[EM] Spatial models -- Polytopes vs Sampling

[Daniel Carrera]

This recent discussion about cigar-shaped Gaussians and
dimensionality gives me another idea: Instead of assuming that candidates /
parties are randomly selected from the electorate, you could imagine a
model that starts with two major parties divided along the major axis of
the Gaussian, and each new party picks a platform that is not random, but
is intended to maximize the number of voters that they can take from
previous parties.

Cheers,
Daniel


On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 5:05 AM Colin Champion
<colin.champion at routemaster.app> wrote:

> I haven't followed this discussion - sorry if I'm missing something. I
> quite like Jameson Quinn's model of an infinite number of dimensions of
> progressively diminishing importance. On the other hand, if 'n
> dimensions' is understood as meaning n dimensions of equal importance,
> then it seems to me intuitively unattractive. As a first approximation I
> might describe politics on a left/right axis; as a second I might
> distinguish between economic and social liberalism but expect them to be
> correlated (leading to a cigar-shaped 2D Gaussian) etc. (This doesn't
> help Daniel who wants an upper limit.)
>
> Quinn's model is on his vse page:
> http://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/VSE/
>
> CJC
>
> On 04/02/2022 09:55, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> <snip>
> > Yeah, my reluctance to base dimensions around the number of currently
> > existing parties in part stems from this. If we're supposed to improve
> > the state of politics, then we shouldn't take the current bundling of
> > issues as a given. To the degree it's possible, the method should get
> > out of the voters' way and let the natural number of dimensions reveal
> > itself through their actions.
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>


-- 
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University
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