[Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the compromise when there're only 2 factions

[Jobst Heitzig]

Dear Abd ul-Rahman,

> No. It's an understanding of what utilities mean. 

If you think so...

> If A does not win, 
> the supporters of A lose something. They are in the majority. If each 
> of them grabs a B supporter and wrestles with him, or her, I suppose, 
> the excess A supporters can then arrange things the way they like. A 
> drastic picture, but actually part of the theory behind majority rule.

That's more or less the point I try to make over and over again: A democratic decision system should not reproduce what would happen in an anarchic world such as you describe but should instead protect the weaker parts of society against the majority by giving them their just share of power instead of letting the majority always overrule them. 

> If C wins, the B supporters gain 60% utility, that's large. If they 
> pay the A voters the equivalent of the A loss, 20%, they are still 
> way ahead. 

You still assume that their is a "loss" to the A voters. But that is just wrong: the A voters have no right to the election of A, it is not their property which they can "loose".

> It is a very good deal for the B voters 

No, they would have to pay for a solution which I think they have a right to!

> Jobst regards it as unjust that the majority should be paid by the 
> minority to get an outcome he regards as more just. However, he isn't 
> looking at the utilities

No. Why must I repeat over and over again that I don't believe in measurable utility. I interpret the numbers I gave in the example in the way I describes several times: as representing preferences over lotteries!

> The actual 
> consequences of the election are irrelevant to him.

What do you think you do here? Where did I say such a thing? The actual consequences should of course be that the obvious compromise solution C should be elected without anyone having to "pay" for it!

> But this is a democracy. 

What is the "this" you are referring to?

> Sure, one can imagine systems where majority 
> rule is not sufficient for making decisions, 

I cannot imagine a system where majority rule *is* sufficient for making really *democratic* decisions.

> Contrary to what Jobst might assume, I have a lot of experience 
> with consensus communities, both positive and negative. 

I don't assume anything about your experience and have never said so. But please keep in mind that consensus is a much different thing from majority rule. I should think my example makes this very clear: No consensus about A nor about B, only consensus about B being nearly as good!

> However, when you get down to the nuts and bolts of a system, 
> *including how the system is implemented,* majority rule has proven 
> itself to be practical *and* sustainable. 

Could you give any evidence for this fact?

> Point is, when you don't have majority rule, you have decisions being 
> made by something *other* than the majority, even if it is only the 
> default "decision" to change nothing. And a determined minority can 
> then hold its right to withhold consent over the rest of the 
> community, in order to get what it wants. Again, it would never, in 
> that context, blatantly do this, but it happens, social dynamics do 
> not disappear in consensus communities.

Therefore I don't consider consensus as a parcticable idea in all situations.

> There is nothing magic about 50%, it is simply the point where there 
> are more people on one side than another, there are more saying Yes 
> to a motion than No. Or the reverse. In real communities, other than 
> seriously unhealthy ones, the majority is restrained. It does not 
> make decisions based on mere majority, ordinarily, it seeks broader 
> consent, and deliberative process makes this happen.

You repeat this, but could you give evidence for this claim?

> > > The original conditions assume commensurability of utilities,
> >
> >No, definitely not! I would never propose such a thing! I only said 
> >that those who believe in such measures may interpret the given 
> >numbers in that way...
> 
> If the utilities are not commensurable, then there is no way to know 
> who is the best winner. If Jobst does not understand that, if he does 
> not understand how normalization -- and these are clearly normalized 
> utilities, can distort the results, we could explain it for him.

I gave a reasoning why C is the better solution than A. Commensurable utilities are nonsense in my opinion. Nice for use in models but no evidence for them.

> Essentially, the C-election 20% preference loss of the A voters could 
> have an absolute value greater than the 60% gain by the C voters. A 
> negotiation would expose that, because a negotiation, "You give us 
> this in exchange for that" causes the utilities to be translated to 
> commensurable units, the units of the negotiation. As I mentioned, it 
> does not have to be money.

So what unit will it be then if not money? Please be more precise,

> The assumption that Jobst easily makes, that the C option is more 
> just, is based on an assumption of commensurability of utilities

It is not. Please stop attributing thoughts to me which I never expressed.

(I stopped reading your post here because it was getting too nasty.)

Yours, Jobst

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