[EM] Re : Toy election model: 2D IQ (ideology/quality) model

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/11/8 Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr>

> Speaking of quoting messages, I have to admit I don't understand how it is
> even supposed to be done under Yahoo. I can indent the message, and I used
> to be able to correctly quote plain text messages. But usually when I try
> to quote an html message I just end up destroying the formatting somehow.
>
> Anyway, to Jameson:
>
>
>   *De :* Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>
> *À :* kathy.dopp at gmail.com
> *Cc :* EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> *Envoyé le :* Dimanche 6 Novembre 2011 20h23
> *Objet :* Re: [EM] Toy election model: 2D IQ (ideology/quality) model
>
>
>
> > 3. It is therefore reasonable to hope for a voting system that tends to
> > elect centrists, but slightly less so than a Condorcet system.
>
> Why would utility be considered more important than centrist?  Or would it?
>
> Utility is *the* goal, almost tautologically. I mean yeah, there's plenty
> of ways you could criticize the model, or even the idea that the votes have
> anything at all to do with the utility that the voters will gain from a
> given candidate winning; but until someone comes up with something better,
> for democracy at least, utility is the best paradigm we have.
>
>
>
> I don't think I agree. Utilities are everpresent in simulations because
> they are a convenient way to represent the priorities of the voters. They
> can easily be generated from distances in space. But, it's not obvious that
> these priorities need to be aggregable (we could use a system where the
> "addition" of different voters' priorities isn't even a straightforward
> task) and it's not obvious that maximizing the aggregation should even be a
> goal. You don't need to do it.
>

I know there are proofs for a single agent that something equivalent to
utility is the only way to have consistent priorities and avoid being
"money pumped". ("You have A? OK, will you trade that and $1 for B? Now
will you trade that and $1 for C? OK, now will you trade that and $1 for A?
Heh heh heh, you just gave me $3 for nothing, fool.") I suspect you could
prove something similar for aggregate agents (societies). Basically,
utilities are the only way to avoid the Condorcet paradox.

I do not think that this means that utilities are somehow real. I do think
that it is a pretty good argument for using a utility-based model.


> I've said before that I prefer to look at sincere Condorcet efficiency and
> strategic incentives.
>

While I'm advocating using utilities, I must say that we could do a lot
worse than your plan. In particular, as I've said elsewhere, using
utilities is no substitute for looking at strategic incentives.


> So you don't get one clean number from me, sorry. But I think it may be
> less artificial than aggregated utility.
>
> Furthermore I doubt that aggregate utility is likely to get you anywhere
> unique. Electorates in practice try to get sincere CWs elected. If someone
> ever pointed to a simulation and a scenario and a rule and said, "here is a
> concrete method by which we can favor higher utility candidates over
> sincere Condorcet efficiency" my intuition would be that their tools are
> underestimating the voters. When the sincere CW loses, it represents an
> error from the standpoint of what the electorate was trying to do. I think
> it would take some genius work to capitalize consistently on such errors,
> and gain more than is lost.
>

I suspect that Majority Judgment does exactly that. My evidence? B+L's
study that shows that MJ is the only system which does not elect almost
solely centrists nor almost solely extremists, in a model based on 2007
France. That is to say, where Condorcet elected centrists, MJ sometimes
elected extremists. And in my toy model, that is sometimes the right answer.


>
> All that said, I would be interested to hear if someone has made an
> argument that majority rule, as a sensible principle, depends on some other
> more fundamental principle.
>

OK, here goes: utility is happiness and is the true goal. Majority rule is
just the most strategy-proof principle which tends to agree with maximum
utility.

That wasn't too hard.

I'm not actually a utility fundamentalist; I don't think that it's
necessarily real. But yes, I do think that on the whole, it's closer to
being a fundamental principle than Condorcet.

I also think that, even if it's not truer, people's brains are more set up
to understand comparing some quality measure for each candidate, than
comprehending a Condorcet matrix-based procedure. So even if the Condorcet
criterion itself is easy to state so that people "understand" it, they're
going to naturally feel more comfortable with a quality measure procedure
(such as Approval, Range, MJ, SODA), than with a comparison-based one (such
as any Condorcet, MMPO, IBIFA). Even IRV is seen as "less complicated" than
Copeland//Approval because it's a linear, not a parallel, process, not
because the rules are simpler.

Jameson


>
> Kevin
>
>
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