[Election-Methods] USING Condorcet

[rob brown]

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 3:39 PM, Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr> wrote:

> Hi Rob,
>
> By the way, I'm not complaining about Condorcet here.
>
> I guess you're talking about the camp that believes that voters will use
> burial strategy for no reason at all. I can't say that they wouldn't,
> but that isn't my position.
>

Ok, good to know.


> > Maybe I misunderstood your statement, but it seems to say
> > "even if it is an
> > unwise strategy, the fact that people may do it anyway is a
> > matter of
> > concern".  Given that:
>
> No, that's not what I meant to imply. There's a difference between a
> strategy that is unwise and a strategy that may be wise but happens to
> backfire.
>

Well that I'm confused then.  If there is a significant chance of it
backfiring, doesn't that make it less wise?  It seems like you are wanting
to keep "wisdom" and "probability of harm" as two orthogonal variables,
rather than distilling them into a single variable, "wisdom."

For instance, if someone offers you $1000 to play one round of russian
roulette, this can be distilled down further than "5 out of 6 times it is a
wise move, the other sixth of the time it is unwise."  Instead you can
calculate whatever value you put on your life and do the math and determine
that (for all but the most financially desparate or already suicidal) it is
probably always very unwise.

Same thing here.  If there is a significant possibility of it backfiring,
the chance of it happening and the degree of harm caused if it does can be
used in the calculation of how wise it is.

> My take (and this is based on what I consider to be the
> > theoretical
> > underpinnings of classical economics and game theory), is
> > that there are two
> > possibilities to be concerned about:
> >
> > a)  a prisoner's dilemma situation:
>
> I don't understand in what context you want to be concerned about a
> prisoner's dilemma? Is this for election methods in general?
>

Yes.  I am using it to represent something that is in an
(independently-operating) individual's self interest, but when everyone does
it, everyone is hurt.  Really anything that is "gameable" or "strategically
manipulable" falls under this category.  What does *not* fall under this is
behavior which is non-rational, or altruistic.


> > b) a situation where people's self interest is in
> > conflict with some other
> > goal, in particular, their sense of ethics.
> >
> > I don't see your scenario -- voting
> > strategically/selfishly but in an unwise
> > way -- to fit into either a or b, so I see it as issue of
> > minor concern, at
> > least in the long term.
>
> If people rank the worse of two frontrunners strictly last, just because
> that "feels right," I would categorize that under B. But this isn't my
> scenario.


Hmm, I don't think I would, I would classify that as non-rational,
especially if people are educated that it isn't usually in your benefit to
do rank them insincerely.  But ok.


> The scenario is more like "chicken." If I think you will be sincere, then
> I should bury your candidate. If I think you're going to bury my candidate,
> then (if I only care about who wins) I should vote sincerely. Or else I
> can be stubborn and bury your candidate, thereby refusing to let you bury
> my candidate and get away with it. When we both bury, then we crash and
> elect the worst candidate.
>

Again, I think with chicken you can distill it down to either unwise or wise
based on the your guess at the probability of the other party's move.
Chicken is a game specifically contrived to be unstable, of course (that is
what makes it interesting), the fact that there are only two people playing,
and the all-or-nothing nature of the outcome, creates and amplifies that
instability.  The more people playing, the more stable and predictable it
becomes -- i.e. it becomes more of an equilibrium rather than a feedback
loop.

For instance, imagine playing chicken against 50 other people (maybe using
some machine that can give an electric shock?), where if some percentage of
them chicken out and some percentage don't, the level of injury and rewards
to those who don't chicken out will be an equivalent proportion of maximum.
What might be expected is that an equilibrium is found, where a few (those
who are the most competitive and/or tolerant of pain) will choose not to
chicken out, and the level that they are injured and rewarded approximately
balances out for them, so that they don't regret their decision. As opposed
to everyone not chickening out and all ending up in the hospital, or
everyone chickening out and feeling like they missed an opportunity to win.

I suppose if you have an election with a tiny number of voters, it can
become less stable and more "chicken like", but even with two voters, I am
not convinced that burial would often be wise unless there is an assumption
the other side is behaving non-rationally.

The point is that what we should be looking at with condorcet is whether,
when all the probabilities and utilities are calculated out, is insincere
burial actually a truly wise strategy for a significant number of voters?

-rob
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