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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

This is being cc'd to fa-dp at yahoogroups.com, a new list for the 
discussion of FA/DP issues. Those interested in FA/DP, even if only 
to block this dangerous and unprecedented extension of power to the 
great unwashed, or, at the opposite end, to save us all from wasting 
our time with this ridiculous and impossible scheme, is welcome to 
join. I may have the list set for moderator approval, but, if so, 
that is only to stop spam. Approval will be routine if the request 
has a non-robot message in it, such as "Give it up! FA-DP is insane 
and totally impractical." Membership approved.

Of course, you are also welcome to join if you think the FA-DP ideas 
are interesting and just might work, particularly if they become 
based on something wider than Mr. Lomax's idiosyncratic opinions.

In other words, the list is itself a Free Association. Welcome!

It really is happening, I am starting to get reasonably common 
requests to help with setting up one of these beasties in the real 
world, hence the need to start the list. Thanks for all your support, 
you might start seeing me less here. And you might not, I don't know.

At 08:21 AM 8/31/2007, Howard Swerdfeger wrote:
> > There are two versions of the adage:
> >
> > "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," and
> >
> > "Put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket like a hawk!"
>
>General advise: If you do this, in any respect you must be reasonably
>certain that if some threat does come to your "eggs" you have
>1. The ability to see the danger coming,
>2. The ability to act and move your "eggs" to a safe location, before
>danger strikes.
>
>even if you watch it like a hawk.

That's right. Now, if we have, as described in another post, assigned 
proxies for all electors -- that's simple, it is part of the required 
registration process -- then it's not true that all the eggs are in 
one basket, for if that basket is destroyed, there are clones of the 
eggs ready to step up....

They aren't exact clones, of course.

As a background, Asset Voting allows you to do something you cannot 
do with standard election methods in large elections. You can vote 
for someone you personally know. You will have far more information, 
not dependent upon media and thus upon possibly manipulated 
information, about the trustworthiness of this person.

And, again, if you don't trust anyone sufficiently, you have two 
choices that remain: spread the vote out, or vote for yourself. As 
I've described it, there is no registration fee, you just fill out 
the papers and are assigned a ballot code. You can use it, you can 
give it to others and they can use it. And if you pay a nominal 
charge to cover expenses, like it might be $5, you can have your name 
listed in a publication of available electors. In my original 
proposals, you *had* to have the name published in that way. I 
realized that this wasn't necessary, and it created a small burden 
for people intending to vote for themselves.

The ballot codes of all electors would be available on-line, and they 
would be public information, the fee is just for costs of a print publication.

> > If you have eggs in many baskets, you may not be able to watch them.
> >
> > FAAV allows you to make the choice, while the ballot remains very simple.
> >
> > I'd probably vote for one, though, because I think know who, quite
> > precisely, represents me, and I can talk to this person. Now, with
> > secret ballot, I could vote for five and then talk to one, it still
> > works. But then I really only know how one fraction of my vote is 
> working....
> >
> > Someone who is relatively uninformed about all the possible
> > candidates -- which is pretty braod in Asset, we assume that
> > something very similar to write-in is allowed -- might indeed decide
> > to spread the vote out among a number of candidates, not being sure
> > about whom to trust.
> >
> > But, generally, in my view, the best strategy in asset is to pick the
> > single candidate you most trust. If this is based on knowledge, it's
> > safer than spreading it around. That a candidate is getting a *lot*
> > of votes, though, is a mark against him in Asset! It does make him a
> > target for possible corruption. So that, too, is a factor.
>
>I disagree, I would pick a candidate who I think will closely match my
>voting pattern and would either have direct influence in the debate and
>framing of the argument, or someone who has a large amount of direct
>influence over somebody who does.

Sure, those are factors. You can vote that way. It's a democracy, 
purely implemented.

However, if we look at DP, which is *very* similar, we can see that 
voting for the big famous influential person would generally be a 
mistake. Your vote can and will get there eventually, but it's far 
more effective to have someone you can talk to. What most people have 
is a model of a very isolating process, and they think of election 
methods in this context. They don't think about, "Can I call up and 
talk to my representative? Once a month if I want to?" "Who do I 
tallk to if I have a idea that I think worth considering?"

In a small direct democracy, you can talk to anyone, and it only 
takes two to introduce a motion. What this does (Asset and DP) is to 
break a large direct democracy down into manageable subsets.

>I also think if you are going to choose someone who has a small number
>of votes that you are best to split it up, as you are farther down the
>decision tree and are thus more likely to have your vote perverted away
>from your desires. but then again after splitting it up my votes would
>again merge at a higher level...."All roads lead to Rome", after all.

Again, I understand that people think this way. But if you really 
think that your own opinions are sufficiently researched that them 
being followed up to a high level is important (to you!), then you 
really should register as an elector and vote for yourself. Then, you 
might well cast your vote for that important influential fellow. But 
you might consider, it might be better to vote for someone who has 
*access* to that fellow, whereas you, with one vote, won't.

When the big important fellow votes a way that you don't like, 
wouldn't you want to be able to talk to him about it? *Maybe he had a 
reason* that would convince you if the opportunity were there.* Or 
are you rigid in your own ideas? You have a right to be.... but it is 
also dangerously foolish. Now, practically by definition, you can't 
call the big guy up. But you can call someone who can.

Once again, what Asset is setting up is a deliberative system, but 
some persist in thinking of it as an "election method." It's 
understandable, because if the candidate set is restricted, it looks 
somewhat like an election method. But it is much more -- and much 
less. It depends on being a public process, otherwise there would be 
no way to negotiate the vote transfers, and it is this negotiation 
and agreement that makes it work to not waste votes.

>change of topic:
>How large do you envision this tree or trail of representatives being?
>
>i.e. I and 20 friends vote for some guy we all know, he transfers to
>some regional Rep, who transfers power to a city rep..etc...this might
>easily go on for 6 or 7 levels...

Perhaps. But, remember, the structure that is set up is delegable 
proxy, and it is not necessarily part of that for the actual vote to 
transfer. If you want to transfer your votes, you just transfer them. 
But if you want to reserve judgement, then you wait for the structure 
to come back to you, *through your proxy* for a recommendation. You 
can then look at the traffic between these people -- if they make it 
open to you -- and see how they made what choices they made. If it is 
being recommended that you transfer all your votes to a specific 
candidate, you can *then* research that candidate.

But, again, if this is direct democracy *at the Assembly level*, you 
are not actually giving your votes away. You still have them. Rather, 
you are using your votes to create a seat, which is someone with two 
roles: to represent you in *deliberation*, and to vote for you if you 
don't vote directly.

How many levels? Well, in FA/DP it actually does not matter! 
Everything coming back to you is filtered by your personal proxy. I'd 
want a proxy who shared with me *his* traffic, so I'd have access to 
information from higher levels. Nevertheless, if we have a standard 
direct client count of 20 average, then we represent about 20^N 
people with N levels. The considerations about communication apply to 
*all* levels. I.e., each proxy would want the ability to communicate 
effectively with their own direct proxy. Communication directly, 
skipping levels, is certainly possible, as is cross-communication 
(you talk to your friend who is in a completely different proxy tree, 
if you can convince your friend of something, he or she can then 
inject the idea into this other tree). But the default, guaranteed 
available (relatively) path is with your proxy.

With a state of, say, 20 million people and an Asset Assembly and, 
say, fifty seats, each seat represents 400,000 people. It takes 
between four and five levels, closer to four average.

>I expect that if an asset or proxy system was implemented on large
>scale, between 10^6 and 10^9 people. the ultimate and final word on all
>decisions would be made by 5-10 large proxies. The question becomes how
>many close advisers could they have, (i.e. the people who transfer the
>most votes to them).

The system is a fractal, hence one of the names is fractal democracy. 
It is self-similar at each level, because the same communication 
constraints drive the proxy count, though, perhaps, the number of 
clients increases toward the top. Why? Well, we haven't talked about 
money, but as you get high in this system, you have opportunities to 
collect enough to hire staff, and an actual seat holder would 
presumably have staff at public expense (though, in fact, one could 
do away with this, it's a libertarian solution that might work). If 
you have staff, you have, effectively, a class of proxies underneath 
you, so you can handle communication with more clients, without it 
becoming ineffective, so the count could increase.

>I'm really just trying to think of this in terms of a tree of power.
>How many would make the final decision? I know you like to rant about
>how an individual could if they want vote on every bill, but that
>individual will likely not matter at all.

Perhaps. But that also does not necessarily matter at all. *Usually* 
a single vote is moot in any case! It's quite rare to see ties in 
public elections. But this all bears deeper thought. It's truly 
outside the box, and we have reflexive thinking that no longer 
applies. It took me years to get beyond certain assumptions that were 
very natural, and I see that others also hold these assumptions.

In an FA/DP organization, nobody makes the final decision, there is 
no final decision. There is merely a negotiated set of 
recommendations, from the whole or from any subset, that go back down 
to the individual electors, who *retain* the pure voting power. It's 
a direct democracy, *not* a pure representative democracy, 
representation is *only* for purposes of making deliberation 
efficient, it is not necessary for decision.

Whether or not to vote directly is entirely your choice. You can sit 
back and let your proxy vote for you, if you are a single voter, the 
actual power of your vote is quite possibly not enough to be worth the effort.

However, you can also delegate your voting power, that too is an 
option. So there would be proxies underneath the seat level, and if 
there are twenty of these who constitute the direct constituency of 
the seat, each of these, on average, has significant voting power. 
And is quite likely to be active in understanding the issues and may 
vote frequently. It could occur that indirect votes outnumber direct 
ones in the Assembly, but ... I think not. It is just far more 
possible than now -- actually infinitely more possible than now, but 
I mean far more possible than we would think, for Mr. Swerdfeger was 
thinking of only his own individual vote.

>As you got down the power tree what is the likely number of branches you
>would have coming off at each level? What would the average depth of the
>tree be?

It's a math question, and not difficult.


>My guess is it would be a very short tree, and that a large majority of
>the population would be in the first 3 or 4 levels

Perhaps. DP structures, I predict, will constantly adjust themselves 
for communication efficiency. My original thinking was to have 
restrictions on the number of clients. But the capacity of client to 
handle traffic, and the needs of the clients, can vary widely. And so 
I realized that it was not necessary to restrict the client count, it 
properly should be a free and mutually agreeable contract. We *want* 
the rapport and flexibility that this represents.

The argument against the concentration of power assumes that a 
superproxy holds too much power. But that's not true, what power the 
superproxy has is continually restrained by the direct clients of 
that superproxy, and to a lesser degree by the entire structure. The 
direct clients will be in constant communication with the superproxy, 
and decision-making rules would provide for notice of "meetings," 
which are required for a decision to be binding. And every single 
elector can vote at "meetings." But can't stand up and make a speech, 
or introduce a motion. That takes being a member with a seat. That, 
indeed, is what seats are for, for solving the problem of scale in democracy.