[EM] RV comments

[Michael Ossipoff]

First the desirability argument, and then the meaningfulness argument.

Desirability:

The Rangers believe in social utility, its maximization, as the literal 
be-all and end-all of criteria. Say, for the moment, we disregard the fact 
that the SU claims depend on sincere voting, and that sincere voting is 
nearly always suboptimal in RV. Even then, even in principle, RV advocacy is 
really only based on a subjective personal opinion. The opinion that it's 
more important to maximize the sum of everyone's happiness than it is to 
minimize the number of people to whom the outcome is unacceptable. There's a 
good case for saying that opinion is wrong. Do we really want to make the 
outcome unacceptable to more people, as long as, by so doing, we increase 
the benefit for someone already well-benefited more than we reduce it for 
those to whom we make it unacceptable?

First let's answer the Rangers' claim that there's no such thing as 
acceptable or unacceptable-- (because there are only varying degrees of 
utility). But the voter hirself can answer that for you, when s/he accepts 
or rejects a candidate's offer to govern in hir behalf, on hir ballot. As 
for why the voter does that material act of accepting or not-accepting, 
that's none of our business. Maybe s/he is acting on principle, based on 
honesty or deservingness. Or maybe s/he considers some compromise to be 
situationally acceptable, and is saying, "Under these circumstances, I'll 
compromise so far as to accept that candidate." Spare us the philosophy 
about what "accept" means. Have the Rangers never heard of an up/down vote? 
Approval is an up/down vote on each candidate. What could be more 
fundamental democracy than asking voters for a Yes or a No regarding whether 
they choose to accept the particular candidates' offers to govern on their 
behalf.

To compare the two happiness distribution goals, let me make a proposal:

I propose that you give me all your savings. What? You say you'd have to 
move into the slums? Yes, but my investment broker could double your money 
for me, and it would allow me to trade up to a better Mercedes. Don't be so 
selfish. The sum of our combined money would increase when my broker doubles 
your money for me. I only want the greatest overall summed good for us! 
Maybe I'd let you ride in my new Mercedes sometimes, to show you how much 
we've gained.

Meaningfulness:

SU from ballots means nothing if the ballots aren't sincere, and, as I said, 
sincere RV voting is suboptimal.

Some Rangers have claimed that they found out from (inadequately-described) 
simulations that, if the percentage of strategizers is below some particular 
number, then even RV's sincere suckers will be better off than they would 
have been with Approval. Nonsense.

Say, in an Approval election, a set of voters whom I'll call "the sincere 
voters" use the above-mean strategy of Approval voting, while the other 
voters, more strategically-inclined, are using best-frontrunner strategy to 
base their voting on the most recent vote totals or polling data.

Now say, instead of the Approval election, we hold a Range election. The 
sincere voters now rate sincerely. The other voters continue to vote exactly 
as they did in Approval. Voting at the extremes, voting RV as Approval, and 
using the same best-frontrunner strategy.

The sincere voters could have likewise votedat extremes as in Approval, and 
continued to use Approval strategy in RV, continuing to use their above-mean 
strategy. Above-mean, though it doesn't use predictive information of any 
kind, still maximizes a voter's expectation, according to the limited 
information that it uses. But the sincere voters are no longer using any 
kind of expectation-maximizing strategy. That's the only change in the 2nd 
election. That can only lower their expectation.

RV's suckers can't, overall, be better off than they'd be in Approval, even 
if they vote above-mean in Approval when others are using vote-total-based 
strategy.  They can only be worse off.

In Poker, they say that if you don't know who the "fish" is, it's you. All 
of RV's supposed SU increase comes from the sacrifice on the part of the 
sincere suckers.

Someone pointed out how silly we'd appear if we sold the public on RV, and 
then told them that their best strategy is to vote at the extremes. People 
would say, "Then why go the trouble of giving us all those intermediate 
ratings?!"   Shall we give them the gradation of ratings, and then advise 
them not to use them, or shall we neglect to tell them that they’re suckers 
when they use them?

Having said that, though, of course if the public were more ready to accept 
RV than Approval, then Approvalists should support RV, because RV is still 
much better than Plurality or IRV, and can be regarded as a roundabout 
Approval implementation.

But when someone expresses acceptance of RV, you could point out that 
Approval is the simple, elegant, fundamental Cardinal Ratings version, and 
is much easier to implement, and much easier to vote. I can tell you that 
it's easier to vote because I've voted in a number of polls that used 
rankings, Approval, and RV. We sometimes had lots of candidates. Approval 
was the easiest. RV was by far the most laborious.

Mike Ossipoff