[EM] Chris: The alternative to mutual majority

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Chris:

Sure, the alternatives to majority that you used in your alternatives to MTA worked well
in those methods, though it made the methods' definitions somewhat more complicated.

So, in a similar way, it may well be that the alternative to a mutual majority set that
you described will work perfectly well in an MMT-like method.

Of course that isn't something that one could know the answer to now, when that
alternative set has just been described, but let's check out whether an FBC/ABE
method as good as MMT can be based on it.

Maybe such a method could avoid Mono-Add-Plump failure, and maybe that could avoid
a criticism from opponents about that.

But, as I was saying: How could anyone criticize MMT for failing Mono-Add-Plump?:

Before you plump for your favorite, s/he is winning only because of mutual majority 
support. You arrive and decline that mutual support. So why should you be surprised
if you no longer have it? Why should you still win because of mutual support that you
decline? 

I believe that people will understand why the plumpers' candidate lost, because 
hir voters didn't sufficiently accept the mutual support coalition that otherwise
would have helped hir to win.

In general, all the criticisms that you spoke of (Mono-Add-Plump, Burial-incentive,
random-fill incentive) don't describe a genuine problem for MMT, or a problem
that people would regard as a problem, or a problem that wrongs anyone.

As I said, with MMT, when examining the situations described under the criticism-headings
of the previous paragraph, it always comes to:

Some smaller factions choose to support and elect a more popular candidate, as
a compromise.

How can anyone criticize that?

But if your new method meets Mono-Add-Plump, and is an FBC/ABE method,
without adding too much complexity, with a wording that isn't too much less 
brief, simple, or naturally and obviously motivated, 
then it would be a fine public proposal too.

Mike Ossipoff


 		 	   		  
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