[Election-Methods] Elect the Compromise

rob brown rob at karmatics.com
Mon Aug 27 23:32:34 PDT 2007


On 8/27/07, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
>
> At 01:07 AM 8/27/2007, rob brown wrote:
> >On 8/26/07, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
> >Social animals and eusocial animals are totally different
> >things.  Worker bees, by virtue of their anatomical design and their
> >behavior, will give their own lives for the sake of the hive (they
> >sting and die).
>
> Whereas humans won't? What planet do you live on? It's *instinctive.*


Uh, yeah.  Everyone here is motivated solely for the good of the
collective.  In fact, I think its lovely how here, on this planet, no one
tries to game the system or find loopholes or manipulate things to their
advantage.  If they did, people would, say, do things like take advantage of
the openness and cheapness of the email protocol to send unsolicited
commercial messages to people.  But luckily no one does that...

Seriously, what planet are YOU posting from?

Yes, it's not exactly like honeybees. We have a far higher level of
> independence, but we are still social animals, with, *normally*,
> great concern for others.


The difference is that humans reproduce directly, hence fundamentally
different Darwinian pressures on humans vs. the non-reproducing worker
bees.

The whole conception is off. Adaptation is driven by survival of the
genes, not by survival of the individual

Yes I know all about Dawkins selfish gene model, which supports the concept
of eusociality quite well, thank you.

However, like Dawkins, I'm not big at all on group selection, as I think it
is an extremely weak force.  And everything you say seems to only make sense
from a group selection mindset.

Hey, if you are so selfish, what in the
world are you interested in election methods for? For personal gain?
There are much easier ways to find personal gain!

And I am not advocating selfishness, in any way.  If you misunderstand this
point, read the article I linked.  If you still don't understand it, read it
again.

I am advocating a system that does not give an unfair advantage to those who
DO behave more selfishly.  My assumption is not that all people act
selfishly, or even that most people will.  And I especially don't think
people SHOULD act selfishly.

But if you design a system that rewards those who are the most selfish by
giving them the most power, I think that is a very very bad thing.

And as best I can see, that is what range voting is.  It punishes people for
doing what feels like the most "moral" choice, which is to express their
preferences honestly.

Once again, I don't have time to read the rest of your lengthy post.  If you
are writing to others, or to yourself, fine, but I'm not going to read and
respond to each of your novels.  I found Jobst's challenge interesting and
thought provoking, but I get the impression he is getting frustrated as well
with your overly wordy illogic.
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