[EM] Lomax's example has a fallacy. Bruce's argument is ridiculously, blatantly fallacious.

[Michael Ossipoff]

Lomax's example has a fallacy:

Lomax said that the Republican and the Democrat were considered equally
likely to win.

We can assume from that that the Republican isn't believed to haves a
majority.

>From the above, the Green should approve the Democrat, by the
better-than-expectation strategy.

Since the Republican doesn't have a majority, s/he can be beaten if the
Democrats approve the Green, or the Greens approve the Democrat, or both.

But the Green-preferrers need the Democrat a lot more than the Democrats
need the Green, based on Lomax's specified distances.

So the Democrats preferrers have a much more credible, and more justified,
presumption to not approve.

So it can be expected that the Greens have a strategic need to approve the
Democrat, and that they should and will do so.

But that means that the Democrat and Republican _aren't_ equally likely to
win. The Democrat is the expected winner.

Bruce's argument is ridiculously and blatantly fallacious:

According to what Jameson said, Bruce said that Plurality is better than
Approval because, when there are only two viable candidates, Plurality
doesn't give people a dilemma.

For one thing, when people are really sure that there are only two viable
candidates, _no_ method gives people a dilemma. That includes Approval.

But what if there might be more than two viable candidates? What if you
don't know for sure? Then both Approval and Plurality have a "dilemma", in
this restricted sense:

You, and a few people who prefer and vote as you do, don't know for sure
what way of voting will give you the best outcome.

But in Approval your expectation-maximizing strategy is easy and simple.
That can't be said for Plurality.

Additionally, the dilemma referred to in the line before last is worse in
Plurality than in Approval. In Approval, the question is "Shall I approve
Compromise in addition to Favorite?"

In Plurality, the question is, "Shall I vote for Compromise, at the cost of
completely abandoning favorite?"

You tell me which is worse.

If Bruce doesn't think that Plurality has a dilemma in our elections, then
one must wonder where he was in 2004 (and previous years too). Many who
wanted to beat Bush were _acrimoniously_ heaping criticism on Nader and his
voters for not supporting Compromise (Kerry) against Worst (Bush)--even
though they, too, preferred Nader to Kerry.

By the way, who is Bruce? There are no recent postings by someone named
Bruce.

Mike Ossipoff