[Election-Methods] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 42, Issue 80

[rob brown]

On Dec 31, 2007 6:38 AM, CLAY SHENTRUP <clay at electopia.org> wrote:

> > Different elections have also different needs
> > => maximizing the average utility is not always what we want.
>
> name an example.  that sounds preposterous.  utility is _by
> definition_ the measure of what voters want.


You are wasting our time with your meaningless tautological argument that
"people want what they want"  Why don't you just cut to the chase, and
demand that everyone "wants" Range voting, it's been proven, case closed?
Actually, I think you did that a few times... nevermind.

Sorry if I seem like a broken record, but you are mixing up "simple net
tangible utility of candidates elected" and "total long term happiness with
the results, the electoral process itself, and all the side effects".  You
use the earlier one when you want to make statements that appear to be
backed by any sort of evidence or logic.  You use the latter one when
demanding that maximizing utility must be the goal, by definition.

People have tried to use that sort of logic to justify all kinds of stupid
or evil things, from elimination of private property to social darwinism to
you-name-it.  "The ends justify the means" is just one form of it.

Yours is more of a "the greater the short term ends, the better", which is
truly preprosterous.

Once again, this exactly equivelent to your logic:  "If we reduce the
engineer's pay and increase the janitor's pay until they approach each
other, we create a net gain of utility, since each dollar provides more
utility to the less wealthy janitor.  So we should do that, because net
utility is what we want, by definition".

No matter how many times you try to evade this issue, it is still there.

This article discusses your error pretty well
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2006/09/the-roots-of-morality-iii.html
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