[EM] RBJ et al.

[Jameson Quinn]

Please, stop talking, and start calculating. If you're not ready to
calculate, then at least stop arguing with us, and start arguing with the
fuzzy beast, until you are.

Jameson

2012/2/3 David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com>

>  dlw: When you try out a new piece of technology, you can't expect to get
>>> it right right away.  A democracy is a function of both the rules and
>>> people's habits.  If GOPers had seen that their party couldn't win then
>>> some of them wd've voted Dem first and the CW wd have won....
>>>
>>
>> David!  That's the point!  That's the problem!  IRV promised that you
>> could vote for your favorite candidate and that would not help elect your
>> least favorite.
>
>
> dlw: They promised it to those who had to vote strategically way too often
> with FPTP.  They did not promise it was always true.
>
>
>> it explicitly failed to do that on the second try.  In this town that, at
>> least 3 years ago, had 3 major parties (so the spoiler wasn't some kinda
>> Ron Paul or Ralph Nader gadfly who had no hope of election but could still
>> rob victory from the majority candidate).  In the context where the 3 (or
>> more) candidates are *all* plausible, Condorcet would have elected a
>> candidate where, by definition, no other candidate was preferred over this
>> CW and, at least in the Burlington 2009 example, would not have suffered
>> spoiler, punishment for sincere voting, non-monotonicity, and
>> non-summability/transparency.
>>
>
> dlw: non-monotonicity is not at fault here, unless you expect a large no.
> of GOP supporters to have a huge change of heart to support the Prog party
> first....Neither was there a problem with summability/transparency...
>
> And how do you know there wouldn't be other foibles that emerge as folks
> got adjusted to a Condorcet method?
>
> Perhaps the number of candidates would proliferate so much that it'd be a
> vote-counting nightmare...
>
> At the end of the day, 3-way competitive elections for single-seat
> positions are hard to sustain.  IRV wd have made the parties around the
> true center be the major parties.  Now, it seems that won't be the case...
>
>>
>> rbj: It *failed*, David.  (but it still beats Plurality and,
>> unfortunately the voters of Burlington, who adopted IRV by 65% in 2005,
>> tossed the baby out with the bathwater in 2010 and *really* did in 2011
>> when they rejected the 50% threshold.)
>
>
> dlw: Depends on your loss-function and whether you take a single-period or
> multi-period assessment of the outcomes.
> I refuse to accept a pass-fail assessment of IRV wrt Burlington.  It's not
> appropriate.  It's playing into the hands of the opponents of electoral
> reform by repeating their frames.
>
>
>> rbj:  now, elections are something that we (any particular group of
>> people) do not do every day.  it's not like you got your iPhone or iPad and
>> it worked the day you bought it, and had trouble the second day, but you
>> are willing to see how well it works the next day.  it's more like a
>> high-rise building technique or bridge-building technique (e.g. Tacoma
>> Narrows Bridge).  if you use some new technique and it fails the first time
>> you use it, you better believe there will be hesitation and controversy the
>> next time its use is proposed.  and very similar if it happens the second
>> use.
>>
>
> It depends on the severity of the loss.  You are exaggerating the
> practical bads of the election of a non-CW somewhat left of the CW.
> Micronumerosity says we got to not draw strong conclusions from very
> limited use of something new.  It tells us we need to turn away from our
> fallen human natures driven by our fears.
>
>>
>> rbj: on the other hand, if the technique was used 50 times before it
>> failed, you would more likely look at the failure as a fluke or outlier.
>>  elections happen once or twice a year (if you're politically active, if
>> you're not it's more like once in four years) and their consequences are
>> significant, in some cases worse than a building collapse.
>>
>
> dlw: Once again, assess the "damage" and take the longer view of how this
> will play into the next election.  If IRV had been continued the Prog
> candidate wd have moved to the right some to woo Democrats so the outcome
> wd have been preferred by most people.
>
> "a failure that occurs so soon after adoption might very well be an
> indication of something systemic, not just an outlier."
>
> dlw: It ain't necessarily so... and you got to consider the relative
> import of type one vs type two errors.  A sample of type 2 is not going to
> be powerful and when you try to make it powerful, you increase the
> likelihood of a type one error, ending the use of a good election rule
> before it had a chance to prove itself among a populace that understands it
> better.
>
>>
>>> dlw:To prevent all tactical voting is not the greatest good.
>>>
>>
>> The *primary* reason for adopting ranked-choice voting, the greatest good
>> promised, is to remove the *burden* of tactical voting from voters so that
>> they do not experience voter's regret the day after the election (which,
>> here in Burlington, soured many voters that do not return to the polls,
>> thus reducing participation in democracy).  i don't suggest that we can
>> prevent all tactical voting, but the common burden of tactical voting, the
>> tactic called "compromising", is avoidable and *should* be avoided where at
>> all possible.
>>
>
> Think about it.  Really?  Preventing anyone from being pressured to
> tactical voting is the greatest good?  Shouldn't it be to make the parties
> responsive to the general views of the population?  To reduce the distance
> between the de facto and true political center?
>
> I don't have a problem if a major party chooses to get ideologically stuck
> so some of its supporters have to abandon it because of its
> non-electability.
>
> In our context where $peech is so strong the "tactical voters" are more
> likely to be the ones who've been gaming the system for their own bottom
> line for quite some time.  It isn't the same thing for them to be pressured
> to vote insincerely as it is when third party dissenters from "dumb and
> dumber" get pressured to vote that way.  The former bonds the de facto and
> true center.  The latter severs the two.
>
>
> dlw
>
>>
>>
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>
>
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