[EM] Re: Approval strategy reply

[Russ Paielli]

MIKE OSSIPOFF nkklrp-at-hotmail.com |EMlist| wrote:
> 
> 
> 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.

No, that's not what I claim. What I claim is that the "best-frontrunner" 
strategy is not necessarily optimal if one or more parties/candidates 
has a non-negligible chance of winning.

> 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?

 From dictionary.com:

cor·ol·lar·y n. pl. cor·ol·lar·ies

    1. A proposition that follows with little or no proof required from 
one already proven.
    2. A deduction or an inference.
    3. A natural consequence or effect; a result.

> 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 filtered out your messages, but then I switched email clients and 
they started coming through again. I decided to keep it that way for a 
while at least. I will read your postings whenever I please, and I will 
come down on you like a ton of bricks whenever I feel like it. This is 
the Wild West, Mike. No rules -- or very few, at least. One of these 
days you will realize the you f***ed with the wrong person and you are 
in a no-win situation. I have little to lose here, Mike, because this 
mailing list is not my "career." I do respect and value the opinion of 
at least several persons on this list, but I don't depend on their 
acceptance.

> 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.

The Best-frontrunner strategy is not just "related" to Weber's Approval 
formula. It follows directly and trivially from it. If it was 
inconsistent with the formula for all reasonable input sets, it wouldn't 
be optimal.

> 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.

I agree competely that one need not use Weber's formula explicitly to 
determine a reasonable or even "optimal" vote, depending on the 
definition of the word "optimal." However, I claim that a vote cannot be 
quantitatively optimal unless it satisfies Weber's formula for some 
reasonble set of inputs. Any other "strategy" is essentially an attempt 
to make the formula more intuitive for special cases. That's fine, but 
don't fool yourself into thinking they are separate strategies unless 
they are non-optimal.

> 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.

I really should because I have far more important work to do than reply 
to your crap. I will stop here because the rest of your post is 
definitely not worth replying to. Let me just say that you don't need to 
consider tie probabilities to derive Weber's formula. That just confuses 
the issue. I realize that Weber himself did that, but maybe his 
derivation wasn't the simplest and most direct. See my previous post for 
the link to my derivation. I recognize his contribution, but I don't 
worship him. In my line of work these kinds of derivations are 
considered almost trivial (and I probably took longer than I should have 
to derive it -- especially considering that I knew the end result).