favorite of some faction, but to create a
>government by consent of the people. Some argue with this, and,
>indeed, our present systems don't do that very well at all. Condorcet
>methods, while based on a clear intuitive concept, can only go so far
>to reach this.

>I will admit I come at this from a strong Game Theory background, 
>and what you say is counter to everything I stand for.

Good. Then we are not likely to agree on optimum election method, 
until we can get beyond our contrary assumptions. Agree on *that*?

>   Sorry.  I think there is a very big difference between individual 
> interests and societal interests.  Sometimes you can align the two, 
> and that is wonderful when you can.  But if you want to design a 
> system that expects people to put the common interests above their 
> own...well, you've lost me.

Mr. Brown's views, it seems to me, are somewhat fixed in what has 
become discredited in evolutionary psychology. Cooperative behavior 
is strongly characteristic of human beings (as of apes in general). 
Sure, there is a difference. But humans do recognize the value of 
cooperation, and, it seems to me, the exceptions are actually pathologies.

Yes, we should attempt to align individual interest with social 
interest, for where we allow conflict to appear in these, we divide 
society, thus harming both the individuals *and* the society. 
Individual interest and collective interest, indeed, are not 
identical, but in the end, they are not separate, either, they are intertwined.

People *frequently*, in the right environment, put the common 
interest above their own. Live in a small town? If so, if the town is 
healthy, you will see this behavior all the time. Our problem is the 
rampant alienation of people from the society around them, such that 
individual interest is practically all they can see, they have few 
mechanisms for even finding social interest. We, I should say.

>I know the whole cynical "people are selfish" attitude of game 
>theory and classical econmics is offensive to many.  We want to 
>believe people are good.

It's not that it's offensive, it is that it is a very limited view of 
people. You are correct that this is "classical" economics. In other 
words, it is very old thinking, and like most such thinking, it is 
not entirely wrong, but a great deal has been missed.

Business, for example, on a day-to-day basis for most involved in it, 
is a cooperative enterprise; competition is there, but it is less 
strong than cooperation. Competition is like a referee standing back 
to intervene when one party gets out of line; but the routine 
interactions are cooperative, at least in small business. In large 
businesses, huge corporations which become thoroughly impersonal, it 
can be quite different, I suspect.

In small business, if a business suffers some disaster, its 
"competitors" will step in to help. I've seen countless such 
examples. We *use* the competitive, free-enterprise system, it does 
not control us.

Do you think that those businesses who help their competitors are 
doing so only for the positive publicity? If so, then we are farther 
apart than I would otherwise suspect. They do it because they are 
human, and human beings are instinctively sympathetic, once one gets 
beyond certain barriers that define the "other."

>I in no way want to celebrate human selfishness (a la Ayn 
>Rand).  But I do think that systems designed to work when people 
>independently pursue their own interests, are the ones that work. Period.

They work to a degree. And they also create the mess we are in. 
Period. They are not enough.


>It's true that if your goal is simply advancing your own 
>cause,regardless of the effect on others, on society as a whole, you 
>may wish to vote Approval in a Range system.
>
>Yes.  And I'm not saying that you should expect everyone to be that 
>type, that only cares about their own cause.

Now, for me the issue is not convincing everyone to act 
cooperatively. It is simply about how to set up systems for the 
people who wish to cooperate to do so effectively and efficiently. 
That's what I'm about and that is why I participate here, though this 
is, for me, somewhat of a peripheral issue, given that I think 
elections, as normally conceived, are part of the problem, as long as 
we don't have the extra-governmental mechanisms in place to 
facilitate broad cooperation.

>I'm saying if you design the system so that there is no conflict 
>between advancing your own cause and the benefit of sociey as a 
>whole, you have a stable system.

An example of success in this?

(I agree that it would be stable, and also that it would be 
desirable. Further, there is no social benefit if there is not 
individual benefit!)