[EM] Kristofer, April 3, '12, Approval vs Condorcet

[Michael Ossipoff]

Kristofer:

It's necessary to distinguish between _two_ Condorcet disadvantages that I
spoke of:

1. Condorcet's FBC problem, when Condorcet is in use.

2. Condorcet's enactment problem, due to being a complicated rank-balloting
contraption.

You addressed #1, but not #2.

As for #1, anyone can say, regarding any criterion, "That is very
important."  If you lived here, you'd know that favorite-burial is _the_
problem. A combination of
media deception and overcompromising favorite-burial are essential to
preserving the phoney "2-party-system".

Yes, that's right. Without favorite-burial incentive, you can kiss-off the
media-fabricated two-party system. The Democrat and Republican parties
would be history.
Democrat and Republican politicians and party officials would have to find
other scams, other than politics. Maybe they can go into the junkbond or
S&L business, or something.

We mustn't underestimate the degree that their electoral survival depends
on favorite-burial.

So, you or anyone can call _any_ criterion the important one, but I've
told, above, why I consider FBC to be important.

As for #2 above, Condorcet's enactment problem, it's the one that I've been
discussing a lot. I don't like to repeat, anymore than people like me to
repeat. It's a lot of work. But I'm going to repeat this:

Rank methods are complicated contraptions. People won't know that they
don't have unintended, unexpected consequences that could be disastrous.
Media pundits,
commentators, tv anchormen, newspaper and magazine editors and writers,
talk-show hosts, and hired university authorities will say, "You don't know
what that
voting system will do. We can' change our voting system without being sure
that the new one won't be a disaster. This needs a lot more study." And
then, of course,
it will never happen.

That can't be said of Approval. Approval is the minimal fix of Plurality's
problem. Nothing other than the elimination of Plurality's ridiculous
forced-falsification requirement. I've told why it will be obvious to all
that that can only be an improvement.






You continued:


So if you say "perhaps Condorcet can win even with something behind it's
back", that's not particular to Condorcet. If what you mean is "perhaps
Condorcet can win even with FBC behind its back", then okay. That's more
clear. It doesn't *as such* put Condorcet at a disadvantage, because you
can't have every criterion. Perhaps Condorcet can win even though it
doesn't have FBC? Perhaps Approal can win even though it doesn't have full
ranking.

[endquote]

Remember that Condorcet's winnability problem has nothing to do with FBC.
It's the "complicated contraption" problem that I spoke of above--a problem
that Approval, uniquely, doesn't have.
I
You continued:

It [Approval] has the defection problem

[endquote]

So does Condorcet, to the same degree. So let's not use that to compare
those  2 methods--except that it's why I say that Condorcet doesn't
significantly  improve on
Approval.

You continued:

Next, about "the candidate with most Approvals win". What I see as a
problem with that definition, or rather, the assumption that this is okay,
is a subtle switcheroo. If you were to say "the candidate with most
approvals win", with the standard sense of the word "approval", then that
might be good. However, we know that in contested elections, Approval is
very sensitive. It has the defection problem and even when people want to
be honest, they still have to pick a threshold. So people wouldn't just be
setting a threshold of who they accept based on some internal preference,
they'd also look at what others are saying and adjusting their thresholds
accordingly. Hence, "Approval" starts to differ from genuine "approval".

[endquote]

No. What I said was:

"And electing the candidate to whom the most voters have given an approval
is,  itself, a valuable optimization."

I made it clear that I was referring to a procedural, operational,
approval. As in, "Yes, I'll give approval to that proposal."

There was no "switcharoo".

In and of itself, the election of the candidate who has been approved, that
way, by the most voters is a valuable optimization.

That's so, regardless of why voters gave their approval. That is _their_
business, and their business only. Don't worry about why. Just
note that the winner is someone to whom the most voters have given an
approval, by marking hir "Approved". And recognize their right
to do so, without accounting or justifying it to anyone.

But that statement about operational approval was only part of what I said.

I also pointed out that  there are many ways a voter could choose whom to
approve. In all of those ways, the voter will always approve candidates
s/he likes better than those s/he doesn't approve.

Usually, maybe nearly always, people should, and will, just approve the
candidates whom they like, trust, or consider deserving of their support.
No strategy there.

If it's a u/a election (there are unacceptable candidates who could win),
then we'll simply approve all the acceptables, and none of the
unacceptables.

In the rare instances where we don't  just know whom to approve because we
like or trust them, I've described some strategy suggestions. Note that
candidate
merit has a large role in these strategies:

If  it's not u/a, and we have no predictive information or feel about
winnability, we should approve the above-mean candidates.

If none of the above conditions obtains,then we should just approve the
candidates who are better than what we expect for the election.

I say that most or all voters will regard the election as u/a, and approve
(only) the acceptables.

I say that most or all others will just vote for the candidates whom they
like, trust, or consider deserving of their support.

The few remaining ones will use one of the strategies that I described
below. One special case of the better-than-expectation strategy, of course,
is to approve whom you'd vote for in Plurality, and also everyone you like
better--_as long as you don't expect Plurality's frontrunners to be
frontrunners
in Approval_!

Maybe some will be approving in some of these ways, and others will be
approving in others of these ways. But  they're all indicating whom they
want to give an operational approval to, and, as I said, it isn't for us to
question their motive.

But most will just approve whom they like or trust. Approval in its true
emotional sense.


You continued:

To make it really obvious, consider a similar pitch for Plurality. "In
Plurality, the candidate who is favorite of the most voters win!". Sounds
reasonable enough, doesn't it?

[quote]

No, it doesn't. Not to someone who lives here. Plurality dosn't elect the
candidate who is favorite to the most voters.

If Plurality is supposed to elect the favorite of the most, it is failing
miserably, due to the millions who bury their favorite.

If Plurality is based on the assumption that people vote for their
favorite, then Plurality is based on a false assumption.

And no, I haven't made a similarly false claim about Approval. See above.


You continue:

But in the real world, the Plurality "favorite" isn't their real favorite,
so the pitch doesn't mean what the voters think it means. Now, don't get me
wrong. I'm not saying Approval is down there with Plurality. I'm just
saying that there's a subtle equivocation because each method imparts a
distortion according to the degree to which the voters feel they have to
vote strategically.

[endquote]

What is Approval's distortion?

Are you saying that in a u/a election, people will approve unacceptables?
Would you? Or are you just saying that you think that someone else would?

Someone is either your favorite or s/he isn't. Plurality has people burying
their favorites.

In a u/a election, someone unacceptable or s/he isn't. Approval doesn't
give anyone incentive to approve unacceptables.

(I've described u/a by saying that there are 2 sets of candidates such that
the merit differences _within_ the sets are negligible
compared to the merit differences _between_ the sets.)

In a non-u/a election,where it's only gradations of liked-ness, your
"distortion" has no meaning, because there's no objective
falsification. The voter likes all of hir approved better than any of hir
unapproved.


You continued:

Anyway. Again, as far as I understand, you're saying that because Condorcet
has the defection problem, it's no better than Approval, and because
Condorcet doesn't pass FBC, it will be worse off than a method that does.
But I would argue that situations of partial honesty matter.

If everybody's 100% honest and knows his preference on the level of an
Olympic judge, then sure, use Range.

[endquote]

Yes.

You continued:

 If everybody's a true game theorist of the sort that would give the other
guy 1 dollar in the dictator game, then use an iterated method because
you're only going to get a good result if the method has a good
game-theoretical equilibrium.

[endquote]

No, Approval, ICT, and maybe a few other methods would do fine with
strategic voters. Yes, Approval has the defection problem, but I've
described
5 ways of solving it. ICT pretty much does away with the defection problem.
I suggest that ICT actually delivers on the promise of rank balloting.

You continued:

But in between? That matters, and that's where you'll find most practical
elections.


[endquote]

We know that U.S. voters are strategic. Range's full merit won't be
realized in our electorate. Instead, with only
 some voters honest, they'll be taken advantage of. There's no reason to
use the more complicated Range instead
of Approval.

You continue:

>From above, the ranked methods are better than Approval because if there's
a significant fraction of honest voters

[endquote]

Oh yeah? Millions say that they hold their nose and vote for the Democrat.

They'll hold their nose and vote hir alone  at top, in Condorcet, because
that's the only way to _fully_ help hir against the Republican.


You continue:

, these honest voters don't have to ponder where to put their Approval
thresholds.

[endquote]

As I said, my first and best suggestion, and what most people will do is:
Approval those whom you like, trust, &/or consider deserving
of your support.

But the other strategies aren't onerously difficult.

You continued:

They can just rank honestly.


[endquote]

Not really. See above.

You continue:

 Ranking may seem easier than rating to me, so that may be part of where
I'm coming from, but to me, it seems much easier to just start ranking than
to think about expectation values.

[endquote]

Rank balloting advocates expect too much from rank balloting. You're
expecting an ideal that isn't real in our world.

...except maybe with ICT.

What you're speaking of is an ideal hope, not a realistic thing to expect.

And don't forget Condorcet's enactment problem.

What you say in the below-quoted paragraph disregards the meaningless of
the rankings when people are favorite-burying:

You'd said:

The ranked methods -- at least Condorcet -- are usually quite good at
rejecting noise, be it unintentional or strategic. The resistance to
ordinary noise can be formalized in some cases: Kemeny is a maximum
likelihood estimator under a model where voters get "A vs B" wrong with
some probability p when voting their ranked ballots, for instance.
As for resistance to uncoordinated strategy, or strategy where a
significant fraction of the voters is honest, that's most obvious when
there is no cycle. If there's a sincere CW, like in Burlington, then the
group that wants to use strategy has to be large enough to induce a cycle.
If it isn't, nothing happens.

[endquote]

Maybe a cycle is natural, and the voted CW is caused by favorite-burial
strategy.

You continued:




 Further, if favorite betrayal is to pay off, the group doing it have to be
large enough that, by voting Compromise over Favorite, they reverse the
direction of (Favorite > Compromise). Thus, that seems to be more the kind
of strategy that would be directed from party central than something any
individual voter would come up with, perhaps with the exception of putting
the viable opponent last.

[endquote]

Of course that isn't true. Voters now favorite bury without organization.
They think that it's their own idea. Yes, they're told to by media and
other misinformed progressives.
...as they will be when Condorcet is the method.

You continue:

And this is really where I make my feedback claim. If it takes a lot of
people to make strategy work, at least in <= 3-major-candidate or u/a
elections, then the overcompromising voters can kick their habit. You seem
to consider the voters to be closer to the game theory economist position
than I do, in that they would compromise "just to be sure.

[endquote]

It isn't a supposition. They are known to do so.

You continue:

(and would similarly min/max rank in MJ "just to be sure").

That isn't about FBC.  Some would vote min/max. Some would vote sincerely.
Result:  strategists take advantge of sincere voters. Not good, unless
my co-factionalists are the strategists.


You continued:

In short, I say that if people see no change to their overcompromise, then
they will slowly stop compromising. In matters of probability, there are
always *some* who don't compromise, and it'll spread from there.

[endquote]

I've acknowledged that maybe Condorcet can overcome its FBC problem,
somewhow, through long use. But Approval doesn't have the problem
in the first place.


--
You continue;

Finally, I say that I don't dispute that Approval is better than Plurality.
I am, however, not certain that the change to Approval is as simple as you
say

[endquote]

Ok, how is it more complicated than I said. Pretend that you're a
Plurality-defender. Let's hear your best argument for claiming that Approval
wouldn't improve on Plurality.



You continued:

 why not get it right the first time?

[endquote]

I consider ICT to be be probably better than Approval in some ways (but not
in others). Personally, I'd like to have ICT's advantages.

Get that "the first time"?  No, I've told why rank methods are a sure
losers, as a first proposal. See above.

You continued:



(If a municipal-to-national approach was the only option, would you still
prefer Approval, or would you go directly to ICT?)


[endquote]

Approval. Because it's incomparably more proposable and winnable. ....and a
tremendous improvement over Plurality.

Mike Ossipoff
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