[EM] Approval strategy at Russ´s website

[Russ Paielli]

MIKE OSSIPOFF nkklrp-at-hotmail.com |EMlist| wrote:
> 
> What Russ refers to as Weber´s Approval formula, or the Approval 
> formula, actuallly describes the Better-Than-Expectation strategy that 
> Forest defined a long time ago on EM. It was demonstrated on EM that, as 
> I´ve said, by some reasonable approximations, Better-Than-Expectation 
> becomes the same as the strategy method that actually was described by 
> Weber, the strategy of voting for candidates whose strategic value is 
> positive, using Weber´s strategic value formula.

If the Approval formula should be attributed to Forest I will be happy 
to do so.

> Most agree that the use of Better-Than-Expectation won´t involve 
> calculating your expectation based on all the 
> candidates´win-probabilities and their utilities. Rather, the convenient 
> way to use Better-Than-Expectation is to simply ask if a particular 
> candidate is better than what you expect from the election. Is that 
> candidate so good that you´d rather have him/her in office rather than 
> holding the election? If so, then vote for him/her.

I understand what you are trying to say here, Mike, but your way of 
stating it is just plain ridiculous. Vote for the candidate if "you´d 
rather have him/her in office rather than holding the election"? What 
the hell does that mean? What if we "don't hold the election"? Does the 
incumbent simply stay in office, or does democracy collapse and anarchy 
take over? By the way, constructs such as "him/her" are considered poor 
writing style.