[EM] How to fix the flawed "Nash equilibrium" concept for voting-theory purposes

[Warren Smith]

> Warren Smith wrote:
>> ... I think you are pretty much right... But I think there is a
>> deeper truth....  First of all, as I said in the ESF thread quoting
>> Selten, it is interesting to consider the consequences of
>> maximally-rational behavior, even if humans aren't it.  Second,
>> there is the also-interesting issue of what humans actually do.  And
>> hopefully there is some relation between them.
>
> Precisely that hope is without foundation.  There can be no useful
> relation between a model that assumes a maximum of purposive
> rationality and a reality that demonstrates none.  No voter ever
> attempts to improve her standing in the electoral "game", because no
> single vote ever affects the outcome of a typical election.

---ok, now you are going too far.  "None"?  Sorry, that is nonsense.

And, you may not have noticed what I said re humans were designed by
Darwin for smaller group sizes, e.g. tribes of a few 100 members, and
their notions of "rational" are designed for groups of those sizes.  I
think a lot of behavior about sizes larger than that (such as a
country-wide election) can be understood roughly, by saying "humans do
stuff that'd be rational if it were size<300.   The human inbuilt
pseudo-rationality
device basically can only count up to 200 and all populations>200 are
treated by it as 200."

Mind you, this is just my speculation.  Can anybody see a way to prove
it? I can't.


>
> Nash's model may still be useful for analyzing current voting methods,
> as you suggest, but I believe those methods are (in a deeper sense)
> wrong.  In this sense, it is not the voter's behaviour that is
> irrational, but rather our electoral practices. (more below)
>
> Jameson Quinn wrote:
>> I agree with your premises, but not your conclusions. Voters are not
>> purposive-rational, it's true. But that doesn't invalidate the
>> conclusions of a Nash analysis, it just makes them tentative. Voters
>> DO think of themselves as being purposive, even when they clearly
>> aren't...
>
> I'm not so sure.  Imagine a voter saying: "It's a good thing I voted
> today, or the other side would have won the election!"
>
>> > More generally (I argue) purposive-rational models of ego-centric
>> > behaviour are unlikely to be made serviceable for voting theory...
>
> Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>> Whether or not that is the case for individual voters, one could
>> still use purposive-rational models for political parties. This
>> would be useful in considering what sort of "how to vote"
>> instructions a party might provide to their voters in order to
>> strategize on a wide scale...
>
> Right.  When it comes to elections, a party is naturally self-seeking
> and goal-oriented.  If we model the party as a human player, it
> definitely "wants" to win.  Usually it also has the means of affecting
> the outcome.
>
> But I think that individual voters must also have a place in any
> overall theory of voting.  Consider two facts (a,c) that such a theory
> (b) must explain:
>
>   a) The institutional fact of current electoral practices,
>      procedures, voting methods, and so forth.
>
>   b) Theory to explain the rationality of both (a) and (c), and how
>      they interrelate.  Why do we have *these* particular electoral
>      practices?  Why does the voter participate in them?
>
>   c) The behavioural fact of the individual's voting to no selfish
>      end, in pursuit of no personal interest.
>
> Both (a) and (c) are facts of considerable weight and relevance.  If
> (b) is to be useful as a theory, then we might expect it to explain
> both.  Warren and Raph suggested the Nash model (for sake of a), but
> it is contradicted by (c).  You suggest retargetting the model such
> that individual parties (not voters) are the players in the electoral
> game.  This may be valid as far as it goes, but it still leaves (c)
> unexplained.
>
> Maybe no single theory can explain both facts?  The only way forward,
> then, would be to reject one of the facts as being (in some sense)
> wrong.  If we accept (a) current practice and (b) the body of mostly
> purposive-rational theory that informs it, then a question mark is
> left hanging over the individual votes.  Every vote cast in a mass
> election is difficult to explain, and apparently irrational.
>
> On the other hand, if we accept (c) voting for non-instrumental and
> social reasons in the light of (b) a theory that can explain such
> forms of rationality (Habermas for example), then doubt shifts to our
> current electoral practices.  Something in our elections or voting
> methods is wrong, or something is missing, because from the
> perspective of the socially motivated voter, they are extremely
> anti-social.
>
> --
> Michael Allan
>
> Toronto, +1 647-436-4521
> http://zelea.com/
>


-- 
Warren D. Smith
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and
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