[EM] Re: Comments on Approval posting

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I was in a hurry yesterday, and so it wasn't possible to answer all of 
Russ's questions.

I'd said:
>
>>  The party that is always CW or at the voter-median would keep winning at 
>>MW equilibrium. Just that one party.
>>
>>But it's true that Approval would fairly deal with any number of parties. 
>>But it wouldn't include them all in a winning equilibrium, nor should it.
>
>
>Russ replied:
>
>If only one party is popular, then obviously that party will dominate.
>That is true for practically *any* democratic system.

But I didn't say that if a party is the only popular party it will keep on 
winning at MW equilibrium in Approval. I said that if a party is always at 
the voter median it will keep winning at MW equiilbrium. That isn't the same 
thing. Though you don't tell us what you mean by  "popular", the fact that 
you say that the only popular party dominates in practically any democratic 
system shows that "the only popular party" doesn't mean "party at the voter 
median". If you understsood that, you wouldn't have thought that your 
statement about the only popular party had any bearing on my statement about 
the voter median party. But it would be giving you too much benefit of the 
doubt to assume that you know what you mean by "the only popular party".

That sloppiness is typical of you, Russ. You come along, repeating the 
Approval comments made by people who have just been introduced to it, 
announcing that you'vd discovered that Approval requires strategy decisions 
that are often based on uncertainty :-) , and actually believing that you're 
telling us something that hasn't occurred to any of us. And you talk about 
delusions of grandeur.Of course newcomers are welcome, but you come putting 
on airs, with the arrogance that typically goes with complete ignorance, 
expounding on a whole list of things that you obviously have no 
understanding of, acting out a delusion of grandeur that you're informing us 
of something and meaningfully participating in the list.

If you have questions, and had asked them less pretentiously and more 
politely, we all would have been glad to help you. But it's become evident 
that it would be better if you get your elementary education somewhere else.


>
>I reply:
>
>No, you don't undestand at all. I'll patiently repeat what I said: With 
>Plurality, nearly any 2 parties can keep on being the top votegetters at MW 
>equilibrium. With Approval, if one party is consistently the CW, no other 
>party can win at MW equilibrium. That CW party will soon win, and will keep 
>winning. And no, that is not true of all methods.

What is it that I don't understand, Mike? You forgot to say. You quoted
two sentences of mine above, and I want to know which you disagree with
or shows that I "don't understand at all."

I reply:

Alright:

You don't understand that "voter-median party" and "only popular party" 
don't mean the same thing.

You also probably don't understand what you mean by "only popular party". 
Certainly no one else has a way to know what you mean, and you don't 
understand that either.

You continued:

Are you claiming that if only one party is "popular," it will not
"dominate"? Or are you saying that this is not true for "practically any
democratic system"? Please clarify. I'd really like to know of a
"democratic system" in which only one party could be popular and yet not
dominate the elections. That must be a very strange system indeed.

I reply:\

No one made any of those statements. No one but you has referred to the only 
party that is popular.

You continued:

Now, when a voter tries to plug into one of your formulas, he must
somehow translate polling data into probabilities. Perhaps I missed it,
but I don't recall any guidance from you explaining how to do that. Yet
that may be the harder part of the problem.

Translating polling data into probabilities involves the mean and the
variance of the polling data. If either are off, the computed
probabilities may be useless. In particular, if the error in the mean
approaches or dominates the error in the variance, then all bets are off.

I reply:

If you believe that that is the only possible source of a voter's 
probabilities, then it would be better if you didn't try to discuss 
probability.

Though a voter could use polling data, and the previously-observed 
variabilitly of its accuracy, to calculate probabiilties, or could similarly 
use past election results, that certainly isn't the only source of 
probabilities for the voter. Anyway, only some of the Approval strategies 
explicitly use probabilities, such as Pij or Pi.

You continued:

You think that the WTC
couldn't have collapsed as it did without pre-installed explosives.

I've replied to that already, but let me add that you think that the New 
York Times, the Boston Globe, the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor, 
and CNN are all Leftist henchmen of Al Jezeera (to use your own phrase). 
That's because they reported things that you don't want to believe about the 
Fallujah massacre. But then you also believe that evolution of species via 
natural selection has never taken place and isn't feasible, though you've 
never been able to defend the fruitcake pseudo-technical objections that 
you've parroted from somewhere.

Most of the errors in your posting were replied to in my previous posting. 
This one just covers a few that I didn't have time to comment on, the first 
time.

You continued:

Mike, you are a pathetic amateur

I reply:

What's this? Before I told you that you no longer have permission to have my 
articles at your website, you were telling people that I was a "world-class 
expert". So then, just by denying you permission to have one's atricles at 
your website, one can go from a world-class expert to a pathetic amateur :-)

And no, I'm not saying that that proves that I'm a world-class expert. But 
it does demonstrate that, as I was saying at the outset, what you say has 
little if any relation to what you believe to be true. In other words, what 
you say doesn't mean anything. I'm not saying that you're intentionally 
dishonest, but maybe you just don't know what honesty or accuracy is. I 
won't use the "L" word, because namecalling serves no purpose, but people 
whose word is worthless, whose statements have no meaning or value, aren't 
usually well-regarded, and have no value at a mailing-list.

You continued:

...who imagines himself a professional.

I reply:

Perhaps you determined that by ESP? Because I didn't make any such claim. 
Amateur? Of course. There are many amateurs in voting systems. There are 
some voting system professionals too. Some are useful & helpful, and some 
aren't. I choose to deal with voting systems because it seemed to me that 
the topic was important, and wasn't being addressed as well as it should be.

Are all amateurs pathetic, or just ones who imagine themselves to be 
professional? Maybe it's pathetic to do any kind of work without expecting 
pay. It would be nice to be paid for voting system efforts. But I must admit 
that there isn't really a lot of money in it.

Mike Ossipoff

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