[EM] Re: Approval strategy reply

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I´d said:

Many strategies can be related to Weber's strategy of voting for candidates 
with positive strategic value, according to Weber's strategic value formula. 
But that doesn't make them the same strategy, as we've been using the term 
here. Only Russ claims that to vote for whichever of the 2 expected 
frontrunners one prefers to the other, and for everyone whom one likes 
better is the same strategy as voting for all the candidates who seem better 
than the election's expected value--one's perceived expectation in the 
election.


Russ replied;

If only two candidates have any chance of winning, then the
"best-frontrunner" strategy is a corollary of Weber's formula.

I reply:

Corollary of a formula?

Russ, I don´t care whether or not you read my postings. In fact it would be 
better if you didn´t.
You said that you weren´t going to. What happened to your resolve? But if 
you don´t read them more carefully, then you shouldn´t reply to them.

I had just finished saying:  Many strategies can be related to Weber's 
strategy of voting for
candidates with positive strategic value, according to Weber's strategic
value formula.

But the resulting ways of choosing which candidates to vote for are 
different, even though all or most of them can be explained or justified in 
terms of Weber´s strategy method.

Does that help any?

Do you think you could try again to not reply to my postings? You were doing 
so well for a while.

Russ continued:

If other
candidates have a chance of winning, then it is not necessarily the
optimal way to vote.

I reply:

Not quite so.

If it were absolutely certain that a particular 2 candidates would be the 
only ones who could be in a tie or near-tie, if there is one, then voting 
for one, and not for the other, is all one needs to do, and there would be 
no point in doing more.

But, expecting a particular 2 candidates to very likely be the ones who´d be 
in a tie or near-tie if there is one, but not being absolutely certain of 
it,  it still makes sense to vote for one of them but not the other, and 
additionally, if one wants to consider the remote possibility of someone 
else being in the tie or near-tie, one might want to vote for certain 
candidates whose merit is between those of the 2 expected 
most-likely-tie-members.

That´s why Rob LG proposed strategy A. That´s why Tideman & Fishburn 
proposed BF(mean). That´s why I (and probably someone previously)  proposed 
BF(probability-weighted). Those strategy methods consider the possibility 
that someone other than the 2 expected frontrunners could be in a tie or 
near-tie and could win.

When you say "_the_ optimal way to vote", you seem to be forgetting that no 
one strategy approach is necessarily the one best way. For instance, maybe 
in addition to the frontrunner estimates you have a judgement about which 
candidates are so good that you´d rather have one of them in office than 
hold the election. Then Better-Than-Expectation would be a good strategy 
too. Even though you have an estimate that 2 candidates are the likely 
frontrunners. It´s a matter of degree. The more certain you that F1 & F2 
will be the top 2 votegetters, the better BF, in one of its forms, is. If 
you aren´t very certain of that you could still use BF, if its assumptions 
are as good as any that you could make. But maybe, then, you might be better 
off with Better-Than-Expectation, or Expected Differences, or Better/Worse. 
There could be situations where more than one of those would be good. It 
depends on what estimates are the ones that you feel surest of.

Russ continued:

Sure, it's a "strategy," but it's not an optimal
one.

I reply:

I posted recently about when to choose which strategy method for Approval. 
And, when using BF, which BF version to use.

Russ continued:

I could just as well say that my football "strategy" is to always
go for it on fourth down.

I reply:

Perhaps if you spent more time checking the accuracy of your statements and 
the value of your postings, and less time watching football or devising 
football strategies, your postings might be better.

Russ continued:

Yes, it's a "strategy," but it's not a very
good one. It's not optimal. Any strategy that is not consistent with
Weber's formula for some reasonable set of inputs is not optimal. Are
you taking notes, Mike?

I reply:

I´d just finished saying:   Many strategies can be related to Weber's 
strategy of voting for candidates with positive strategic value, according 
to Weber's strategic value formula. But that doesn't make them the same 
strategy, as we've been using the term here.

Is there a particular Approval strategy suggestion, posted by me or by 
someone else here, that you´re saying isn´t consistent with Weber´s 
strategic value method? One diference, of course, is that Weber´s Pij might 
not be conveniently estimatable, whereas other things, such as likely 
frontrunners, the value of the election (your expectation in it) vs a 
candidate´s merit, and the various probabilities that some of us have 
mentioned, might be more estimatable. But no one has said that these other 
strategy methods are inconsistent with Weber´s method. In fact I´d just 
finished saying the opposite.

Russ, I was the one who told you about Weber´s positive strategic value 
strategy and his formula for strategic value. And told you about how it 
justifies other strategy methods.

Russ had said:

Then he has the nerve to chide me for pointing out the *real*
potential problem with Approval, which is that voters will depend
largely on polling results, which could be inaccurate or deliberately
manipulated.

I´d replied:

But it's common knowledge here that voters in Approval won't depend on 
polling results. That's been explained to you a number of times, but you'll 
never understand it, and that's ok. I'm not going to repeat why voters won't 
depend on polling results, because I've repeated it for you enough times 
already.

Russ replied:

Yes, it is true that voters won't "depend on polling results," but you
are the one who claimed that voters will have some idea of how popular
the candidates are. How will they know that, Mike? By word of mouth?
Yes, the previous election results will provide some information, but
... I'm not going to waste my time repeating myself again, Mike.

I reply:

Thank you. You´ve already repeated your confusion and ignorance enough. Now, 
if only you could adopt that policy about all of your repetitions.

The fact that I claimed that voters might (not will) have some idea how 
popular the candidates are doesn´t mean they´ll need to get that information 
from polls.

Word of mouth? Of course, to some degree. I can´t tell you exactly how 
imporant each information source will be. Previous election results--yes 
that will be an important reliable source of information.

Russ had said:

Approval may "converge on the sincere Smith set" if voters base
their votes on previous elections only (ignoring pre-election polls)

I´d replied:

Which they'll do, if they know what they're doing.

Russ had replied:

and if EVERYTHING IS STATIC. In other words, it is only true if all the
candidates are the same and the issues and concerns of voters haven't
changed one bit from previous elections. Is that reality? Of course not.

I´d replied:

Sure, the electorate might be completely and radically unlike it was before 
:-) But that isn't likely. And if that isn't the case, then Approval 
converges as some of us have been describing.  Approval strategy is 
typicallly based on best estimates, Russ.

Russ replies:

Oh, listen to Mr. Precise. Either the electorate is "completely and
radically unlike it was before :-)" or it is so nearly identical that
mathematical convergence can be asserted.

I reply:

The voter doesn´t have sufficiently reliable information to, with certainty, 
  assert mathematical convergence. As I said, Approval strategy is based on 
best estimates. When someone says that Approval will converge to the CW, 
they´re basing that statement on a similar best estimate, because it´s well 
understood by us all, if not by you, that that´s all there is in Approval.

I´ll repeat that: Approval strategy, and assertions about Approval´s 
convergence to the CW or the voter-median are based on best estimates, 
which, in the case of that assertion, consists of the estimate or assumption 
that the elecorate is like it was in the previous election.

That assumption is common knowledge here. Now that you´ve discovered it, can 
you stop repeating about it?

Russ continued:

Mike, the mathematical
convergence property that you parrot

I reply:

I quoted Myerson and Weber about that. If quoting someone is parroting, then 
everyone here parrots. If no one parroted, then there´d be very little point 
in writing an article, since it woud never be quoted or mentioned.

You similarly said that I parroted Merrill´s simulation results. If you´ll 
forgive me, I´ll use Merrill´s results rather than yours, if that won´t hurt 
your feelings too much.

Russ continued:

...only applies in the idealized case
in which everything is static: candidates, issues, voter attitudes, etc.

I reply:

Wrong. Yes, it would be so if the candidates were the same. It would be so 
if the parties were the same, and the parties´candidates were all but 
identical to what they were before. But you´re mistaken to believe that the 
convergence depends on those things. The only necessary assumption is that 
the electorate isn´t too different from how it was in the previous election. 
That isn´t an unreasonable assumption. That´s the "best estimate" on which 
we base that convergence assertion, just as Approval strategy is based on 
some best estimate.

Russ said:

By the way, I would like to know what the significance is of those
little ":-)" symbols you sprinkly throughout your messages.

I reply:

They signify that you´ve again said something funny.

Russ had said:

But in Mike's little world, reality doesn't matter much. Clue for Mike:
some voters actually check out candidates rather than blindly voting for
party only.

I´d  replied:

I wasn't aware that I or anyone else had said that the convergence depends 
on party voting. If the electorate can be expected to be anything like it 
was in the previous election, then the vote totals of

Russ replies:

Oh, I see. Is "anything like" a mathematical term, or is it something
you pulled out of your rear end?

I reply:

You use that expression a lot, and I don´t know what it means, unless it 
tells us something about your late toilet-training.

"Anything like" isn´t a mathematical term. Predictions needed for Approval 
strategy, and, similarly, for statements about what will happen in Approval, 
aren´t absolutely certain. So we must make assumptions, which I´ve referred 
to as best estimates. One such assumption is that the electorate will be 
like it was before. "Like"  isn´t a mathematical term. With no better 
assumpton to make, with no better information to go on, we assume that the 
electorate will be the same as it was. You´ll say that "same" isn´t a 
mathematical term either, but this insistence on mathematical terms is 
ironic, coming from someone who has been as sloppy and ambiguous as you 
have.

And, if the electorate isn´t really the exactly the same as it was, then 
hopefully, and very likely, it will be similar enough so that the Approval 
strategies will be useful, and our assertions based on our best estimate 
will be borne out.  I´m sorry if you want more reliability than that. Does 
that help with your confusion?

Russ continued:

Clue for Mike: if a voter's approval strategy depends on the previous
election results, yet all the parties (except perhaps for the incumbent
party) have new candidates, then the voter is voting by party rather
than by candidate. That would be obvious to anyone who doesn't have his
head stuck in his rear end.

I reply:

Clue for Russ: Wrong. You have no jusification for claiming that voters will 
vote by party, especially if the parties all have different candidates. 
Sure, if their new candidates have the same policy positions as the previous 
ones, and adhere to party platforms that haven´t changed, then it would be 
unsurprising if voters voted by party. But maybe the parties will have 
completely different kinds of candidates from before, &/or will have 
drastically changed their platforms.  Then there´s no reason to believe that 
voters will vote by party. Maybe none of the same parties will exist. Voters 
needn´t vote by party.

As I´ve repeatedly tried to explain to you, the only necessary assumption is 
that the electorate is like it was before.

By the way, Russ, couldn´t you get your elementary education elsewhere?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! 
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/