[EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)

[robert bristow-johnson]

On Jan 20, 2010, at 11:23 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

> Variation on previous post. Silly time!
>
> At 02:31 PM 1/16/2010, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
>
>> On Jan 16, 2010, at 12:05 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>>>
>>> Robert, your slip is showing.
>>
>> what slip?  i don't have nuttin' under me kilt.
>
> We already knew that.

you do?  you keep saying that you can see it.

>
> Silly hat, Off.
>
> Robert, if you want to be effective in public debate,

what makes you think i'm not effective?  do you actually think you  
were effective?

i won't slap on the "argumentum verbosium" and explode the debate  
about a single testable issue (like how many piles one needs if there  
are 3 candidates) into pages and pages, that when i responded, my  
post was rejected by the list server as too large.


> I'd suggest avoiding setting up an immediate victory by the other  
> side by feeding him or her lines like that.

you're the one feeding lines.  who brought up the "slip showing" in  
the first place?  how does one respond when facing: "Your slip is  
showing, now onto a verbose response that does not speak to the core  
factual issues at all".

you and Kathy had no "victory" (if that is the way you like looking  
at it).  where it is about fact (derived or historically supported)  
regarding the focussed issue, you haven't done anything to touch it.

the fact is, transmitting the content (to a central counting  
location) of *every ballot* is the transfer of a finite amount of  
information.  that is even *more* general than sorting to piles and  
transmitting the tallies for piles.

but breaking it down to piles regarding every conceivable permutation  
of candidate preference is *still* breaking it down to a finite  
number of piles.  for 3 candidates, that number is 9.  if you or  
Kathy say it's 15, then you're wrong (and it's your slip that's  
showing).  for 4 candidates the number of necessary piles is 40.  for  
N candidates, the number of piles necessary, P(N) is

            N-1
     P(N) = SUM{ N!/n! }
            n=1

not

            N-1
     P(N) = SUM{ N!/n! }
            n=0

which is appears to be the formula you and Kathy continue to insist  
is correct.  and whether Kathy has an MS in Mathematics or not,  
whether you do or not, this error is demonstrable.  you and Kathy  
continue to insist that there is a consequential difference between  
ranking all candidates and ranking all but 1 and leaving one  
candidate unranked and i continue to say there is no consequential  
difference.  this is a difference of falsifiable claims that form a  
dichotomy.    we can test which claim is correct.

> In person, face-to-face, people would fall over laughing, and  
> whatever value there was in your position would be lost.


you've never used humor to make a point?  or to make clear the  
lameness of an irrelevant reference?

whether one responds to an irrelevant distraction with humor or not  
changes nothing regarding the core issues.

certainly if a ridiculously large number of candidates are on the  
ballot, manually separating ballots into piles (without grouping  
together minor or non-credible candidates) is not practical.  even  
with 4 salient candidates, 40 piles gets pretty nasty for sorting by  
*hand*.  but 40 is still a pretty small number for a computer and a  
modern network.

a national election with 3 credible candidates can easily be  
"precinct summable" with 9 salient piles and 31 less important  
piles.  it doesn't matter if it is IRV, Condorcet, Borda or what.   
the issue of summing pile count is not dependent on what tabulation  
method is used (and what, *i* think, should be what the debate is  
about).

neither you nor Kathy have shown *any* problem of "precinct  
summability" regarding IRV or any other ranked-ballot method.

not that i am a defender of IRV.  but, you haven't laid a hand on it  
regarding "precinct summability".  IRV has a few pathologies, which i  
think i understand better than either you or Kathy, simply from the  
lame and partisan arguments (and wholly verbose) i read coming from  
that direction.

even though *now* Kathy seems to be paying some attention to  
Condorcet, before this last week, i haven't noticed any such  
attention about that from her.  it was always just how bad IRV is,  
and that it's worse than any other method, including FPTP.  and when  
she (or you) says that, then i am convinced that she (or you) are  
simply anti-IRV partisans that don't really consider what the  
*commonly* *known* problems are that associated with the traditional  
FPTP (or even 2-round with runoff) methods for which motivated us to  
adopt IRV in the first place.

so, before pointing out that someone's slip is showing, it might be  
safer to adjust where one's own fig leaf is hanging.

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."