[EM] Clean Government Alliance

[Richard Fobes]

On 1/17/2013 10:49 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>
> The general pattern I was trying to think of, in any case, was this: the
> society is too far in one direction (according to the people). Candidate
> X has a position solidly on the other side and brings the policies in
> that direction. As X pushes policies towards the center, he gains
> reputation for doing something well. Then as X goes past the center, the
> people think "we'll give him some time; he's been right in the past, why
> shouldn't he still know what he's doing?" And so it takes time before
> the people recognize how far off the other side X really wants to go.
>
> Term limits mitigate this ...
>
> I have also been reading about predictor or ensemble systems (like
> weighted majority voting). In that context, it's like an expert that
> tends to be very right, but situations change and he suddenly stops
> being right. It then takes some time for his weight to be reduced,
> because he has such a high weight already. In dynamic situations (where
> experts may often shift from being very good to not being good at all),
> sliding window versions of WMV (or UCB) do better than non-sliding
> versions. I can find papers for this if you're interested :-)

Currently, in politics there is not a close correlation between voter 
preferences and who ends up in office, so the tendency you claim does 
tend to occur.

However, if elections are improved so that there is a high correlation 
between voter preferences and who ends up in office, then such 
"over-runs" would quickly lead to a push back to center.

Such over-runs are a component of the concept of "resonance" in Physics. 
  This over-extended "state" quickly lead to an ever-increasing push 
back to center.  Yet, overall, the result is an oscillation that 
averages out to be centered.

If, after election-method reform, there should be a need to "dampen" 
such wild swings, there other -- and I believe wiser -- ways to do so.

Richard Fobes