[EM] EM criteria discussions

[Russ Paielli]

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

> You haven´t looked at much voting system literature imuch if you haven´t 
> found articles in which voting system academics say some astoundingly 
> ridiculous things. Both Bruce Anderson and Niemi have written that 
> Approval is worse than Plurality. Niemi said that´s because Approval 
> gives to the voter too many choices. I mean look, when the voter decides 
> how far s/he needs to compromise in Approval, just as s/he must in 
> Plurality, then s/he has the agonizing dilemma of whether or not to vote 
> for the candidates whom s/he likes better than her/his compromise :-)  
> It seems to me that Bruce´s justification for the claim was the same or 
> similar.
> 
> Riker recommended Plurality for U.S. presidential elections, because 
> plurality preserves the 2-party system.
> 
> But another academic, whose name I don´t remember, only that it was a 
> German name beginning with G, apparently hadn´t read Riker about that, 
> because Prof G said that Approval isn´t needed, because we have a 
> 2-party system.

I can sympathize with your frustration, Mike. Yes, there is a lot of 
baloney out there in the academic world, although it is *much* more 
rampant in the humanities and liberal arts world than in engineering and 
the "hard" sciences. Consider Ward Churchill, the clown who called the 
victims of the WTC attack "little Eichmanns" who got what they deserved. 
And he was *tenured*, no less. He may be an extreme case, but he is no 
exception.

I don't really know much about the state of academia with regard to 
voting systems, but I suspect it is roughly in the middle of the 
bullshit/rigorous spectrum.

> Those people all have PhDs. Some teach university courses on voting 
> systems. This uneducated pitiful amateur humbly suggests that maybe a 
> degree doesn´t prove that someone can be allowed to cross the street 
> without supervision, or that someone is an authority. Well, Russ is 
> proof that a degree is no guarantee against pretentious ignorance.

Thanks for teeing that up for me, Mike. I don't usually brag about 
myself, but when I am insulted like that I feel that I have the right to 
brag to some extent. I scored in the top 1% of the Graduate Records Exam 
(GRE), which is taken by engineering graduates to get into graduate 
school. (If Mike doubts it, maybe I may scan the test results and post 
them on my website.) That puts me in perhaps in the top 0.1% of the 
general adult population in mathematical ability. I also scored in the 
top 12% on the verbal section, by the way. How did you do on your tests, 
Mighty Mike?

I actually do have something in common with Mike. With only a Master's 
Degree (from Stanford), I am actually a bit under-educated for the work 
I do. I am not nearly as under-educated as Mike, of course, but you get 
the point. I am probably one of relatively few non-Ph.Ds who publish in 
the journals I publish in. My mentor and close working associate is 
perhaps the most respected name in the imoportant and growing field of 
air traffic management, and I believe that my 20+ years of experience in 
innovative research and development makes me the functional equivalent 
off a Ph.D. But I am naturally biased in that assessment, of course!

In any case, one small advantage of not having a Ph.D. is that it keeps 
me somewhat humble. Maybe not here, where Mike incites me to brag, but 
at work. What amazes me about Mike is that he has no such humulity. He 
has no concept of where he stands in the pecking order. What is he -- a 
friggin' janitor or something? Did he even finish high school? Yet he 
throws around insults as if he were a nasty version of Albert Einstein 
and we were all schoolboys.

Oh, and he likes to pick on me in particular. Apparently all that time I 
was trying to help him get his ideas aired he imagined that he was the 
grand master and I was his lowly assistant. The reality was simply that 
I didn't have full time to devote to election methods and I was trying 
to leverage what little time I had by working with him and leveraging 
his massive time committments on the subject.

Mike, I got news for you. Your ideas may or may not have merit, but even 
if they do, you are not the legend you think you are. And even if you 
eventually succeed in getting your little criteria ideas accepted (and 
that's a big if), they will never compare to what I have already 
accomplished in my career. Yet my career is still on the rise. Your 
pathetic little "career" never got off the ground and probably never 
will. You are a loser and you always will be. You are nothing, Mike, 
except perhaps a good janitor. I'll bet you clean toilets well. Keep up 
the good work, Mighty Mike.