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

[Howard Swerdfeger]

Sorry about The formatting Its a re post the first one got rejected by 
the server!
Assume all Quotes are down one Level.
thanks!

Howard Swerdfeger wrote:
>>>> "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....
> 
> I believe we have made an abrupt left hand turn with this analogy.
> buy "destroying the eggs", I intended that would happen if you voted in 
> a manner (on any bill) that you did not approve of.
> 
> Not, that my first proxy got hit by the #96 bus going out to Kanata, or 
> some such thing, and I needed a fall back proxy.
> 
>> 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. 
> 
> How sure are you of that voting for "famous influential person" would be 
> a mistake in a liquid/proxy/asset voting system?
> What factors do you believe would lead to this being the best strategy 
> for most voters?
> 
>> 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?"
> 
> Did you want me to answer that in context of liquid/proxy/asset voting, 
> or my current democratic system (Westminster system, Canada) or yours?
> 
>>> 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.
> 
> er.. perhaps you did not understand me.
> In the above paragraph I never mentioned that I thought my own opinion 
> would be "sufficiently researched", on the contrary I would fully take 
> advantage of the proxy nature of voting.
> 
> I was stating that if I did choose to split my vote that both my proxies 
> might choose not to vote and give there vote to the same person. thus It 
> would have the same effect as if I did not split my vote and instead 
> voted for  that super proxy instead. Thus I would come back to the 
> original problem I had or a single point of failure in my personal proxy 
> chain.
> 
> 
>> 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.
> 
> which is why I would probably vote for a second rung guy. or a first 
> rung guy if I found one that voted in a way that I approved of.
> I would not vote for a 3rd or 4th level guy.
> Cause calling Sue, to ask bob, to tell bill, to leave a message for God 
> that he is not voting the way  I like is not going to be effective.
> 
> besides with 10 people on the first level and 100 on the second it is 
> highly likely that I would find somebody in those 2 levels who vote in 
> accordance with my wishes 95% of the time.
> 
> I may not have direct access to Level 2 guys but I can switch my vote 
> when I am not happy.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> Bah, it is a method of making a decision or series of decisions, no more 
> no less.
> 
>>
>>> 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. 
> 
> you make assumptions, I don't need to talk to him as long as he votes 
> the way I want. I can guess that he will based on previous voting 
> records. and if he consistently (>5%) doesn't vote my way I would 
> probably get pissed and change my proxy.
> 
> But I am sorry for getting away from the point.
> So a City would have 4 point somthing levels, Canada would have about 5 
> something levels, The USA 6 something, and the Planet 6 point something.
> On average that is!
> 
> I can't help but think your assumption of 20 people per proxy is an 
> under estimate based on your own preference, I feel many like my self 
> would prefer to be closer to the real power at the expense of personal 
> contact, thus putting a downward pressure on decision tree, causing its 
> average length to shrink in large democracies....but who knows...we need 
> one first before we can know for sure.
> 
> 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.
> 
> fair enough.
> 
>>> 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.
> 
> most people will not vote on every bill (I think). therefor there is a 
> default centre of power.
> 
> 
>>
>>> 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.
> 
> It is a social and technological question, I think went over that above.
> 
>>> 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.
> 
> I never said anything in favour  of or against limiting the number of 
> proxies.
>