[EM] Student government - what voting system to recommend?

[Juho]

Good description.

In addition to this of course also the topics to be decided have an  
impact. Voting on issues that have major impact on the individual  
voter's life easily make him/her vote in a way that guarantees an  
acceptable outcome. Polls, entertainment, favourite colours and other  
small things don't "force" voters to push their viewpoints through.

Juho


On Apr 24, 2007, at 6:01 , Michael Poole wrote:

> Abd ul-Rahman Lomax writes:
>
>> At 05:53 PM 4/23/2007, Juho wrote:
>>> Political elections are typically competitive. Polls are typically
>>> less competitive. Voting on which family size Pizza (of several good
>>> ones) to buy for the family today may well be a quite non- 
>>> competitive
>>> election.
>>
>> That's true. And one might ask why. Certainly it's understandable in
>> a family. But it is also understandable in any functional
>> neighborhood or community organization. Why does this
>> "non-competitiveness" break down, and under what conditions?
>
> It generally breaks down when a voter no longer has a strong enough
> personal connection to a large enough fraction of the others involved.
> That threshold varies from person to person, and probably from time to
> time and from subject to subject.
>
> The same kind of breakdown happens in many online interactions: it is
> easy for a person to be extremely rude to someone whom he has never
> met, especially if the audience does not contain many people whose
> opinions of him are important to him.
>
> A similar breakdown is well-documented in mob behavior, where the
> actions of an individual may be quite different when he is anonymous
> than when he is known or memorable to the victims of his behavior.
>
> There will always be some people whose behavior is consistently
> honest, repulsive, or whatever else, but a large majority of people
> are swayed by peer pressure -- even the potential or imaginary kinds.
>
> Michael Poole


	
	
		
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