[EM] Warren needs to double check his work.

[David L Wetzell]

>
> KM1:Alright, then tell me what kind of evidence would change your mind as
> to whether the scarcity of competitive candidates is an artifact of
> Plurality or inherent to single-winner elections. (If no such evidence
> can exist, then there's no point in discussing.)
>
> dlw1:Let's switch to IRV + American forms of PR(in more local elections)
> and watch the feedback loop.   We should be able to observe over time
> how the dynamics of elections shift, as voter-prefs get better
> cultivated.  When folks get habituated to the new system then it'd be
> easy to put multiple alts to IRV on various ballots, using IRV to choose
> between them, and then we'd see from various experiments  whether
> upgrading from IRV continues a feedback loop in improving the quantity
> as well as quality of competitive candidates on the ballot.
>

KM2:So you're saying that nothing short of actually trying the experiment
in public elections will change your mind?
Then I believe I am done here. I can't change your position, so all I can
do is to argue to others that your position is flawed.

dlw2: Yes, our diffs are epistemic.  The thought experiments commonly used
here are not persuasive to me, since I'm trying to hold onto a realistic
notion of voters that views voter-utilities or political spectrumes as at
best useful heuristics.

KM2: Though, on another level, I could argue that IRV itself has already
been tested in the US. Yes, I'm going to use the B-word. But you have
already made it clear enough that you consider Burlington to be an anomaly:
therefore, it appears only widespread center-squeezing will be enough to
show the inferiority of IRV.

dlw2: Exactly, this illustrates our epistemic diffs.   Why put so much
resources to end the use of IRV in Burlington if it is such an ineffective
rule?  The bank-rollers of the recall campaign weren't worried about IRV's
not always electing the Condorcet winner.  With one more election, folks
would have adjusted so that IRV, ie GOPers wd've forced their party to the
center or voted strategically for the Democratic party, and IRV would work
reliably.  It would've made the two biggest parties hew towards the center
and accommodate outsiders.  The dissatisfaction with IRV was $pun with evil
intent in Burlington and you propagate the $pin with your perfectionism.
 If the number of competitive candidates proliferates and IRV is found
inadequate in multiple elections then change will be possible.  Meanwhile,
there was no good reason to stifle the adoption of IRV there and my view is
that you bring it up to elevate the short-term import of your preferred
alternative electoral rules.

This is what it feels like, "Oh, if only our rules were in place then this
wouldn't have happened."  Well, the opponents of reform are good at
figuring out ways to manipulate people's perceptions of election rules and
dividing and conquering those who push for reform.  They'd have adapted
their attacks if a different rule had been in use in Burlington.

KM2:If anything, I'm reminded of a right-populist party over here. Their
policies have been criticized many times. One of their replies is simply:
"we've never been in power, so you don't know that it would turn out that
bad".

dlw2: Well, IRV hasn't never been in power and I'm not pushing for it alone
nor am I claiming it's the end-all-be-all of electoral rules.  I'm
defending it as the best known progressive alternative to fptp against
critics who rely on relatively abstract models and the presumption of a
strong feedback loop from switching to their rules to the increase in the
number of competitive candidates.  I am skeptical of how strong the
feedback loop would be in important single-winner elections.

KM:And furthermore, tell me why we shouldn't just use what you call
> "multi-winner elections" like runoffs and not have to take on faith that
> no single-winner method can produce diversity.
>
> dlw: We need both diversity and hierarchy.  This is why we need a mix of
> election rules, some encouraging diversity/equality, others encouraging
> hierarchy/order.  We need the latter because of the need for collective
> action and coordination.
>

KM2: So long as there are parties, there will always be hierarchy. Fred
Gohlke argues pretty well for this. He does that because he thinks party
hierarchy is a bad thing. I'm not going to comment on whether it is, here,
because it is besides the point. Instead, I'll only say: Why?

dlw2: The state holds a monopoly on the legit uses of violence to prevent
the growth of violence.  This monopoly leads to hierarchy.  Hierarchy is
also a part of making changes possible.  If we are to search for long-term
alternatives to nuclear and non-renewable energy, we'll need to coordinate
research which will require hierarchy to parcel out different tasks and to
abet the dissemination and rewarding of good work.

Single winner election rules abet the transparent formation of hierarchy.
 They also should promote checks and balances to keep it from abusing its
authority.

KM2: There are nations that only use what you call multi-winner rules.
There are even nations on the American continent that do so. Yet they
manage. Their lack of what you call single-winner elections for partisan
positions do not seem to measurably harm them in comparison with similar
nations that do use such election rules.

dlw2: Hierarchy can be established through less transparent means and it's
different with smaller nations than bigger nations.  But I guess it's also
a statement of political values.  I value both hierarchy/order and
equality/change and thereby I want my country to evince both through the
use of both single-winner and multi-winner election rules.  I believe right
now, the real root problem is that our nearly exclusive use of
single-winner election rules enabled $peech to become over-aggressive in
the 70s, manipulating successfully the cultural wars wedge issues.  Thus,
we need more multi-winner elections and we need to make our single-winner
elections harder to game or open to outsiders voices.

dlw:I classify multiple stage elections as hybrids between multi-winner and
> single-winner elections.  I think they're costly but good systems.  If
> we replaced all of our current fptp systems with a partisan primary in
> the US with the FairVote upgrade on top two primary, it'd improve the
> system.  But I'd rather not use one election rule for all elections.  I
> think it'd be hard to get turnout up and fair in the first election,
> even with four winners.
>

KM2:If Abd is right, then low turnout is a feature, not a bug.

dlw2: If we increase the number of winners from the early stages, we'd
increase the number of groups with a vested interest in turning folks out
for the earlier stages.

KM2:And what do you mean by "and fair in the first election"?

dlw2: The fairvote analysis of the 1st stages in the CA top two primaries
showed a conservative, anti-hispanic bias in the earlier stages.

KM2:The amusing thing about the GIGO argument is that it is not IRV that
does best when dealing with noisy votes. That honor goes to Condorcet (as
shown by Brian Olson's simulations). Even Approval does better than IRV as
noise increases.

dlw2: If the noise is endogenous with people being more informed on some
candidates they care about then the exclusion of info from lower in the
rankings wd be more useful and IRV wd perform better.

KM2:And still, the three-scenarios argument holds. If there is some kind of
weird IRV-specific GIGO so that IRV is really good, then BTR-IRV is no
worse, fuzzy epistemic limits or no.

dlw2: Fuzzy epistemic limits can make longer lists have less value added
and, afaict, BTR-IRV needs meaningful longer lists to be better.

KM2:Finally, specificity can hit both ways. Perhaps the specificity works
to degrade DLW's unproven IRV/Approval hybrid, and what we need is a robust
noise-handling method like Condorcet. Perhaps, perhaps. Without any
evidence, anybody can play that game and it will get us nowhere.

dlw2: It's not unproven.  Others have used the short-cut I proffer to
expedite the candidate-elimination/vote-counting process and to avoid the
use of recursion in explaining how a rule works.

dlw2: It's not a game.  We can come to terms that experimentation w.
variants of IRV and their adoption in the US are more apt to happen in the
near future than any other single-winner rule.  Thus, the issue is do we
support the experiment that's begun or do we provide fire-power to the
opponents of reform for the sake of an even better rule.  You insist the
burden of proof is on me or proponents of variants of IRV for single-winner
elections, but as the outsider to the main movement for electoral reform in
the US, the burden of proof rightly rests on you and unfortunately what you
have are pseudo-experimental models that are ineffective at rallying others
around some alternative to IRV.

dlw

dlw


On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 1:46 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km_elmet at lavabit.com> wrote:

> On 06/25/2013 12:25 AM, David L Wetzell wrote:
>
>> KM:Alright, then tell me what kind of evidence would change your mind as
>> to whether the scarcity of competitive candidates is an artifact of
>> Plurality or inherent to single-winner elections. (If no such evidence
>> can exist, then there's no point in discussing.)
>>
>> dlw:Let's switch to IRV + American forms of PR(in more local elections)
>> and watch the feedback loop.   We should be able to observe over time
>> how the dynamics of elections shift, as voter-prefs get better
>> cultivated.  When folks get habituated to the new system then it'd be
>> easy to put multiple alts to IRV on various ballots, using IRV to choose
>> between them, and then we'd see from various experiments  whether
>> upgrading from IRV continues a feedback loop in improving the quantity
>> as well as quality of competitive candidates on the ballot.
>>
>
> So you're saying that nothing short of actually trying the experiment in
> public elections will change your mind? Then I believe I am done here. I
> can't change your position, so all I can do is to argue to others that your
> position is flawed.
>
> Though, on another level, I could argue that IRV itself has already been
> tested in the US. Yes, I'm going to use the B-word. But you have already
> made it clear enough that you consider Burlington to be an anomaly:
> therefore, it appears only widespread center-squeezing will be enough to
> show the inferiority of IRV.
>
> If anything, I'm reminded of a right-populist party over here. Their
> policies have been criticized many times. One of their replies is simply:
> "we've never been in power, so you don't know that it would turn out that
> bad".
>
>
>  KM:And furthermore, tell me why we shouldn't just use what you call
>> "multi-winner elections" like runoffs and not have to take on faith that
>> no single-winner method can produce diversity.
>>
>> dlw: We need both diversity and hierarchy.  This is why we need a mix of
>> election rules, some encouraging diversity/equality, others encouraging
>> hierarchy/order.  We need the latter because of the need for collective
>> action and coordination.
>>
>
> So long as there are parties, there will always be hierarchy. Fred Gohlke
> argues pretty well for this. He does that because he thinks party hierarchy
> is a bad thing. I'm not going to comment on whether it is, here, because it
> is besides the point. Instead, I'll only say: Why?
>
> There are nations that only use what you call multi-winner rules. There
> are even nations on the American continent that do so. Yet they manage.
> Their lack of what you call single-winner elections for partisan positions
> do not seem to measurably harm them in comparison with similar nations that
> do use such election rules.
>
>
>  I classify multiple stage elections as hybrids between multi-winner and
>> single-winner elections.  I think they're costly but good systems.  If
>> we replaced all of our current fptp systems with a partisan primary in
>> the US with the FairVote upgrade on top two primary, it'd improve the
>> system.  But I'd rather not use one election rule for all elections.  I
>> think it'd be hard to get turnout up and fair in the first election,
>> even with four winners.
>>
>
> If Abd is right, then low turnout is a feature, not a bug.
>
> And what do you mean by "and fair in the first election"?
>
>
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