[Election-Methods] Simple two candidate election

[rob brown]

On Dec 23, 2007 2:00 PM, Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Works with humans too. Three friends living in different places might
> agree to meet at a place that has equal distance to all three homes. Or they
> might select a place that minimizes the sum of the distances (maybe they
> will share the travelling costs).
>

What you are describing is very different from what happens with eusocial
animals.

A situation where a small number of people can work things out, and where
reciprocity plays into it (i.e. "you got your way last time", etc) is
completely, totally different from the type of situation where voting is
needed, such as a large scale election where most of the voters don't know
one another.

What you describe isn't eusociality, which is the complete lack of self
interest found in animals that don't reproduce directly.  A 100% rational,
self-interested person may wish to allow someone else to get their way when
preference strengths differ, with the expectation that it will be
reciprocated when the preference strengths are reversed.  But a large
election has no mechanism for reciprocity.

I could imagine a voting system that might address this issue for larger
groups, but it isn't Range.


> Parents could agree to watch a Disney movie with their child although they
> might like a war movie more themselves.
>

Parents and children are, from a Darwinian perspective pretty much the  same
as eusocial animals, motivation-wise.  The children's interests are almost
completely aligned with the interests of the parents, since the children are
the vector for the parents getting their genes into future generations. In
my view, all motivation can be traced back to the attempt to get genes into
future generations.

But in politics / competitive situations rules of course tend to be
> different. And the election methods should be chosen accordingly.
>

I'm with you there.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20071223/d7fbf451/attachment.htm>