[EM] To Condorcetists:

[Michael Ossipoff]

On 05/13/2012 03:04 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:

> You're in deinal about Gibbard-Satterthwaite.
> You're in denial about Condorcet's blatant and full-magnitude 
> co-operation/defection problem.
> And you're in denial about millions of voters' need to litterally 
> maximally help the Democrat beat the Republican.

There are many ways to try to convince the people with whom you're debating
that they're mistaken. Calling them "in denial" is not one of them.

Now, I could lower myself to your level, but I'm not going to do that. I
*am* going to say, though, that this is not the kind of thing that makes me
want to invest time in writing replies to your posts. Please don't do it.

[endquote]

I meant no offense. You know that I don't use insult. "In denial" has no
perjorative meaning. When people really want to believe something, they
often will disregard details that contradict what they want to believe. If
you try the usually-advocated forms of Condorcet in the Approval bad-example
(ABE), you'll find that Condorcet indeed fully has the C/D problem. I've
posted that example in a 27,24,49 version, and, later, in a 33,32,34
version. But anything inbetween will do too.

You continued:

Before you start claiming people are in denial, look at what you've written
yourself. More specifically, it looks rather bad when you, on the one hand,
say that C/D resistance is not incompatible with the Condorcet criterion,
then turn around and claim that "Condorcet has a blatant and full-magnitude
co-operation/defection problem" of which Condorcetists are supposedly in
denial.

[endquote]

I was referring to the Condorcet versions that are usually proposed. Of
course I don't deny that CC and defection resistance are compatible, as in
Smith-Top and Schwartz-Top.

You continued:

Before you talk about a *need* to literally maximally help the Democrat beat
the Republican, consider what you have said yourself, in response to my
posts. You have said that the voters' overcompromise is a result of their
history with Plurality, not an objective *need* to, within Condorcet,
rearrange the preferences or the worse guy will win.

[endquote]

They do so because of Plurality history, yes. But their need to
overcompromise is the result of a subjective choice, not an objective error.

In fact, under certain circumstances you, too, would favorite-bury in
Condorcet. I certainly would. (contrary to what I've said in the past, I
admit)

Suppose that it's a u/a election. The method is Condorcet. It's pretty much
certain that Compromise, an acceptable, but not your favorite, is the only
candidate who can beat Worse, an unacceptable. What do you do? You rank
Compromise alone at top, that's what you do.  As would I.

But, maybe you _don't_ know that Compromise is the only acceptable who can
beat Worse. Maybe you have no idea which one can beat Worse. Then what do
you do? You top rate all the acceptables.  The problem, of course, is in the
majority of circumstances, when it's somewhere in between those two
circumstances.

So, then how do you know which to do? Good question. You _dither_.

In Approval it's simple and easy: Just approve all of the acceptables and
none of the unacceptable. How hard is that? Condorcet is much worse, as
described above.

You continued:

And finally, I'd give this hint: the moment it feels like the "other side"
has somehow acquired a preponderance of people in denial, take a more
Copernican view. When an otherwise sensible group holds a view that seems to
be silly, and to explain the silliness, a greater part of that group needs
to be extraordinarily blind (and very specifically so), perhaps they are
not. Perhaps, instead, the view is not so silly.

[endquote]

It's hardly rare for a majority to be mistaken. It's common. 

You rely too much on polling. As I said, the configuration of advocacy on EM
is but a snapshot of something that's constantly changing. 

As I've mentioned, Approval won the most recent EM poll on voting systems.
Approval won by every method that we used. Approval was the CW, the Approval
winner, and the Range winner.

In the short list of Declaration signers, more people mention Approval than
Condorcet, even if you count VoteFair as Condorcet. And one of the people
who mentions Condorcet ranks it below Approval.

Mike Ossipoff