[EM] Venzke's election simulations

[robert bristow-johnson]

On Jun 9, 2010, at 12:42 AM, Warren Smith wrote:

>>> 1. I think using utility=-distance
>> is not as realistic as something like
>> utility=1/sqrt(1+distance^2)
>>
>> I claim the latter is more realistic both near 0 distance
>> and near
>> infinite distance.
>
>> Why would that be? Do you mean it's more intuitive?
>
> --because utility is not unboundedly large.  If a candidate gets
> further from you, utility does not get worse and worse dropping to
> -infinity.
> No.   Eventually the candidate as he moves away approaches the worst
> he can be for you, which is, say, advocating your death,

:-)

> and then
> moving the candidate twice as far away doesn't make him twice as bad
> from your perspective, and 10X as far doesn't make him 10X worse.  It
> only makes him a little worse.

i dunno, Warren.  maybe if the candidate advocates for starving,  
torturing, and then killing your kids and other descendants,  
relatives.  a holocaust for your ethnic group.  then fouls the entire  
environment of your homeland to extract resources for he and his  
unworthy buddies.  but i agree, there might be a limit.

i'll have to confess, that i have trouble with the presumptions of  
these simulations in the first place.  i have done simulations of  
physical processes and communications systems (and have used all three  
L^1, L^2, and L^inf norms) but i just am not confident of the  
assumptions of social behavior (without first getting some empirical  
results from actual social sampling - like getting a handle on how  
many voters would change their vote from their favorite candidate if  
he/she changed her position on just 1 particular issue, or 2 issues).

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."