[EM] Meta-criteria 9 of 9: Conclusion

[Juho]

On May 7, 2010, at 7:26 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:

> On May 7, 2010, at 11:48 AM, Kevin Venzke wrote:
>
>> --- En date de : Ven 7.5.10, Jameson Quinn  
>> <jameson.quinn at gmail.com> a écrit :
>> Thanks for your response. You have some interesting points about  
>> utility not necessarily being summed.
>
> well, *some* sense of utility must be summed if all voters are to be  
> treated equally and interchangeably.

Often the solution is to simplify things so that the strength of every  
opinion in counted as 1. That means that the strengths of individual  
utilities/preferences are ignored but as a result of this  
simplification all the individual voter opinions are equal in  
strength, worth one vote. As a result voting methods will be fair (all  
treated equally) and more strategy free although one fails to measure  
the strength of the feelings of different individuals.

Juho




>
>> As to whether the majority principle is fundamental even though it  
>> can contradict utility: in my schema, you'd defend such a position  
>> with arguments grounded in legitimacy and/or expressivity, and  
>> quite possibly couched in terms of fairness/honesty (that is,  
>> strategy).
>>
>> For me, the argument is that majority usually *is* consistent with  
>> utility, and you won't
>> often have any better indicator of utility.
>>
>> But ignoring majorities will tend to create legitimacy and strategy  
>> problems as well.
>
>
> totally agree.  if the majority candidate is properly identified and  
> elected, the only strategy i can bring to the poll to help the  
> political interest i have is to vote for the candidates i believe  
> hold such interests.  but, if somehow, a minority candidate might be  
> elected, then i have to think hard if voting for the candidate i  
> like best actually helps my political interest.
>
> and the only issue for me (and why i haven't gotten involved in the  
> minute discussion) is how to determine such a majority will with  
> multiple candidates (or parties).  for example, i now see the real  
> problem that the Brits have.  with Labour, Lib Dem, Sinn Fein, Plaid  
> Cymru, Social Dem-Lab, and Green (adds to 327 seats, a working  
> majority in Commons, Brown should offer the PM to Clegg and see if  
> he can get everyone to jump on board) and with just Labour and Lib  
> Dem getting 52% of the popular vote, it's pretty clear to me that  
> the majority of voting Brits are not Conservative as the Tories  
> would have you believe.
>
> but, of course one can ask "How do you *know* that Lib Dem and  
> Labour have more in common with each other than with the Tories?",  
> and i would say that we don't with FPTP but we can find out with a  
> ranked order ballot.  in my town it would be just like asking "How  
> do you know the Progressives and Democrats have more in common with  
> each other than with the Republicans?"  We know, and a ranked ballot  
> would collect that information.
>
> and since everyone agrees how the majority (of equally-franchised  
> voters) is measured between two candidates (FPTP's "simple majority"  
> = majority), whatever method we come up with for more than two  
> candidates should leave the relative majority determination between  
> Candidates A and B unchanged when more candidates are included.  if  
> there is no cycle, only Condorcet does that.  only Condorcet (again,  
> assuming no cycle) defaults directly to "simple majority" when the  
> race degenerates to two candidates.
>
> to me, the only issue is how best to resolve a Condorcet paradox, if  
> one should rarely pop up.
>
> --
>
> r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
>
>
>
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