[EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonicvoting methods

Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com
Thu Nov 6 22:43:28 PST 2008


On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 10:49 PM, Stéphane Rouillon
<stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> The spoiler effect is a special case of non-monotonicity.
>
> A general definition of a monotonic method is:
> no voter or group of voter could harm a candidate by expressing its full
> preference toward any higher preferred candidate.

No, not even close.  That definition you are giving is not met by any
voting system I know of. Can anyone think of one?

> While you restrict monotonicity definition to:
> no voter or group of voter could harm its favourite by expressing its full
> preference.

Not even close. I simply use the mathematical definition of monotonic
functions. Look it up. It's very simple.

>
> It is your choice. You chose to disregard the fact that winners, while the
> voter expresses or not its full preferences, could both not be the favourite
> of the voters.

I love the way you keep referring to voters as "its". It says
something about the way you view voters.

Huh?  Your sentence above makes no sense to me. You want to try
restating it more precisely?

>
> I do not understand why you want to consider the spoiler effect as a
> different problem.

Because it IS. Because Arrow and every other expert recognizes it as a
different problem than monotonicity. Because mathematically it is a
different problem, etc.

> As soon any voter would learn that its first choice has

These voter "its" again...

> no chance of winning, its second choice would become its new first choice,
> the spoiler effect leading again to your personal definition of the
> monotonic dilemma...

Huh*!?

My personal definition? You mean the personal definition that ALL
mathematicians use?  What do you think I'm so all-powerful that before
I was born I went back in time and forced all mathematicians to adopt
a definition for "monontonicity"?

OK I can see I'm wasting my time here.

If anyone wants to send me anything intelligent on this topic, please
email me personally, off-list.

Thanks.

Kathy



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