[EM] STAR

[C.Benham]

Toby,

> But it is still interesting that STAR does well in Jameson's simulations.
Not to me, or not in any way that reflects positively on STAR.

> As for what the boxes are about, they are about ensuring that voting 
> methods have sensible behaviour in certain situations, so I wouldn't 
> expect them to necessarily negatively correlate with a "good" result.
>
Then you are not using the right boxes.

>
> It's what I just replied to Kristofer - the fact that there's no way 
> that you can consistently define society's preference in a way that 
> you can determine whether society prefers A or B by looking at the 
> pairwise comparison.

Then what do you "look at" ??

>
> One of the reasons I bring this up is that there are some people who 
> think that only a Condorcet method could even be considered democratic.

I am not entirely in that camp, only because meeting the Condorcet 
criterion is "expensive". All Condorcet methods have some Burial 
incentive (fail Later-no-Help) and fail Favourite Betrayal.

So I consider some methods that don't have one of those problems to be 
acceptable.

> I would counter this by saying that it's based on this logical 
> contradiction.

I'm still not seeing this "logical contradiction".

> I would also counter it by saying that someone could equally say 
> (perhaps have a greater claim) that a method cannot be democratic if 
> it fails participation

I don't see that either. So which method that meets Participation do you 
like?

>
> Two of the main ones I tend to look out for are monotonicity and 
> independence of clones because they are obviously things we would want 
> and they don't seem to be too restrictive in terms of methods they allow

STAR fails both of them, "badly".

STAR is obviously garbage and a strategy farce,  as I'll explain later 
on EM.

Chris

On 14/08/2023 6:11 pm, Toby Pereira wrote:
> On Monday, 14 August 2023 at 05:09:31 BST, C.Benham 
> <cbenham at adam.com.au> wrote:
>
>
> >Toby wrote:
>
> >>  I think this is an interesting point. We can ask at a 
> philosophical level what makes a good voting method. Is it just one 
> that ticks the most boxes, or is it one >>that most reliably gets the 
> "best" result?
>
>
> >Toby,
>
> >How are those two counter-posed?  What do you think "the boxes" are 
> about?
>
> I mentioned that there could be multiple low-level failures versus a 
> few high-level failures, but also that it was a fairly hypothetical 
> discussion. I'm not of the view that because of Jameson Quinn's 
> simulations, it must be the case that the only way to get the best 
> results is to sacrifice the strict passing of criteria. However, if we 
> do define best in terms of utility or the median voter, I'm agnostic 
> as to what method would best get these results in practice. But it is 
> still interesting that STAR does well in Jameson's simulations. As for 
> what the boxes are about, they are about ensuring that voting methods 
> have sensible behaviour in certain situations, so I wouldn't expect 
> them to necessarily negatively correlate with a "good" result.
>
>
> >> And that's partly because the premise of Condorcet is essentially 
> built on a logical fallacy - basically that if A is preferred to B on 
> more ballots that vice versa >>then electing A must
> >> be a better result than electing B.
>
> >I'd be interested in reading your explanation of why you think that is a
> >"logical fallacy".  What about if there are only two candidates?
>
> It's what I just replied to Kristofer - the fact that there's no way 
> that you can consistently define society's preference in a way that 
> you can determine whether society prefers A or B by looking at the 
> pairwise comparison. It also doesn't make any difference if there are 
> only two candidates. It's just that with two candidates, you won't 
> notice it. If A and B are the only two candidates, then A might 
> pairwise beat B and get elected. But if C also stood, B might be the 
> winner under any of the sensible Condorcet methods that people on this 
> mailing list consider. So is A preferred to B or vice versa? And is it 
> the same answer regardless of whether C stood? Also if C was unsure 
> about standing but ultimately did, how would we view the creation of a 
> cycle? Would we say that it's bad that it messed up our majoritarian 
> ideals? Or would we say that it's good because it gave us more 
> information overall, and with this extra information B was ultimately 
> rightly selected over A?
>
> One of the reasons I bring this up is that there are some people who 
> think that only a Condorcet method could even be considered 
> democratic. I would counter this by saying that it's based on this 
> logical contradiction. I would also counter it by saying that someone 
> could equally say (perhaps have a greater claim) that a method cannot 
> be democratic if it fails participation. This isn't to say that I 
> don't like Condorcet methods, but I don't think it's a good idea to 
> have them on a pedestal when discussing the best method to use in a 
> situation. They are not the last word in democracy.
>
>
> >> I think generally while passing certain criteria is a good thing,..
>
> >Which ones do you have in mind?
>
> Two of the main ones I tend to look out for are monotonicity and 
> independence of clones because they are obviously things we would want 
> and they don't seem to be too restrictive in terms of methods they 
> allow. But then with monotonicity, there is a family of criteria in 
> addition to the "standard" one, some of which might be more 
> restrictive than others. One criterion that I consider to be largely a 
> box-ticking exercise is Local Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives. 
> But other criteria such as participation and Independence of 
> Irrelevant Alternatives look great in the abstract, but are very 
> restrictive in terms of what they allow. Well, even methods that 
> supposedly pass IIA in theory (e.g. approval, score) in no way pass 
> them in practice.
>
> >Chris B.
>
> Toby
>
>
>
>
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